AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
Number of replies: 28
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Hi,

I've just started a new page in Moodle docs on using AMFPHP with Moodle. The page Development:AMFPHP was written some time ago for AMFPHP 1.4 and ActionScript 2.0. The new page AMF_Moodle is written for AMFPHP 1.9.beta and ActionScript 3.0 - That's for Flash CS3 and the Flex framework.

I'm watching the page so I'll get email notifications if you write anything on the discussions tab of the page. Any comments, questions, criticisms, observations, etc. are most welcome.

If you're familiar with Moodle's API it would be a great help to me if you could point me in the right direction with regards to creating a library of services in PHP that Flash can call via AMFPHP. I'm most interested in managing Moodle's gradebook for recording results from Flash e-learning interactions.

Even better, would be if anyone would like to contribute some services (i.e. PHP classes) that can call Moodle's API.

I'm looking forward to your replies.

All the best,

Matt Bury smile
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
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Hello, anyone?
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
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Hey guys,

It would really help me if you could point me in the right direction. I'd like to know about the Gradebook API, it's functions and how I can access the database. Is there any kind of documentation out there or do I have to just look at the code?

I have searched Moodle.org but couldn't find anything meaningful to me.

Looking forward to your replies.

Matt smile
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Iñaki Arenaza -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

I've neved used the gradebook api, but maybe this is what you where looking for (at least I hope so wink): http://xref.moodle.org/lib/gradelib.php.html

Saludos. Iñaki.

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In reply to Iñaki Arenaza

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
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Hi Iñaki, thanks for the link. I'll have a good look at it. smile
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Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Development:Grades is hopefully the docs you are looking for.

You might get more response if you explained what AMF was, and why we might care. I have never heard of it before, and the first paragraph of your docs page did not leave me much wiser.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
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Hi Tim,

Thanks for the link.

There's a brief explanation of AMF Moodle here: http://docs.moodle.org/en/AMF_Moodle#What_is_AMF_Moodle.3F

If this isn't clear, it'd be a great help to me and the project if you could post a few questions about it so that I can include that information in the docs.

Thanks in advance,

Matt
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Having read the first Paragraph, I am with Martin Langhoff. If you want to make it easy for flash and Flex developers to integrate with Moodle, then work on a way so that it is easy for Flash and Flex developers to make SCORM packages. Then you can integrate with Moodle, or other systems.
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Martín Langhoff -
Would it be possible to extend the SCORM 1.2 API support to do more advanced things with flash remoting?

SCORM - while a bit awkward at times - covers a lot of commonly wanted things in a _standard_ way, and is done in a way that does not expose us to XSS or CSRF attacks. (Security is a significant concern with Flash apps).

Using SCORM as your base would make things much easier - and portable - for content creators. Learn _one_ API that works across LMSs, make your content a lot more valuable/usable, and if you really need it, use the extra tricks that moodle offers.

(Extending APIs is not all roses, but it's way better than creating a new API for a well known problem!)
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
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Hi Martin,

Thansk for the suggestion about using SCORM.

While there will be a certain degree of overlap between AMF Moodle and SCORM, I don't think they will be compatible to such an extent that it would allow extending the SCORM module. Perhaps they could share some DB tables, but essentially they'd be separate and distinct modules.

Security-wise, I have been informed that SCORM is less secure than AMFPHP, although I'm not a security expert so I wouldn't like to make any such claims on the matter.

Flash-security-wise, as Flash and Flex become used more and more for Internet applications (RIAs are predicted to take a large share of Internet content in the coming years - eBay have release an Adobe AIR desktop version of their website), Adobe are making the Flash Player Security Model tighter and tighter all the time.
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
haven't looked at the spec you guys have put together, but your module shouldn't use any of the SCORM module tables - you might find it useful to duplicate the structure of some of the SCORM tables but as this is a new module it should use it's own new database tables - not re-use tables from other modules.

Interesting idea about extending the SCORM module to allow this...will think on this some more and do some reading about what you are trying to achieve!

smile

Dan
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In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Jamie Pratt -
"Interesting idea about extending the SCORM module to allow this...will think on this some more and do some reading about what you are trying to achieve!"

It seems messy to have both Flash call both a JS api and possibly an extended remoting api. Would it be an interesting idea possibly to have some code in Flash that does the job of either calling the js api or if it is detected that the lms supports remoting then to have Flash call a SCORM api plus extensions directly through remoting bypassing js??


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In reply to Jamie Pratt

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Marcus Potter -
Just found this off shoot thread...

"It seems messy to have both Flash call both a JS api and possibly an extended remoting api. Would it be an interesting idea possibly to have some code in Flash that does the job of either calling the js api or if it is detected that the lms supports remoting then to have Flash call a SCORM api plus extensions directly through remoting bypassing js??"

This sounds interesting and very worthy of discussing further.
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Piers Harding -
Hi - this is interesting. Although, as others have said, why you wouldn't use the SCORM framework is unclear to me. By using the SCORM API, even as simply as setting the score, and the completion status, would give you the gradebook commmunication. Also, if you need to store state server side, then there is provision for this in the SCORM specificaiton (that Moodle supports) too.

