I 've just performed the necessary updates on the DMS in the /contrib/ directory of CVS to make it compatible with Moodle 1.5 and later. However, the credits for all the hard work go to Ali Banani who devoted the time to find out what was going wrong and post a patch to fix it.
In the unlikely event that you have an existing DMS installation, overwriting your DMS source files (in $CFG->dirroot/dms/) and visiting setup.php as mentioned in the instructions will give you 4 errors during the short upgrade process. Please ignore them, these are due to faulty coding on my part which has now been fixed. Your update will be done correctly, the errors will not matter.
You can get the latest version of DMS here, as always.
Thanks, Jon. It's working perfectly, but.......... I'm missing the group-function in it. So when I make groups in moodle, I presume they don't see each other. But opening a file in DMS, making it readable and/or writable, it becomes open for all moodle-users. Is it possible to implement the group-function from DMS in it again. So students can work "invisible" in a group, and have their own files?
DMS didn't ever have group permissions. The option is there, but it doesn't do anything right now because DMS doesn't know about groups (at the time of development groups had just been introduced, I think).
So... such functionality needs to be developed. However, at the moment personally I don't have a clear enough idea of where Moodle's DMS plans are going to justify working on this. If anyone else wants to do it, or if we have a definite idea of what we 'd want to see in Moodle, it would be different.
So... such functionality needs to be developed. However, at the moment personally I don't have a clear enough idea of where Moodle's DMS plans are going to justify working on this. If anyone else wants to do it, or if we have a definite idea of what we 'd want to see in Moodle, it would be different.
Hi Jon,
I think your DMS module is a step in the right direction. The file sharing question has been around for quite some time now and even if something totally different is beeing implemented into moodle, it is still going to take some time to reach beta status. And previous postings show that some sort of file sharing method is needed right now.
I like the concept of your dms and I would like to contribute.
One of the functions I would like to see is the revision control. I saw that basic versioning of the documents is already implemented, so thats where I would like to start working on.
...ali
I think your DMS module is a step in the right direction. The file sharing question has been around for quite some time now and even if something totally different is beeing implemented into moodle, it is still going to take some time to reach beta status. And previous postings show that some sort of file sharing method is needed right now.
I like the concept of your dms and I would like to contribute.
One of the functions I would like to see is the revision control. I saw that basic versioning of the documents is already implemented, so thats where I would like to start working on.
...ali
Thanks for this work John, I gather from your comments that a different DMS may be planned for Moodle?
This looks good for the moment and will help us out of some document sharing issues we have with students now.
Just to note that the uninstall instructions are not quite right - the tables are not called mdl_dms..... just dms.... and I had to delete and recreate the dms directory itself to get setup to run again for a fresh install (I wanted to move the dmsfiles directory inside the moodledata directory - two reasons it is on its own 300GB HDD and also they would then be included in my normal backup procedures that backup the moodledata directory independent of Moodle). JUst changing the entry in the config file after installing did not change the location of dmsfiles.
As to what should be there - a more granular security would be good so that I could select specific users that had access to my files and as someone else said groups access.
I appreciate that you won't actually be doing that at the moment but add the comments as ideas as to where the whole system should go.
Cheers and thanks again
This looks good for the moment and will help us out of some document sharing issues we have with students now.
Just to note that the uninstall instructions are not quite right - the tables are not called mdl_dms..... just dms.... and I had to delete and recreate the dms directory itself to get setup to run again for a fresh install (I wanted to move the dmsfiles directory inside the moodledata directory - two reasons it is on its own 300GB HDD and also they would then be included in my normal backup procedures that backup the moodledata directory independent of Moodle). JUst changing the entry in the config file after installing did not change the location of dmsfiles.
As to what should be there - a more granular security would be good so that I could select specific users that had access to my files and as someone else said groups access.
I appreciate that you won't actually be doing that at the moment but add the comments as ideas as to where the whole system should go.
Cheers and thanks again
It does not attach to anything by itself in order to keep interactions with other code as few as possible. You will need to add links for the DMS somewhere (the easiest place would be an HTML block). Right now it only supports personal user files, and you can use links of this form:
http://your.moodle.site/dms/index.php?from=course&id=XXX&target=personal
replacing XXX with the id of the course from which the user accesses the DMS. A link to this course will appear in the navigation bar of the DMS so that the users can return to it.
