Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

by Joseph (Len) Kamiensky -
Number of replies: 9

I teach math. We're asked to use Moodle . . .

We have Moodle 2.6...  Back with Moodle 1.9 I discovered that Glossaries would not alphabetize by number -- ie- a001, a002, a003, . . a050, etc. -- something that most (I thought all) computers did.  I needed this to put 2 glossaries in sync.  When I inquired at the time, I was greeted with surprise and was then told that that would be taken care of in version 2.0.

We now have 2.6 something.  Has it been taken care of?  I know I still can't do it but is that because it is not possible or because my admin needs to flip some switch somewhere?  (As was the case with Algebra notation way back.)

If not, then the only way to get 2 glossaries in sync -- today's puzzle over here; yesterday's answer over there -- is to make sure that the entries are inputted in the exact same order -- a very tedious process for a year's worth of daily puzzles.

Len Kamiensky

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joseph (Len) Kamiensky

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

by Floyd Saner -

Len,

The Glossary is ordering alphanumerically for me in Moodle 2.6.  See the list below.  I entered those in random order, and they are displayed in alphanumeric order.  Do you have the ordering set to "Simple Dictionary Style"?  Did you click "All" in the "Browse by alphabet" section?   One final wild guess - are you using the correct utf-8 collation in the database?

Floyd


0

001 a number

09  a number

A

a0.2.1 alphanumeric

a02    alphanumeric

a02.1  alphanumeric

a05    alphanumberic

a6     alphanumeric

B

b0.6   alphanumeric

b2.1   alphanumeric

b3.1   alphanumeric

b5.3   alphanumeric

G

Growler   A container for carry-out beer.

M

Motorcycle A motorized two-wheeled vehicle.

S

Shovel  A digging tool with a broad blade.

Z

Zebra  A striped horse-like animal.

In reply to Floyd Saner

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

by Joseph (Len) Kamiensky -

Floyd,

I assume the problem is with that very last part you mentioned ( are you using the correct utf-8 collation in the database? ) I assume that is admin-speak and has to do with the level above my useage.

I just know that, as it was, I uploaded 365 entries a001 thru a364 and a001s thru a365s into 2 separate  glossaries set up simple dictionary style, to present in alphabetical order.  I did not upload all at one time but in sessions of 30 or so, figuring the numbers would "fall into place".  They never did.  It took a while to figure out that they would only present in order of upload to get a consecutive presentation.  That worked on a small scale, but I wasn't up to uploading 700+ entries that way.

I've come back to the Moodle Forums twice to see if Moodle 2.0 took care of the issue but hadn't gotten an answer  (Most recently was last Summer when I tried the "lounge" area.).  After a month+ of emails each time & no response I figured no dice.  Yours is the first response which makes sense (though not technically to me) -- it just means that my admin has probably been sitting on the answer for who knows how long, although he might not even have known that.  This doesn't surprise me.  Whenever I see something that Moodle can do, I look thru the Moodle 2.0 Manual to see how it goes and invariably come across something like: "...and then a menu with 5 choices, you want #5..." and when I get there the menu doesn't have choice #5.  Our on-site admin professes total ignorance of it (if he gets back to me at all) or says he ask the off-site admin who takes care of the Moodle server for us (I don't know if she even exists!)  Either way, no answer.

Thanks for your reply.  I threw the question out more out of curiosity than pressing need.  With computing one-to-one starting in earnest next week (750 9th-11th year students will all have Surface-Pros across the board in all subjects) I really won't have much time for posting daily math puzzles on Moodle.

Len Kamiensky

In reply to Joseph (Len) Kamiensky

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

by Floyd Saner -

Len,

My guess on database collation was a wild guess.  It has to do with how characters are encoded in the database and ultimately how they get ordered in a list.  After your reply I did some searching and found a tracker issue: MDL-30446" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-30446

The comments in that tracker suggest that the problem has not been seen in later Moodle versions.  However, if your system has been upgraded from earlier versions, it is possible there are still some lingering database issues.  Someone with more database expertise that I have might have better insight.

