sorry, was only go write up a couple sentences, and ended up brainstorming a few to many paragraphs.
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been looking for a good customer map game editor. something like. warcraft 3 uses. but for management systems.
i also have been looking at enterprise management systems.
tree structures i like a lot.
but it is how the info is placed to the tree. that seems lacking. moodle so far i have seen best so far with handling direct page editing. by clicking (turn on editing) but once you get to that, then things start to fall into. what is currently there to work with. as in everything is pre structured.
recently been going through drupal. tons of addon's *gggrrr* they have something. going on. but how they are handling it is extermly time consumming and confusing. they do have triggers / actions / events / etc... much like a customer map builder editor for a game, but interface and then code itself is just not there by the time you toss in umptine addon's to get it there. plus high
server resources once you get something going.
to me, management systems should be treated like a custom map builder for some game. but being able to create the custom map in real time. then allow the back end do the crunching, to the code to allow for much faster page loads,
IE removing comment lines, white space etc... remove javascript out of the source code the broswer sees, to moving javascript out of the source code to files for better caching over multi pages.
when editing is on, it should be more ajax like doings. were i can have blocks on left/right, to allow me to select,add,change,delete things. while the main center, being my map window. or rather, a tabbed view, of different things.
if say for instance, i want student to press a button, to activate a drop down button. then i should be able to goto left block, click down through a tree of objects to select a "submit button", then click over to the tabs for "triggers" create a new trigger, that checks against on click. then i should be able to choose a if/then else statment. to check against textfields, input types, etc...
i am thinking, why not just use dreamweaver or some other program just to make a full blow website. na.
take a look at warcraft 3 custom map editor. they have tons of predefined units/spells/weapons/etc... or rather for moodle. it would be tons of pre defined question types. uploading of files. instead of map styles or skins for units it would predefined master theme for site, then skins for units would be little templetes for blocks, and subpages.
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when you turn editing off. it would be like playing some custom map or any game, you go around chat,read, and meet certain goals, to advance. but unlike a game were it would be up to some customer map builder to create a custom map, it would be up to the teacher/course creator. to create the custom course. and instead of weapons/spells it would be text,audio,video.
if i click on some unit in a game, i should be able to see some sort of states and info. much like going to some userpage or mypage of site. to find info.
in a game, you have different levels or areas you can go or can not go. much like a website. and be able to advance through the area. for me clicking through any website. is like going through a game. but if i can't not make a new area real time by clicking (turn on editing) and make something completely different and not predefined, i am stuck and have reached limits of what was programed into the game or in this case into moodle.
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open source is awsome because it allows programmer folks to go in and find what they need through searching through the code and learning it to create a new plugin / mod etc...
but there is no interface there for non programming folks.
at moment it is, game company is required to create and add a special custom character to the game, or rather a site admin is required to create a special question type or block and add it to moodle. vs letting the custom map builders or rather teachers creating the custom question type or block or event or map to the site.
a non programmer folk doesn't need to know about which database, what comes from. and how tables are joined together, or why checking for this type of broswer and doing something this way works.
on other hand, they need pre defined almost drag and drop abilty. of pre setup things. and for the more advance, need abilty to customize things and be able to copy/cut/paste/import/export things.
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onto navigation....
in a game you are in some given area were you can walk around. and have paths and places were you can and can not walk.
normally most areas have multi paths leading in and out of the area.
then you also have teloporting abilties or like doings.
for a website. an area would be a course. i should be able to go from one course to another course and have have restrictions (triggers/events/actions/goals) that need to be done and taken. but after i get through a few courses. i should be able to go back to first course and take another branch or path. problem in lies when the path doubles back on itself i already taken previously. and in that thinking of a "tree like structure"
now if you were talking a flow chart like setup. were you can have multi arrows and lines point from different things and back to the same thing. that is a different story. due to Looping could happen.
for bread crumbs and tree structures. when applying like a flow chart like structure. you normally end up, all of a sudden jumping to another branch of a tree when you hit a loop, and as a result, bread crumbs themselves change. to many times, what ever the database first finds. but some times recursive tracking can help maintain bread crumbs and major jumping of branchs within the tree to some extent. but it normally moves you to a completely different area regardless. vs say in a game and just looking around the corner.
there are some branching abilities within moodle already. but it can get rather complicated quickly. phpmyadmin -> goto a database -> *i forget* "producdures" i want say it might be "operations". and you have flow like chart abilty to link/join databases together through a flow like chart abilty.
instances i have seen trying to get around tree like structure. is any given ecommerce website, that has cross sell. or related items. or related catagory section at bottom of the page. were it provides multi bread crumb style links. sadly these all point the way to "run home to mommy" i mean main site page. i rarely ever do i see anything that shows which way i can go. and what i have and have not explored and path i followed to gether.
in a game, you normally have some sort of overview mini map. were it shows explorered and un exporered sections of the map. and in some games you also get a tracking line. of the path that you have walked to get to a certain point. if you just fought a bunch of monsters, you can also normally walk back through and see dead bodies or tresure/item you didn't pickup.
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down to the niddy griddy
if there are bread crumbs. i should be able, to go up if i have "javascript" enabled. to move my mouse over the (right most) bread crumb. and get dynamic drop down menu. that builds a tree style menu. showing paths i did or did not take. and then sub branches. that would allow me to go to that area and goto a specific thing.
if i go up to the header area i should be able to click a "flow chart button" that creates an advance dynamic tree flow chart menu.
each area of the this menu. should be an a new area or page. if i was in middle of a course assignt 10 question 30
then it should show a path of 30 being explored, but a red ? denoted i haven't finished, and then 29 questions straight path to 30. ((question 12 had a extra optional question)) and it has a branch off of question 12)), ((it leads me to quiz)) eventally,
other words the flow chart becomes a game map, or rather an advance tree stucture menu. and each spot i can click on. becomes an object page, and when (turn on editing) is enabled. i can set properties / triggers/events/actions/etc... and when (turn on editing) is disabled. i can see visual clues, just like a game map of showing items not picked up or other people in area. or rather quizes not finished, reading material not read, chatter box, showing green meaning new message is there. etc...
the old (i clicked on this link) and the link differs a different color just doesn't cut it.
