Section 508 — the US accessibility requirement for training. Keyboard access, screen readers, ALT text, transcripts.
A
Actions Needed
The orange badge in the header listing what is still outstanding: pages waiting to be narrated, a course changed since its last compile, a job sitting in QUEUE, words not yet marked for narration.
Actions To Check
What the orange header badge actually says, with a count beside it — Actions To Check (3). It is the same thing as Actions Needed; click it for the list and the buttons that take you to each job.
Active Project
The deck currently open. Every other tab acts on it, which is why its name sits in the header.
Activity
An interactive exercise that teaches rather than scores — Hotspot, Sequence, Classify, Word Search, Wheel, Concentration and the rest. Keyboard-accessible, like everything else.
Admin key
The secret the console uses to prove it is allowed to read and change a server's records. It is created and kept ON the server.
ALT text
The description a screen reader says instead of an image. BLUE asks for it as you add the picture, rather than leaving it for later.
Answer Key
A PDF per test listing every question and its right answer. It is written for YOU — it is never put in a learner build.
App Password
A password your mail provider issues for a program to use, instead of the one you type into their website. Most now require it.
Application Settings
BLUE's own settings, shared by every project — who you are, your FTP sites, your mail account, your licence, your BLUE servers.
Attempts
How many tries a learner gets before the retake rule takes over.
B
Bake
BLUE's word for generating the narration audio and writing the files. Narration is baked, not read live, so a learner never waits.
Bake in
A setting fixed into the course at compile time. Changing it later means compiling again — the built course is not still reading your settings.
Batch Publish
A grid of every project against every destination. Tick the cells once, and the next time a rule changes you re-send the lot instead of retyping it. The work goes to QUEUE.
Bleep list
Words the narrator replaces with a tone rather than saying.
BLUE_SERVER Folder
Where on your host that service lives — normally under public_html so courses can reach it. Get it wrong and everything uploads perfectly to a place nobody can reach.
.blueBAK
A BLUE backup file: the whole project zipped, without the build, which can be made again.
.blueset
A portable archive of every Application Setting — exported and imported from the Application Settings window. It carries your saved settings, your BLUE servers, your licence key and your recent-project list, so a new computer is set up without retyping any of it. It contains your FTP and mail passwords: treat the file like a password.
BLUE MACHINE
The companion app that keeps your training records — who took what, who passed, who failed — on a web host you own.
BLUE Server
The small PHP service on your web host that published courses report their results to. One per client, if you have several.
Bookmark / resume
The place a learner left off, kept so they can come back to it.
Breadcrumbs
The line in a running course showing where the learner is in the structure — section, then page.
Button row
The small row of buttons on every card in the Content Deck. They act on THAT object only. The ? beside the deck opens the legend, which names each one and says which kinds of object it appears on.
Button: A
Annotation. Attaches an instructor note to a slide.
Button: C
Clone. Copies the object, and drops the copy straight after it with " (Copy)" on the end of its title. On Content and Canvas pages, Activities and SlideShows.
Button: E
Edit. Opens the editor for that object — the Content editor, the Canvas editor, the Test editor, whichever belongs to it.
Button: H
Hide. A card control that leaves an object out of the built course entirely, without deleting it.
Button: M
Menu. A card control that keeps an object in the course but hides it from the contents — reachable, not listed.
Button: Move left / Move right
The left and right arrows on a card, which move the object along the course — up to five places at a time. A Section moves as a whole block, taking its pages with it, and settles between sections rather than inside one.
Button: Open link
The ↗ on a URL page's card. Opens that page in your own browser, so you can check the address goes where you meant.
Button: Play
The film-clapper button on a Video page's card. Opens the video file in whatever your computer normally plays video with.
Button: Remove
The red cross on a card. Takes the object out of the course for good — which is not what H does, and not what Exclude does on a test question.
Button: S
Page Settings. Settings belonging to ONE page rather than to the whole course. It was called Page Enhancements.
Button: T
Transcript. Attaches transcript text to a slide.
Button: Z
Save to Templates. Puts the object on your Templates shelf, so a fresh copy can be dropped into any project later from Object Deck → Insert Template.
C
Canvas Page
A fixed, slide-shaped page where you place containers exactly where you want them. Use it when the layout itself carries meaning.
Card
One object's tile in a deck, with its own small row of controls. A card IS the page; the controls on it act on that page only.
CBTML
Computer-Based Training Markup Language — BLUE's own way of writing a whole test as labelled plain text, so a test can be typed, emailed, reviewed or reused outside BLUE.
CBT
Computer-Based Training — a course somebody takes on a screen rather than in a room. It is what BLUE builds.
CBT Settings
One COURSE's own rules and identity — its title, navigation, scoring, completion and certificate.