Perhaps if you discussed in more detail, the kinds of things that you would envisage these client applications doing, what requirements they would have in terms of interaction with the server, and how you would package and distribute them in a Moodle context - might help with the understanding.

Cheers,
Piers Harding.
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In reply to Piers Harding

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
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Hi Piers,

Yes, copying some aspects of the SCORM DB structure would be a good way to start. What we'll eventually end up with is a library of services that can call Moodle functions directly from Flash, so calling Moodle's SCORM API functions would in fact be easier than creating SCORM compliant packages!

I think I should clarify one thing though: the AMF Moodle module will make it possible to deploy any kind of Flash elearning interaction which complies (or doesn't) with whatever standards one wishes to adopt. Also, Flash remoting opens up new possibilites for two-way client-side and server-side communication.

One point under discussion is whether/how to include the facility to create new DB tables for particular Flash activities. As RIAs (rich Internet applications) get more and more sophisticated, I believe it is a good idea to allow for 'generic' DB tables that can accommodate them and allow for new standards to emerge.
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Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Martín Langhoff -

so calling Moodle's SCORM API functions would in fact be easier than creating SCORM compliant packages!

No - it would be exactly the same, except that it's tied to moodle. And would be lacking many good things mod/scorm has (like a powerful debugger/logger).

As RIAs (rich Internet applications) get more and more sophisticated, I believe it is a good idea to allow for 'generic' DB tables that can accommodate them and allow for new standards to emerge.

SCORM already has that as unstructured data. OTOH, if you plan on giving RIAs direct access to moodle internals, that would be rather crazy mixed

What you want to do is possible (I think we all agree with that). If SCORM did not exist, we'd all be trying to help you... but SCORM does exist, a ton of people use it already and is trivial to extend it a bit to do extra magic like flash remoting.

Do look in depth at SCORM... please?

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Martín Langhoff -
At least, you should understand well all the functionality that SCORM 1.2 offers, and aim to cover the same surface. Lots of the "core" stuff (I am thinking the 1.2 part) is _very_ useful, and you may just want to copy the API conventions.

Do read it. It's a huge job to implement it well...
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In reply to Matt Bury

Advantages and disadvantages of using SCORM API for activity modules involving Flash - comments please

by Jamie Pratt -
I've also been interested for some in using AMF to communicate between Moodle and Flash. I've worked with several clients helping them set up ways to get their flash objects communicating with Moodle.

Sure it is good to be able to make learning interactions more portable by making them conform to the SCORM standard but isn't there room for other methods of having Moodle communicate with Flash object.

Using SCORM seems to present several problems. Can I ask SCORM experts to comment on these issues. It would be interesting to me to have a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using SCORM from Flash.

Advantages of SCORM :

  • portability
  • defined API
  • familiar to some developers
  • package all necessary content in a known format easily uploadable and automatically included in course.

Disadvantage :
  • from what I've heard there are some issues when trying to get SCORM working across platforms because of incorrect implementation of the standard in the ?packager?, ?in the lms? and/or in the SCORM content.
  • API is very limited?
  • API is javascript. Flash remoting such as AMF allows a robust way of communicating directly from Flash to the server.
  • content must be packaged. Need an extra application to package the content.
  • display options are limited?? Must use frames??
  • is it possible to reuse one Flash object in several moodle activity modules? Flash objects might be quite large. It is great to be able to have one object which will be cached once by the users browser and then have it load data from the server eg. a list of words or whatever, configuration options to make effectively unique activity instances from one flash object.
  • from what I've understood the SCORM API requires answers to questions and marking must be done on the client side and grades be sent to the LMS through the API. Isn't this a problem in some cases since a clever student might be able to spoof a grade being sent to the server and/or be able to inspect the data in the browser using commonly available tools and be able to see the answers to questions??
I planning in getting more involved again in Flash Moodle development. I wrote a page on Moodle docs some time ago on using AMFPHP with Moodle http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:AMFPHP. The beauty of AMFPHP or possibly another remoting or web services solution is you can use the Moodle API to implement a set of functions that can be called directly from your Flash movie. You can implement your own custom API for every application. This has it's dangers and security must be considered but obviously it is very flexible.

I think Flash is a great environment that can be exploited to provide very compelling and effective learning interactions. Viva Flash and Moodle. And by the way having an amfphp gateway included in Moodle would not only be useful for activity modules but would be great for other modules which could use Flash such as possibly course formats, block modules, quiz report plugins etc.
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Jamie Pratt -
Hi Matt,

Storing a grade in the grade book will require that we know the course module id the movie is a part of. We must solve how to do this before we can write services that store stuff in the grade book. I discussed some ideas about how we might do this here. I guess for now you can hard code the course module id in the php service code.

