Moodle in English: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Wenceslao Fernández - Saturday, February 19, 2011, 9:08 AM

In a course on Moodle 2.0.1 the Mathtran filter blocks the content when there is a simple ecuation

mathtran

When activating the filter I get a blank page, and these messages with debugger on:

Warning: require_once(/var/www/vhosts/xxxxxx.xxxxx.com/httpdocs/lib/snoopy/Snoopy.class.inc) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/vhosts/xxxxxx.xxxx.com/httpdocs/filter/mathtran/filter.php on line 14

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required '/var/www/vhosts/xxxx.xxxx.com/httpdocs/lib/snoopy/Snoopy.class.inc' (include_path='/var/www/vhosts/xxxx.xxxx.com/httpdocs/lib/zend:/var/www/vhosts/xxxx.xxxx.com/httpdocs/lib/pear:.:') in /var/www/vhosts/xxxx.xxxx.com/httpdocs/filter/mathtran/filter.php on line 14

Is mathtran compatible with Moodle 2?

Salu2

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Tim Hunt - Saturday, February 19, 2011, 5:37 PM

It is probably not compatible.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Jean-Michel Védrine - Thursday, June 2, 2011, 4:49 PM

Hello Tim,

I took the liberty to update your Mathran filter to Moodle 2. I also changed it to use curl rather than snoopy as snoopy is no more part of Moodle 2.

It's the first time in my life that I use curl in a program so my code is surely not perfect, but it seems to work.

Instructions to Moodle users wanting to test it : just replace your filter/ matran folder with this one.

mathtran.zip

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Dietmar Wagner - Thursday, June 2, 2011, 5:13 PM

Hi Jean-Michel,

thanks for sharing this. It works like a charm!

I got the old mathtran filter work on 2.0 with Snoopy, but I think, this is the better solution as Snoopy is no more supported.

Dietmar

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Jean-Michel Védrine - Saturday, June 4, 2011, 11:44 PM

Hello,

looking at the Mathtran source code I wonder why we dont use the cache_filters table to cache the result rather than querying mathtran server for each formula just to get the baseline ? This seems like a waste of ressource, banswidth and time (doing an http request must be awfully slower than doing a database request isn't it ?).

I don't know if Tim has time to give his approval to this change because he must be very busy with QE2 (and I certainly don't want to disturb him from this task) but I will wait a few days for any comment and submit a new modified version.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Tim Hunt - Tuesday, June 7, 2011, 3:08 PM

Please remember that the Mathtran filter is something I created one Friday afternoon as a proof-of-concept. I suspect that answers all the "Why ...?" questions.

Since people seem to use this filter, I should probably move the code to git, so it is easier to maintain, and then add Jean-michel's 2.0 version. Thanks for creating that.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Rob Doms - Friday, June 10, 2011, 2:47 PM

Well, your Friday afternoon's work and that of Jean-michel was a life saver for me. On my fresh Moodle 2.0.3 I couldn't Tex or any other filter to work properly. This new version of Mathran does the job. Thank you both.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Jean-Michel Védrine - Friday, June 10, 2011, 4:45 PM

Yes there is 2 things I like about mathtran filter

- baseline feature is great, most other filters only center the formula vertically

- it don't need you to run any executable files on the server

The only constraint is of course that you need either Snoopy (for 1.9 version) or XMLRPC (for 2.0 version) enabled, on some shared servers I suspect this can still be a problem.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Jean-Michel Védrine - Monday, June 13, 2011, 1:05 AM

Sorry, when I wrote this message i was working on another plugin that uses XMLRPC so I made a confusion. Mathtran for Moodle 2.0 don't use XMLRPC at all it uses cURL !!!

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Jean-Michel Védrine - Friday, June 10, 2011, 4:40 PM

Simple math problem :

How many days of Jean-Michel Vedrine's programming work equate one Friday afternoon of Tim Hunt's coding ?

A) Many

B) Many, many

C) Many, many, many

...

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathtran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Jean-Michel Védrine - Saturday, August 13, 2011, 9:16 PM

Here is a new version.

Now the mathtran server is called only once when the TeX formula is displayed for the first time. The baseline offset is stored in the Moodle database (in the cache_filters table) and used for further uses.

There is no need to call the mathtran server again and again to always get the same integer for the same formula.

Of course each client (but not the Moodle server) still call the mathtran server for each formula.

mathtran.zip

Average of ratings: -

Re: Mathtran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)

by Tim Hunt - Sunday, August 14, 2011, 5:03 AM

Nice work.

Average of ratings: -

Mathematics tools

Mathran filter blocks course (Moodle 2)