Book module beta2 - please help with testing

Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Petr Skoda -
Number of replies: 10
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Hi!

Book module is ready for testing. It is compatible with Moodle 1.3.1 or latest 1.4dev.
You can download it directly from CVS Contrib.

Some recent updates:
  • improved printing
  • TOC preview for teachers (that bulb icon next to TOC)
  • build-in help (from Resource module)
  • global setting for TOC width in module configuration
  • new numbering style (plain without indentation - suitable for manual numbering)
  • FAQ help icon for teachers (below TOC) - IMHO could be useful in other modules too

Please submit your feedback here, thanks!

skodak
Attachment bookB2.gif
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In reply to Petr Skoda

Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Martin Dougiamas -
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Nice, Petr!

Just a note, this module, like all modules in contrib, is available like this:

     http://moodle.org/download.php/modules/book.zip

The archive is generated daily.

 
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In reply to Petr Skoda

Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Ger Tielemans -

I really really like your module.

THe local editing on/off with the bulbe lamp works, would only be easier if I could switch it on off for all the pages of the book.

Read the FAQ sad

It is very good to keep it as simple as possible, but from a userpoint of view...

Can't you steal the usersettings from eWiki to set teacher-group-student writing rights?
(M & M will help you if you need help, I think. The same for page locking)

File attaching will be much more work. (I think..)

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Petr Skoda -
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Automatic preview switching off is IMO better for typical teachers, because they are usually creating books - not reading them. Maybe I could add some global setting to keep it switched on after page transition.

I decided I will not implement the student editing. But you can do it yourself, simply fork Book or Wiki code. The main reson is that I want the Book to be as simple as possible.

File attaching would be relatively easy to implement - but again I am not sure if it is useful.


skodak
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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Petr Skoda -
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> Read the FAQ sad ??

Maybe I should name it "Book FAQ". I wanted to create FAQ only for books - sort of hints for new teachers.
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In reply to Petr Skoda

Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Juan Martinez -

Hi Petr and Moodlers,

I would like to contribute with your permission with a translations to spanish of your book.

Only they have to do its replace the file lang/es/book.php with this attach it file.

Warms Regards,

Juan Martinez

Dom. Rep. 

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In reply to Juan Martinez

Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Petr Skoda -
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Thanks very much for the contribution! I have added your translation to the CVS.

skodak
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In reply to Petr Skoda

Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by W Page -
Hi Petr!

This is such a nice "mod" I hope it will be in v1.4 Final. Also, I have installed your search "AddOn" as well.

After I installed the Book mod I noticed that when I choose the bullet option for TOC display that the bullet was missing on the main book chapters. It did appear for the sub-chapters.

Please see the image below. The red arrow is pointing to where the main chapter bullet should have been. As you can see, it is missing.

BTW, wanted to ask -- What happened to the "lightbulb"?

Also, wanted to suggest that eventually,
  • the Book mod have a search component.
  • PDF "on the fly" be implemented in addition to the print feature

Thanks for such a nice mod.

WP1


Attachment book_missing_bullet_01.gif
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In reply to W Page

Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Petr Skoda -
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Hi!

Light bulb is gone, I have noticed that there is already one in course sections - so I replaced it with the "Turn editing on" button. It is more consistent with course editing, these two buttons actually set the same variable in user session (if you are editing main course page and click on book, the editing is turned on, otherwise it is initially off).

The bullets: It seemed to me best this way, if you want to change the style, go to moodle/mod/book/toc.php and edit line 41. Better way would be to define them in themes, but I did not want to modify any files from standard Moodle installation - so I inlined the styles to toc.php

I prefer searching directly in printer friendly view or using that new search add-on for course wide searching (in contrib/search - not finished yet). Well, if people keep requesting it, I may add it. But as I said before it is not my priority now wink

Anyway, thanks for all your comments!!!

skodak

PS: I did forget the PDF. It is no problem to create PDF from plain text files, but I do not know how to output highly formatted HTML text to PDF. I did not find any simple GNU solution for conversion from HTML to PDF sad
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In reply to Petr Skoda

PDF was - Re: Book module beta2 - please help with testing

by Roland Becker -

Hi

regarding Your PS.

I am not an expert either, but it may be a sound approach to set up first a "Print Version" of every page we want to print out.

This would be the main content, plus a very few elements, like logo, category and link information.

There are php-scripts out there to produce such print version. What has to be done to work this way, is to "mark" those text / content portions with some special TAGS like

<START PRINT>..Your Content here .<STOP PRINT>

Then, such a simplified page could be converted to PDF with a special Print-PDF-version.

There are some "Print-This" scripts on Hotscripts (http://www.hotscripts.com/) or as pluggins to phpCMS (http://www.phpcms.de/) the latter can eventually be modified to work with Moodle.

Hotscripts on "Print This"

Hope this comment is of some use.

Best regards from Costa Rica.

Roland

By the way ... this editing tools (HTMLarea?) seems to have problems with insertion of links ...

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