Content Pages (iContent) and Essay question type in ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) area

Content Pages (iContent) and Essay question type in ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) area

by EA Carl -
Number of replies: 4

Background:  I have made several Lessons, but have moved most of my focus to Content Pages for "simplicity".  BTW: Please tell me if I am wrong to have so quickly moved away from Lesson due to the depth of its capabilities that I am grossly neglecting.

Context:  I use iContent to deliver cohesive instructional lessons.  Other than content (lowercase), I add H5P interactive questions to support interactive (un-gradebook) learning and gradable questions in the ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) area below each Content page (uppercase).  

My Assumptions: I can create gradable essay questions in this context; yes I have proved that.  I can present the student with an essay online textarea box with which to enter their freehand answer (to be manually graded); yes I have verified that.

My Problem:  The essay online textarea box is this dinky little thing of ~17 ascii characters wide which I cannot figure out how to change into something that is of reasonable width (maybe the width of the frame?).

My Observations:  The ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) essay question textarea answer box does not honor any of the "file submission" capabilities originally configured for the question retrieved from the Question Bank.  Note that I have entertained the idea of embedding the essay question in the content page but have not figured out how to have the "submitted file" actually get saved and submitted to the teacher.

<pause for the sake of sanity>

I would just love to know where to go in to the iContent code and hardcode the width of the essay textarea box if it can't be a configurable item within Content Page settings itself.

But, regardless of the only short-term workaround that I have envisioned, may I request any of yours' learned input on this "issue" of mine?

It would be so greatly appreciated!

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In reply to EA Carl

Re: Content Pages (iContent) and Essay question type in ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) area

by Matthias Giger -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
You can add the following line to your "raw SCSS" field in administration > appearance > themes > BOOST > Advanced Settings:

#idfulltab {width:100%;}

It's not perfect because it disturbs the placement of other elements such as the user picture, but you get a textarea field with is as wide as possible.

I think for a better solution you will need to get in contact with the author of iContent.
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In reply to Matthias Giger

Re: Content Pages (iContent) and Essay question type in ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) area

by EA Carl -

You surely did get my hopes up!  

Screenshot of ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) and YOUR NOTES AND QUESTION(S) area at the bottom of a iContent page

But I am not visualizing any difference in the way this uncollapsed textarea box reveals itself.  Note that both the Notes and Questions textarea boxes within YOUR NOTES AND QUESTIONS continue to adjust as expected within the page.

I have reviewed the open issues in the GitHub

moodle-mod_icontent

repository but haven't posted anything there on this yet;  I am trying to wring out some clues here or there to this being a "problem" for more than just me.

Thank you for reaching out, it is much appreciated!

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In reply to EA Carl

Re: Content Pages (iContent) and Essay question type in ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) area

by EA Carl -
Okay, I have a hack for those of you who might be interested.
in the mod/icontent/locallib.php file, line:

$questionanswers .= html_writer::tag('textarea', null, array('name'=>$fieldname, 'class'=>'span12 answertextarea', 'required'=>'required'));
Change span12 to col-12

Seems to work for me:
Screen shot of the answertextarea full width rather than just a fixed-width textarea clinging to the left hand side
Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to EA Carl

Re: Content Pages (iContent) and Essay question type in ANSWER THE QUESTION(S) area

by Matthias Giger -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
I have just tried that change and it works for me. Thanks!
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