Moodle in English: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Saturday, 22 December 2007, 5:22 AM

Just in time for Christmas, here is a new version of Course Blog! A couple of big new features have been added.

"Choose Your Own Roles": The admin can now choose which site roles are the "teacher" and which are the "students." Any roles on the site are open - great if you want to have student leaders or non-student bloggers in your course. Up to two roles can be chosen for each level.
Editing posts have changed: Each role assigned on Course Blog can be allowed to edit their own posts or not - even students. Teacher roles also have the ability to be allowed to edit all posts.
Teacher Notes: blog "teachers" can add a note to any blog post - only the entry author and other "teachers" will be able to see this note. Perfect for giving private feedback to students that may not need to go in the comments, or for blogs where comments are not allowed.
Import from Moodle blog: blog authors can now choose to import one of their past 20 Moodle blog entries to course blog. A little note will be added to note imported entries. Along with the export to Moodle blog feature, this now fully integrates Course Blog with Moodle blog.
The programming architecture was moved into functions, so future updates will be easier.
A few tweaks and bug fixes, as well as few other style improvements (like a line that shows when an edit was made and who made it last)

There were several changes to the database, so make sure your database is upgraded when you install. Also, don't forget to install the new lang file when installing.

Several people still need to get this working with MSSQL. If you use MSSQL and can get Course Blog to work, please post the files here and I will add them to the zip file.

I wanted to add a few more features, but time ran out on me! Here is what is still coming in the future:

Add the ability to save posts as drafts first, before publishing them.
Create some type of internal trackback function (called "Quotes" maybe) for individual level blogs to more easily link with each other.
Give the admin the option of having a gradebook entry created for blog instances.
Create an admin setting that forces all users to have a comments thread by default.
Integrate with tags and backup functions in Moodle
Eventually, remove comments function from discussion forums and have them seamlessly integrated with Course Blog, but still looking the same.
Add a ratings systems for blog entries

The Course Blog playground is coming along and will hopefully be set up soon for people to test out Course Blog before they installing.

simpleblog_0.7.zip

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Saturday, 22 December 2007, 5:40 AM

BTW - I think everything is working, but due to upcoming holidays, I wasn't able to test this as much as I usually do. If you run into any bugs, please post them here, and will work on them as I do further testing over the holidays.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Saturday, 22 December 2007, 2:52 PM

Hi,

I find this and installed it by installing a new moodle 1.8.3 keeping everything default. and getting these sort of error as below. I can't understand what is meant by $teacher1 , 2, 3.... and $student1, 2, 3,

Name:

Blog Intro:

Write carefully Help with this

Ask good questions Help with this

About the HTML editor Help with this

Path:

Blog Level:

Teachers only Community access Teachers and students with individual blogs Students only - blogs that only teachers can read

Blog Teacher Roles:

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 70 >(blank) Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 74 >AdministratorNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 74 >Course creatorNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 74 >TeacherNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 74 >Non-editing teacherNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 74 >StudentNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 74 >GuestNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 74 >Authenticated user Edit Own: Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1edit in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 76 >YesNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1edit in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 76 >No Edit All: Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1others in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 77 >YesNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher1others in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 77 >No

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 83 >(blank) Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 87 >AdministratorNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 87 >Course creatorNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 87 >TeacherNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 87 >Non-editing teacherNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 87 >StudentNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 87 >GuestNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 87 >Authenticated user Edit Own: Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2edit in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 89 >YesNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2edit in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 89 >No Edit All: Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2others in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 90 >YesNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$teacher2others in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 90 >No

Blog Student Roles:

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 97 >(blank) Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 101 >AdministratorNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 101 >Course creatorNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 101 >TeacherNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 101 >Non-editing teacherNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 101 >StudentNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 101 >GuestNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 101 >Authenticated user Edit Own: Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1edit in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 103 >YesNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student1edit in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 103 >No

