Linking from Hot Potatoes to a Book

Linking from Hot Potatoes to a Book

by Glenys Hanson -
Number of replies: 6

Hi there,

In Moodle 1.9.16, I'm redoing Hot Potatoes exercises intended for distant users with whom I have no face-to-face contact, so detailed instructions of how to do each exercise type are necessary. So as not to clutter up each exercise with lengthy explanations, I've put them as tutorials in a Book. Now I want to make a link from each exercise to the relevant tutorial. I know how to do this as an absolute link but not as a relative link. If I use absolute links, and then move the course elsewhere, the links will all be broken. As there are several hundred exercises, this would a pain to have to redo.

Is there any solution?

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Ang: Linking from Hot Potatoes to a Book

by Barfuss Ruge -

Hi Glenys

Isn't it just

../book.htm

or 

/book.htm

if you place the "book" in the same folder as the exercises?

It is one of the relative paths above, but I'm afraid, I don't remeber which.

I assume the book is in html or some other linkable format.

Or you could put the "book" on a webserver and use the "absolute" url: http://www.yoursite.org/whereverthebookis/book.htm.

Maybe I didn't understand you right?

Best Regards

Barfuss 

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In reply to Barfuss Ruge

Re: Ang: Linking from Hot Potatoes to a Book

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Barfuss,

Thanks for trying to help but I see I wasn't clear. I meant the Moodle contributed module Book. This is the one I'm referring to: Instructions for the interactive grammar exercises

There maybe isn't a way to have relative links from one module to another.

Cheers,

Glenys


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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Ang: Linking from Hot Potatoes to a Book

by Gordon Bateson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Glenys,

looking at the "book" module backup and restore scripts, it seems they will detect and transfer absolute URLs from the old site to the new site:

The old URLs should be one of the following:

  • book's first chapter
    e.g. http://www.oldsite.com/moodle/book/view.php?id=99
    where "99" is a course module id of a book activity
  • book's specific chapter
    e.g. http://www.oldsite.com/moodle/book/view.php?id=99&chapterid=88
    where "99" is a course module id of a book activity
    and "88" is an optional chapterid within the book
  • book index page in a course
    e.g. http://www.oldsite.com/moodle/book/index.php?id=99
    where "99" is a course id, i.e. not a course module id smile

If you put these links in the entry page text or exit page text of a QuizPort activity, they should be backed up and restored correctly. (If they are not, please tell me and I will try to fix it)

If you put the links in the Hot Potatoes files themselves, then they will not be adjusted during the restore, because the restore doesn't touch the Hot Potatoes files.

If you want to put the link in the Hot Potatoes files, then I suggest we extend the square bracket notation. At the moment, you can insert links like this:

  • [link http://www.server.com/webpage.html]

We could allow links to other Moodle activities, with courses and activities identified by name:

  • [link coursename="My course name" activitytype="book" activityname="My first book" chapter="2" text="click here to read a book about this activity"]

If the coursename is not givien, we could assume the current course. If the activitytype is not given we can assume that the activity name is unqiue.

This functionality would take a day to two to add to QuizPort. If anyone is interested in the sponsoring the work, please contact me privately on the following email address:

  • gordon at-sign kanazawa hyphen ga dot ac dot jp

all the best
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Ang: Linking from Hot Potatoes to a Book

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Gordon,

As I feared, it's possible but not easy and it has a cost.

I'm also wondering if it's something I should be doing: helping people who haven't read the instructions before they start. I know we all do this, me included, but when I come unstuck, I do know where to look to find a solution - some people don't. Maybe I shouldn't spoon-feed - I do provide detailed instructions at the beginning of the course - and I've just tidied it up to make it even clearer: here. Could I do more on the course page?

Hot Potatoes exercises seem to me to be fairly intuitive. Are there many people around on the Internet these days who need "Drag & Drop", write in the text box or choose the correct answer explained to them step-by-step? Or if they really can't suss it out, don't have a child or friend to help them out? What is "best practice"?

It's not that I'm reluctant to cough up some cash for you, but that I have another request that is far more important to me: see next post.

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: Ang: Linking from Hot Potatoes to a Book

by Gordon Bateson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Glenys,
I've had another idea ... but you would have to move all the help info from a book to a glossary.

QuizPort can send the content of Hot Potatoes exercises through the Glossary filter, so if you have a some text "Help with exercise 25A" in your Hot Potatoess file, and have a glossary set up with an corresponding entry, then the text in the Hot Potatoes file will be converted to a link to the glossary entry.

Glossary has its own problems with backup and restore - namely, you must restore with user data in order to get the entries restored, but at least this solution is available to you with the tools already at your disposal.

regards
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Ang: Linking from Hot Potatoes to a Book

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Gordon,

Thanks for these useful suggestions.

I hadn't realised that QuizPort could send the content of Hot Potatoes through the Glossary filter. So I'll probably choose that solution. Though for presenting tutorials I would think Glossary is not as neat as Book. But I haven't tried it out yet.

I hadn't realised either that if you restore with user data Glossary entries are restored. I've always downloaded and then uploaded to the new course.

Another possibility would be too keep the Book version on the main course page and also put copies of the tutorials in the folder with my Hot Pot exercises and link to them from the exercises. I try to avoid, though, having duplicate copies of tutorials because of updating problems.

Cheers,

Glenys

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