Drag & Drop into text with Android devices

Drag & Drop into text with Android devices

by Mary Cooch -
Number of replies: 5
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Over on the Learn Moodle course there has been discussion about not being able to do a Drag and drop into text question type using Android phones/tablets. I wonder if anyone on here could share experiences so I can see whether there is a problem or whether it is a newbie user error? 

One participant says:Had the same issue on my Android (5.0) phone (Samsung Galaxy S5) running chrome browser.The tags would drag but not place. They would occasionally even highlight the correct answer location when you selected the tag. Eventually with enough random clicking i got it all placed. (a normal pc would have been faster) Occasionally you had to place one tag on top of the other fast enough to get it to stick (though is was probably just coincidence)

Another participant messaged to say: I dont have a regular computer i do everything on my samsung galaxy note 3 (sm 9005) android.

The elements can not be dragged to stay in the required positions. 

Personally, I tried on my Fairphone Kola nut 1.8. I had to use landscape and I had to use a stylus - no chance with fingers. I did eventually manage to get the words into the boxes but it was really fiddly  - a bit like the first participant. I'm not sure whether that is classed as "does not work" or "works but very badly"

If you would like to help by trying, there is a quiz on the School demo - please go to  Quiz: Know your Geography  and log in with username student and password moodle. The drag and drop into text example is Q2, about capital cities. Thanks smile

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Drag & Drop into text with Android devices

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

I have just given it a try on my Motorola Moto G V3 and the drag drop does seem slightly broken. It looks like you can let go to do a drop once you see the yellow halo.  I have tried out the core drag drop question type on various mobile devices in the last year or so and it seemed to work absolutely fine so I am not sure why this would be so wobbly. One of the issues is that you get background scroll so the target moves away from your pointing finger. It is as if you need some way to lock the background before the drag starts.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Drag & Drop into text with Android devices

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Yes Marcus - I forgot to mention that "background scroll" in my post too. I had that, making it very difficult just to drag a word when the whole screen moves instead. 

In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Drag & Drop into text with Android devices

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

I think that is inherent in drag and drop on a small screen and I was wondering recently about how it might be possible to have some kind of "lock" action. I have the intuitive desire to hold one finger on another part of the screen to steady it, but it doesn't work. Is it more of an issue on phone sized screens than tablets?


In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Drag & Drop into text with Android devices

by Joshua Bragg -

There is this issue that's been around for a while MDL-42409.  It hasn't been updated in a while though...

In reply to Joshua Bragg

Re: Drag & Drop into text with Android devices

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

The scrolling thing used to be an issue, and we fixed it https://github.com/moodle/moodle/commit/3f6905b4103647e149de77a7ad4e81a4d59e0e01

So, I suspect that a recent software update on Android phones has broken things again sad

If anyone has time to look at this, that would be great, because I am quite busy, and I don't have an Android phone.