General developer forum

Re: How to implement a schedule (time table)?

Philip Zander — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:44:03 GMT

by Philip Zander.

Thanks, then I'll probably rewrite it as a block, shouldn't be too much work.

Is there any "official" place to let the user change plugin settings? I was thinking of maybe adding a new tab to the profile editing page - is this possible (without changing any moodle core code)?

Can I add a countdown clock to my site?

Laura Harrison — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:22:56 GMT

by Laura Harrison.

Hi,

I'm just getting started with Moodle. I have set up a course and added resources. I would like a countdown clock in the header of my course, counting down days to an exam - is this possible?

Thanks for any help

missing shortcut in ECLIPSE

Joseph Rézeau — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:02:14 GMT

by Joseph Rézeau.

To developers using the ECLIPSE + PHP environment.

I have recently upgraded to Eclipse +PHP 3.5 (Galileo). In the previous version, when I placed the cursor just after an opening brace and double-clicked, the code between that opening brace and the matching closing brace would be highlighted, which I found quite a useful feature. I am no longer able to get the same feature in my present version. Has anyone come across this problem and found a solution? I've posted to the Eclipse forums here where others have mentioned the problem, but no response so far.

Joseph

PS.- Tim has already responded (in private email) that he did not even know the feature existed.

Modules in 2.0 Require "intro" field?

Mike Churchward — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:49:27 GMT

by Mike Churchward.

Upgrading some third party modules to 2.0, I've run into an issue (I think)...

Do modules in 2.0 have to have "intro" and "introformat" fields to be valid? Many have "summary" or "description" or other for these...

mike

Re: User system role

Mary Cooch — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:10:24 GMT

by Mary Cooch.

Luke -where are you wanting this text only to parents to appear? As Sam says,if it's something like a label or a block you can set it up so only parents can see it as in the docs here
But again - it depends on where you want this text.

Re: User system role

sam marshall — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:10:13 GMT

by sam marshall.

Depending on where the text goes you may be able to control this already by clever use of other capabilities (e.g. for a label on course page I think you can make the label hidden, then override to give parents 'viewhiddenactivities' on just that label).

If not then yes you should create a new capability. For example if the text is part of a new plugin you're building, your new capability should go in the access.php of that plugin. If it is not part of a plugin then it should probably go in local/db/access.php. See docs/source for more details on capabilities.

If you really really want to ensure the text appears to parents and not to any other role, even admin, then don't forget to use the 'false' flag to $doanything when you check has_capability.

--sam

Re: Understanding course/category sortorder and fix_course_sortorder()

Robert Russo — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:31:10 GMT

by Robert Russo.

WE HAVE NOT TESTED THESE CHANGES WITH ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR 1.9.2.

We dealt with this problem a long time ago. Here is our fix for 1.9.2. It is by no means perfect, but it got us from 3 minute course creations down to instant course creations and deletions.

Replace your fix_course_sortorder function with the one below and then update everything that calls fix_course_sortorder to pass in the courseid or categoryid of the course in question in order to update category counts or update sort order appropriately.

WE HAVE NOT TESTED THESE CHANGES WITH ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR 1.9.2.
Please test accordingly.

function fix_course_sortorder($categoryid=0, $n=0, $safe=0, $depth=0, $path='', $courseid=0) {

 global $CFG;

 // adamzap

 // We only want to sort things for specific requests.
 // We are not concerned with cleaning up the system all the time.
 if ($categoryid == 0 or $courseid < 3) {
 return 0;
 }

 // Update the course count for this category and its parents (if it has any)
 do {
 $course_count_sql = 'SELECT count(id) FROM ' . $CFG->prefix . 'course ' .
 'WHERE category = ' . $categoryid;
 $course_count = get_field_sql($course_count_sql);

 set_field('course_categories', 'coursecount', $course_count, 'id', $categoryid);

 $categoryid = get_field('course_categories', 'parent', 'id', $categoryid);
 } while ($categoryid != 0);

 // Update the sort order of the passed in courseid
 $max_sortorder_sql = "SELECT MAX(sortorder) from mdl_course";
 $max_sortorder = get_field_sql($max_sortorder_sql);

 $sortorder_sql = 'UPDATE ' . $CFG->prefix . 'course c1 ' .
 'SET c1.sortorder = ' . $max_sortorder . ' + ' . rand(1, 100) .
 ' WHERE c1.id = ' . $courseid;

 execute_sql($sortorder_sql, 0);

 return 1;
}

We reset our sort-orders in a similar way as above.
UPDATE mdl_course SET sortorder=ID +1000

With the new function and changes to about a 1/2 dozen other files everything works great, just much faster and no db limit issues.

