Moodle: Modules and plugins

Advanced FLV Filter (Filter)

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:01:46 WST

Filter: Advanced FLV Filter

Type: Filter

Requires: Moodle 1.6 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Julian Ridden

This is an advanced FLV filter replacement adding new functionality to FLV embedding.

To use it you must first turn off the FLV option in the standard multimedia filter then enable this new filter instead.

Once installed, click on the filter settings and you can:

Set custom size
enable autostart or not
choose either to have the control bar float when you hover over the movie, stay at the bottom or be removed completely

The full screen functionality will now work properly as well.

Documentation

Discussion

Download latest version

Dictionary (Filter)

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:14:16 WST

Filter: Dictionary

Type: Filter

Requires: Moodle 1.8 or later

Status:

Maintainer: Patrick Thibaudeau

Dictionary is a filter/block plugin. This filter allows students to double click on any word within a resource and get the definition for that word in a new window. The dictionary block allows teachers to select a dictionary for their course. Students cannot modify this setting.

I have only tested with version 1.9. However it should work in version 1.8

Download latest version

Map (Activity Module)

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:47:35 WST

Activity Module: Map

Type: Activity Module

Requires: Moodle 1.8 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Ted Bowman

This is a map activity module. It uses Google maps to make in course maps. It can be used for student locations and/or other course content.

The module has been tested with php5 on Moodle 1.8 and 1.9. Right not it will not work with php4.

After installing this module the Google Map API Key will need to be set in the module settings page. If you don't have a Google Map Key then you can get on here.

Documentation

Browse CVS

Discussion

Download latest version

Algebra (Question Type)

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:08:59 WST

Question Type: Algebra

Type: Question Type

Requires: Moodle 1.9 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Roger Moore

This question type will correctly understand algebraic student responses. It correctly handles equivalent expressions so that, for example, and would both be treated as the same. It is completely coded in Moodle PHP and requires no external programs in order to function. However a simple, optional external interface to the SAGE symbolic manipulation package is included.

Download latest version

Child courses block (Block)

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:09:02 WST

Block: Child courses block

Type: Block

Requires: Moodle 1.9 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Marty Jacobs

A very simple block that displays the child courses for a Meta course. Useful if you want to split a course up into many courses for admin purposes.

Might be a good idea to change the string 'childcourses' from 'Child courses' to 'Sub courses' if you don't think your average user will understand the term.

Discussion

Download latest version

Download for Moodle 1.9

LDAP Capture Authentication (Authentication Method)

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:00:46 WST

Authentication Method: LDAP Capture Authentication

Type: Authentication Method

Requires:

Status:

Maintainer:

This authentication plug-in extends the standard LDAP authentication plug-in by capturing user passwords to the global $USER variable. The user password is encrypted and unlike the standard md5 hash, it can also be decrypted. This provides developers with a mechanism to capture user passwords and then forward the decrypted version on to another application.

Example Usage -

A user logs on using the LDAP capture plugin.
The user then opens up a windows share using the 'windows share web client' block.
The users credentials are automatically passed through to smbclient and the windows share is displayed.

Documentation

Download for Moodle 1.8

Download for Moodle 1.9

Search the Learning Exchange (Block)

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 04:01:49 WST

Block: Search the Learning Exchange

Type: Block

Requires: Moodle 1.9 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Jon Bolton

This block gives you the "Open Search" code for the Learning Exchange. It was written for and tested on Moodle version 1.9.1, but it should work on any version newer than the 1.5 release.

The Learning Exchange is a digital library of learning resources for social services and social work education and training. The resources include information sheets, official publications, interactive learning resources, video clips, case studies and radio broadcasts, all of which may be used for non-commercial, educational purposes.

Documentation

Changelog

Download latest version

Download for Moodle 1.9

Login & logout (Block)

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:50:51 WST

Block: Login & logout

Type: Block

Requires: Moodle 1.9 or later

Status: Core

Maintainer: IMYCA - Universidad de Carabobo - Venezuela

Block to login and exit moodle. Developed for moodle 1.9. It has two states: the first is like to standard login block, but this block changes to a second state that shows the following information:

Greeting: it's server time dependent. Good Morning, Good Afternoon or Good Evening is displayed in block header.
User full Name: click to go to the user's profile.
User's image.
Logout Button: click to exit moodle.
Update Profile: click to go to the user data in edit mode.
Last login: shows date and time of the last user login. It is different from the last access to the server (showed in user profile).