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 109 >(blank) Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 113 >AdministratorNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 113 >Course creatorNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 113 >TeacherNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 113 >Non-editing teacherNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 113 >StudentNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 113 >GuestNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2 in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 113 >Authenticated user Edit Own: Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2edit in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 115 >YesNotice: Undefined property: stdClass::$student2edit in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/mod.html on line 115 >No

Number of past entries to display:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 All

Choose a forum for comments:

(none)
(Not recommended for student only blogs)

Visible:

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Totally hang over first time with any module using moodle from last 2 yrs.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Saturday, 22 December 2007, 3:07 PM

I think sure there is something missing which i am missing but no idea what is that........

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Saturday, 22 December 2007, 3:46 PM

The same is the problem with moodle 1.8.2 also.....

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Sunday, 23 December 2007, 12:29 AM

I'm really sorry, but you've got stuff showing up there that is not even in the code that I uploaded. You might want to find some general support for php to see what is causing this - it is way beyond what I have ever seen.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Rob Johnson - Sunday, 23 December 2007, 1:08 AM

I have it installed and working with 1.8.2. I will try on the 1.9 beta over the holidays. Students editing is great. The notes are a nice feature for providing feedback.

Thanks Matt,

Rob

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Sunday, 23 December 2007, 2:00 PM

Can you please let me know your moodle installation platform details on which you have successfully installed this module.
I tried on both linux and windows. On linux I am using mysql version 5.0.22 and PHP 5.1.6 and on windows I am using: mysql 5.0.45 and php 5.2.5.

Please do let me know if any other things i need to enable or install.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Rob Johnson - Monday, 24 December 2007, 1:39 AM

My 1.8.2 install is on a hosted linux server.

php 5.1.6
mysql 5.0.37

I am going to try this on a 1.9 beta 3 install in the next few days. This is a local linux machine. I will report back with details. I have never run Moodle on a window server. I am sorry that I can be of no help there.

I have no idea why you are getting those errors. I placed the simpleblog folder in the mod directory and the lang file under the lang directory. I then logged in and went to the admin page. The database tables were created (did you see this happen?) and it worked.

Good luck in sorting out your situation.

Rob

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Monday, 24 December 2007, 3:14 PM

Thanks for the reply, I got this but once I switch on the debugging mode it displays me all this bla bla errors. I don't know I think definitely it is something related to code parsing error of php and it indicates the mod.html file.

Ehtesham

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Sunday, 23 December 2007, 6:49 AM

I forgot to point out that if you upgrade Course Blog while still using it in a class, you will need to set the roles up in the admin panel - it won't automatically set them for you. No blog entries will be lost, but people might just lose the ability to post or edit until their role is given permission.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Sunday, 23 December 2007, 1:51 PM

You mean to say that all these error messages which I am getting in the blog page is not related to simple blog codes. I am surprised and still wondering what could be the problem in php. Meanwhile i have not upgraded the course blog rather i used for the first time.

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/view.php on line 52

Notice: Undefined variable: buttontext in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/view.php on line 96

Warning: Missing argument 10 for simpleblog_entry_list(), called in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/view.php on line 273 and defined in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/lib.php on line 132

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/lib.php on line 145

No blog entries found.
Notice: Undefined variable: totalentries in /var/www/html/elearn/mod/simpleblog/lib.php on line 467

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Monday, 24 December 2007, 3:18 PM

Hi Matt,

It is working in debug mode off. But still throwing errors when switch on the bebug mode on.

Regards,
Ehtesham

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by ray s. - Tuesday, 1 January 2008, 6:37 AM

will this work with 1.7.3?

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Thursday, 3 January 2008, 4:40 AM

To be honest, I am not sure. I can't think of anything that would cause it to not work, but I have only tested it on 1.8.

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Re: Help with random error in course blog

by Matt Crosslin - Saturday, 2 February 2008, 4:36 AM

I haven't run into this, but it probably has to do with a setting in the discussion boards. Are the students in groups in the discussion board? I haven't tested it with this.

