1.1 Installation & Requirements

While the items created with the CBA ItemBuilder can be used in different web-based environments (see chapter 7), a desktop application is necessary for designing, authoring, and editing the CBA ItemBuilder project files. An install-wizard as shown in Figure 1.1 is provided to install the CBA ItemBuilder to a default location that does not require local administrator privileges.6

FIGURE 1.1: Item illustrating Installation Wizard (html|ib).

Before using the CBA ItemBuilder, the program must first be downloaded and installed locally. No administrator rights are required for the installation, but currently, CBA ItemBuilder is provided only for Windows computers.

System Requirements: Current Windows operating systems (Windows 8, 10 and 11) are supported. A computer with an SSD is recommended for fast and smooth operation. Minimal required disk space is 2 GB. Dual core CPU and at least 4 GB Ram are recommended.

Items are being created with the CBA ItemBuilder, a desktop application that requires a Windows operating systems. However, the created assessment components (so-called Tasks stored in CBA ItemBuilder Project Files) can be used in typical Web Browsers on any operation system and device type (including mobile devices). A build-in internal Rendering (see section 3.1.2) shows how pages will look like in a Web Browser and content created with the CBA ItemBuilder can be displayed in any Web Browser installed on the local computer using the Preview-feature (see section 1.4). The use of either Chrome, Firefox or the Chrome-based Edge browser is suggested.

Too many technical terms? Note that this book contains a Glossary of Terms with short descriptions (see appendix A).

Technical Configuration: The CBA ItemBuilder is configured using a so-called ini-file (cba-itembuilder.ini). This allows activating and deactivating specific features and running the CBA ItemBuilder in different environments. By default, the CBA ItemBuilder is expected to run without modifying the ini-file. Details can be found in the appendix (see appendix B.4).

De-Installation: The de-installation of a previous version of the CBA ItemBuilder is (technically) not necessary. Copies of different versions of the CBA ItemBuilder can be installed on a computer in parallel. However, to de-install a previous version, just delete the CBA ItemBuilder folder or use the shortcut Uninstall CBA ItemBuilder created during the installation.

Manual Installation: For developers the CBA ItemBuilder is also delivered as zip archive without installer. To manually install the CBA ItemBuilder, extract the content of the zip archive to a local drive. The plain CBA ItemBuilder will run after unzipping the content, after starting the executable cba-itembuilder.exe. The CBA ItemBuilder will require a free port (by default 7070). If this port is not available, adjust the configuration in the file cba-itembuilder.ini (change: -Djetty.port={free port}, see appendix B.4 for detail).

Multiple Versions: Multiple instances of CBA ItemBuilder can be installed in parallel on one computer (see section 6.8.8 for use cases).

  1. For a user with the user name USER_NAME the CBA ItemBuilder of a particular CBA_IB_VERSION is installed here: C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\CBA_IB_VERSION\IB\cba-itembuilder.exe. Note that for previous versions of the CBA ItemBuilder it was suggested to avoid white spaces in path names and to keep path names as short as possible.↩︎