General developer forum

Re: EU Cookie Law

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:41:33 GMT

by Gareth J Barnard.

Pragmatically, I consider that as long as Moodle core can satisfy the category 1 cookie category as defined in http://www.international-chamber.co.uk/components/com_wordpress/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/icc_uk_cookie_guide.pdf as I linked in a previous post, then it is up to the plugin provider to state explain their use of cookies.

I have placed in my Collapsed Topics course format the abilty for a user to control its cookie as it is a category 3, if you wish to borrow / modify the code to be global, then please do. Or you could modify the code from http://www.civicuk.com/cookie-law/index (which also has a Wordpress plugin) so Wordpress could be a front end, and indeed given that principle I'm sure there are talented plugin developers willing to give this a bash as a Moodle plugin.

However, in discussions mainly with Petr and Tim I now consider cookies an obsolite technology, like the floppy disk, therefore intend to eliminate them in my code - probably in the Moodle 2.3 version which will be a rewrite. I'm sure this actual problem of privacy will not go away, it is just that technology can be developed and implemented faster than the law. And a law that targets specific technology will not last long as its intent is lost as soon as something identical but not legally the same replaces it.

Disclaimer: These thoughts are my own. They provided as is for the purpose of discussion without any warrenty, guarantee or the ability to spell and instigate correct grammar. They may not be used as an igniter of a forum flame war or reproduced out of context. MoodleNews please feel free to reproduce in an article on the matter.

Cheers,

Gareth

Re: Block configuration for each user without DB

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:56:33 GMT

by Hubert Chathi.

I'm not sure what you mean by "without any DB table addition." If you mean without any new tables, there is a mdl_user_preferences table that you can could use. I'm not sure what version of Moodle it was added in, but it's in at least 1.9. In general, people should not be using anything older than 1.9, since it is no longer supported. If you are wanting to avoid touching the database at all, you could always create some files in the moodledata directory, but I don't think Moodle has any functions for managing storage in that manner, so you'd have to manage it yourself.

Re: EU Cookie Law

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:32:31 GMT

by John Fontaine.

On the cookie front.

Ignore the MoodleSession cookie for a moment and remember that as the website operator you are responsible for more than just the default cookies set by Moodle. You are also responsible for the cookies that might come from various third party content and add-ons.

As I read the law, if you have any cookies which are not strictly necessary then you need prior consent. The most straightforward means of obtaining this consent would be to do it when the user arrives at the site.

To find these other cookies look for the following:

1- Do you embed flash games, video or images from third party sites. These games probably have flash cookies in them. You Tube and other video sites have this as well.

2- Do you use Google Analytics, Omniture or another service to gather usage and performance stats? These tracking cookies are not strictly necesary.

3- Do you use Facebook Like buttons, Tweet buttons or other items for your pages. The twitter feed javascript gadget is very popular for instructors who want to post info about specific hash tags. Be aware that these use cookies.

If you find any of these things you should probably implement a consent dialogue for users when they first visit the site. You should try to document these on a seperate page.

Re: Understanding mdl_context

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:54:43 GMT

by Luis de Vasconcelos.

Thanks. It's starting to fit together now!

Some background to my origional question:
I wanted to see all the changes that were made in Moodle when a new user is created in Moodle. So I did a mysqldump before I created the user and then another mysqldump after I created the user. Then I compared the two dump files. One of the tables where data was added during the process of creating a new user was this mdl_context table. That called for a deeper understanding of mdl_context...

At some point I want to create a "new user" stored procedure in MSSQL that I'll use for creating user accounts in Moodle. We want to "automate" the process of creating new users in Moodle via MS BizTalk (a Moodle web service won't work as Moodle doesn't generate a valid WSDL that BizTalk can consume).

Re: show different block content following condition of user role

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:11:59 GMT

by Davo Smith.

$this->content->text = '';

if (has_capability('block/myblock:seeteachercontent', $this->context)) {

   $this->content->text .= 'Only teachers can see this';

}

if (has_capability('block/myblock:seeadmincontent', $this->context)) 

   $this->content->text .= 'Only admins can see this';

}

You will need to define some suitable capabilities in 'db/access.php' for your block (look in the standard blocks to see the layout of this file, if you're not sure) and you should probably come up with better names for the capabilities than 'seeteachercontent', as those are just examples based on the information you supplied.

Re: EU Cookie Law

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:16:56 GMT

by Dave Balch.

Ah, not having looked at it yet, I hadn't realised that it is part of all those things - in which case it seems reasonable to say that MoodleSession is strictly neccessary for the operation of the site, and therefore exempt from opt-in even for non-logged in users.

That should make things a bit simpler

show different block content following condition of user role

Wed, 16 May 2012 12:48:43 GMT

by Madovsky Franck.

Hi,

I would like ot add a condition role in my block and show different

content if the user is a Teacher, Admin or student.

but unfortunately I didn't see any variable in $USER that explicitly show the user status

Thanks

Re: EU Cookie Law

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:31:04 GMT

by Petr Škoda.

If you somehow manage to disable session cookie before login be prepared for major performance problems and some borked areas such as navigation docking, nonfunctional login redirection, etc. You might partially work around this by some new access control caching mechanism for not-loggin user and guest account.

Re: Solving own web service (server) unavailability

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:17:53 GMT

by Tim Hunt.

At the moment, there is no way to let other questions be graded if one question fails. I agree it would be good to enable this, but it would require some fairly fundamental work at the heart of the question engine.

