easier setup?

easier setup?

by Giacomo Fabbrocino -
Number of replies: 12

Hallo, I am an almost hobbyst webmaster. I've been able to install and run almost every popular PHP or Perl script with ease. Invison board, newspro, ikonboard, coranto, nukes, and so on.

I find Moodle absolutely great, an I would really like to use it, but i think I cannot, due to the fact it requires too much control on your server. Lots of webmasters like me don't have permission to change their server setup in order to have working upload folders, or to set upo a folder not accessible via web, and so on. Moreover the gd library is not so common among webhosting comanies.

What I am trying to say is that peraphs moodle should be a little more friendly regardinf server control requirements. I can run Invisionboard, why cannot I run Moodle?

The installation is a breeze, tweaking upo to a perfect working is almost impossible, unless you own your server sad

 

cron tasks are also hardly allowed sad

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In reply to Giacomo Fabbrocino

easier setup == less features == cheap web hosting

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
I understand what you're saying, but you're comparing apples to oranges. Moodle is not a generic forum product. All the other products you mentioned don't have the same features. eg
  • secure file storage
  • image-processing (ie gd)
  • automated background processing (ie cron)

For example, cron is necessary to allow forum posts to be emailed out 30 minutes after they were written. If you know another way to implement such a feature I'd love to hear it! smile

Perhaps the problem is not so much Moodle's requirements but the restrictions of your particular ISP...?
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: easier setup == less features

by Giacomo Fabbrocino -

Easy to say that I agree with you, Martin. This is one of the most stunning gnu poroject I've ever met, and I'd like a lot to have it working. But, I ask, image processing is really needed? is that only for forum avatars? and secure file cannot be obtained by just having a protected folder via htacces?

I am no programmer, si if I say rubbish forgive me smile

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In reply to Giacomo Fabbrocino

Re: easier setup == less features

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Sure, the folder can be inside the web space and protected using htaccess, that's up to you, no problems, but it still has to be a writeable folder and uploads have to be enabled (isn't that what you said your ISP didn't allow?).

Without image processing I guarantee you students will be uploading 500k raw images straight out of their digital camera. smile Suddenly everything gets sloooooow. mixed Also, you've noticed that there are dynamically drawn graphs everywhere, right?
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: easier setup == less features

by John Windmueller -

500k?  Oh really Martin, you underestimate the proliferation of technology and the depreciation of common sense.  Think 1mb+ images... in .uncomprossed .tiff format.  And then you ask them about how exactly they thought it would somehow work out, displaying 30 messages on a page, each with an image of 1mb in size... and they just kind of blink, and stare, like you'e asked them some paradoxical zen koan.  

John (and I actually really love my students, really... they just baffle me at moments) 

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: easier setup == less features == cheap web hosting

by John Windmueller -

So, does this "cron" bit explain why it doesn't seem like Moodle is mailing out notices on my "subscribed" forums?  I'm using a unix web host that otherwise seems to behave just swimmingly with Moodle, but no news seems to get mailed out.  I can live with that--just curious smile

By the way, I found Moodle relatively simple to set up--not particularly more involved than say, phpbb and other scripts that need to be configured to play nicely with a mysql database.  And I found it far easier than some scripts like phpNuke, which are closer to Moodle's complexity than simple forum scripts. 

John

 

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In reply to John Windmueller

Re: easier setup == less features == cheap web hosting

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
It would either be cron not working or your mail server not working. Try visiting http://yoursite/moodle/admin/cron.php with a browser ... this is all the cron process does... you should get some printed feedback on what it's doing.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: easier setup == less features == cheap web hosting

by John Windmueller -

Hmm.. well it does look like Cron is busy sending things out.  It lists the occasional smtp error for  a particular recipient, but that just makes me more confident that it's not misbehaving with the other messages.  The smtp server is also working swimmingly with sending out email confirmation when users register. 

Does Moodle handle subscriptions to the course administrator and/or instructors differently than it does students?  Maybe it's just not me who is missing out on the notices/messages?  I'm assuming that it should also send out news and messages that I post on subcribed forums, since I get email "mirrors" of messages I post on this site via email subscription.

John

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: easier setup == less features == cheap web hosting

by Thomas Bray -
Martin wrote:

" For example, cron is necessary to allow forum posts to be emailed out 30 minutes after they were written. If you know another way to implement such a feature I'd love to hear it! "


I'm not a coding expert, nor do I play one on TV! smile

I dont know ANYTHING about PHP.

But.. I can hack my way around cgi. I recently installed a program that sets up auto responders and sends the email through my sendmail. Now, cron would work for this, but the developer hacked a non cron solution. He set up a small GIF that when loads will call a script called broadcast, that kind of acts like a fake cron. I've further enhanced this so that when you sign up on the webform to subscribe to the autoresponder, the refresh url has the gif included that calls the cgi script. That get's everything activated immediately. I've even created a frameset with a very small frame of the actual cgi script that activates the sendmail as one of the frame url's, so that if your browser has used the cache to save the gif and it doesn't re-load, it doesn't matter because it goes right to the program.

Have I explained that clearly? Now, what I'm asking is, is there a PHP way to do the same thing on a forum post? A re-direct page after you post that loads a gif that activates, manually, the mail send?

(And off topic: does anyone know of a reasonably priced webhoster that will permit me to run mailing lists? I need MySQL, CGI bin and sendmail.)

Thom
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In reply to Thomas Bray

Re: easier setup == less features == cheap web hosting

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
It's simple to process and send the mail directly after editing (in fact Moodle used to do this), but unfortunately this doesn't help when you want a period of exactly 30 minutes (say) to elapse between the editing and the sending.

About web hosts, I'm currently considering http://www.phpwebhosting.com/ as the new location for this site. They seem decent and have everything I (and you) need for US$10/month flat.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: easier setup == less features == cheap web hosting

by Paula de Waal -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Translators

hi martin!

Last month i have asked phpwebhosting.com about running moodle on their servers and cron facilities, but they never answered me. Tey allow cron services but, as they say, not every minute.

Do you have further info on that?

Besides, if somebody would like to install moodle just to "study it" or as a demo version, prototyping and so on on a free web server, lycos is not that bad. It is slow, uploading files via php script is not allowed (but you have ftp to upload materials and resources), gd lybrary is not available.

Cron could be a problem but there is a brasilian site that sells cron services, its barasilsites.com and the service is called fastcron. I have used the free service for a month and it worked well. I do not reccomend it as a solution to people who are going to use moodle in a real context, offcourse. I believe that many people like me cannot spend a dime on a project before it is approved and free hosting can be a help when you have to show moodle to other people and organizations.

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In reply to Paula de Waal

cheap web hosting

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Every minute isn't necessary - I'm running this site on ten-minute intervals (at phpwebhosting.com) and it's working very well. My experiences of lycos have all been poor recently.

For demos and practice, why not just install Moodle on your own desktop?
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: cheap web hosting

by Paula de Waal -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Translators

Thank you Martin, I will try to contact phpwebhosting.com again.

I have Moodle installed on my desktop too. But i think it is usefull to test a deployment on shared spaces. Many institutions that have budget problems will not have their own server and will not pay for webhosting if they are not sure the application will fit their goals.

My experiences with Lycos are not better than yours, but i am very happy that Moodle passed the test. If it runs on Lycos, it will run on better shared spaces too.

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