Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Penny Pearson -
Number of replies: 9

I have two issues I need help with:

When I "back up" a course, shouldn't the glossaries (and all the entries) go with it?  I typically unselect "include enrolled users" in the initial set up in the back up process, but leave "Include activities" checked. Under Schema settings, the glossaries are checked; I continue with the back up and I assume my Glossaries (with NanoGong recordings of the words and definitions) go with it.

Once the file is backed up, I want to restore it and when I check the settings, I have green ticks on 'Include activities,' 'include filters,' and include blocks. As I scroll down the page, there are red "X's" next to Glossary for Userinfo - there is no way to change this. Does this mean I do NOT have the glossary entries because they were entered by a user? (In this case the teacher, there are no student entered glossary entries.)

I notice that when I do a back and INCLUDE users, I do have the opportunity to select user data or not for each activity/resource within a topic area, so I can UNSELECT users on all activities except the glossary. Is this the only way I can backup glossary entries so they are available in future course restorations?

Thanks for any help!

Lastly; I did an "export" of each individual glossary and then "imported" them into the target course. That process worked fine (exported and imported an .xml file) However, the NanoGong Recordings of each word did NOT work. I received a message "Failed to establish connection to the server." I cannot figure out what is going on. I did look at the source code through my browser and noticed that the URL entries for the .spx files were different. That makes sense to me in that the audio files should be in a different directory, but it doesn't tell me why the .spx file will not play. (Note: I do not know code, HTML, PhP or any other, so I'm in the dark on that front.) I've included two images below of the source code.

More thanks for any help or suggestions!

Attachment Source_MasterCourse.png
Attachment Source_Target_course.png
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In reply to Penny Pearson

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Penny,

Firstly IMHO, that's the best description of the issue I've seen yet smile

There's an issue open in the bug tracker here: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-28526 Could you please vote for it and add a comment with a link to this description? I think it'd really help push this issue forward smile

Thanks for your contribution!

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In reply to Penny Pearson

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

@Penny,

Thanks for reporting a well-known bug. Do vote for MDL-28526. This bug has gone on for too long.

Joseph

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In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Penny Pearson -

Thanks Joseph & Matt - I voted, and I wish I could vote a hundred times more. I have close to a hundred teachers who develop glossaries -- many with media such as images AND audio (via NanoGong) They create glossaries for language learners complete with words, pronunciation (audio), definitions, and sample use (with the pronunciation audio) as well as an image depicting the word taking HOURS of time. To have their efforts to share their hard work thwarted so thoroughly by this bit of code is just indescribably frustrating. This bug does not allow them to share in this hard work; which to me flies in the face of all things "Moodle" - courses are meant to be shared (and all the content within them). And I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I thank you for acknowledging my problem and letting me know I can add my voice to potentially getting it fixed. (Can I send all my teachers to vote too?? approve )

All the best and thanks again,

Penny

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In reply to Penny Pearson

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Paula Clough -

Penny,

One other way to restore the course is to backup with all user data, do the restore and then after the course is completely resorted, go to the reset link in the course administration and select deleting all the student data, forums, etc. except the glossaries.  Then complete the reset.  That's what we do when the teacher's want to keep the data in a glossary for the next course. 

 

Sorry haven't used Nano gong

Paula cool

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In reply to Paula Clough

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Penny Pearson -

Hi Paula,

Thanks for those tips! I will try this, but I fear that the "bug" will still prevent the linking to the media files (audio from NanoGong and images as well) still, it's worth a try!

On another note, I see in the exported Glossary (as an XML file) there is a line in the code that references the sound file (.spx) that needs tweaking - (see above) I just don't know what to replace "@@PLUGINFILE@@" with! If NanoGong or Moodle experts could determine where the original files are stored/housed etc., it would seem that we could 'redirect' the code to pull the files from the right table... <sigh> I really wish I had taken more coding classes!!

Thanks again Paula, I'll post again if I gained any positive results from your suggestion!

Penny

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In reply to Penny Pearson

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Penny,

Yes, get all your teachers to vote on it too! They want it to work too, don't they?

Here's how it used to work in Moodle 1.9: http://blog.matbury.com/2012/10/10/free-talking-picture-dictionary-for-moodle/

I couldn't find a workable solution to create the same thing in Moodle 2.x. Basically, you have to re-create the whole thing from scratch each time. Imagine if it was an 8,000 word dictionary... that isn't workable. There are other ways of creating dictionaries but then you lose the auto-linking and commenting features in the Glossary module that make it so desirable to use in the first place.

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Penny Pearson -

Hi Matt,

I'm planning on announcing to my teachers where they can vote to get more attention to this bug. I just hope it will help. Honestly, we've had several issues and struggles with NanoGong but once teachers experience the value of using audio within their courses, we are hard-pressed to remove it! smile

I am sure there is some super-smart Moodler programmer-debugger person out there that could figure out a workaround. The .spx files are there, someplace, on the Moodle servers. It seems it would just be a matter of understanding how NanGong stores files (and where in relation to the course) and modifying the XML file of an exported Glossary to reflect the proper path.... But I know I am preaching to the choir here!

Thanks for posting Matt! I appreciate the support!

Penny

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In reply to Penny Pearson

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Penny,

That's great. I'd love to see this issue resolved. Thanks!

The .spx files will be stored in Moodle's file management system. You should be able to access them via inserting some media in a page somewhere which will bring up the file manager. Then you can browse the files on it.

I develop multimedia learning applications that can use 100s of files at a time (See: http://blog.matbury.com/call-software/). Obviously, doing this via Moodle's file manager would be more work than it's worth so I've opted to bypass it altogether with the SWF Activity Module: https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_swf Files are stored in the Moodle File System repository making it much easier to upload and manage media files in bulk (via FTP). The uploaded files are still accessible through Moodle's file manager is the File System repository is enabled.

BTW, if you ever have any issues with Java (NanoGong requires users to have JRE installed on their computers and Java has had a lot of security issues over the past year or so and some system administrators are blocking/uninstalling  Java from their systems) there's an alternative suite of plugins that use Flash instead:

They work just a well as NanoGong, although they don't have dedicated activity module, and they encode the audio to MP3 which is more widely supported.

I hope this helps! smile

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Restoring Glossaries/Import-Export Glossaries & NanoGong

by Penny Pearson -

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the info on the other audio recorder. My administrator is loathe to add more modules/plugins as it always seems to cause major issues with the Moodle upgrades. smile We often DO have users that have issues with Java (especially at school sites) so your information is timely. I'll pass it along and see what she thinks.

I had not used the 'insert media' option, I'll see if I can find those .spx files that way!

Believe me, if I come up with a workaround, I'll post it! {and I really, really want one!}

Penny

 

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