Possible to Enable Synchronous Editing of a Text?

Possible to Enable Synchronous Editing of a Text?

by Tim Timmons -
Number of replies: 16

I don't know what version of Moodle my uni is using. There is no access to MoodleDocs. I backed up a course and cannot extract the mbz file even after changing it to .zip. I'm using Linux so that may be part of the problem. Most of the Moodle my uni uses is in Chinese, so that may be hindering me in accessing which version I'm using.

Anyway, I need to let several students edit a text synchronously during class. I tried Discussion and the Wiki, but that didn't go well. Any suggestions on which feature to use that would enable synchronous editing would be greatly appreciated.

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In reply to Tim Timmons

Re: Possible to Enable Synchronous Editing of a Text?

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
What do you mean by synchronous editing, and what didn't go well when you used Discussion (?) or the Wiki?
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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Possible to Enable Synchronous Editing of a Text?

by Tim Timmons -
By 'synchronous editing,' I mean allowing several students within a class period to be able to edit a text and save changes. With Discussion, they had to save a completely new version of the the text producing several versions of it. I want to keep just one text or, preferably, enable four groups to edit four different texts. With the Wiki, only one student could edit at a time.
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In reply to Tim Timmons

I can not extract mbz files in Linux. Chinese content?

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

To the first question:
> I backed up a course and cannot extract the mbz file even after changing it to .zip. I'm using Linux so that may be part of the problem. Most of the Moodle my uni uses is in Chinese,

What happens when you unzip a renamed mbz file in Linux?
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: I can not extract mbz files in Linux. Chinese content?

by Tim Timmons -
"An error occurred while loading the archive," is what happens. I'm using Archive Manager. But according to Howard Miller, .mbz files are .tgz files. Meanwhile, I sent a message to the uni to see if they can tell me which version of Moodle we are using.
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In reply to Tim Timmons

Re: I can not extract mbz files in Linux. Chinese content?

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
I don't know what the Archive Manager under Linux is, perhaps a certain GUI tool? Here is a "screen-shot" on the Linux shell: 
$ tar -xzvf backup-moodle2-course-127-test-course-20191011-0919-nu.mbz
.ARCHIVE_INDEX
activities/
activities/forum_1/
activities/forum_1/forum.xml
activities/forum_1/grades.xml
activities/forum_1/competencies.xml
activities/forum_1/filters.xml
activities/forum_1/roles.xml
activities/forum_1/grade_history.xml
activities/forum_1/calendar.xml
activities/forum_1/inforef.xml
activities/forum_1/module.xml
activities/assign_2/
activities/assign_2/grades.xml
activities/assign_2/competencies.xml
activities/assign_2/assign.xml
activities/assign_2/filters.xml
activities/assign_2/grading.xml
activities/assign_2/roles.xml
activities/assign_2/grade_history.xml
activities/assign_2/calendar.xml
activities/assign_2/inforef.xml
activities/assign_2/module.xml
...
sections/section_5/
sections/section_5/section.xml
sections/section_5/inforef.xml
sections/section_4/
sections/section_4/section.xml
sections/section_4/inforef.xml
sections/section_3/
sections/section_3/section.xml
sections/section_3/inforef.xml
moodle_backup.log
$
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: I can not extract mbz files in Linux. Chinese content?

by Tim Timmons -
Thanks for this. Archive Manager is a Linux App for extracting files.
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In reply to Tim Timmons

Re: I can not extract mbz files in Linux. Chinese content?

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
You must be using a very modern flavour of Linux; Apps won't run on my Linux, a Debian GNU/Linux derivative. It doesn't matter, as you have experienced this Archive Manager App is useless.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: I can not extract mbz files in Linux. Chinese content?

by Tim Timmons -
I'm using Bodhi Linux. It's supposed to be the lightest Linux distro out there. It's great, and I'm using it on a machine that was dying with WIndows 7. Anyway, the reason I mentioned the extraction thing was because I read somewhere that this method would reveal which version of Moodle my uni is using.
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In reply to Tim Timmons

Re: I can not extract mbz files in Linux. Chinese content?

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

From Terminal at location of the downloaded .mbz file:  tar command can extract a single file.  File you want is moodlee_backup.xml.

Command example below might word wrap but at the tail end of the tar extract command put moodle_backup.xml.  If found and extacted you will see a x moodle_backup.xml

Info you seek is in the top 10 lines of moodle_backup.xml

tar zxvf backup-moodle2-course-167-sl6-20170317-1028.mbz moodle_backup.xml
x moodle_backup.xml

head -n 10 moodle_backup.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<moodle_backup>
  <information>
    <name>backup-moodle2-course-167-sl6-20170317-1028.mbz</name>
    <moodle_version>2016120502</moodle_version>
    <moodle_release>3.2.2 (Build: 20170313)</moodle_release>
    <backup_version>2016120500</backup_version>
    <backup_release>3.2</backup_release>
    <backup_date>1489764507</backup_date>
    <mnet_remoteusers>0</mnet_remoteusers>

'SoS', Ken

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In reply to Ken Task

Re: I can not extract mbz files in Linux. Chinese content?

by Tim Timmons -

Thanks so much for your help. I sent the uni a message, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. Anyway, with your help, I finally got to look at the contents of the .mbz file. My version is 3.1.15  smile


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In reply to Tim Timmons

Re: Possible to Enable Synchronous Editing of a Text?

by Jon Bolton -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
For your second question, do either of these help?

https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_etherpadlite
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=373440#p1549936 (second paragraph)
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In reply to Jon Bolton

Re: Possible to Enable Synchronous Editing of a Text?

by Tim Timmons -
Thanks for the reply. I'll give those a shot.
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In reply to Jon Bolton

Re: Possible to Enable Synchronous Editing of a Text?

by Tim Timmons -
I just finished setting up the second option. Can't wait to see how it goes in class. Thanks a lot!
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In reply to Tim Timmons

Re: Possible to Enable Synchronous Editing of a Text?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
...probably because it's not a zip file. It's a .tgz file.

Linux command...

tar -zxvf backup-blah-blah.mbz
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