Floyd

In reply to Joseph (Len) Kamiensky

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

by Robert Brenstein -
It might be a good idea if the forum master moved this thread to the forum dedicated to the glossary module or you post there cross-linking to this thread.
In reply to Robert Brenstein

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Post moved and all posters messaged; thanks Robert smile
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Joseph (Len) Kamiensky

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

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

Hi Joseph (Len),

I see that you already posted the same question in the Blocks forum and in the Glossary forum (at the end of June). I must admit I did not answer your post to the Glossary forum because I did not understand your problem. I should have asked for explanations, sorry.

Now, are in you in fact talking about using one (or more) glossary in the Random glossary entry block? Then you may be concerned by the "Random glossary block entries display in alphabetical order" bug issue which has been fixed in Moodle 2.7. MDLQA-7099.

If that is not your problem, please provide more explanations, but please do not open a new discussion in another forum. Reply in this discussion only.

Joseph

In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

by Joseph (Len) Kamiensky -

At this point, I am a tad confused.

Is there a Block other than "Random Glossary Entry Block?"

I already use it to post a quote (text) for the day (but it's a random pick & only entails one block.)  Also a photo (jpeg) for every time to come to the page -- also random pick.

My original idea was to post a daily puzzle (jpeg) with a daily solution (jpeg) but not in the same place on the Moodle Page.  Simple Dictionary would do it -- just show whatever the entry was -- no commenting on it; no linking it; nothing special.

Once you established the block, you need to "fill it" and then decide whether you want  (1) random; (2) last modified; (3) next entry; or (4) alphabetical.

I named the files a001, a002, etc and a001s, a002s, etc.  I figured to set them up pick daily, alphabetical and they would be in sync as long as solutions started the day after puzzles.  But it didn't work that way under Moodle 1.9.  It took while for me to realize that it was revealing things in the order in which I uploaded them (ie- next entry).  This made no sense to me.

I went to Moodle Forums / Blocks/Glossaries and asked the question which I originally posted here.  After a bit, one of the moderators said that that would be taken care of with Moodle 2.0..

Given the sheer scope of the enterprise it's not something you do until you have a lot of time.  I tried it with a few small batches to see but nothing seemed to change. NOW, maybe it had been taken care of & our on-site admin just was unwares of what to do. So I went one summer and did it the hard way and uploaded in exact order and things worked fine until . . . on-site admin convinced administration to put Moodle on off-site server with off-site admin.  During the transfer, all 730 jpeg files flipped out!  no images.  And Lucy-in-the-Sky (my name for our off-site admin) was never able to recover the images.  Any files with jpegs lost images; texts were okay; PDFs were okay. . . . That was a year and a half ago.

So I asked the question again but this time in Moodle Lounge, figuring it might just strike someone.  Then I went to General Questions. I know we have Moodle 2.6something.  Floyd Saner's response - are you using the correct utf-8 collation in the database? -  lead me to think that it had been taken care of on your end but not activated on our end -  that neither of our Moodle admins have flipped the switch (or know that they need to).

I imagine I've given you much more than you needed or wanted.

Thanks for your patience . . .

Len Kamiensky

In reply to Joseph (Len) Kamiensky

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

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

OK, I've hopefully finally managed to understand what you are wanting to do, in spite of your somewhat confusing explanations.wink

1.- You are indeed using the Random Glossary Entry Block (but you did not mention this important point in your original post). You are ingeniously using 2 instances of that block and 2 associated glossaries in order to display a "puzzle" in one block and the "solutions to that puzzle" in another block. And you need to synchronize those 2 blocks so that it will look to the student that there is a one-day delay between a puzzle and its solution. Very clever indeed, but rather difficult to implement.