Certificate Designer
Where the completion certificate is laid out: what appears on it and exactly where.
Classify
Items dropped into the category each one belongs to.
Clear Data
Wipes the progress the browser saved for a course, so the next preview starts as a brand new learner.
Compile
Turns the project you have been editing into a finished course that actually runs. Nothing is real to a learner until it is compiled.
Completion
One learner finishing one course, recorded with when and how they did.
Concentration
The memory game: match each term to its meaning.
Container
One positioned box of text or media on a Canvas page. A Canvas page is its containers.
Container Text
The tab where you write inside the container you have selected.
Content Deck
The centre deck in the Gallery — your course in the order a learner will meet it, left to right.
Content Page
A page you write inside BLUE whose text reflows to fit the screen it is read on. The most accessible page type, and the best default.
Course Booklet PDF
The learner-facing PDF of the course's text and pictures, which you can offer as a download when they finish. No notes, no transcripts, and never the answer keys.
Course Completion Point
The page from which the course counts as finished. Usually the last one, but not always — set it and everything from there on reports complete.
Course Map
The far-left column of the Gallery describing the whole course, with its Outline and Thumbnails views.
Course Review
A check across the whole course of what it could do better, before anyone else sees it.
Course Text
The whole course as a Word booklet — contents, pages, pictures, transcripts and notes. For review on paper, and for the reviewer who will not open a browser.
Course UUID
The permanent identifier a course reports under. It is why replacing the course files never orphans the records.
CSS
The rules that decide how a web page LOOKS — colours, fonts, spacing, where things sit. Your Theme becomes CSS in the compiled course.
Cumulative Test Scoring
Every scored test combines, by weight, into one course score.
D
Deck
A BLUE project: one whole course and everything in it. Your deck is the thing you open, edit, compile and publish.
Delay
Seconds to wait before an element appears, so a picture can arrive when the narrator mentions it.
Deploy
Puts the BLUE Server's own files on the host. Until a server has been deployed, a course published to it has nothing to report to.
Do Not Narrate
Marks text, or a whole page, as something the narrator should skip.
Download Button
Hands the learner a PDF. The file is copied into the course and travels with it, including inside the SCORM package.
E
Enroll
Assigning a named learner to a course, so you can see who was supposed to take it as well as who did.
Exclude
Keeps a question out of the compiled test while leaving it safe in the editor. Not the same as deleting it.
Extended Time
The same course with every test timer multiplied, for learners entitled to longer. Built every time, whether you need it or not.
F
Fade out
Makes an element disappear again part-way through a page.
Final Exam
The one test that decides the course when scoring is set to Final Exam Only.
Final Exam Only
Only the test marked Final Exam sets the course result. The others are practice.
FITB
Fill In The Blank — the learner types the answer, and you decide which spellings count as right.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol — the standard way to copy files onto the computer that serves your website. BLUE uses it to publish and to deploy. The settings come from your web host, and the folder you give it is usually somewhere under public_html. BLUE always transfers as binary; if you upload by hand with another program, set that to binary too — on Auto it guesses, and a wrong guess quietly breaks audio, pictures and zips.
G
Gallery
The Content tab workspace where a course is assembled: Course Map, Test Deck, Content Deck and Object Deck side by side.
Getting Started tab
The narrated tour built into BLUE, for a new author's first hour.
Guest
A course that does not ask who the learner is. Fine for information; no use for records, which is why BLUE MACHINE refuses a Guest build.
H
Help tab
The cards on this tab. Each opens full-screen, and each can be listened to rather than read.
Heteronyms
Words spelled the same and said differently — lead the metal and lead the verb. You choose which reading a word gets.
Host
Two things, depending on where you are reading it. Your HOST is the company you pay for web space. An FTP Host or SMTP Host box wants the ADDRESS of the machine to connect to — ftp.yourdomain.com, mail.yourdomain.com — which that company gives you.
Hotspot
The learner clicks the right places on a picture, and each place can answer back.
HTML
HyperText Markup Language: the file format web pages are written in. A compiled BLUE course is HTML, which is why it opens in any browser with nothing installed.
HTTP
The language a browser and a website speak to each other. It is the http:// at the front of a plain web address.
HTTPS
HTTP with the conversation encrypted, so nobody between the learner and your site can read it. Browsers now mark a plain http:// site as Not Secure, and most hosts give you https free — use it.
I
imsmanifest
The file inside a SCORM package that tells the LMS what it has been given. BLUE writes it.
J
JavaScript
The language that runs IN the browser. It is what makes a compiled course do anything — navigation, tests, the Listen buttons, the activities. Every browser has it built in; there is nothing for a learner to install.
Join Projects
Merge several small projects into one big course. Build a long course as modules, then join them.
