Can you help me?
Ciao and grazie! Paola
Hi Paola,
thank you for your timely question. I am just working on this very point.
I think I should have the buttons working wihtin the next day or so.
Gordon
I have been working to allow the HotPot module to handle Hot Potatoes navigation buttoms a bit more gracefully.
If a HotPot quiz has a button which links to another HotPot quiz and has a "Navigation" setting of "Hot Potatoes quiz buttons", then clicking on the "Next" button in the first quiz will take you to the second quiz.
Here's what happens behind the scenes:
The HotPot module looks through the source code of the quiz and picks out the URLs in the navigation buttons. If the file name used in a button is a Hot Potatoes quiz that has been added to the course as a HotPot activity, then the URL for the button will be adusted so that when the button is clicked the next file is run as a HotPot activity. However, if the file name used in the button is not for a quiz that the HotPot knows about, then the URL will simply be converted to an absolute URL and left.
Things to watch out for:
- when students click on Hot Potatoes navigation buttons, the results of the quiz are not recorded
- if the student answers all questions correctly and clicks the "Check" button, the "Next" button will be ignored
In general, I suggest you do not use the "Hot Potatoes quiz buttons". If you really want to use the buttons, then probably you are trying to add a chain of quizzes, and if that is the case, I think there may be a better way to do it.
The recommended way to add a chain of Hot Potatoes quizzes:
- upload (to Moodle) all the quizzes in the chain
- add just the first quiz in the chain, but make sure the "Add quiz chain" setting is "Yes"
- click "Save changes" and all the quizzes in the chain will be added to the course.
Students will only be able to see (and click on the) first quiz in the chain. When a quiz in the chain in finished, the results are recorded and the next quiz in the chain is displayed.
I have added the "buttons" changes to the Moodle 1.6 CVS and the HotPot v2.1 download on my server.
all the best
Gordon
Hi Gordon!
I've added a chain of Hot Potatoes quizzes after your suggestion. I have the chain tested as I were student... Fantastic, Gordon! In this way the view of the quiz chain appears smarter.
Bravissimo! Congratulations!
Paola
I've added a chain of Hot Potatoes quizzes after your suggestion. I have the chain tested as I were student... Fantastic, Gordon! In this way the view of the quiz chain appears smarter.
Bravissimo! Congratulations!
Paola
Hi Gordon,
unfortunately I wasn't able to create a quiz chain on the "public text area", whereas on my site I had no problem...
The title is not the one I had choosen, and I can't find the second quiz. It looks like the "chain" is not working at all!!! At this point I'm forced to update. During the updating I only have "Update quiz chain" instead of "Add quiz chain". When I clik on "Save change", it finally changes the title, but all the other modifies are not saved.
Should I remove the file?
Thanks for your help,
Paola
unfortunately I wasn't able to create a quiz chain on the "public text area", whereas on my site I had no problem...
The title is not the one I had choosen, and I can't find the second quiz. It looks like the "chain" is not working at all!!! At this point I'm forced to update. During the updating I only have "Update quiz chain" instead of "Add quiz chain". When I clik on "Save change", it finally changes the title, but all the other modifies are not saved.
Should I remove the file?
Thanks for your help,
Paola
Hi Paola,
as probably know, the two quizzes in the "Genere" folder already have "back", "index", "next" buttons defined, but the files that these buttons refer to are not on the Moodle server.
Therefore, I recommend you use the following settings if you want add these quizzes as a chain.
- Add quiz chain: Yes
- File name: Genere
The HotPot module will realize that "Genere" is a folder name (as opposed to a file name), and will add all the HotPot quizzes in the folder as a chain.
Thank you for pointing out the difficulty with the names (and summaries). I have tidied up the way the module sets names for quizzes in a chain. Here is an explanation of the "Name" settings you can use:
- Name: Get from quiz
the HotPot module will open the quiz file and extract the string. If there is no title, then the file path will be used - Name: Use file path
the file path (i.e. the file folder + filename) will be used as the name - Name: Use file name
the file name (without any folder names) will be used as the quiz name. - Name: Specific test
you can enter some text into a text box an this will be used in the names of the quizzes in the chain. If you enter "My quiz chain name" as the text, then first quiz is the chain will be called "My quiz chain name (1)", the next quiz will be called "My quiz chain name (2)" and so on.
From what you say, it seems you wanted to enter your own text for the quiz name, so I recommend you select "Specific text" for the "Name setting.
The "Summary" can be set in a similar way to the "Name". If you choose "Get from quiz", the "Exercise subtitle" will be extracted from the quiz.
By the way, if you wanted the HotPot module to follow the chain by examining the URLs used in the "Next" buttons, then could set the "File name" to the file name of the first quiz in the chain, as follows:
- Add quiz chain: Yes
- File name: Genere/Trova_maschile.htm
In this situation the HotPot module will open the quiz and try to find the "Next" button to get the file name of the next quiz. If there is no "next" button, or if the file for the "next" button does not exist, then the module will stop trying to follow the chain.
