Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by David Rossiter -
Number of replies: 25

Hi there,

You may be interested to know that we have just released a new version, 4.2.2, of the NanoGong activity module and the NanoGong TinyMCE plugin for Moodle 2.

This version includes several new features, improved security checking and bug fixes. Here are some of them:

  • You can now add NanoGong voice recordings in the HTML editor inside the Quiz activity module and Assignment activity module
  • Security has been improved when NanoGong voice messages are uploaded
  • Teachers can now delete student recordings in the NanoGong activity module
  • Teachers can now lock a student from doing any changes in the NanoGong activity module
  • Efficiency of the NanoGong activity module and TinyMCE plugin has been greatly improved

When considered in conjunction with our previous update released a few weeks ago (11 June 2012 - version 4.2.1), there have now been extensive improvements since the original release of NanoGong for Moodle 2 on 25 May 2012. For full details see http://nanogong.ust.hk/info_release.html#moodle2_releases .


We do recommend you download this latest version of the NanoGong extensions for Moodle 2. You can download them from the NanoGong downloads page:

  http://nanogong.ust.hk/downloads_form.html

If you have not installed the NanoGong extensions for Moodle 2 before:

You can download and install the NanoGong extensions by following the installation instructions here:

  http://nanogong.ust.hk/moodle2_inst.html

You can also watch the installation instructions video here:

 

 

If you have installed the NanoGong extensions for Moodle 2 before, and you want to upgrade to version 4.2.2:

If you are going to upgrade your current installation of the NanoGong TinyMCE plugin for Moodle 2, first, you need to download, extract and install the NanoGong TinyMCE plugin and filter once again.

Then, you need to replace these two lines of code near the end of the lib.php file inside moodle/lib/editor/tinymce/, i.e.:

  $params['plugins'] .= ',nanogong';
  $params['theme_advanced_buttons3'] .=',nanogong';

with these four lines of code:

  if (isset($options['maxfiles']) and $options['maxfiles'] != 0) {
      $params['plugins'] .= ',nanogong';
      $params['theme_advanced_buttons3'] .=',nanogong';
  }


You can also find the above four lines of code in the NanoGong TinyMCE plugin installation instructions here:

  http://nanogong.ust.hk/moodle2_inst.html#install_tinymce

 
Thanks a lot,

Prof. David Rossiter and Dr. Gibson Lam
The Gong Project
http://nanogong.ust.hk

Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to David Rossiter

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

David,

Thanks for the new 4.2.2 version. Unfortunately, I'm having problems, the same one, in three different Moodles ...Moodle 2.2.4 (Build: 20120706), Moodle 2.3beta (Build: 20120618), and Moodle 2.3.1 (Build: 20120706).

  1. Created a Nanogong voice activity
  2. Logged in on student account and made a recording.
  3. Logged in as teacher and clicked Edit to go grade the submitted recording.

In all three cases I get the following error: "List of recordings for Fatal error: Call to undefined function get_student_name() in /var/www/moodle224/web/mod/nanogong/view.php on line 609"

Also, once a student submission is locked, I have not been able to find a way to unlock it. NOTE: this assignment was one made and locked with Nanogong 4.2.1 and it will not let me edit either with the new 4.2.2.

I'm hoping the fix/es is/are simple,

AL

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In reply to David Rossiter

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Kees Koopman -

We installed Nanogong 2012070100 on our Moodle 2.3.1.
There seems to be a problem.

If I want to grade a submission an I click on “Click here to edit” (picture 1) than I get picture 2.
It seems, something there is going wrong.

Can someone help me, please?
Thanks a lot!

Regards,
Kees Koopman.

 

PICTURE 1

 

PICTURE 2

.

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In reply to Kees Koopman

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Kees,

As released, I could not edit, delete, lock, or unlock a student submission in the new Nanogong 4.2.2 activity module due to this error, "List of recordings for Fatal error: Call to undefined function get_student_name() in /var/www/moodle224/web/mod/nanogong/view.php on line 609." The problem is two lines of code (609 and 618 in yourmoodle/mod/nanogong/view.php) that both use the function that does not exist.

In those two locations of view.php, I replaced this one line:

       echo get_student_name($student);

With these 6 lines of code from Nanogong 4.2.1:        

       if ($student->firstname) {
            echo $student->firstname;
        }
        if ($student->lastname) {
            echo ' '.$student->lastname;
        }

After adding the changes to view.php I am now able to edit, delete, lock, and unlock student recordings. When leaving the edit page after grading, it gives a pop-up warning "This page is asking you to confirm that you want to leave - data you have entered may not be saved." and I have the option to click Leave Page or Stay on Page.

With developer debugging on, when I click Leave Page, I get the following:

You should really redirect before you start page output
  • line 666 of /lib/outputrenderers.php: call to debugging()
  • line 2487 of /lib/weblib.php: call to core_renderer->redirect_message()
  • line 598 of /mod/nanogong/view.php: call to redirect()
This page should automatically redirect. If nothing is happening please use the continue link below.
 
