Maybe another one for the developer forum...
Our big problem at the moment is how to allow non-technical users to edit course materials that will end up on line.
We took the decision *not* to simply put up Microsoft Word documents onto a site, however we always receive material in Word format. What we have tried is manually converting the Word document to a custom XML format, and then processing it using XSLT to HTML and XSL-FO to a PDF file for printing. This helps the technical people, but the original writers don't want to edit an XML file when the inevitable changes happen. Of course this route leads to thoughts about the IMS content specifications, which I have not investigated as yet.
I have been looking with much interest at TickiText http://www.mplode.com/tima/archives/000215.html, and am about to do a small trial using it.
I had a brash idea about porting TikiText to PHP and incorporating it in Moodle, but I'm not sure if there is any point (as one can just preformat using TikiText and then load the resulting HTML).
A bit of a ramble this... but does anybody out there have any thoughts or experiences in this area? It would be appreciated!
I would simply teach teachers how to save their office documents as HTML, then upload it themselves.
For some it's much easier to just use the Richtext editor to edit their resources directly online (in the database).
The XML stuff you're talking about (while very interesting!) may be hitting a nail with a piledriver. Wiki format has already been considered as an addition to "Moodle format" and "HTML format" and would be fairly easy to add, actually. In any case, this is all probably much better placed in the developer forum.
cough 
For some it's much easier to just use the Richtext editor to edit their resources directly online (in the database).
The XML stuff you're talking about (while very interesting!) may be hitting a nail with a piledriver. Wiki format has already been considered as an addition to "Moodle format" and "HTML format" and would be fairly easy to add, actually. In any case, this is all probably much better placed in the developer forum.
Lots of teachers hate to learn something new like HTML: they are teachers.
- Play the game, allow them to fill the fields with plain text
- Agree with them that ik looks boring on the screen
- Then teach them a little HTML-mockup (like in Wiki)
- Then spoil them by showing how to do the layout in Word, even tables, and let Word change it in HTML
TIP: install from your office-disc the file msohtmf2.exe.
It will give you in Word a new choice:
under files >> export to >> compact html. (see menu.gif)
For the future: Moodle should create webforms with under the hood XML-structure..
