Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Dave Balch -
Number of replies: 9

Hi,

I'm finally looking at migration from M1.9 to M2, and the new handling of files in M2, which early on sounded like it would do some useful stuff. Unfortunately, I find myself in the "why can't I do it like before?" camp and, at least for the short term, it looks like I'll be using "Legacy course files".

I'm hoping for some pointers on the best approach to migrate my M1.9 courses to the M2 repository approach, and would be very happy if there's an approach that I've not yet found amongst all the bugs, docs, and blog posts I've read so far.

My setup

Short version: HTML mini-sites.

Long version:
The courses are comprised of several units, each with a chunk of content, one or more forums, and maybe some other activites like assignments. A public example with just the content (the activities aren't relevant for this discussion) is available here: http://openmoodle.conted.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=18

The course content is a collection of standalone HTML/CSS/images/etc. uploaded via zip file. Each unit in the course links to the first HTML page for that unit, and all HTML pages have navigation to the others in that unit.

Going forwards

As repositories are the way forwards for Moodle, what sort of repository will allow me to include and use HTML with supporting files?

Cheers,
Dave.

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In reply to Dave Balch

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Hi there. Well first of all -you should be able to migrate your 1.9 course into 2.1 now so do you have an instance of 2.1 to try this in? Secondly - I haven't downloaded your unit to check but when you say miniwebsite do you mean you want it to open as a website, with an index.html page that links to other html pages? You can do this in Moodle - see blog post here and also see docs here Or have I misunderstood you?

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Dave Balch -

Hi Mary, thanks for your reply.

Yes, I've upgraded a copy of our server from 1.9 to 2.1, and it converted the courses to use Legacy course files. I was also able to build a new course from scratch, uploading a zip and linking like in your blog post. (It is, like you say, an html page linking to other pages and files.)

The impression I have is that Legacy course files is The Wrong Way To Do It™, so I'm hoping to learn what the equivalent Right Way via repositories is...

Cheers,
Dave.

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In reply to Dave Balch

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
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Well if you have upgraded from 1.9 then you will have legacy course files in your upgraded courses - but in the new courses you can forget legacy course files altogether. You can use the new file sytem, uploading to individual activities/resources/sections. What specifically were you thinking of using legacy course files for that you feel you should use the new repositories for?

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Dave Balch -

Hmm, the maybe the Legacy course files is a red herring - I've played with it a bit more and can only seem to include them the way I want as URL Resources - which bring their own set of problems. I'll forget about using Legacy.

Is there a repository I can enable where I put my content files (zipped or unzipped), and can when adding via the file picker can just go to the right index.html?

At the moment the workflow I've worked out is:

  1. Add the File resource for Unit 1
    1. Add dialog
    2. Upload zip file
    3. unzip
    4. Set main file
  2. Add the File resource for Unit 2
    1. Add dialog
    2. Select zip file from "Recent files"
    3. unzip
    4. Set main file
  3. Repeat #2 for Units 3-10.

(Repeatedly unzipping the content archive seems inefficient but, if I understand it correctly, the actual files aren't being copied in step 2, only database references are - so I guess that's fine, even though it seems odd.)

This works, but isn't a very smooth workflow, having to repeatedly unzipping the content archive.

What I imagined is:

  1. Add the File resource for Unit 1
    1. Add dialog
    2. Browse to right file in My repository
    3. Set main file
  2. Repeat #1 for Units 2-10.

This would avoid the anoying and inefficient looking steps with the zip file.

Cheers,
Dave.

[edited to fix (hopefully) list numbering]

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In reply to Dave Balch

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Ah - I see. Well; I am not sure there is another way to display a miniwebsite like that. I think in 1.9 you would have had to do it that way as well.  Hmm.. food for thought..thoughtful

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Dave Balch -

In 1.9 I'd unzip once and Add files from the the resulting "big bucket of files" in the course, so no need for multiple unzipping.

Perhaps this clunky multiple-unzip workflow is the result of a clash between the new file paradigm and the way I want to build courses.

I'll keep digging around. Hopefully others might have some ideas on how we can tidy it up...

Thanks for your input!

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In reply to Dave Balch

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Mary Cooch (personal account) -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Testers

Well yes - in 1.9 when there were "course files" you would add say index.html for site 1 to topic 1, index.html for site 2 to topic 2 and so on ... and that was easier. However, now, files are added to topics not the course as a whole - so topic 1 needs all the files for site 1, topic 2 for site 2 and so on. The advantage is that say you wanted to make a new course with only site 1 in topic1, you had to back up and restore ALL the course files, so ALL the other sites in your other topics even though you weren't going to use them. Now in 2.0., you just select topic 1 and the only files that will be imported/restored into your new course will be that site/those files attached to topic 1. So that is much better. But -different!

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Dave Balch -
Now in 2.0., you just select topic 1 and the only files that will be imported/restored into your new course will be that site/those files attached to topic 1. So that is much better. But -different!

I'm sure that's useful for some Moodlers, but as my courses are always used as whole units, rather than broken down into the separate topics, it's no advantage for me mixed

For me, having all the content together as a course makes sense - as the course is my discrete unit, rather than the topic. For any occasion where we want to reuse content from a topic, we copy the content and integrate it into the new course at an earlier stage in the production process, prior to loading into Moodle.

(I don't mean to moan, only point out how/where the changes are removing value for me, rather than adding.)

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In reply to Mary Cooch (personal account)

Re: Best practice for "mini sites" in M2?

by Adam Knight -

Thanks Mary – I was having real problems with this after upgrading to Moodle 2, followed your instructions and the problem is solved! I did have a problem getting the site to display correctly, solved it by changing display preference to “pop-up”.

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