With devloper debugging off, it will continue automatically. Either way, the grade, lock check box, Nanogong recordings, and typed comments do get saved so Nanogong Activity is usable.
 
Hope this helps,
 
AL
 
Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Ozan Varli -

Thank you for the fix AL, it works very well Yes

--Ozan

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In reply to Ozan Varli

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by sohail aslam -

I have installed new version of NanoGong on Moodle 2.3 and everything is working fine.

When I imported a course we developed while we were using Moodle 1.9  having NanoGong recordings in forum posts. None of the audios are playing. I can record/play new audio files.


When I look at the code, I think in new version they have modified the way audio files are saved/accessed.


Is there any way we can play those old audio files. I am able to get those old audio files from Moodle 1.9 moodledata folder.

How we can play/access those files in Moodle 2.3?

Any ideas/suggestions?

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In reply to sohail aslam

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Sohail,

You are correct that they have changed the way audio files are saved/accessed. Like you I have a bunch of old audio files that I did not want to have to redo, so I modified the old Nanogong filter to use with them. I even created a flipped copy of the old speaker icon so I could tell visually that it was an old file. Unfortunately, it is 185KB which is too large for me to attach here. If you want a copy of it to try out, send me an email to the address in my profile and I will send you a copy.

Hope it works for you,

AL

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In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by sohail aslam -

Hi Rachels,


Thanks, I have received your email and will give it a go.

 

Many Thanks,

Sohail

Average of ratings: -
In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Kees Koopman -

Hai AL,


Thanks for your information.
My Moodleprovider wants only to publish a total update van Nanogong, not a change of code. Grrrgrrr

Can you tell me when this is available in a new total file (e.g. 4.2.3)?

Thanks a lot!

Kees.

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In reply to Kees Koopman

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Kees,

Sorry, I have nothing to do with packaging and upgrading Nanogong. I am just a user like you. When I realized the last version was not working on my installation, I just happened to have time to look and quickly discovered a patch that worked for me and when others said they were having the same problem, I told them about my patch.

To find out about a new version you need to contact Prof. David Rossiter and Dr. Gibson Lam, The Gong Project, http://nanogong.ust.hk

AL

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In reply to David Rossiter

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by John Reese -

Cannot get nanogong to work

using moodle 2.2.3+

when I click on record and hear my playback it's there alright and even saving it to my desktop

But when I click on submit, it shows ...

 

"nothing has been recorded" ...

strange ... am I missing something (a step, etc.)?

thanks

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In reply to John Reese

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by John Reese -

Sometimes, I would would get the dialogue box saying ... "Cannot communicate with Server"

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In reply to John Reese

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

John,

Which version of Nanogong are you using? 4.2.1 or 4.2.2 and is it the activities module or the one in the tinyMCE text editor window?

AL

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In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by John Reese -

Hi Al,

Activities and I did install the latest version.. 4.2.2

I heard we are not the only school to consider ditch nanogong because it's hard to work with.. or never got it to work.

We never got it to work with 1.9.x either

We are planning to upgrade to 2.2.4 this weekend.

 

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In reply to John Reese

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

John,

Sorry to hear that you have had so much trouble with it. I have not tried Nanogong 4.2.2 in Moodle 2.2.3. I've only used it in 2.3.1 and 2.2.4. Both worked fairly well except as teacher, I could not edit/grade submissions. Based on debug info, I managed to patch the activity so that it appears to work okay now.

As to your present problem, I seem to recall having similar problems with an earlier version of Nanogong and Moodle that was caused by not having permission to execute/run. Typically, on my server, I have all the Moodle stuff set to work with Apache as the owner but when I upload a new module such as Nanogong via vsftp, it is owned by the account doing the upload and needs to be changed to work.

No guarantees, but it is something to check.

HTH,

AL

Average of ratings: -
In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by John Reese -

I don't think it's a permission and ownership issue.

It's been buggy since day one.

Just to test, all ownership is apache

Just to test, I make all folder and files 777 tongueout dangerous I know..

Here is the kicker... when I go to nanogong and test to see if I can run nanogong, its says yes I can.

But when I go and add it as an activity (which most teachers) would use it for, and try to click on record, it says " Cannot initalize audio recorder"... yet on the test, I can. I tried it on all browsers.  none of them work.

do I need to do any special set up on the server side? Need to install java, etc.? I don't think so...

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In reply to John Reese

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

John,

The only "special" setup on the server I did was to patch the tinyMCE HTML editor as the directions said to do, and I also had to apply a patch to the view.php file for the activity module to get the grading to work.

The only other thing I can think of right now is to make sure you have the latest version of Java installed on your computer. I had one incident last year where upgrading Java was what I needed to do to get a new Moodle 1.9.10 to work with Nanogong.