JSON
A plain-text way of writing settings and data that both a person and a program can read. A BLUE project keeps its settings in JSON files, and machine.json — the list of your BLUE servers — is how BLUE and BLUE MACHINE share them.
K
Kokoro
One of the speech engines BLUE narrates with, and the best- sounding of them. It runs on your own machine like the others; its voices are downloaded once and kept.
L
Listen button
The control that lets a learner hear the page. You choose which corner it sits in.
LMS
Learning Management System — a platform like Blackboard, Canvas or Moodle that hosts courses, enrols learners and records results. Your customer may already have one.
localhost
This computer, talking to itself. Preview runs a small web server on localhost, so a course is served exactly as it would be from a real host — while never leaving your machine and needing no internet.
M
Machine ID
The fingerprint of this computer. You send it to XortiCom, and your licence key is issued against it.
Marked Audit
The reverse of Narration Review: finds marks you have already made that no longer agree with your dictionary.
marks
Marks that tell the narrator how to SAY something without changing what is on the page. The page still reads § 231.1; the narrator says "Part two thirty-one point one".
Matching
The learner pairs each item on the left with its partner on the right.
Message Box
An inserted control that holds a note out of sight until it is clicked.
Move grip
The four-way arrow (✥) in a card's top-left corner. Dragging starts there and nowhere else, so a card can never be moved by accident. The card you are about to land on is ringed before you let go, and a Section picks up every page under it.
N
Narrate All (force)
Re-narrate everything, even items already done. What you use after changing the voice or the dictionary.
Narration
The spoken audio BLUE generates from the page's own text. You write the page; the narration follows it.
Narration queue
The list of new or edited objects waiting to be narrated. Short pages are done as you close them; longer ones queue.
Narration Review
Finds what is not marked yet — symbols, roman numerals, terms from your dictionary — and lets you mark them in one pass.
No Test Scoring
Tests are there to teach, not to judge. Nothing passes or fails.
Nuke
BLUE MACHINE's bulk delete, for clearing test data or handing over a clean install. It names the server, asks twice, and makes you type DELETE.
Numericals
How numbers, dates, money and ranges should be read aloud.
O
Object
Anything that can sit in the course as its own item — a page, a section, a test, a video, an activity.
Object Deck
The right deck in the Gallery: the menu of things you can add — Section, Content Page, Canvas Page, Video, Activity and the rest.
Object Template
A saved object you can drop into any course — your standard safety page, your usual closing slide.
Outline
Every object in the course as a text list, in course order. Clicking one selects it in the deck.
P
Passing %
The percentage a learner needs on that test to pass it.
Per-paragraph Listen
A small speaker on each paragraph, list and table cell of a Content page, so a learner can replay one passage instead of the page.
PHP
A programming language that runs ON the web server rather than in the browser. The build you host yourself uses a little of it, and the BLUE Server is written in it. Nearly every shared host supports PHP; a SCORM build does not use it at all.
Port
The numbered door on a machine that one particular service answers on. FTP is normally 21, mail 587 or 465, the web 80 and 443. You almost never change these: use what your host tells you.
Position
The dropdown that decides where a newly inserted object lands — at the end, or after whatever is selected.
Power View
The Outline or the Thumbnails taken full-screen, so a long course can be seen and rearranged all at once.
.pppTheme
One exported Theme in a single file, so a colour scheme can be sent to somebody else or imported into another project. Export Theme and Import & Apply are on the Theme window.
Preview
Runs the compiled course on this computer, exactly as a learner would meet it, before it goes anywhere.
Preview Placement
A quick look at the page as a learner would see it, for LAYOUT. It does not include narration, the Listen buttons, Delay or Fade out — those exist only after a compile.
Pronunciation dictionary
Your list of how terms should be read aloud, applied across the course — so a term you have taught BLUE once stays right.
public_html
The folder on most web hosts that the public can actually see. A file above it is really there and reachable by nobody.
Publish
Sends a finished build somewhere: a folder, your web server by FTP, or a zip for an LMS.
Publishing Server
A saved site — address, folder and sign-in — so publishing is a choice from a list rather than six boxes typed again.
Q
Question bank
More questions in the editor than the test actually delivers, so no two learners necessarily get the same paper.
Question Editor
Where a test is built — the question list on the left, the question you are working on at the right.
Question Mode
What shape the question takes: Normal, Matching, Visual or FITB.
R
Randomize
Shuffles the question order, so two attempts are never identical.
Reading order
The order a screen reader moves through a Canvas page's containers. The editor shows it as numbered badges.
Resource Page
One page listing links and downloadable files — the handouts, forms and references a course points at.
Retake policy
What happens after a fail: retake the failed test, retake the final, restart the course, try forever, or be locked out.
