Worth revisiting my old emboodle plugin?

Worth revisiting my old emboodle plugin?

by John Booker -
Number of replies: 7

Hi Moodlers, I wrote a plugin for my graduate studies years ago called "emboodle." It basically took any URL from a popular site like slideshare, youtube, etc, and resolved the link into an embeddable object.

Turns out it was actually useful! It has been so long, I doubt it even works, but I was wondering if it was worth bringing up to date. I see there is a similar plugin from recent years called External Media, but I haven't yet played with it to determine if it's better/different/etc. 

Any thoughts? Has the other plugin made mine obsolete? Is there core moodle functionality that replaces the feature set of both plugins? Is there a better place to ask and do some user research? Thanks!

John

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In reply to John Booker

Re: Worth revisiting my old emboodle plugin?

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi John,

I'd say it's definitely worthwhile. Particularly, something like a filter that converts URLs from various slide show, video, etc. services and embeds them into Moodle pages, e.g. Book, Forum, Glossary, and Page.

There's already one for Youtube.com but it's pretty mediocre and doesn't provide the easy flexibility and control that many users would like. Personally, I copy and paste the iframe code from Youtube and then adjust the dimensions on the attributes or with CSS -- Not an option for non-technical users.

I think you'd end up with some kind of iframe embedding filter. Would be nice if it were integrated with the TinyMCE text editor.

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Worth revisiting my old emboodle plugin?

by John Booker -

Hi Matt, thanks for the reply.

The original emboodle plugin let you add a new type of "embeddable object." Instead of adding a text post, you would add this new object. You gave it a URL, and it would post the embedded item (slideshare, video, etc) to the course. It sounds like what you are describing would be a plugin that takes a link that anyone posts in body text and converts it. 

It seems like a plugin for the editor (as opposed to a stand alone type) would be a lot more useful, especially if it had the right controls (you may not always want your youtube link to be a giant embedded youtube video).

Do you have a link to the youtube plugin that you mentioned? I can spot a couple but want to check out the one you mentioned to see the pains you mention. 

Thanks again!

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In reply to John Booker

Re: Worth revisiting my old emboodle plugin?

by Jez H -

A filter plugin could convert links anywhere they are used but as you say you would not always want to embed content.

An add on to the file picker may work, but be a little complex and require additional clicks.

A plugin for the Text Editor would seem the best option, but guess you know there are two now? Atto the new Moodle HTM5 editor is the default in Moodle 2.7 and TinyMCE which I imagine will remain in widespread use for some time to come.

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In reply to Jez H

Re: Worth revisiting my old emboodle plugin?

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Jez,

Good point about the text editors. Perhaps some thing like bb code that a filter can use? Isn't this how a lot of Wordpress plugins do it?

Re: which filter, I think it's the built in tinymce_moodlemedia and the filter_mediaplugin. Not sure though, I haven't looked at them that closely, just used them, experimented with them, and found they didn't meet my needs. One thing I like about Moodle's text filtering methods is that if you turn the filter off, usable links remain so users can still view the media.

Another thing, it'd be nice to have an option to choose a media player, e.g. JW Player or Strobe Media Playback, to embed audio, video, SMIL XML, Flash animations, playlists, etc. It's kind of what I've trying to achieve, with more integration and interaction between Flash and Moodle, with this activity module here: https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_swf

Maybe asking too much though!

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Worth revisiting my old emboodle plugin?

by Jez H -

Wordpress "shortcodes" allow you to create functions pretty easily to filter content which I think is what you refer to, in the case of WP its in square backects in which you can pass parameters.

The same would be possible in Moodle using filters, that is you could created your own "shortcode" and anything in it would be filtered / replaced, that would allow you to control what was replaced and what was not.

The problem would then be the same as it is in WP, either you have to know how to work with those filters (users have to know how to paste the text to be flltered) or you have to write an extension for the text editor to build / insert the filter for you.

I think that is how most TinyMCE plugins for Moodle work, those that allow you to embed something that is.... a plugin for the text editor and a filter plugin.

Average of ratings: Coolest thing ever! (1)