Well, goto go for a sleep study. Hope you having it working by the time they let me go...hopefully only one day night, but maybe two. sad

AL

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In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by John Reese -

Yes... I do have the latest and greatest version of Java installed on my computer.

what was the patch you did on view.php? which "view.php" file are you referring to? the one for nanogong?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to John Reese

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by AL Rachels -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
It is in my comments up above from July 23.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to David Rossiter

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Beth Crook -

I have installed the latest version of NanoGong in our Moodle 2.3.1 site, and it's going to be great for our language faculty, so thank you for all of your work on this new version!  However, as the teacher, it will not load the section for adding feedback and grades.   Did I miss something?  

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In reply to Beth Crook

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Kees Koopman -

Hi,

I have the same problem at this site.

A member of this forum suggests the following changes. HTH.


Kees.

-------------------

As released, I could not edit, delete, lock, or unlock a student submission in the new Nanogong 4.2.2 activity module due to this error, "List of recordings for Fatal error: Call to undefined function get_student_name() in /var/www/moodle224/web/mod/nanogong/view.php on line 609." The problem is two lines of code (609 and 618 in yourmoodle/mod/nanogong/view.php) that both use the function that does not exist.

In those two locations of view.php, I replaced this one line:

echo get_student_name($student);

With these 6 lines of code from Nanogong 4.2.1:

if ($student->firstname) {
echo $student->firstname;
}
if ($student->lastname) {
echo ' '.$student->lastname;
}

After adding the changes to view.php I am now able to edit, delete, lock, and unlock student recordings. When leaving the edit page after grading, it gives a pop-up warning "This page is asking you to confirm that you want to leave - data you have entered may not be saved." and I have the option to click Leave Page or Stay on Page.

With developer debugging on, when I click Leave Page, I get the following:
You should really redirect before you start page output

line 666 of /lib/outputrenderers.php: call to debugging()
line 2487 of /lib/weblib.php: call to core_renderer->redirect_message()
line 598 of /mod/nanogong/view.php: call to redirect()

This page should automatically redirect. If nothing is happening please use the continue link below.

With devloper debugging off, it will continue automatically. Either way, the grade, lock check box, Nanogong recordings, and typed comments do get saved so Nanogong Activity is usable.

Hope this helps,

Average of ratings: -
In reply to David Rossiter

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Shubham Goyal -

Hey,

Thanks loads for the new version. It works really nicely and solves a lot of problems I was facing with the previous release smile


However, I cannot find any way to create a quiz with both questions and answers containg audio. The nanogong icon doesn't appear on the HTML editor window when I am answering a subjective question e.g. essay type (it does appear when I am editing the question itself). I can allow students to upload audio using Nanogong Activity but that won't solve my purpose because I will have to create ~10 activities for every quiz with such questions which will clutter the lesson plan. Also, another advantage of questions is that I can categorize them into different categories denoting the difficulty levels and there is a huge question bank from which I can pull certain questions of different difficulty levels to make a test.

 

Is there an option or way to create a quiz containing questions which can have audio answers?


Thanks.

Warmest Regards.

Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to Shubham Goyal

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Murali SR -

Hey Shubam, I was just about to ask the same question. I am also having the same problem of making a quiz in which the student is supposed to record his response to an audio question. I also have categorized my quizzes and using activity to question students would not be in line with my aim of streamling the whole process with quiz categories.

 

Are we missing something here? Is there a way to enable students to record answers as response to an quiz question containing a Nanogong recording?

 

Thanks

Murali

Average of ratings: -
In reply to David Rossiter

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Matt Petro -

To have the nanogong button only show up when the filter is actually turned on, use this in moodle/lib/editor/tinymce/lib.php instead:

 

// Enable nanogong plugin
if (array_key_exists('filter/nanogong', $filters)) {
    if (isset($options['maxfiles']) and $options['maxfiles'] != 0) {
        $params['plugins'] .= ',nanogong';
        $params['theme_advanced_buttons3'] .=',nanogong';
    }
}

Average of ratings: -
In reply to David Rossiter

Re: Heavily revised version of NanoGong for Moodle 2 released

by Sebastien Jaffredo -

Hi there

Thanks again for this great tool, it's becoming an increasingly indispensable part of Moodle as more and more people install and use it, especially in the language teaching community.

Upgrading from 1.9  to 2.3 was painful because we had to recreate all the activities from scratch. The great news was that we could keep the sounds created through the filter: all it took was replacing the old <nanogong> tags in the database with the new <img> tag to reuse the old .spx files.

 

However, there is room for improvement, and I'd like to suggest a few things :

1. For the Nanogong module:

- there is a bug on the grade/report/user page. The Nanogong feedback is displayed but the sounds won't play.

- the reset function would be very useful

- Nanogong should harness the evolution of the new "assign" module (assignment 2.3). Of particular interest in my point of view is the possiblity to enable rubrics.

2. For Nanogong filter: there are a few instances of TinyMCEs where the Nanogong button doesn't show. For example, in the "assign" module, the Nanogong button shows on modedit.php and on the submission page, but not on the grade page. Also, it doesn't show on the answering page of an essay question of a quiz.

Any idea about what can be fixed in all that ?

 

By the way, I have French and Japanese translations I'd love to share with anyone interested.

 

Cheers to all,

 

Sébastien

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