How to install

Download and unzip login_logout.zip file
Copy login_logout folder to http://yourmoodlesite/blocks/
Copy login_logout/lang/en_utf8/block_login_logout.php file to http://yourmoodlesite/lang/en_utf8/ folder. Spanish users should also to copy login_logout/lang/es_utf8/block_login_logout.php file in moodle_data/lang/es_utf8/ folder. Instead, you can translate english strings and moodle will create the file in your language folder.
Login as Administrator and click on "Notifications"
Click on "Turn editing on" button
Add "Login_Logout" block in your frontpage (if standard login block is added, remove it)
Select a good position for your new block and move it.

That's all.
Enjoy!

Luis De Sousa
IMYCA - Facultad de Ingeniería
Universidad de Carabobo
Venezuela

Discussion

Download latest version

Meta, Activities and Noticeboard (MAN) course formats (Course Format)

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:16:37 WST

Course Format: Meta, Activities and Noticeboard (MAN) course formats

Type: Course Format

Requires: Moodle 1.9

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Marty Jacobs

This is a family of 6 course formats designed to reduce the number of links on the course homepage and improve course communication. Nothing fancy, based on Topics and Social formats.

Here is a brief explanation of what each format does:

Meta format - Automatically provides links to the child courses associated with a Meta course.
Activities format - Automatically generates links to activity types in the main content area (middle column) like the Activity modules block does. Avoids the need to create lots of links on the course home page, thus saving your users from the 'scroll of death'!
Noticeboard format - This format is similar to the Social format. It displays the latest post from the News forum at the top of the course home page (only one post is displayed). There is also a 'topics' area below the noticeboard, allowing you to add activities and resources to the page.
Noticeboard/activities format - This is simply a hybrid of the Noticeboard and Activities formats.
Meta noticeboard format - A combination of the Meta and Noticeboard formats. Meta noticeboard/activities format - Three formats in one! Blends the Noticeboard, Activities and Meta formats together to make a very useful course format.
Meta noticeboard/activities format - Three formats in one! This format has a noticeboard at the top, lists any child courses and provides links to activity types.

All 6 formats are included in one download for ease of installation. Demos can be found here.

Documentation

Discussion

Download latest version

Download for Moodle 1.9

ASCIIMathML (Integration)

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 04:34:28 WST

Integration: ASCIIMathML

Type: Integration

Requires: Moodle 1.8 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Marc Grober

ASCIIMathML, initially developed by Peter Jensen, has been extended by David Lippman, Steven Chan and others into one of the most effective tools for the display and expression of mathematics available today. To paraphrase the developer, Peter Jipsen, ASCIIMathML provides the ability to easily produce good-looking math formulas on webpages using a simple calculator-style syntax and your own ASCII or HTML editor using a multi-platform javascript solution.

ASCIIMathML, however, offers a good deal more than similar solutions (such as jsMath.) ASCIIMathML has an integrated SVG component for display graphcs. It comes with a fully functional calculator application. It can be used as a GUI equation constructor (it serves as the basis for the Xinha Equation Editor). Perhaps most importantly, it can display not only its simple Native text syntax, but TeX as well (and using fallback options developed by David Lippman can provide mimetex or Mathtran fallback where a browser does not meet the W3C MathML standard or where Math fonts are not installed.

And, perhaps the best feature of them all, ASCIIMathML is incredibly easy to use as to write equations as well as display them, is supported by DragMath, and can be extended to address additional characters stes.

For details on obtaining the code, installation, etc. please see the documentation link below. The sourceforge link is in the first paragraph under "usage".

Documentation

Bugs and Issues

Enrolment Key Generator (Block)

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:40:01 WST

Block: Enrolment Key Generator

Type: Block

Requires: Moodle 1.9 or later

Status:

Maintainer: Paul Vaughan

EKG is an administrative block which creates random course enrolment keys from lists of words, but with a number of configuration options you (can) choose.

KG takes one of six options and combines them according to your choices (or the defaults). It starts with any of the following:

Three letter words
Four letter words
Five letter words containing J, X, Q or Z
Randomly generated alpha-numeric characters
An MD5 hash of the current time split appropriately (but has a maximum of 32 characters)
Words from a custom text file you supply

It then puts a number of them together (you specify how many) with a separator (which you supply). You can choose to add a prefix and/or a suffix to the keys, and you can also transform the text into UPPERCASE, lowercase or Title Case.

The supplied text file is chemical elements, but there is another text-file which can be used which is simply colours.

I have created this block mostly to retrain myself in the ways of PHP and also to start writing PHP code specifically for Moodle. This is my first Moodle development and I hope to learn from it. Comments and critique from the Moodle community are most welcome.

