Moodle in English: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Barfuss Ruge - Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 10:36 PM

Hi, I'm new to moodle.

I intend to import a lot of hot potatoes exercises (seval hundreds) to our new moodle 2.0.

I hope to give them a new look with new colours etc. Also some of the Danish characters in the strings from the cfg file mess up when the exercise is uploaded to moodle. Do I have to change my cfg-file and generate all the exercises again with the masher outside moodle or can I somehow set the color and language strings on the upload or from inside moodle?

I generally wonder what happens to the configuration data from the hot potatoes cfg file when I upload the hotpot exercise to moodle.

Sorry if this is described somewhere else that I just didn't find yet. If there exists some kind of technical whitepaper on how the module works, can you please direct me to it?

Thanks a lot .

Best regards

Barfuss Ruge
E-learning coordinator
The Language Centre of Greenland

Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Gordon Bateson - Thursday, March 24, 2011, 3:33 AM

Hi,

> I intend to import a lot of hot potatoes exercises ... to our new moodle 2.0.

When you say "import", do you mean you wish to import them to the Moodle question bank and then add them to Moodle Quiz activities? Or do you mean you wish to use them as the source files for Moodle HotPot activities?

> some of the Danish characters in the strings from the cfg file mess up
> when the exercise is uploaded to moodle.

Since it is not possible to add the cfg file as prt of a HotPot activity, I guess you are using the "htm" file to administer the exercise. Is that right? Please could you attach your htm file to your next post to this forum so I can have a look?

> I generally wonder what happens to the configuration data
> from the hot potatoes cfg file when I upload the hotpot exercise to moodle.

The cfg data is not used by the HotPot module. However, the QuizPort module (for Moodle 1.x) can access and use the cfg data, and the TaskChain module (for Moodle 2.x) will be able to when it is fully developed.

Gordon

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Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Barfuss Ruge - Tuesday, April 19, 2011, 10:09 PM

Hi Gordon.

Thanks for your answer and sorry for the late reply. I got the information, that I wanted about configuration data from your answer, thanks.

I upload the file as an activity at the course front page. I use the .jqz. If I upload the html I dont have the special character problem, but I would prefer to upload the jqz.

This is the .jqz file with the Danish characters ø and å in the Show all Questions -string.

Best regards Barfuss

Hvilken_tid_mc.jqz

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Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Barfuss Ruge - Tuesday, April 19, 2011, 11:22 PM

I forgot to tell that I changed 'å' to 'å' in the configuration data. (Using configuration screen in the Jquiz interface. I believe that the configuration data is stored directly in the .jqz file.)

It produces exactly the same result as 'å', showing 'å' when I generate .html from the .jqz, and the '\u00E5' in moodle.

Also I realize that the characters are ONLY shown wrongly on the first load of the moodle page. After pushing the "show all questions" button for the first time, the strings are shown correctly as 'Vis alle spørgsmål' and 'Vis et spørgsmål et ad gangen'.

Best regards

Barfuss

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Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Gordon Bateson - Friday, April 22, 2011, 11:30 AM

Thanks very much for the jqz file which displays the issue you describe. I confirmed that the characters in the button are not displayed correctly in HotPot for Moodle 2.0, and I was able to fix the relevant HotPot scripts so that the button is now displayed as expected.

This means that from now on you should be able to run your HotPots from the jqz files

You can download the new HotPot in due course fromt he Moodle downloads page, or if you are in a hurry, you may be able to get it from my development server on the link below:

http://bateson.kanazawa-gu.ac.jp/moodle/zip/moodle-20.hotpot-module.zip

Many thanks for reporting this issue, with clear description, a screenshot and a file to test on

best regards
Gordon

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Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Victor M. Gross - Friday, July 1, 2011, 5:08 AM

Hi Gordon,

How do I install the module hotpot in moodle 2.0?

thank you

Victor

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Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Gordon Bateson - Friday, July 1, 2011, 7:09 AM

Hi Victor,
to install the HotPot module, you unzip it in the "mod" folder of your Moodle site, and then login to Moodle as an admin

Moodle Docs: Installing a module

Gordon

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Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Barfuss Ruge - Friday, July 1, 2011, 6:55 PM

Hi again

I have theese 250 Hotpots to be put into moodle. They are to get a different look with new colours. The changes involve the hp6.cs_. It's more than the colour changes that you can do in english.cfg.