2.- Let me state first of all that your problem is not related to a supposed non-alphabetization of numbers. And it not related either to utf-8 encoding, as wrongly suggested earlier in this discussion. And it is not related either to using jpeg images, which you can do, but unnecessarily complicates the explanation of the problem. Finally, the Display format option is irrelevant for what you want to do (Dictionary style, etc.).

3.- In my local moodle 2.6 test site I have managed to implement your activity. I do not know if that is the way you tried to do it, and there may be other possibilities, but what I suggest does work (up to a point, see paragraph #4).

a.- Create a glossary and name it e.g. Maths questions. In that Glossary, enter your "puzzle questions". Use a logical system for naming/numbering the Concepts, and enter the Definitions either as text or as images, anything you like or need.

screenshot #1

b.- Create a second glossary and name it e.g. Maths solutions. In that Glossary, enter your "puzzle solutions". Use a logical system for naming/numbering the Concepts, and in the Definitions enter the original question together with its solution.

screenshot #2

c. Add a Random Glossary Entry Block and name it e.g. "Puzzle of the day".

Take entries from this glossary: Maths questions glossary
Days before a new entry is chosen 0 (for the proof of concept, you will set this to 1 day later).
How a new entry is chosen Alphabetical
Show concept (heading) for each entry Yes (for the proof of concept, you can set it to Hide later).

d. Add a Random Glossary Entry Block and name it e.g. "Puzzle of the day".

Take entries from this glossary: Maths solutions glossary. All other options same as for Random Glossary Entry Block  "Puzzle of the day" above.

Results (logged in as student):

screenshot #3

next visit (or refresh):

next visit (or refresh)

4. Synchronization problem.

The only problem I have found with this method is that of synchronizing the start of the 2 blocks so that the first entry in the "Questions" glossary gets displayed in the "Puzzle of the day" block when the first entry in the "Solutions" glossary gets displayed in the "Solution to yesterday's Puzzle" block. If you create the Puzzle of the day block first, then when you add and edit the "Solution to yesterday's Puzzle" block, each time the current Moodle window is refreshed, the entry in the Puzzle of the day block is incremented (once or sometimes twice). Which means that, by the time you have finished editing the Solution to yesterday's Puzzle block, the 2 blocks are out of sync.sad

The only workaround I have found so far (with my very small Glossaries) is to:

a) calculate how many window refreshments happen when you add & edit the second block (n=4);
b) refresh the display of the first block until the end of the glossary is reached minus n (minus 4) entries;
c) then add the second block.

This does work, but is cumbersome and would be unworkable on your very large glossaries, of course. I will try to find a more convenient solution, but I do believe that is the crux of the problem.

All that being said, a much easier solution would be to put both "today's puzzle" and "yesterday's solution" in the same entry in a unique glossary and to point to that glossary from a unique Random Glossary entry block! Like this:

Joseph

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Why don't Glossaries alphabetize numbers?

by Joseph (Len) Kamiensky -

Joseph,

Thank you for your reply.  It is the easiest solution.  Three points.

(1) I thought of doing things that way (previous solution below current puzzle) but when you come to a KENKEN type puzzle (which has to be jpeg) you then wind up taking up maybe 4 inches vertical screen space.  (Our school admin insists Calendar be 1st or 2nd and our Moodle admin keeps us to ONE side column.)

(2)  Initially, the problem was that a003 did NOT follow a004 unless it had been uploaded into the glossary right after a003.  I had assumed it would. Now, as I understand things, it will.  (( I would upload a batch and when I looked in the glossary, of course they were listed in proper order.  That was never the problem.  Moodle displaying them in proper alphanumerical order was the problem.))

(3) IF you ask the glossary to 'update' or 'change' (whatever the choice word is) every day, THEN I assume it's every 24 hours whenever that witching hour is (EST, GMT or whenever), so if one glossary is started on the 28th and the solutions started on the 29th at that same time that should be it -- until, of course, there's a power failure of some sort.

Thank you, again.  When there's a lull in the chaos, I'll give it another try.

Len Kamiensky