The problem is not with the other questions, but how to handle the question the throws an error. You would need to be able to:

Make a new state that a quesiton can be in "Last attempt to process something failed."
Find a way to store the data that was not processed, so we can try again later.
Write the code that does try, again later at an appropriate time. But, what is an appropriate time? (On cron, next time someone tries to access that attempt, ...)

Given that most Moodle question types are highly reliable, it is just not worth trying to solve these problems.

Re: Understanding mdl_context

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:10:20 GMT

by Davo Smith.

That looks right to me, for the context you would be in when viewing the user's profile.

(Just to reiterate what Hubert pointed out above, I made a mistake in my previous post - context '1' is actually the SYSTEM context not the SITE context; 'system' being the whole of the Moodle install, 'site' being the front page).

TIMER FOR EACH QUESTION IN QUESTIONARIE MODULE

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:09:10 GMT

by Angela Mendoza.

El módulo de cuestionarios (Questinnaries) es posible tener un timer por cada pregunta, es decir, que cuando el alumno termine de contestar, se guarde el tiempo que tardó en responder cada pregunta. Esto se tendría que guardar en junto con las estadísticas para analizar cuanto tardó el alumno en contestar cada pregunta.

Muchas gracias.

Re: Useful SQL Queries?

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:05:53 GMT

by Rosario Carcò.

Sorry for being late.

>>Does anyone know if it's possible to include a column that shows the name of the file that was uploaded?

I found an attachment column in the mdl_forum_posts table. So there might be the same column also in the other activities that allow students to upload files.

Rosario

Re: Useful SQL Queries?

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:02:10 GMT

by Rosario Carcò.

Sorry for being late. To read the database with queries ist ok, but to populate it is very very hazarduous and also difficult to achieve because of the many relations between the different tables. To add users you might study the built in uploaduser.php like I did to write my uploadusersandcourses.php and uploadusersandcourses_silently.php which means you use the Moodle-API to create users, courses, categories, etc. etc. and hence being very safe and ready for any upgrades that may come, as you wil not have to change the API calls nor the logic in your own php scripts.

Rosario

Re: Understanding mdl_context

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:52:42 GMT

by Luis de Vasconcelos.

Ok I think I get it!

Example:
When a new user is registered in Moodle (mdl_user.id = 12345) then:

mdl_context.id = 9876 (an auto number)

mdl_context.contextlevel = 30 (because CONTEXTLEVEL for CONTEXT_USER is 30, as per the docs)

mdl_context.instanceid = 12345 (because that's the id of the USER instance, mdl_user.id).

mdl_context.path = /1/9876/ (which is equivalent to: /site context/user context/)

mdl_context.depth = 2 (because there are two levels in the path - '1' and '9876')

Is this correct?

Quiz Report Customization

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:26:45 GMT

by tong adam.

Hi, I am new to develop moodle for my school.
I would like to show the Analysis of responses (/course/mod/quiz/report.php?id=519&mode=statistics&slot=1) in the Quiz structure (analysis/course/mod/quiz/report.php?id=519&mode=statistics) beside the questions.
is it possible?

Could anyone tell me how to coding or how to do it?

Million thanks in advance.

User profile picture directory

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:48:36 GMT

by Andy Friel.

I'm having trouble locating where the profile pictures for users are stored in the Moodle 2.2 directory. We recently moved to a new server and the profile pictures for all users have stopped working. I have since uploaded a new profile picture for a user, which is displaying fine, but I can't seem to find the original file stored anywhere in the moodle file structure.

The documentation leads me to believe that the pictures should be found in moodle/pix/u but these folder only seems to have the default image of a white silhouette against a grey background.

I also noticed that there have been some changes to how the images themselves are stored in terms of folders and subfolders.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to find the user profile images and how they should be stored?

Many thanks,

Andy

Re: EU Cookie Law

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:46:23 GMT

by Dave Balch.

As I understand it, ICO would only investigate someone if they get a complaint about them - so if your organisation is high profile enough to be a target for people with a grudge it could be at risk.

I don't think it's a very big risk however, as:

the MoodleSession cookie is "strictly neccessary" for logged in users so is exempt from the opt-in requirement - although MoodleSession is set before login which could be a problem
the MOODLEID1_ cookie is opt-in already (although I've tweaked the wording to be more explicit about it using cookies).

I'm hoping that it will be possible to defer setting MoodleSession until a user logs in, but my non-Moodle sites have more issues so I'm currently working on getting them to the same level that Moodle is as standard.

IANAL.

Block configuration for each user without DB

Wed, 16 May 2012 03:32:36 GMT

by Madovsky Franck.

Hi,

I'm new here and didn't find answer to my question in archives.

I would like to save the block config for each user without any DB table addition.

it's 3 settings like email, external secret code and role type.

possible ?

PS: this question is for moodle 1.5 until 2.2

Thanks

Re: Print exact sql statement executed - for debugging & documentation

Wed, 16 May 2012 03:23:00 GMT

by John Reese.

Hi Mr. Terrier.

Davo's suggestion is the one I wanted to try.

I want to be able to see the sql statement created when I try to use the advance user interface in Browse users to delete a number of student records. This way, I can see which tables and fields it's trying to update upon.

Re: Moodle Theme Regions

Tue, 15 May 2012 22:50:41 GMT

by Paul P..

Maybe this thread will help:

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=160567#p858808