Reveal text
A note that stays hidden until the learner clicks for it — a hint, a definition, an answer. It is read aloud in the course, so it appears in the printed booklet too.
Review test
A practice test that carries no weight. Nobody passes or fails it.
S
SCORM
The packaging standard that lets one course work in any LMS: how it is zipped, and how it reports scores and completion.
SCORM 1.2 / SCORM 2004
The two versions BLUE can build. 1.2 is accepted everywhere; 2004 keeps more detail and is the safer choice for a long course or one that can lock somebody out.
SCORM Cloud
A free outside service for testing a SCORM package before a customer sees it.
Section
A divider that starts a chapter. Everything after it belongs to that section in the contents until the next Section.
Self-register
A published course introducing itself to your BLUE Server the first time it runs, so you do not have to add it by hand.
Sequence
Shuffled steps the learner puts back into the right order.
Sign-in page
The page that asks a learner who they are. It appears only when the course requires credentials rather than running as Guest.
Slide
A page that came in from PowerPoint and is still edited in PowerPoint. BLUE carries it; it does not rewrite it.
SlideShow
A sequence of pictures the learner steps through inside one page.
SMTP
The settings of the mail account BLUE sends with — completion notices, enrolment invitations, test messages.
Speaker Notes
Notes attached to a page for the author or instructor. They travel into the Course Text booklet, not into the course itself.
Spleemph
A dude
Stack order
Which overlapping object on a Canvas page is in front of which.
Standalone
The build you host yourself, on your own web space — as opposed to the SCORM build, which goes into somebody's LMS.
Standard
The course as most learners take it.
Start Page / End Page / Credits Page
The course's built-in opening, closing and credits pages. Each can carry text, an image and audio that plays when it opens.
Substitutions
The settings list that replaces a written term with a spoken one everywhere, without marking each occurrence by hand.
T
Table of Contents (TOC)
The course's own menu. It can be hidden, or locked so nobody skips ahead of where they have actually got to.
Test
A set of questions that is scored. Built in the Test Editor, then inserted into the course wherever it belongs.
Test Compiler
Builds the live test from exactly the questions you did not exclude.
Test Deck
The left deck in the Gallery, holding this course's tests until you insert one into the course.
Test Type
Normal, Review or Final Exam. It decides whether the test counts and how much.
The four decks
What one compile always writes: Standard and Extended Time, each also as SCORM. You choose at publish time which one a customer gets.
Theme
One colour scheme for the whole course — background, text, navigation and buttons.
Thumbnails
The whole course as pictures, so you can see its shape rather than read its names.
Token
A placeholder on a certificate that BLUE fills in for real when the certificate is issued — the learner's name, the date, the score.
Training Production System
What BLUE is, and the deliberate opposite of BLUE MACHINE's Training Results System. BLUE makes the training; MACHINE keeps the results.
Transcript
The written version of a clip, which the learner can open beside it. Video, question media and page audio can each carry one.
TRS
Training Results System. An LMS is the whole school; a TRS is just the gradebook. BLUE MACHINE is deliberately the second one.
TTS
Text To Speech — turning written words into a spoken voice. It is what BLUE does when it narrates a page. BLUE can use Kokoro, Piper or the voices already in Windows, and it does it on THIS computer: no internet service, no per-word charge, nothing sent away.
U
URL (Link) Page
A page whose job is to send the learner to one outside web page.
V
Video Page
A full-screen video lesson, with its own transcript panel.
Visual
Matching where the items can be pictures, video or audio instead of text.
Voice model
The downloadable file that gives a narrator its voice. Downloaded once and kept.
W
Warning vs error
On an LMS import, a WARNING is the LMS listing what it noticed. An ERROR is the LMS refusing the package. Warnings on a working course are normal.
Watermark
The "Unlicensed evaluation copy" stamp burned into courses built by an unlicensed BLUE.
Weight
How much a test counts toward the course score when scoring is Cumulative. Weight 0 makes it practice.
Welcome-back page
What a returning learner sees: it greets them and offers to pick up where they stopped.
written
The full form of a mark: what stays on the page on the left of the bar, what the narrator says on the right.
X
XortiCom
The company behind BLUE, BLUE MACHINE and BLUE QUEUE.
XortiCom BLUE
A Training Production System: it takes you from raw material to a finished, narrated, tested, accessible course.
XortiCom BLUE QUEUE
The separate app that runs the long jobs — narrate, compile, publish, back up — while you do something else, or overnight.
Z
z_DEBUG_DO_NOT_DISTRIBUTE
The folder beside the decks holding everything meant for YOU — answer keys, the storage inspector. Named so it is never sent by accident.
ZIP Package
The whole course as one .zip. The only thing an LMS will take.