The id of a course is the number you see on your browser's navigation bar when viewing that course's main page. For example, on this site, Using Moodle's id is 5.
http://your.moodle.site/dms/index.php?from=course&id=XXX&target=personal
replacing XXX with the id of the course from which the user accesses the DMS. A link to this course will appear in the navigation bar of the DMS so that the users can return to it.
The id of a course is the number you see on your browser's navigation bar when viewing that course's main page. For example, on this site, Using Moodle's id is 5.
Thanks, for that special Link, this is what I am looking for.
Otherwise many students would not find there files
Is it possible to show the normal footer of the page (because of easier navigation)?
I added this (<?php print_footer('home');?>" to the foolder.php, but the variable "<?php echo $homelink ?>" does not work within the dms. It only shows the link to moodle.org and not to my page.
Any ideas ?
Ralf
Otherwise many students would not find there files
Is it possible to show the normal footer of the page (because of easier navigation)?
I added this (<?php print_footer('home');?>" to the foolder.php, but the variable "<?php echo $homelink ?>" does not work within the dms. It only shows the link to moodle.org and not to my page.
Any ideas ?
Ralf
回复John Papaioannou
Re: DMS now works out-of-the-box with all Moodle versions
Hey everyone,
I am guessing this is my last chance to find an answer to my....lets say query.
I wanna use dms, its a great module but I have found a problem, I cannot edit the name, the comments and the keywords of a file after I upload it.
The only way to do that is by deleting it and uploading it again so I can re-write what I want.
Shouldn't there be a edit button there? I mean shouldn't a user be able to edit the comments, the name and the keywords at any time without deleting and uploading tha same file over and over again?
Best regards Panayiotis
Hey Panayiotis,
I don't know about the problem you're having, but if you want you could try the new repository-API-based "File keeper" block. The code is in cvs under contrib/portfolio/contrib/repository/, and I just added keyword and searching support so it might meet your needs. (File renaming works fine, but comments aren't supported yet.)
The nightly zip file won't have the updated code for a few hours, but in the meantime you can grab it from CVS or just play with it on my demo site if you want: http://moodle.yi.org:1080/mdev8/. (Create an account and try to break the "File keeper" block. Please let me know if it breaks.
)
I don't know about the problem you're having, but if you want you could try the new repository-API-based "File keeper" block. The code is in cvs under contrib/portfolio/contrib/repository/, and I just added keyword and searching support so it might meet your needs. (File renaming works fine, but comments aren't supported yet.)
The nightly zip file won't have the updated code for a few hours, but in the meantime you can grab it from CVS or just play with it on my demo site if you want: http://moodle.yi.org:1080/mdev8/. (Create an account and try to break the "File keeper" block. Please let me know if it breaks.
)Hell Matt,
Your work is great and it works fine but its not someting that we can use and I'll explain what I mean by that.
With the DMS module we are planning to, in a way, solve the lack of document management that moodle does not have. We will create several id's and each id will represent a department of the company and each folder for those id's will be a shared to all folder, that is because we are using moodle for the educational department of an insurance company, so in that way every user that will click to get into dms will have fast access to several documents that will be usefull to its everyday needs on the job.
Plus it provides us with a great tree menu so that the search would be quicker for which ever department's documents the user would like to see.
Your block and the MyFiles block is more for personal use, is a great way for a user to store notes and stuff like that. If I can do all the things I described above with your block please show me the way cause I did see your link and it seems to me it is for personal rather then a general use.
My question still remains unanswered 
Does anyone know of a way to edit the comments, the name and the key words of a file in DMS? Is this feature not available yet? Will it be implemented in the future?
Thank you all,
Panayiotis
Yes! My block can do that.
Install it, log in as admin, create a folder, and then "Change owner" of the folder to the group you have in mind.
All access controls (sharing and publishing) are also specifiable by user, group, and course.
Oh - it might just be better to create a folder as admin, keep ownership of it, and just give the group 'shared' access to it. That way it will show up in their lists automatically when they click on "Shared to me" in their "File keeper" block.
I think this covers everything you mentioned except the tree view -- which is something I have in mind but haven't implemented yet.
Also, I think it would be useful to be able to search under only a particular subtree, rather than under the entire repository. But I just implemented the whole search thing yesterday, so I don't have that done, yet, either.
Install it, log in as admin, create a folder, and then "Change owner" of the folder to the group you have in mind.
