Hotpot uploads

Hotpot uploads

by Alex Varsakopoulos -
Number of replies: 3

I have some questions about the following passage pasted from the hotpot forum.

Media players in Hot Potatoes quizzes Some media players will not accept the media file if it comes via the script which guards the course files. In this situation, it is necessary to replace the media player with one that is known to be compatible with Moodle. You can do this yourself by modifying the reference to the media player in the quiz, or you can force Moodle to do it by setting the "Force media plugins" option on the quiz's settings page to "Yes".

1. This the only help I can find in moodle.org about uploading a hotpot with media files. I can't understand it. Where is the quiz settings,it talks about to change the 'Force media plugins'?

2. My hotpot is about 50megs. I haven't been able to upload it. Does it have to be only 2megs?

3. Can I Ftp a hotpot upload, or is it the only way to upload it through the course?

Thank you!

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In reply to Alex Varsakopoulos

Re: Hotpot uploads

by Stan Bogdanov -

Hi Alex,

First we need to know what version of Moodle you're working with - 2.0 or 1.9, or lower.

Are you uploading as a Teacher or do you have System Admin access?

Teacher accounts cannot FTP stuff, only admins can. So teachers can only upload via the course. As Admin, you should know where, which folder to upload the files to. (i.e. which course; this is a number usually, and this is sometimes hard to find out)

Force media plugins is at course level in the Teacher's role when you Add an activity>>Hot Potatoes Quiz.

File upload varies from installation to installation. For instance, my Uni.'s got a 80MB restriction; seems your Moodle has like 2MB.

Hotpot file about 50Mb - You're probably talking about the embedded media (audio, video, imagery) files together with the hotpot file. I've never seen a hotpot source or output file alone bigger than 100Kb, as it is plain xml or htm.

I'd suggest four options:

1. zip or rar your media files by splitting the archive into several 1.5MB archives and then upload them one by one and unzip them once uploaded via the course.

2. convert your media file to reduce the file size - usually losing a bit of a quality of sound (mono vs. stereo is OK, 128bitrate to lower bitrate is OK too) or video quality of image (30 frames per second to lower)

3. get Admin access (or get the Admin to) find out the course folder (usually a number) and FTP the stuff.

4. get the Admin to increase the file size upload restriction site-wide (as I said my Uni allows 80MB)

Then, into your course, Add an activity>>HotPotatoes Quiz, under Display there's the Force media plugin>> set this to 'Yes'

I can't be more of help without more info.

Cheers

Stan

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In reply to Alex Varsakopoulos

Re: Hotpot uploads

by Alex Varsakopoulos -

Hi Stan and thank you!!

First we need to know what version of Moodle you're working with - 2.0 or 1.9, or lower. I'm using both 1.9.10 and 2.0.1 and I am the adminitrator/teacher.

Are you uploading as a Teacher or do you have System Admin access? I think as a teacher because I'm trying to do it from within the course. I also tried to FTP but I don't seem to find the folder that I have to install the hotpot files.

Teacher accounts cannot FTP stuff, only admins can. So teachers can only upload via the course. As Admin, you should know where, which folder to upload the files to. (i.e. which course; this is a number usually, and this is sometimes hard to find out) That is my problem I think.

Force media plugins is at course level in the Teacher's role when you Add an activity>>Hot Potatoes Quiz. Got it.

File upload varies from installation to installation. For instance, my Uni.'s got a 80MB restriction; seems your Moodle has like 2MB. I'm not aware of any limits imposed by my webhost.

Hotpot file about 50Mb - You're probably talking about the embedded media (audio, video, imagery) files together with the hotpot file. I've never seen a hotpot source or output file alone bigger than 100Kb, as it is plain xml or htm. You are right, I'm including the embedded media files. My hotpot Jquiz file alone is about 350k.

I'd suggest four options:

1. zip or rar your media files by splitting the archive into several 1.5MB archives and then upload them one by one and unzip them once uploaded via the course.  This seems to be the way to about it once I find out which folder to upload them to.

2. convert your media file to reduce the file size - usually losing a bit of a quality of sound (mono vs. stereo is OK, 128bitrate to lower bitrate is OK too) or video quality of image (30 frames per second to lower).  We'll do.

3. get Admin access (or get the Admin to) find out the course folder (usually a number) and FTP the stuff.  Any hints about the location and the size of the number?

4. get the Admin to increase the file size upload restriction site-wide (as I said my Uni allows 80MB). I will consult with my webhost if there is a cap in the size of the uploaded files.

Then, into your course, Add an activity>>HotPotatoes Quiz, under Display there's the Force media plugin>> set this to 'Yes'. Great!

I can't be more of help without more info. You've been more helpful than you think.  Thank you!

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In reply to Alex Varsakopoulos

Re: Hotpot uploads

by Stan Bogdanov -

Hi Alex,

in Moodle 1.9:

1: You can check and change your upload size limit from: Administration>> Courses>> Course default settings>>Maximum upload size

If you can get it big enough, and if you reduce the size of the media and split the archives, you can upload it from within the course without messing around with ftp. This way the uploaded files will live in the course folder; other courses will not be able to use them since their course folders are different. This will save you trouble in the future, I believe. And you do it site-wide. The disadvantage still stays with files larger than what you can set as default Max upload size.

OR

2: FYI, a course folder is usually in moodledata/#/ where # is the number of the course. You can find the number of the course from the url of a course, e.g. http://yoursite.com/moodle/course/view.php?id=7, so 7 is the number of the course. If you log through an ftp client into your moodle directories, search for /moodledata/7/. Inside are the course files. FTP the media in there.

Then, login as usual with your Teacher account and Add an activity>>HotPotatoes Quiz, under Display there's the Force media plugin>> 'Yes'. That should set you going. The good things are that you won't have to split archives, reduce media quality, etc.

Hope that helps.

I can't say what it is with Moodle 2 as my host hasn't yet upgraded the PHP version and Moodle doesn't continue the install. Hopefully, I'll be running both versions alongside soon in view of preparation for migration.

Cheers

Stan

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