Joseph Rézeau

Yes, very clever.

OK, I had not noticed that function try_importing_using_qtypes( $data, $question=null, $extra=null ) in $qtype->$methodname( $data, $question, $this, $extra )) actually makes its own functions available to the plugin question type through the $this parameter. I had never come across this way of "sharing" functions yet. How different is it from a require_once call ?
By the way, what is the $extra parameter for?
Joseph

Yes it does! Thanks Tim. Does this mean that the function function writetext( $raw, $ilev=0, $short=true) {} in question/format/xml/format.php is no longer needed?

Joseph

Hi Howard,

I have started to play with the new import/export format for plugin question types in HEAD, with my REGEXP question type. So far I have implemented the export_to_xml method and am glad to report that it was quite easy to implement and that it does work fine! In file question/type/regexp/questiontype.php, inside class question_regexp_qtype extends default_questiontype {} I simply added the following:

 function export_to_xml( $question, $format, $extra=null ) {
 $expout = " <usehint>{$question->options->usehint}</usehint>\n ";
 foreach($question->options->answers as $answer) {
 $percent = 100 * $answer->fraction;
 $expout .= " <answer fraction=\"$percent\">\n";
 $expout .= $this->writetext( $answer->answer,3,false );
 $expout .= " <feedback>\n";
 $expout .= $this->writetext( $answer->feedback,4,false );
 $expout .= " </feedback>\n";
 $expout .= " </answer>\n";
 }
 return $expout;
 }

I also needed to copy from question/format/xml/format.php function writetext( $raw, $ilev=0, $short=true) {} because it seems I cannot link to that file from my own question type, but it's only a few lines.

I will now work on the import_from_xml method, and test backup/restore and then report here. I hope the recent changes by Jamie Pratt to the question bank will not interfere too much with your import/export methods. If you want to take a look at my REGEXP question type you can download it (version 1.8 is OK for 1.9/HEAD) from the plugins download here.

Many thanks for making these methods available to "plugin question types".

Joseph

And what about the Questionnaire module? Although it is less "moodle-like" than Feedback it has recently been made much more user-friendly than it was, and it contains a number of useful question types, including the much-needed Likert scales, etc.
It would be a desirable goal to unify all those "survey, feedback, questionnaire, etc." modules into one unique serve-all purposes module, but in the meantime each of them serves its own purposes, so why not make life easier for moodlers by including them into core?
Joseph