To change the colours I would normally have to regenerate all the exerzises to get the right information stored in the hotpot xml. But if I could change the colours later on by changing one css i moodle, that would be a lot easier.

I think I read somewhere that the look of the exercises in TaskChain will controlable from a central config file or via css. (But I can't find it again, and I want to be sure before I import 250 HP's with wrong colours!)

If I can use moodles css, can you tell me the name of the css file?

I'm sorry to disturb all the time ...

Best regards

Barfuss

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Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Gordon Bateson - Saturday, July 2, 2011, 8:39 AM

Hi Barfuss,
there are several ways to do this. You shouldn't need to regenerate anything. You just need to find the central place where the new styles can be added.

If we are talking about QuizPort for Moodle 1.x, then I suggest you create a Hot Potatoes configuration file containing the new styles, and then make all your Hot Potatoes quizzes use that when they are delivered via QuizPort.

TaskChain, for Moodle 2.x, will also use configuration files, so the QuizPort solution will work for TaskChain too.

HotPot for Moodle 2.x doesn't have configuration files, so you can put your styles either in the Moodle theme, or in the following file on your Moodle 2.x scripts folder:

mod/hotpot/attempt/hp/6/templates/hp6.cs_

You will also need to empty the HotPot (for Moodle 2.x) cache

Settings -> Site administration -> Plugins -> Activity modules -> HotPot -> Clear HotPot cache

If you need more help, please remind us - forgive my aging memory - of the following:

what version of Moodle you are using
which module we are talking about
what styles you want to change (if you have a lot of styles, please put them in a separate file and attach that to your next post to this thread)

cheers
Gordon

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Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Barfuss Ruge - Monday, July 4, 2011, 4:26 PM

Thanks for your answer. What a relief that I don't have to regenerate all of them!

I'll remember to write the version etc. in the future, but I think the worst nuts are cracked by now, thanks to the help from you and the other helpful people in this forum .

Best Regards

Barfuss

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Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Barfuss Ruge - Friday, November 2, 2012, 2:12 AM

One and a half years later I finally found time to do the customization of the hotpot css. It worked right away at first attempt when the css code was replaced in the hp6.cs_

. Nice! Now the exercises match the skin. Thanks fo the guidance!

Barfuss

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Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Alan Giverin - Wednesday, September 2, 2015, 10:58 PM

Hi Barfuss,

3 years later...I have the same problem you had with your hotpot files. Is there any chance you could let me know how you changed the colours in the .cs file

Thanks

Alan

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Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Gordon Bateson - Thursday, September 3, 2015, 10:54 PM

Alan,

the css file is here on your Moodle site:

mod/hotpot/attempt/hp/6/templates/hp6.cs_

Be aware that any changes you make to the above file will be overwritten, the next time the HotPot module is updated on your Moodle site.

Therefore, I would suggest adding the styles via the "Within HEAD" setting on the following page:

Site administration -> Appearance -> Additional HTML

regards
Gordon

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Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Alan Giverin - Friday, September 4, 2015, 5:59 PM

Thanks for the reply Gordon.

We're moving on to the 'Clean' design for our moodle. Unfortunately we've designed all our hot pots over the years to go with the 'Anomaly' design so I only want to change the colours of my hot pots. I don't really know how I would do that using the 'Additional HTML' option.

Is there specific code I can use just to change the navigation bar colour and page background colour of the hot pots only?

Thanks

Alan

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Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Gordon Bateson - Friday, September 4, 2015, 6:49 PM

Alan,
I can't tell you the specifics of what CSS to enter, but if you can find a local programmer it should not be too tricky for them to use a CSS investigation tool such as Chrome's "Inspect element" or the Firefox "Firebug" plugin, to find out which CSS style is affecting the background color and to create a more specific CSS selector to override it. Show your programmer this message if you like. It may help to speed up the investigation.

Another thing you should check is the "Body styles" setting on the following page:

Administration -> Site administration -> Plugins -> Activity modules -> HotPot

If you select "Background color and image", then your HotPot colors will have precedence over the default colors in the theme that your Moodle site is using (see attached screenshot)

HTH,
Gordon

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Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Ang: Re: Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)

by Alan Giverin - Friday, September 4, 2015, 10:22 PM

Great advice.

Thanks Gordon

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Hotpot (plugin)

Hot potatoes configuration file (english.cfg)