During the past months, I worked on an offline caching implementation using Google Gears. Last week, Dongsheng created a demo site to help testing its functionality: http://test.moodle.org/offline
Most of its features are mentioned in this discussion forum. There is also documentation available here (pretty straightforward right now, but can become more complex as more features are added). The Modules & Plugins page also has the link to the patch to install offline moodle: http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=2636
It would be great if we could get as much feedback as possible. Offline Moodle has a lot of potential with the release of 2.0, as there are many other modules that can be supported in the future. Performance should also improve when all the static files are cached after the first time the user goes offline, and future work will include the implementation of HTML 5 caching techniques.
I tested the application in Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4; please let me know if you experience any difficulties.
Offline Moodle: Feedback Wanted: Offline implementation using Google Gears
by Alberto JV -
Number of replies: 8
In reply to Alberto JV
Re: Offline Moodle: Feedback Wanted: Offline implementation using Google Gears
by Dan Poltawski -
During the past months, I worked on an offline caching implementation using Google Gears. Last week, Dongsheng created a demo site to help testing its functionality: http://test.moodle.org/offline
Hi Alberto,
Does the test site have a test username/password we can use?
In reply to Dan Poltawski
Re: Offline Moodle: Feedback Wanted: Offline implementation using Google Gears
by Alberto JV -
Sure. It is username: test, password: test
This info is now on the course description.
This info is now on the course description.
In reply to Alberto JV
Re: Offline Moodle: Feedback Wanted: Offline implementation using Google Gears
by Dan Poltawski -
Hi Alberto,
This looks pretty cool. Have you written up the general techniques for using gears somewhere or is there some good resource for finding out how to investigate this?
Unfortunately in my testing the forum page wasn't displaying (see attached screenshot), but the other static pages were doing so and it looks like that could've been a Moodle 2.0 bug. It seems quite exciting so thanks for your work!
Dan
This looks pretty cool. Have you written up the general techniques for using gears somewhere or is there some good resource for finding out how to investigate this?
Unfortunately in my testing the forum page wasn't displaying (see attached screenshot), but the other static pages were doing so and it looks like that could've been a Moodle 2.0 bug. It seems quite exciting so thanks for your work!
Dan
In reply to Dan Poltawski
Re: Offline Moodle: Feedback Wanted: Offline implementation using Google Gears
by Alberto JV -
Thanks for your feedback, Dan! Google Gears has a developer's tutorial that can get anyone started. The API is quite simple, easy to use, and there are lots of examples to work with. A future goal would be to have an integration of GG with a specific API to Moodle's needs.
The forum pages are displaying correctly in my local installation, so I will ask Dongsheng about the test site. It seems to me it's a 2.0 bug that might have been fixed.
The forum pages are displaying correctly in my local installation, so I will ask Dongsheng about the test site. It seems to me it's a 2.0 bug that might have been fixed.
In reply to Alberto JV
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In reply to Deleted user
Re: Offline Moodle: Feedback Wanted: Offline implementation using Google Gears
by Alberto JV -
Hello Chuck,
Thanks for your comments. I'm glad to hear that you find this project interesting and useful. I really have high expectations for the future of this integration. My main motivations were also to provide a good alternative to places without a reliable connection and to speed up the performance when these connections are slow.
The module was intended to work on 2.0 only, and we still need to implement it with the most updated version of this release. If there is enough interest, I will be happy to help backporting it to 1.9.5, but that will come after we fully integrate it and test it with 2.0. It will require some work because many APIs have changed. For the same reason, the module requires constant updating, which I haven't done recently. You probably got the error in the test site because of the stability of 2.0 and the fact that any new features/changes have an effect on the offline module. In this particular case, my guess is that there is a bug related to the manifest file creation and I'm trying to find some free time from school to work on this. By the way, if you are interested in helping, the source code can be downloaded here. The last time I checked it worked with Safari 4.0 and Firefox 3.5.3.
Thanks for your comments. I'm glad to hear that you find this project interesting and useful. I really have high expectations for the future of this integration. My main motivations were also to provide a good alternative to places without a reliable connection and to speed up the performance when these connections are slow.
The module was intended to work on 2.0 only, and we still need to implement it with the most updated version of this release. If there is enough interest, I will be happy to help backporting it to 1.9.5, but that will come after we fully integrate it and test it with 2.0. It will require some work because many APIs have changed. For the same reason, the module requires constant updating, which I haven't done recently. You probably got the error in the test site because of the stability of 2.0 and the fact that any new features/changes have an effect on the offline module. In this particular case, my guess is that there is a bug related to the manifest file creation and I'm trying to find some free time from school to work on this. By the way, if you are interested in helping, the source code can be downloaded here. The last time I checked it worked with Safari 4.0 and Firefox 3.5.3.
In reply to Alberto JV
Re: Offline Moodle: Feedback Wanted: Offline implementation using Google Gears
by Tomasz Muras -
Hello,
I wonder if using Gears still makes sense? Google is trying to move towards the HTML 5, have a look at their blog post. I think that using HTML 5 would be an ideal way of getting Moodle offline.
Best regards,
Tomasz Muras
Enovation Solutions
In reply to Tomasz Muras
Re: Offline Moodle: Feedback Wanted: Offline implementation using Google Gears
by Dan Marsden -
It was a great little project that showed what could be done with Gears(I'm sure the GSOC student learnt a lot too) - but you're right - it's unlikely further work will be done on it due to the cool new features of html 5 - I'm pretty sure work was started on this before that Google announcement too.