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Re: Help with random error in course blog

by Matt Crosslin - Friday, 8 February 2008, 1:53 AM

Hmmm.... I need to test Course Blog with groups. There is probably some setting in there that is not compatible with groups then.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Saturday, 2 February 2008, 4:34 AM

Students can edit posts, if you give them that ability in the admin panel. Deleting posts will probably come in future versions.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Sunday, 3 February 2008, 11:17 PM

Click on the edit hand next to your blog and look here.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Julian Ridden - Wednesday, 6 February 2008, 11:55 AM

I have never noticed this screen before. Fantastic!

I tried putting in some roles and am having an issue. Even though when I hit save all looks as it should, when I go back in the settings were not stored. Any idea?

Are you looking at using the roles api now built into 1.8 and above.

JR

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Friday, 8 February 2008, 1:44 AM

I need to look at that roles API. Sounds interesting.

Well, the only thing that I can really think of is the simple solution - that the values are not being stored in the database. Maybe there was a problem with the database tables not being upgraded with the new version. Did the new fields get added to the blog fields in your database?

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Course Blog v0.7 does not backup/restore with the rest of the course

by Rob Johnson - Monday, 4 February 2008, 1:27 AM

Matt and others. Course blog is not included in my course backups. It is not even an option with the other modules. Other third party modules backup (gallery) with the rest of the course. When I restore the course, the course blog is not included.

Do others have the same issue, or is it just my installation?

Thanks,
Rob

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Re: Course Blog v0.7 does not backup/restore with the rest of the course

by Sherry Brown - Monday, 4 February 2008, 10:17 AM

Rob --

You are correct -- you beat me to a post about this, although I was aware of this from a previous upgrade/restore at the beginning of the school year. Why was I going to post? I am in the middle of reconstructing a course blog.

I knew enough to export the contents of the SimpleBlog tables using myPHPAdmin so I have the data. Being adventurous, I didn't feel queasy about creating a new database when I was upgrading. I'd just back up and restore, import into the tables and I'd good to go, no? ;) however, the import hasn't been so seamless. So, I'm manually cutting and pasting (fortunately, my classes meet every other day).

I don't know how third party modules back up/restore but it would be my favorite feature!

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Re: Course Blog v0.7 does not backup/restore with the rest of the course

by Matt Crosslin - Tuesday, 5 February 2008, 12:52 AM

I would love for this to be added to. Unfortunately, the back-up function for modules is too complex for me to figure out right now. Maybe in the future when work slows down, I can dig in and figure it out. Unless someone already understands it and wants to work on getting that done.

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Re: Course Blog v0.7 does not backup/restore with the rest of the course

by Rob Johnson - Tuesday, 5 February 2008, 8:57 AM

Thanks Matt, at least I know it is not a problem with my installation.

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Re: Course Blog v0.7 does not backup/restore with the rest of the course

by Matt Crosslin - Friday, 8 February 2008, 1:46 AM

Oh yeah - not a problem with yours. I am with Sherry - this would be a much needed feature. Need to dig into this more.

Anyone that has any hints on how to make back-ups work with mods, please let me know. I looked at the documentation online, and am still a little lost.....

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Stephen Liseo - Monday, 4 February 2008, 10:06 AM

Thanks for your work on this Matt

Has anyone got this working this MSSQL? I would really appreciate any help from someone who has.

cheers
Stephen

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Tuesday, 5 February 2008, 12:55 AM

Well, the problem with this is that course blog is not putting the English in there - that line 118 is just telling your server to put the date in there based on the server's language. So, it's your server that is putting that in there. The edit are in correct language because they pull from your default Moodle lang file. This does reveal a bug that needs to be fixed: using Moodle's default date system instead of a local server time. That should be fairly easy to fix, to I will get to work on that.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Thursday, 20 March 2008, 11:49 PM