All access controls (sharing and publishing) are also specifiable by user, group, and course.
Oh - it might just be better to create a folder as admin, keep ownership of it, and just give the group 'shared' access to it. That way it will show up in their lists automatically when they click on "Shared to me" in their "File keeper" block.
I think this covers everything you mentioned except the tree view -- which is something I have in mind but haven't implemented yet.
Also, I think it would be useful to be able to search under only a particular subtree, rather than under the entire repository. But I just implemented the whole search thing yesterday, so I don't have that done, yet, either.
Panayiotis,
I just implemented a couple more things that may be relevant to your needs. I added the ability for the administrator to recursively publish and share folders, and anybody can now publish or share multiple folders/files/URLs simultaneously.
Also, newly-created files/folders/URLs now inherit the ownership and access controls of the parent folder; I think this is how people will want this to work almost all the time.
So it still doesn't provide a tree-view of a folder hierarchy, and it doesn't allow users to search only a particular subtree. But I think all the other needs you've mentioned are met.
You can think of this as a normal UNIX filesystem, in a sense. If you're a regular user, then of course you only have access to change things in your home folder unless you've been granted access to something else. If you're the administrator, you can create a folder outside of anyone's home folder, and then that folder can be published (read only) or shared (read-write) to a set of individual users and/or a set of groups and/or a set of courses.
I just implemented a couple more things that may be relevant to your needs. I added the ability for the administrator to recursively publish and share folders, and anybody can now publish or share multiple folders/files/URLs simultaneously.
Also, newly-created files/folders/URLs now inherit the ownership and access controls of the parent folder; I think this is how people will want this to work almost all the time.
So it still doesn't provide a tree-view of a folder hierarchy, and it doesn't allow users to search only a particular subtree. But I think all the other needs you've mentioned are met.
You can think of this as a normal UNIX filesystem, in a sense. If you're a regular user, then of course you only have access to change things in your home folder unless you've been granted access to something else. If you're the administrator, you can create a folder outside of anyone's home folder, and then that folder can be published (read only) or shared (read-write) to a set of individual users and/or a set of groups and/or a set of courses.
回复John Papaioannou
Re: DMS now works out-of-the-box with all Moodle versions
回复John Papaioannou
Re: DMS now works out-of-the-box with all Moodle versions
Hello everyone,
I have the same installation of DMS on two servers but in one I have a problem with the preview of the document. The frame in which the .pdf document should show up stays blank.
The server's configuration in which DMS isn't working is: Win 2003 server, Apache2, MySql 4.0.25, PHP 4.4.0
Server #2 has this configuration: Linux, Apache 1.3.34, MySql 4.0.25, PHP 4.4.1 and the preview works
Any ideas why is this happening? I was thinking it has something to do with user permissions but couldn't figure it out.
Thank you all in advance,
Panayiotis
We are about to implement moodle as our primary course platform for our MBA program, and we are considering various elibrary options. We would love to have this integrated into moodle. DMS does a lot of the things we need, so kudos to the developers, but it lacks in 2 crucial areas:
Also, I have tested adding a document to DMS and then crosslinking to this document from within a course. When I do this, moodle fails to locate the document (giving error: "HTML::header: unknown type of referer".) If I actually go the DMS and find the document first, then the hyperlink works. So it appears that DMS needs to be "activated" at login before a hyperlink to a specific document will work. Any ideas?
Thanks!
- we cannot edit existing document information after it has been posted
- we cannot post urls as entries into DMS, which we really need for elibrary functionality.
Also, I have tested adding a document to DMS and then crosslinking to this document from within a course. When I do this, moodle fails to locate the document (giving error: "HTML::header: unknown type of referer".) If I actually go the DMS and find the document first, then the hyperlink works. So it appears that DMS needs to be "activated" at login before a hyperlink to a specific document will work. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Hi Daniel
Can't say I've looked at it yet (will have to very soon though!) but I have noticed some comments re the new database module in 1.6 that suggest it may well offer the functionality you require.
I believe it can also be used in 1.5.3+ if you need to implement before 1.6 is officially released, again, something I need to look at.
Regards
H
Can't say I've looked at it yet (will have to very soon though!) but I have noticed some comments re the new database module in 1.6 that suggest it may well offer the functionality you require.
I believe it can also be used in 1.5.3+ if you need to implement before 1.6 is officially released, again, something I need to look at.
Regards
H