
Have you ever watched a movie trailer to decide if you want to watch a movie? How about flipping through two books to decide which one to buy? Everyone likes to have a sneak peek before making a choice. This ICS template does just that, letting students see a preview image and hear a related sound before deciding which activity to do next.
When the launcher opens, a student is presented with a scene of fancy doors in a wall, each with a nice big keyhole. Clicking on a keyhole gives the user a preview of the activity, as if they had peeked through the keyhole to see what is inside. Dragging a clip art key to a keyhole opens the door and launches an activity.

There are three versions of this animated launcher template. Each version has three choices of backgrounds, with either two, three, or four doors, to preview and launch two, three, or four activities. Add your own preview picture and sound, link up to four activities, and the launcher is ready to use! You can link IntelliTools Classroom Suite® activities, movies, PDF files or any file that can be launched by double-clicking it. Setting up the launcher is an easy five steps.
It isn’t really magic! There is both a transparent button and a region on each keyhole, one atop the other. Clicking the button presents a preview by running a short animation of the keyhole getting closer, then showing a picture from the activity and playing a sound from it. Moving the key to the keyhole activates the region, which in turn activates a hidden button to open an activity or other file.

There is a custom Intellikeys® overlay with each version of the template, and Dynavox® versions of those overlays. Even though having a choice of backgrounds lets you make three very different-looking launchers with each template, the overlay attached to each will work with all of its backgrounds.
See the Special Needs Access section on the System Reqs page for information on controlling the Classroom Suite version activities from PRC devices.

Bonus! Original Backgrounds
I have included all the doors backgrounds art for you to download. For each template, I made one background that looks like a scene in a dungeon or castle, one rather elegant street, and one set of doors in bright primary colors. You’re welcome to use them in any activity where you want to offer choices of where to go next or perhaps present several possible answers. These graphics might be just what you need in a choose your own adventure story!
Applications needed:Acrobat Reader, IntelliTools Classroom Suite.
Subject area:Resource.
Level: Author.
Downloads-Printable Tutorial
MagicDoorsTutorial.pdf (2.4 MB) Magic Doors Launcher Tutorial to print. Step by step instructions and many additional tips and tricks. Acrobat Reader.
Online Link-Tutorial
Magic Doors Tutorial online Magic Doors Launcher Tutorial online, ready to present to groups. Step by step instructions and many additional tips and tricks.
Downloads-Activity
Classroom Suite
MagicDoorsLauncher.zip (126.4 MB) Magic Doors Launcher Template in Classroom Suite v.3 or later. Custom IntelliKeys overlays are attached.
MagicDoorsDynavox.zip (86.7 KB) Magic Doors Launcher Template overlays saved as Dynavox package files.
Downloads-Resources
MagicDoorsBackgrounds.zip (23.1 MB) Eleven different full page backgrounds with doors in styles from medieval to modern. These backgrounds come in two sizes, 1024 x 768 and 1024 x 896. The taller version of each background has a space at the bottom for a text box, and can best be used with a custom page size, for example, 800 x 700. To preview the collection, click here.