There was a small bug found. When using Individual blogs or students only blogs, the "add a blog entry" link did not appear. Quite a problem! The problem was in the lib.php file. I am attaching the new a zip file with all files (including the repaired one). If you are starting with a new installation, use this file. If you need to just fix the bug, I will attach just the lib.php file next.

simpleblog_0.7.1.zip

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Thursday, 20 March 2008, 11:50 PM

Of you need to just fix the bug in an existing installation, then replace the lib.php file with this file.

lib.php

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Thursday, 20 March 2008, 11:53 PM

I want to start looking at the next version of Course blog. I want to add an Edit function. That will be pretty easy to do. I will also fix the date problem that some people using other languages have found. There are three things that I also want to do that I seem to be having problems figuring out. If you have expertise in these areas and can give me some pointers, that would be greatly appreciated:

Getting course blog to work with groups
Adding course blog to the course backup
Getting the blocks on the side to act like real blocks.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Alyson Abriel - Friday, 11 April 2008, 5:01 AM

I just installed SimpleBlog 0.7.1 on Moodle version 1.8.2 and got no error messages.

Added it as an activity to a course and was able to edit the intro. But when I click on the activity it just brings up my intro, but there is no place to add a new post, etc...

Am I missing something? It's set to community access and "yes" is selected for all the "edit own" and "edit all"

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Friday, 11 April 2008, 6:16 AM

Well, let me ask you this first: what role did you designate as a "blog teacher" role, and what role are you signed in to the course as? For example - if you are signed in as an admin, but assign a different role to be a blog teacher (such as a "teacher" role), you won't be allowed to add a blog entry. You would also have to designate the "admin" role as a blog teacher, or log in as a teacher.

Also, if you are an admin and just created a course, you will need to designate yourself as a teacher for that course in order for the course blog to recognize you as a teacher. You can still get in to a course and edit it as a site admin even if you aren't designated as teacher yet.

The add entry function will be a link in a block above the archives, once permissions are worked out. There will be a block called "Blog Options" with two links in it: "Add a Blog Entry" and "Import a Moodle Blog Entry".

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Alyson Abriel - Friday, 11 April 2008, 7:06 AM

Hi Matt,
Thanks for responding so fast. Cool, I managed to make a couple of posts, and am happy about the ability to upload/post multiple images within a single post.

Despite all my reading up on roles, they are still a bit baffling to me.

I'm not sure what Blog Teacher Roles and Blog Student Roles mean exactly.

Awesome activity though. I think this will do exactly what we need it to.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Friday, 11 April 2008, 10:34 PM

That's good to know about the images - I haven't tried that one yet.

The blog teacher role and blog student role are actually separate from the Moodle roles. The new role system in Moodle allows admins to create custom roles, which is cool - but that also means that some people may not use the standard roles for teacher and student. They may create their own. The blog teacher and blog student roles allow you to pick any role in the system and designate them as the teacher or student for the blog activity. That way, you could actually create a student moderator role for blogging that allows students to be the teacher for certain blogs. It is a little confusing, but I hope I didn't just make it more so.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Alyson Abriel - Saturday, 12 April 2008, 4:41 AM

Nope, it makes sense now, and I see why that's a good feature.

Sorry to ask so many questions. But can you help point me in the right direction to modifying the width of the post area? I made a fixed-width theme and the side blocks are getting squished. Thanks so much for your help, Matt. I'm hoping to get this thing running well with our beta group so we can generate some interest in it for future development...

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Saturday, 12 April 2008, 11:09 PM

Sure thing. The first thing you might want to look at is if you have an image in the post that is doing that. Usually, html will balance stuff out like that and not squish it up, unless there is an image or a long-title-name-with-no-spaces-forcing it to do that. If that's not the case, then how comfortable are you with modifying php files? You can add some width parameters to the blog template section in the lib.php file.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Monday, 14 April 2008, 2:57 PM

Hello,

I am getting problem in displaying the right hand side menu item which is getting hidden because of the backgroud image as shown in this screen shot.
here i would like to mention that this is not the case with any other module which I am using.
I guess there is something to do with CSS but not sure.....

please help me.....