If anything is not clear, please don't hesitate to send more feedback
all the best
Gordon
Thank you very much Gordon!
You've been really clear!
Unfortunately, I've only fixed half of the same problem...
It looks like that problem in the quizzes naming is fixed, but still the chain is not created: I still didn't try to make the link with the "Next" button, in order to allow HotPot module to recognize it and proceed with the search, as you wrote,
so I will do it asap.
I'm sure you can give an help!
Thanks again,
Paola
You've been really clear!
Unfortunately, I've only fixed half of the same problem...
It looks like that problem in the quizzes naming is fixed, but still the chain is not created: I still didn't try to make the link with the "Next" button, in order to allow HotPot module to recognize it and proceed with the search, as you wrote,
so I will do it asap.
I'm sure you can give an help!
Thanks again,
Paola
Dear Paola,
if you tell the HotPot module to follow the chain of links in the "Next" buttons of a set of Hot Potatoes quizzes, the module will keep adding quizzes until either it can't find a "Next" button, or it can't find the file which a "Next" button points to.
In the case of the "Genere/Trova_maschile.htm" quiz, the "Next" button points to a file called "prossimapagina.htm" but there is no such file in the "Genere" folder, so the HotPot module stops the chain at that point.
To add a chain which includes "Genere/Trova_maschile.htm" and "Genere/scrivi_femminile1.htmI", I suggest you try one of the following;
Gordon
if you tell the HotPot module to follow the chain of links in the "Next" buttons of a set of Hot Potatoes quizzes, the module will keep adding quizzes until either it can't find a "Next" button, or it can't find the file which a "Next" button points to.
In the case of the "Genere/Trova_maschile.htm" quiz, the "Next" button points to a file called "prossimapagina.htm" but there is no such file in the "Genere" folder, so the HotPot module stops the chain at that point.
To add a chain which includes "Genere/Trova_maschile.htm" and "Genere/scrivi_femminile1.htmI", I suggest you try one of the following;
- on the Moodle "Adding a Hot Potatoes quiz" page, and use the following settings:
- Add quiz chain: Yes
- File name: Genere (i.e. the folder name only)
- Add quiz chain: Yes
- using JMatch on your PC, open up "Trova_maschile.jmt" and modify the next button to point to "scrivi_femminile1.htm", then regenerate the html file (Trova_maschile.htm) and upload it to the Moodle server. Now add a new Hot Potatoes quiz using the following settings
- Add quiz chain: Yes
- File name: Genere/Trova_maschile.htm
- Add quiz chain: Yes
Gordon
Dear Gordon,
I've done all the tryouts and I'm really satisfied by the results.
Thanks again! I think I came up to a solution: if in the original files of HotPot there is no navigation button, it won't be possible to create a chain. Even though in Moodle I choose "Moodle navigation bar". Is that true?
If I choose the "Hot Potatoes quiz buttons" navigation (having put the buttons in the original files), I can go forward from an exercise to the other in the chain, but also back to the previous, which is an advantage!
However, I can't go back to the Home page of the course, but using the navigation buttons in my browser... can you give me any hint?
Thanks for the patience,
Paola
I've done all the tryouts and I'm really satisfied by the results.
Thanks again! I think I came up to a solution: if in the original files of HotPot there is no navigation button, it won't be possible to create a chain. Even though in Moodle I choose "Moodle navigation bar". Is that true?
If I choose the "Hot Potatoes quiz buttons" navigation (having put the buttons in the original files), I can go forward from an exercise to the other in the chain, but also back to the previous, which is an advantage!
However, I can't go back to the Home page of the course, but using the navigation buttons in my browser... can you give me any hint?
Thanks for the patience,
Paola
Hi Paola
> if in the original files of HotPot there is no navigation button,
> it won't be possible to create a chain.
Absolutely correct
> Even though in Moodle I choose "Moodle navigation bar". Is that true?
Strictly speaking, for the HotPot module to make a chain it doesn't matter what navigation setting you choose on the "Add a Hot Potatoes quiz" page of Moodle. The important thing is that you have defined a "Next" button in each quiz in the chain.
> If I choose the "Hot Potatoes quiz buttons" navigation
> I can go forward from an exercise to the other in the chain,
> but also back to the previous, which is an advantage!
That's true, but remember that if a student uses the buttons to navigate through the quizzes, the score for the current quiz is not sent back to Moodle. In other words, the score for the current quiz is lost.
> However, I can't go back to the Home page of the course,
> but using the navigation buttons in my browser... can you give me any hint?
You could set the URL on the "index" button to:
http://www.myserver.com/moodle/course/view.php?id=999
where "www.myserver.com" is the name of you server, and "999" is the Moodle id of your course.
thanks once again for all your testing and feedback. It has been really useful 
all the best
Gordon
Thank you, thank you very much Gordon!
Paola
Paola