General plugins

Besided word processing and spreadsheets that allow one to submit directly to the assignment, both google scholar search and a google maps (or better google earth) block would be interesting.

I use google spreadsheets, google docs, google homepages, and now google presentations in some of my classes.

I am however, drawing a blank as to how this block could work. I might have 100 files or so among 25 students in a class, some of them individual and some of them collaborative.

If the document was published, then perhaps capturing a link would be sufficient, but if the document was still in collaboration mode, you would have to be invited. How will the block help with that?

I would like to hear more about your ideas so that I can think more productively.

At present, my main problem is getting all the students gmail accounts posted somewhere so everyone has the ability to invite the right people to collaborate on a document. I wish that was automated, or that the students could enter that information themselves. (I could probably use the database, but I haven't quite mastered the art of building decent looking templates yet. . .)

We set up iGoogle pages and added the widgets for google docs and links to sites we use each class session. We made the iGoogle page the homepage for the browser in the lab where I teach. That way each students gets a pretty good portal when they sit down and log in. It isn't roaming, but it works for us. Will your block be able to do some things like that?

atw

Sandor,

This sounds great! Currently our school uses Google Apps for Education, mostly now for the email feature which I even get complaints about having to leave the Moodle to check email! It would be nice to integrate some of the shared doc features into the assignment level, integrate gmail into the block, Calendar integration would be nice so we only have "one" calendar say...the Google one?, the new "presentation" feature, custom searching (haven't been able to get that one figured out yet since we operate "behind closed doors" (i.e. must login to see anything) - Google doesn't seem to want us to use their search without access itself, etc.

I wish I had some better ideas...we only switched our email and to the Apps program in August.

What kind of ideas are you considering?

Coming from a dreamworld: I would like to have the possibility of adding a GoogleDocs document in the course like any other activity (e.g. like a Wiki). It should then work with single sign on and should take the some of the permissions (reading/writing) of the Moodle system into account.

I will be following this with much interest!

I'd certainly be interested to hear more about what you're proposing to do - my main interest here would be to see how we can use the word-processing and spreadsheet applications collaboratively alongside other Moodle tools.

Ross Mackenzie
Open University

Sandor/Rashan and others working on development of the possible integration of GoogleApps within Moodle - Please share with me the ideas you have and create an issue in the tracker to create space in the CONTRIB section of CVS. In the tracker, upload the code and I can then create the space and work toward getting you access to those directories. That way we can better collaborate on the development of the code. I can then also create a component in the tracker so that issues, feature requests, etc. can be managed. Let me know what I can do to help you coordinate your efforts. Peace - Anthony

I've installed it and its been working great until today. I am using 1.9 and everything was working fine until this afternoon. I was getting this message in Firefox only for awhile:

Unable to Connect to ssl://www.google.com:443. Error #110: Connection timed out

Then later, the same thing began occurring in IE.

Any thoughts as to why?

Thanks.

We are looking to roll out google apps asap but would REALLY like to integrate the account management within moodle. 

Our moodle site synchs internally with LDAP for users.  Will it still work with this module i.e. if a new user is created in our user directory will they be created on googleapps when they log in to moodle? 

Sorry if this is a really obvious question!

Mark

One of our clients started getting nasty emails from Google about a securty vulnerability the other day. The salient bit was I think..

"To secure your sign-in application, you must include the Recipient attribute
in the SAML response. You can learn more here:
http://code.google.com/apis/apps/faq.html#recipient"

Does anybody know what this is all about and/or has this been sorted in a newer version of the plugin? I must confess that I haven't the slightest clue about the Google Apps stuff and am hoping to avoid finding out ...any help appreciated.

Hi Rashan,

Thanks for a great module- still working fine. Just wondering if there is a way to go directly to the calendar instead of the email page?

I've modified your app to submit the login form automatically, so I have a simply icon link to go straight to gmail (education version) from within moodle. I can't see how to change it to go to the google calendar straight away.