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Tuesday, 15 April 2008, 12:00 AM

I'm sorry, but I have never seen that problem before. Course Blog uses the exact same code as the blocks on the front page, so it should look the same as any other block. Unless someone else has seen this before and can shine a light on what is happening, you may need to get someone to look at your CSS files.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Tuesday, 15 April 2008, 1:23 PM

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your reply but my other blocks on the front page and every where is displaying perfect.
Here I want to ask one why it is using blocks code it is a module?
Do I send you my CSS files?
Thanks!

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 5:15 AM

It is a module but since those are blocks on the right hand side, I used the block code for a consistent look. You will probably need to get your support person or staff to look over the CSS file for you. Your situation is going to be unique to the theme you installed and the set-up of your Moodle installation. It is outside of the realm for support for Course Blog as fas as I can tell.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Mohd Ehtesham - Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 3:38 PM

Hi Matt,
Thanks for your support and help. I need to ask (Don't know this is genuine or not) where do I catch the codes to display the blocks in the files of course blogs.

Thanks

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Thursday, 17 April 2008, 7:14 AM

That code is in the lib.php file.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 11:59 PM

Mohd - I don't know if you are still reading here, but this problem showed up today when I was tweaking some code. I decided to just get rid of the code that was causing it and go with something simpler. The work around should be post soon in a new thread.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Alyson Abriel - Tuesday, 15 April 2008, 3:46 AM

Sure. I'm running a development installation that I'm free to play around.

I added a fixed width to the table in the following line;

echo '</td></tr><tr><td class="left side"> </td><td class="content" width="820px">';

Looks great now! Thanks...I never would have even thought to look in the lib.php file for formatting. Thanks for all your help.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Alyson Abriel - Tuesday, 15 April 2008, 4:20 AM

Oh, I'm so stupid blush

. My students still won't be able to upload multiple pictures because I don't want to change the site policies to allow them to manage files. Back to square 1.

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Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Tobias Wallenqvist - Thursday, 17 April 2008, 6:55 PM

Hello there again!

I have spotted an error again, that i cant locate in the code.

If a teacher submits some feedback(comment) to an student blog-entry, the students cant see it. It's blank when they logon to the blog afterwards.

Is there an easy way to fix this.. i use 1.9?

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Re: Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Friday, 18 April 2008, 2:02 AM

It depends on if you mean feedback or comments. Course blog doesn't technically have a comments feature - it just connects with an existing discussion forum to use for commenting. If the problem is with that, then you need to look at your discussion forum settings.

If you are talking about feedback - only the original author of the post will see it, not all students. If it is still not appearing, then you need to let me know all settings for your blog (including what level of blog you are using) before I can look in to it.

Just to note - all feedback and comment functions are working on my 1.9 installation.

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Svar: Re: Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Tobias Wallenqvist - Friday, 18 April 2008, 3:31 AM

Hmm okay, because i dont have any forums enabled (in the settings) but the comments still work and show for the teachers but not for the student.

We use the course blog as a logbook and student's can only see there own blogs and teachers can edit all. We also use the blog-post comments as a feedback form for the students. But the feedback (comment) arent showing for the student role. i would like a feature that enables student to view there comment underneath the blog-post like the teachers do.

The strange thing is that all the comments are saved but not showing for the student. Using a forum is bad tho all student can view the comment.

Thanks once again, for a really great module!

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Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Friday, 18 April 2008, 6:48 AM

I'm still a little confused - are you talking about the feedback function or the comment function? They are separate features.

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Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Tobias Wallenqvist - Friday, 18 April 2008, 3:37 PM

iam talking about the comments..

