Where your course files are kept

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CourseBuilder+ saves everything as ordinary files and folders on your computer, so you can also work in them directly with File Explorer, PowerPoint, a text editor or Git. This page says where each thing lives, so you know what you can change yourself and what to leave to the program.

Where the courses are

Documents\PreseMaker\Courses — one folder per course. (The folder kept the program's old name, PreseMaker, so nothing anyone made was moved.) If your Documents folder is in OneDrive, your courses sync between your computers. Open Course Folder on the Course Manager opens the selected course's folder.

One course

Courses\
  My_Course\
    course.json                        the course: name, description, and its modules in order
    course_outcomes.json               course and module learning outcomes
    course_standards_alignment.json    standards alignment (when used)
    course_quiz_questions.json         all the modules' quiz questions together (made on request)
    course_alignment_map.html          the alignment map (made again whenever you ask)
    course_files\                      files for the whole course (Course Status → Course Files), listed in course_files.json
    course_common_action_defaults.json, course_cc_export_defaults.json   remembered choices
    Modules\
      01_Introduction\                 one folder per module
      02_Probability\
      ...

course.json is what makes a folder a course. A folder without it does not appear in the course list. The order of the modules in the course is the order in course.json, not the order of the folders. When a course is generated with Number the modules ticked, the module folders start with the module number (01_, 02_ …) so File Explorer shows them in course order too.

One module

01_Introduction\
  module.json           the module: its name and description
  hierarchy.json        Module Topics — the topics and subtopics everything is built from
  presentations\        PowerPoint decks (.pptx); {deck}_slidedef.json is the AI's slide plan for a deck
  materials\            source material you added
  output\               what CourseBuilder+ made (see below)
  quiz_questions.json   the module's quiz bank
  assignments.json      the assignment bank
  assignments\          the assignment documents
  cloze_notes\          fill-in-the-blank notes (student version and instructor key)

Inside output:

{deck} is the deck's file name without .pptx, so every deck in a module keeps its own narration and audio. Other .json files you may see in a module (sources.json, cloze_notes.json, interactive_activities.json …) are the program's records of what it made.

What you can do yourself

• Edit any presentation, page, Markdown or Word file in its own program. CourseBuilder+ sees the change the next time it looks (the Module Index rescans the folder when it opens).
• Add files: a .pptx copied into presentations shows up as a deck in Presentation Tools.
• Copy, back up, or keep the course in Git — the course is just its folder.

What to do inside CourseBuilder+ instead

• Rename or delete a module or a course in CourseBuilder+. course.json names the module folders, and a course's folder is found from the course's name — a folder renamed in File Explorer is no longer found.
• A deleted course keeps its folder. Delete renames its course.json to course.deleted.json and the course leaves the list; rename the file back to course.json to restore it, or move the folder to the Recycle Bin to remove it for good.
• Rename or delete a presentation with Rename… / Delete… in Presentation Tools, so its narration and audio (named after the deck) move or go with it.
• The .json files are CourseBuilder+'s records. They are plain text and safe to read; an edit that breaks one can stop a course or module from opening. Keep a copy before you change one.
• Close CourseBuilder+ before you move or rename many files at once.

Other folders in Documents\PreseMaker

Your AI keys are managed in Documents\AiManager, shared by all the programs in the suite and encrypted for your Windows account. (app_settings.json here holds the program's settings, the Google text-to-speech credential for narration, and — after an upgrade — the keys the program kept before AI Manager, encrypted.)