Jamie
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In reply to Jamie Pratt

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
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Hi Jamie,

Yeah, I'm not really an "Internet security guy" but I've thought about that problem and I've had a couple of ideas:

* How about requiring the SWF elearning interaction to send the URL it's on to an AMFPHP service so that it can match and verify the correct URL, e.g. "http://MOODLEROOT/course/view.php?id=99"?. Of course, it's possible to download and decompile the SWF file and hack the code.

Is there a reasonably secure way of implementing this with AMFPHP?

* The SWF could also store a SharedObject, which is similar to a browser cookie, but can store any ActionScript datatype, including custom classes. It would also be possible to encrypt or at least obfuscate that data.

* A SharedObject could be saved to the browser cache by another SWF on the course page automatically, as soon as the page is loaded. You can specify the exact directory that the SharedObject is saved to in the browser cache and other SWFs can also communicate with it. It could then require that learning interaction SWFs communicate with it for authentication purposes.

Do you think it would be possible to use SharedObject for AMFPHP session keys?

Lee Brimelow has written an article in his blog about AMFPHP security. There's some interesting ideas there about using SSLs and running the beforeFilter: http://theflashblog.com/?p=419 There's quite a few open source socket server projects out there so adapting one for AMFPHP shouldn't be too difficult (If you're a wizzard with PHP!).

Let me know your thoughts on the matter.

All the best,

Matt smile
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Jamie Pratt -
"Is there a reasonably secure way of implementing this with AMFPHP?"

I outlined how to do it in the post linked to above :

"I discussed some ideas about how we might do this here."
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In reply to Jamie Pratt

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Martín Langhoff -
Put a "cookie" in the HTML, as an object embed parameter -- that's how you normally pass params to a Flash/Shockwave movie. Flash and shockwave have special support for easy reading of some specially formatted params in the object embed tag.

You don't want to embed the cookie in the SWF - as it forces you modify the movie for every client. And you sure as hell don't want additional HTTP/AMFP transactions to "obtain" the cookie as that'd imply an awkward bridge of trust to cross.

The cookie technique I mention is very old and reliable. I first used in late '99 or 2000 smile Have a look at the old macromedia technotes on how to do it!

(I hate to mention this, but... at least _copy_ these basic strategies from the SCORM implementation -- and then build something new and exciting on top! -- but skip the "let's reinvent old wheels" part.)
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Jamie Pratt -
Yes, thanks Martin! That is basically what I did in the old Flash module. As I said in my previous post that is what I plan on doing in a new incarnation of the Flash module.
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In reply to Jamie Pratt

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
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Hey guys!

I'm getting somewhere in the region of 1 email a week from admins, teachers and developers who are showing an interest in AMFPHP, Flash and Moodle. I think there's a lot of demand and that this'll be a popular module!

smile
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Marcus Potter -
Hey Matt

Great stuff, I have around 10 people now, mix of php, flex, as3 and moodlers
Drop me an email with parties details trying to organize some work flows, so we can encourage work on specific tasks/modules...

We are getting there, sadly slower than we like, but its good to see people are seeing and getting the potential of amf moodle or moodle AMF (i never could decide which way it should be) haha

Cheers
<M>

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In reply to Marcus Potter

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers
I've edited the wiki page a bit here and there... it's erring on the side of advocacy, so I'd like to get feedback on it from others involved or interested in the project to keep it in line.

Since I don't know enough about Moodle's API and I'm not a PHP developer, I can only cover documentation on the ActionScript side of things. Once we've got some services to interact with, I can provide some code examples and source files to get developers started. There's not much else I can do until then.

Keep me posted!

Matt smile
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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Jamie Pratt -
Hi Matt,

I believe we need to move the new Moodle AMF page into the development namespace. So we need to delete the page you created and create a new copy of it called http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:AMF_Moodle. We can redirect from the page at the address you created to the new one.

The Moodle wiki can be considered to be seperated into two sections. One section is for Moodle users and another for developers. If a normal user types a search term into the wiki search box then pages in the development name space won't come up you need to go to your user preferences and select for pages in the development namespace to be included in search results. Of course this will not affect searches in Google or other search engines. This is a convention that is adhered to by other developers.

Jamie
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In reply to Jamie Pratt

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Urs Hunkler -
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The Moodle-AMF integration should be as open as possible. Not only focus on AMFPHP but also on Weborb and probably Sabre.

I for example switched from AMFPHP to Weborb because Weborb offers messaging.

An approach focusing on Moodle-AMF and being open for the technology (as Jamie already mentioned) to implement it depending on the project needs has more chances for success.
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In reply to Urs Hunkler

Re: AMF Moodle is underway, any help?

by Jamie Pratt -
Hi Urs,

The amf Moodle module I plan to make will take care of a lot of stuff that people wanting to create activity modules using Weborb or Sabre would also have to deal with.

I will bear in mind that people might want to use other technologies to communicate with Moodle and will try to keep what might be common code separated so that someone with the appropriate skills can extend the module to use other technologies.

Jamie
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