1. students go in to the blog and submits a post.
2. teacher goes in and add a comment (se picture)

3. students come back to view comment.. but it's not showing

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Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Saturday, 19 April 2008, 12:32 AM

What you have pictured there is the feedback function, not the comments function. Comments are visible to everyone, feedback is only visible to the author of the post (in your example above, Bjorn would be the only one to be able to see the feedback, not any other students).

I just tested this out on my Moodle installation, and this is working there. If you could tell me all of the settings for this particular blog, that would help me look in to the problem further.

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Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Tobias Wallenqvist - Saturday, 19 April 2008, 4:13 AM

this is the setting. (in swedish tho.. )

distanslärare = teacher
elever = students
(tomt) = empty

the blog is set to only show to teachers and forum for feedback = empty

i guess you know what the rest are..

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Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Saturday, 19 April 2008, 5:40 AM

Okay - I have been able to find this and it is a glitch in Course Blog. I've attached a new lib.php file to replace the one in your installation. I will also attach the entire zip file shortly.

lib.php

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Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Re: Svar: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Tobias Wallenqvist - Saturday, 19 April 2008, 2:49 PM

Great work Matt!

Sorry for the misunderstanding about feedback/comment thingie. its alot easier to explain with pictures.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Saturday, 19 April 2008, 5:43 AM

Course Blog 0.7.2 fixes a bug in the Feedback function. The fixed lib.php file is attached in a post above, or new users can use the corrected files attached here.

simpleblog_0.7.2.zip

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Sven Laudel - Monday, 28 April 2008, 11:30 PM

Hi,

i tried getting your blog activity to work with our moodle installation (1.8.4+).
First installation for postgres won't work, because "bigint" used in postgres7.sql can not be restricted with "bigint(xy)", you have to use only "bigint". After fixing that installation worked like a charm.
Second, i tried to use the blog, but i didn't manage to get it to work. I added it to some course and tried different settings for the activity. It does not work for me, wether i as a teacher nor as a student. Sometimes there is no "Add blog entry" link or, if there is a link, i get the following error message "You are not allowed to add blog entries to this blog".

Any suggestions for us?

Regards
Sven

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Tuesday, 29 April 2008, 5:59 AM

First of all, are you using the latest update to Course Blog (0.7.2)? It fixes the bug with the missing add blog link. I've never worked with postgresql, so I am not sure what else could be the problem. That error is only supposed to appear if someone tries to post to blog that their role does not have permission to. What level of blog are you using, what role did you give permission to edit it to, and what role are you logged in to the class as when you try to post?

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Sven Laudel - Wednesday, 30 April 2008, 6:01 PM

Yes, we're using the latest update, at least i downloaded it from this forum as version 0.7.2.
The bug with postgres was easy to fix, you have used "bigint(xy)" where only "bigint" should be used.
I tried it with all blog levels and with different roles (student, teacher and admin) for "blog teacher" and "blog student". But always to possible options, either there was no link to add a post or i got an error message "you are not allowed...".

I tried to understand what your code does in post.php, but unfortunately there are rare comments to help understanding...

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Wednesday, 30 April 2008, 9:05 PM

I'm not sure what you mean by that - I just checked post.php and there are lots of notes and comments in there. Also, I used variable names that are supposed to reflect what the variable is, ie "$userBlogRole" means the user's blog role. Everywhere that I could put a note I did.

Please understand that this is working fine on my installation and other's installations (as far as I know). The difference here seems to be the postgresql, which I have no background in. Basically, the code is checking that to see if you have permission to post to a specific blog, and is finding out that you don't. Probably means that there is variable or code used is there that works with MySQL but not postgresql. The problem with that is I only used Moodle functions, so if it's not working for Course Blog then it wouldn't work for anything els, either.

Also, changing roles in the settings wouldn't help anything, unless you signed out and then signed back in as that role. Some people don't realize that when they are signed in as Course Creator, they won't be able to post a blog unless they put "Course Creator" in the "blog teacher" role for example.

