Creating palettes for drawings

Creating palettes for drawings

by H Singh -
Number of replies: 4

Is it possible to create palettes for drawings, which have "snap" nodes, and provide them to students (a plugin to this plugin, of sorts)? Let me illustrate:

Palette: electronic circuits

Items available: MOSFET (four terminal), MOSFET (three terminal, body implicitly biased), wire (2 terminal), BJT (three terminal), resistor (two terminal), capacitor (two terminal), inductor (one terminal), op amp (3 terminal), power supply (one terminal), ground (one terminal), etc.

The use experience should be that in a drawing, they should be able to drag and drop these items and connect them using the wire terminal. The terminals should correspond to "snap" point (just like tools like Omnigraffle and others have) to make it easy to connect elements. In addition, a student should be able to add text labels, etc.

How do I create such a palette and use it in PoodLL?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to H Singh

Re: Creating palettes for drawings

by Justin Hunt -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

It would be a great thing. But PoodLL does not do that now, and I don't think it could be made to do so easily. 

There probably is something like that on the net. A quick search turned up this:

http://webducate.net/products/dragster/

You might make activities in that (or something like it) and embed them in Moodle.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Justin Hunt

Re: Creating palettes for drawings

by H Singh -
Thanks for the suggestion.


That won't work because we plan to use Moodle for proctored exams (no internet access) and for some of the exams, the ability of students to draw circuits quickly is vital.

Is it possible to do what I suggested without the snap points (if that is the complication)?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to H Singh

Re: Creating palettes for drawings

by Justin Hunt -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Its more than just the "snap" feature. To drag and drop predefined shapes onto the image would be possible, but would require custom coding. And it would be a like using a knife as a screwdriver. Rather than take the whiteboard in that direction, a separate Drag and Drop widget/plugin would be a better idea I feel.

Do you think the OU drag and drop image or text question type would do the job for you:

https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=qtype_ddimageortext

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Justin Hunt

Re: Creating palettes for drawings

by H Singh -

Thanks for the suggestion. That is a very interesting tool. I am afraid that that pre-supposes certain points on the canvas that need to be filled up. In a circuit drawing application (or a parts drawing application that a mechanical engineer might be interested in), that does not make any sense. The student is expected to start drawing from a blank slate, and it is interconnectivity of the parts, rather than the precise placement geometrically that matters.

What would be the right forum for this? And if one does not exist, what would be the level of coding prowess needed for me to start writing a module (not that I have any time to spare, but still it would be helpful to know)?

Average of ratings: -