WE HAVE NOT TESTED THESE CHANGES WITH ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR 1.9.2.

Re: Is it possible? Moodle ACLs?

Hubert Chathi — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:56:02 GMT

by Hubert Chathi.

You can use role overrides to prevent users from a specific role from seeing a block.

Re: Very slow admin login

Nathan Friend — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:44:43 GMT

by Nathan Friend.

Any progress on this issue?

Re: Direct access to a specific course

Hubert Chathi — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:33:55 GMT

by Hubert Chathi.

For reference, Moodle Networks is not just for Moodle->Moodle, as long as you are willing to dig into the protocol (which, admittedly, is quite a task). I have implemented the protocol in Java, and implemented a Moodle->JasperServer single sign-on.

Like you, my Java implementation will be open sourced at some point in the future, but the "when" will be determined by management (and the sometimes even more restrictive: "when we have time" element).

Re: Setting values of TextArea via JavaScript

Frank Ralf — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:39:23 GMT

by Frank Ralf.

Thanks for the hint, just a typo (missing "r"). I have just created that page with a redirect in case it happens again

Frank

Re: Setting values of TextArea via JavaScript

Joseph Rézeau — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:35:13 GMT

by Joseph Rézeau.

Hi Frank,
Just clicked on the Javascipt FAQ link you mention in your post, and it takes me to

Javascipt FAQ

From MoodleDocs

This page does not exist yet. You are welcome to create it.

Re: Setting values of TextArea via JavaScript

Frank Ralf — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:32:04 GMT

by Frank Ralf.

Hi Martin,

I don't know whether this is too much, but Moodle comes with YUI support so you could resort to YUI's AJAX capabilities, e.g.

Rich Text Editor: Editor Data Post with Connection Manager
"This example demonstrates how to use Connection Manager to post data to the server, filter it and return it to the Editor."

See Javascript FAQ for further hints on incorporating JavaScript into Moodle.

hth
Frank

Re: How to implement a schedule (time table)?

Mark Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:57:21 GMT

by Mark Johnson.

We've got a similar system in place in the form of the MRBS plugin.
In terms of how it slots in to Moodle, it's written as a block to allow it to have an admin configuration page etc, but then all the actual pages reside in a subdirectory of the block. The block itself just displays a link into this subdirectory.

Re: User system role

Frank Ralf — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:48:13 GMT

by Frank Ralf.

Hi Luke,

Try using Developer FAQ and/or http://dev.moodle.org/ as a starting point.

hth
Frank

Re: Setting values of TextArea via JavaScript

Martin Holden — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:23:31 GMT

by Martin Holden.

Thanks Sam

Usual issue of been to close to things, makes perfect sense to abstract the setting function.

Martin

Re: User system role

Luke Bridges — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:09:58 GMT

by Luke Bridges.

we have a role called parent, and need some text to only display to parents and no one else so am looking for somthing like isadmin() but for othe roles....

unless i create a custom capability ( but i dont know how)

Re: User system role

David Mudrák — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:07:11 GMT

by David Mudrák.

Luke,

firtly, why would you ever need it? The role itself is nothing but a named set of capabilities. As a developer you check if the current user has some capability and you do not care the role. You usually use has_capability() or require_capability() for this. See the public API defined in lib/accesslib.php

User system role

Luke Bridges — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:41:07 GMT

by Luke Bridges.

Is there a variable or method i can use to get what system/local/course role a user has been assigned to ?

Re: Is it possible? Moodle ACLs?

sam marshall — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:31:58 GMT

by sam marshall.

Yes, somewhat.

For activities (module instances):

Hide the module. Now only users with viewhiddenactivities capability (I forget if it is 'teachers' or 'editing teachers' that get this by default, but you can configure) can see it. You can override that capability on an individual module so that a particular one can be seen by some other role, or else not be seen by a role that normally would see it.

For blocks:

I don't think this is really possible in general for existing blocks unless they have their own 'view' capability, which they usually don't. It's easy to implement for your own blocks (just check for a capability and return empty string if they don't have it).

However, if you aren't concerned about security in this regard, you can probably hide blocks using CSS. Create a custom theme, and within your theme's header.php, add code which checks for a capability. If that capability is not present, add a stylesheet like

<style type="text/css">
.block-whatever {
display:none;
}
</style>

You get the idea...

I may be mistaken, or not know about some other technique, so please others feel free to correct me if necessary..!

--sam