Tested and found to be working on Moodle 1.9.2+, sorry but I'm not sure about older versions. More info here: http://www.thecloudsaremooing.net/moodle/course/view.php?id=12

(please login as guest)

Documentation

Discussion

Download for Moodle 1.9

Bugs and Issues

Course ordering and invoicing (Activity Module)

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:44:40 WST

Activity Module: Course ordering and invoicing

Type: Activity Module

Requires: Moodle 1.8 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: David Mudrák

The module allows authenticated users to fill course enrolment order form. Payment reminder is sent automatically. Administrator has to manually approve the order, eg. according to a bank account listings. After approving the order, the invoice is emailed to the users.

The module uses External database enrolment plugin. It may be useful for sites where users must pay to be enrolled into a course but for some reasons, PayPal and other plugins can not be used.

Documentation

Browse CVS

Download for Moodle 1.8

Download for Moodle 1.9

Bugs and Issues

Contacts Block (Block)

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:31:59 WST

Block: Contacts Block

Type: Block

Requires: Moodle 1.8 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Dale Davies

About

This block was designed to add some "social networking" functionality to the My Moodle page.

I wanted a way for users to add and remove "friends" on their My Moodle page in much the same way as social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

The Contacts plugin does this in a simple way by utilising the message_print_contacts() function within Moodle. It is not a complicated plugin, but used with some of the other block plugins i can now create a My Moodle page with basic similarity to some social networking sites.

Installation

Drop the "contacts" folder into your blocks folder.
Log in to Moodle and navigate to the "Notifications" admin page.
You can now add the block to any page.
You may wish to edit the global configuration for this block.

Configuration

There are two global configuration options for this block, these will override all instances throughout your site

You can enter a custom title.
You can remove all default styling, should you wish to use your own CSS (see below).

CSS Styling

This block has a default internal stylesheet that adds some basic styling to the block (mainly hiding some unwanted elements from the contacts list and
tidying up the layout). However you can use your own stylesheet if you wish.

If you have problems getting your own stylesheet to work, simply edit the global config options for this block... Tick the option to use your own CSS styles.

The default CSS this block embeds on the page is as follows, you can use this as an example for your own stylesheet...

/* Contacts Block - Default Styles */

.block_contacts .note, .link .remove, .link .history {
display:none;
}
.block_contacts #message_contacts {
margin:0 0 0 10px;
}
.block_contacts .content #message_contacts .heading{
font-weight:bold;
padding:10px 0 5px 0;
}
.block_contacts .content #add_contacts {
margin-top:-10px;
text-align:center;
padding:7px 0 2px 0;
font-size:13px;
}

Change Log

v0.1 - First version: No configuration options!

v.02 - Added config option to remove internal CSS.
v.02 - Added str_replace() to remove empty table rows, improves layout of contacts list in the block.

v0.3 - Restyled global configuration page.
v0.3 - Added config option to change block title.

Download latest version

GLPI Helpdesk (Block)

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:21:53 WST

Block: GLPI Helpdesk

Type: Block

Requires: Moodle 1.9 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Éric Bugnet

This block show user trackers from your GLPI (http://glpi-project.org/).
The user must have the same username on Moodle and GLPI (case if you are using LDAP connection on your 2 sites).
If email isn't written in GLPI for the user, this block copy / paste the Moodle email of the user in GLPI.

1) Copy / paste the directory in /yourmoodle/blocks/
2) Write your GLPI parameters in Moodle, for that go to Admin > Plugins > Blocks > GLPI Helpdesk
3) Put this block n your first page

If you make a translation, bring it to me please.
Enjoy
Éric

Documentation

Discussion

Download for Moodle 1.9

Progress (Block)

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:52:54 WST

Block: Progress

Type: Block

Requires: Moodle 1.9 or later

Status: Contributed

Maintainer: Mark J Tyers (code), Rick Barnes (documentation)

A block that allows students to track their progress in all courses from the front page. The block only picks up progress on courses with a Pass/Merit/Distinction progression such as that used by Edexcel in the UK.

Update! 04/07/08
now progress beyond a pass is shown over a pale pass bar (see image) and points can be assigned to pass, merit and distinction grades on a course-by-course basis. Simply add the following to the Course ID field in the course setting page:

10/20/30
where 10 is the points awarded for a pass, 20 for a merit and 30 for a distinction (obviously you need to assign your own values...

Because this block is in the early stages of development please Skype the author (zannet69) if you require help setting it up or configuring it.

UPDATE 17th August 2008
The block now displays useful information for teachers if added to a course. In addition the footer contains a link to show student progress in all courses filterable by group.

Changelog

Discussion

Download for Moodle 1.9