Any help much appreciated. Thank you.

Charles.

Hi everibody,

I've installed the block and when I log in and go to the mail I have this error:

Expected response code 200, got 403
I'm using moodle 1.9.3 and PHP 5.2.0.8+etch13

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

By default the plugin only allows the Google Apps block to show on the site main page. Has anybody found a way to have it show and work correctly on course pages as well?

Problem running xmlsec1 using php exec.

When I execute the command-line shown below using php exec, xmlsec1 responds as if the formatting is incorrect. When I run that actual command-line from bash the command executes correctly.

Please advise.

PHP exec command:
exec("/opt/local/bin/xmlsec1 --sign --privkey-pem keys/DSAPrivateKey01.pem --pubkey-der keys/DSAPublicKey01.key --output /Library/WebServer/moodledata/temp/samlresp-nbhfmebfbhedjkcnjboohiambocigagebnjnckdd.xml.out /Library/WebServer/moodledata/temp/samlresp-nbhfmebfbhedjkcnjboohiambocigagebnjnckdd.xml", $output);

PHP exec $output:
Array ( [0] => Usage: xmlsec [] [] [1] => [2] => xmlsec is a command line tool for signing, verifying, encrypting and [3] => decrypting XML documents. The allowed values are: [4] => --help display this help information and exit [5] => --help-all display help information for all commands/options and exit [6] => --help- display help information for command and exit [7] => --version print version information and exit [8] => --keys keys XML file manipulation [9] => --sign sign data and output XML document [10] => --verify verify signed document [11] => --sign-tmpl create and sign dynamicaly generated signature template [12] => --encrypt encrypt data and output XML document [13] => --decrypt decrypt data from XML document [14] => [15] => [16] => Report bugs to http://www.aleksey.com/xmlsec/bugs.html [17] => [18] => Written by Aleksey Sanin . [19] => [20] => Copyright (C) 2002-2003 Aleksey Sanin. [21] => This is free software: see the source for copying information. [22] => )

Hello,

I was running this module successfully with 1.9.3

I have recently updated to 1.9.4 ... The login works.. The thing is I am unable to go to the Gapps block (shows nothing... blank page)... and create new accounts.

Just to be sure... When I create a new account in Moodle... I have to go to the Gapps block and click on the user... and click on the button to create it on the Google apps side..

THanks
Ahmad

Google Apps for education wishlist:

• Single Sign On with Moodle
• If no account exists yet in Google Apps, Moodle needs to create it. The user should NOT be prompted for a password. We want Google Apps only to be accesible from within Moodle (this can already be set at the Google side)
• In Moodle there should be a block that can be added sitewide. This block needs to contain:
  • Link to mail-inbox
  • Link to compose message
  • Link to Google Docs
  • Link to Google sites (my sites)

A way to submit a document from Google directly to Moodle would be nice, but I don't think that's possible yet. It would be something that needs to be done at the Google side.

Cheers for your efforts so far. We tested the module but are not using it yet because of the password-thing. We don't want our students to have passwords in Google as they have passwords in Moodle. Authentication should thus be done by Moodle.

Obi Wan, you're my only hope!

I am trying to get this working on a development environment. I appear to have everything working, as all lights are "green" from within Moodle install itself. For the life of me, I can not figure out why gdata/cron.php is throwing the following error:

[root@host gdata]# php cron.php
Starting Moodle to Google Apps synchronization
Client response error: 500 Internal Server Error
Client response error: 500 Internal Server Error
Client response error: 500 Internal Server Error
Number of Google Apps accounts deleted: 0
Number of Google Apps accounts created: 0
Number of Google Apps accounts updated: 0
Number of errors: 3
End Moodle to Google Apps synchronization
Execution took 2.384855 seconds

I have tried looking into an strace of the output, but my limited debugging skills have me confounded.


Running Moodle 1.9.4+ (Build: 20090304) on Fedora 2.6.25-14.fc9

Thanks for any help....