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Svar: Re: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Tobias Wallenqvist - Monday, 5 May 2008, 7:53 PM

Here's a Swedish language file for latest Course Blog. Put it in your lang/sv_utf8 folder. Keep it up!

simpleblog.php

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Charlie Owen - Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 5:39 PM

Hi Matt,

I've just attempted to upgrade simpleblog to version 0.7.2, but ran into a problem where the upgrade script couldn't update the relevant tables. Taking a look at your code revealed that you'd simply forgotten to insert the table prefixes. e.g:

function simpleblog_upgrade($oldversion) {
global $CFG;

if ($oldversion < 2007122100) {
execute_sql("ALTER TABLE `simpleblog` ADD `teacher1` CHAR(3) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0'");
execute_sql("ALTER TABLE `simpleblog` ADD `teacher1edit` CHAR(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'y'");
execute_sql("ALTER TABLE `simpleblog` ADD `teacher1others` CHAR(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'y'");
execute_sql("ALTER TABLE `simpleblog` ADD `teacher2` CHAR(3) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0'");
execute_sql("ALTER TABLE `simpleblog` ADD `teacher2edit` CHAR(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'y'");

Adding the prefixes manually allowed the upgrade to proceed without a hitch.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 11:56 PM

Yep - that will cause a problem. I'll get the files updated and post in a new thread soon.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by John Fitchett - Monday, 7 July 2008, 11:06 AM

This is awesome.

Is there any way to integrate it into the regular moodle blog - so that the students don't need to have two blogs? (course and profile blogs)

The profile blog has rss etc... but this one has comments... oh to combine the two!!

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Monday, 7 July 2008, 10:51 PM

Thanks for the comments John. I have faith that some day the Moodle profile blog will have enough options to make this module obsolete, but until then...

Actually, there is already integration with the profile blog to some extent. Each blog entry will give the author a link that says "Export this entry to Moodle blog", and it will export the entry to a draft. Also, the block on the side of the blog has a link that lets an author import one of the last 20 Moodle blog entries.

Any integration beyond this would probably mean changing the profile blog code, something that is not possible from my end. Since course blog resides in a course, which is usually archived and removed after the course is over, problems would arise from any more integration. What happens to entries in a course once the course is over and gone? Do they revert to drafts in the profile blog? Just disappear? Maybe I am missing something here, but if anyone has any ideas, please share.

RSS would be nice, but ultimately redundant. Professors would use a course blog rather than say Blogger or WordPress or whatever because they want some privacy for their students. Therefore, RSS feeds would need to be authenticated. This would mean you would have to log in to Moodle for them to work. So why not just log in and go to your class rather than log in and look at an RSS feed? But there could be other ways to do this that I am missing.

Right now, I think that back-up/restore and tags would be top features to add, as well as a "save as draft" option. Not to mention getting this to work with mom-MySQL databases.

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Rob Johnson - Tuesday, 8 July 2008, 9:03 AM

Matt - Backup/restore is the biggest drawback in using courseblog. In the fall, I plan to pilot Moodle with about 20 teachers in my district. We plan to make courseblog available, but with the warning that blog entries cannot be backed up by the teacher. We will have daily server backups, but that is no way to archive courseblog entries.

I have been using courseblog since it was simpleblog. It is a feature that has gotten better and better as it has matured. Backup/Restore would be great.

Rob

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Ellen Marie Murphy - Tuesday, 5 August 2008, 1:54 AM

I'm wondering where I can get a very basic manual on using course blog. In particular, I'd like to know what the various settings do: blog level and blog roles. Thanks, Ellen

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Re: Blogs: Course Blog v0.7 (fka 'Simple Blog') for Moodle 1.8.2 Released

by Matt Crosslin - Tuesday, 5 August 2008, 2:37 AM

The basic manual can be found in the Read me file in the zip file. It contains the basic information on those features. Some further explanation can also be found in this forum.

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