HotPotatoes module: beta release

HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Gordon Bateson -
Number of replies: 9
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Hello everyone!

the beta release of the HotPotatoes module can now be downloaded from the following URL:
http://bateson.kanazawa-gu.ac.jp/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=168

It includes two new scripts which allow you to backup and restore HotPotatoes quizzes. I have tested these scripts as well as I know how on my server, and they seem to work fine, but be aware that they have not been tested by the wider community yet, so be careful how you use them, especially the "restore" feature.

Actually there is a problem with backing up and restoring logs, which comes from the fact the the module name, "hotpotatoes", has 11 letters, but the limit is 10. Oops! As a result, the module name is clipped to "hotpotatoe" and the logs are not restored.

There are several ways to work around this:

  • On my server, I simply increased the length of the "module" field in Moodle's "log" table, from 10 characters to 11. The logs can then be backed up and restored. However, you may choose not to do this, because then you don't have a standard Moodle system anymore. In fact on a live system, please choose NOT to do this
  • do not backup or restore logs files, or if you do, be prepared for warnings such as "hotpotatoe module does not exist"
  • I could have changed the name of the module, but that is quite a lot of work behind the scenes, and I believe that in a couple of weeks the module will be renamed anyway, when it becomes version 2 of the current "hotpot" module.

The beta version of the module is pretty stable. I am not aware of any outstanding bug reports, although now I have said that, I am sure they will come raining in smile

If you do have feedback, positive or negative, please send it in. When reporting strange behavior, please be sure to send me the quiz file, or a link to your Moodle where I can see the problem for myself. My email address is gordon at-sign kanazawa hyphen gu dot ac dot jp.

I will wait a couple of weeks, with a view to offering a "public release" around March 14th. In the meantime, I will look at ways of importing the old HotPot quizzes and results into the new HotPotatoes module so that the change over is as smooth as possible.

best regards
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hello again everyone,
thank you for the continuing feedback.

There were no major difficulties reported for the beta release so I have spent my time adding the following "bells and whistles":

  1. converting relative URLs to absolute URLs has been further refined to handle the case where the relative URL is an argument of another URL.
    • Here are a couple of examples (the relative URL is in bold):
    • These cases are also covered (as they were before):
      • <IMG src="relative/path/image.jpg">
      • <A href="relative/path/webpage.html">
      • <PARAM value="relative/path/my-soundfile.mp3">
  2. by default the module will leave embedded media objects alone, but if you want to, you can force the quiz to use Moodle-compatible players. This is to handle the case where a player works OK when you are developing the quiz on your PC, but stops working on the Moodle site because it objects to the media files coming via Moodle's "file.php" script.
  3. you can set a maximum grade for the quiz. This allows you to incorporate the quiz grade more smoothly into course grades
  4. you can set the grading method to one of
    • highest
    • average
    • first
    • last
  5. The teacher can limit the number of attempts
  6. Students can review the quiz responses, if the teachers sets the "review" setting to "yes"
  7. A password can be added to the quiz. The quiz can then only be taken be students who give the right password
  8. The teacher can define a network address mask for the quiz. The quiz can then only be taken from computers with an IP-address that matches the mask.

Moodle veterans will notice that points 3-8 mimic the functionality of Moodle's "quiz" module.

The latest beta release can be downloaded from here:
http://bateson.kanazawa-gu.ac.jp/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=168

I am currently polishing the script that will import quizzes and database tables from the current HotPot module, to the new HotPotatoes module. I expect to complete this before the end of the week, so the module can be publically released as version 2 of the HotPot module around March 14th.

all the best and please keep the feedback coming
Gordon

(gordon at-sign kanazawa hyphen gu dot ac dot jp)

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Dave Ray -

Gordon,
     Not sure if this is relevant ,but I just loaded this new release
on 1.5 and everything went well until this sesskey error.

sesskeyerror

Not sure what this means. Thanks for all your work , things work
fine on 1.4.3
----Cheers,  Dave

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In reply to Dave Ray

Re: HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hi Dave,
thanks very much for the info.

I will load up Moodle 1.5 tomorrow and investigate. I have seen similar messages while I was developing on 1.4.3, so I think it is just a question of making sure the "sesskey" gets passed at the appropriate time to whichever script is requiring it.

I'll report back when I have a fix

cheers
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hello again,
I have made a few fixes for the following "bugs":

  • "sesskey" error adding/editing a quiz in Moodle 1.5 - thanks Dave smile
  • SQL error after quiz finishes, if question/answer/response contains a apostrophe - thanks Jean-Pierre smile
  • database error reporting only worked for MySQL
  • left-hand side of JMatch questions were not shown on reports

The affected files are:

  • mod/hotpotatoes/attempt.php
  • mod/hotpotatoes/mod.html
  • mod/hotpotatoes/lib.php
  • mod/hotpotatoes/report/(3 files)

I have zipped them up and put them in a patch which you can download from here:
http://bateson.kanazawa-gu.ac.jp/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=1789

While I was experimenting with Moodle 1.5, I noticed you can add quizzes to the front page of the site now. Wow, pretty nifty! I modified the quiz settings page (mod.html) so that it can handle this situation.

I think we're all up-to-date with the bugs. If you find any more, please send them in, along with the quz that is causing problems.

best regards
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Leonhard Küllinger -
Hi Gordon,
don`t kknow if its a bug or not.
When filling out a crossword with Umlauts (Ä) this chars are deleted when confirming the test. I am using the newest hotpot version on 1.4.3+, W3K, mysql, php5.1

nice greetings from austria
Leo
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In reply to Leonhard Küllinger

Re: HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Gordon Bateson -
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Dear Leo,
greetings to you too. I hope it's got a little warmer than the -10°you reoprted last time!

The behavior of the crossword seems strange. I wonder if you could send a copy of the XML file over so I can check it out?

all the best
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Leonhard Küllinger -
here it is

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In reply to Leonhard Küllinger

Re: HotPotatoes module: beta release

by Gordon Bateson -
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Dear Leo,
thanks for sending the jcr file. It was the final piece of the puzzle for me.

Interestingly the problem was not the umlaut in the quiz, but the umlaut "u" in your surname. Hot Potatoes encodes ALL the accented and multibyte charaters used in the readings, questions and answers, so I thought there was no need to worry about unicode. However, there are a few fields that are not encoded (the "registered to" field being one of them). I have fixed lib.php to handle these fields, and  you can see your quiz working here:
http://bateson.kanazawa-gu.ac.jp/moodle/mod/hotpot/view.php?id=1796

However, I would like to ask you to wait a day or two before downloading the latest version of the module, because in the last few days I have been working with Tom so that we can release "HotPot v2" on Monday. (I will start another thread about this important topic)

many thanks as always for your continuing help and good humor!
Gordon

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