Joseph Rézeau

Hi!
What version of Moodle was your student usiing? -> Moodle 1.6.3
Also what version of Hotpotaoes was used to prepare the HP Cloze activity? -> version 6.0 Release 4 Build 22
And on what kind of machine was the Hotpot activity prepared? -> a windows PC? (I have no Mac)
Joseph

Hi Martin,
Although I originated this thread I am unable to help test the problem further, since I do not own a Mac myself. I was only reporting a problem that one of my students had with a HP cloze exercise on Moodle, using a Mac with Safari.
Joseph

Hi Angela,
From your screen shots it looks like you are having a problem with the HTML editor not displaying fully, you are only getting the tools bars. Is the HTML editor displaying normally in other parts of your Moodle courses?
Joseph

Hi Tim,

I am in the process of adapting my REGEXP question type for Moodle 1.8 and have just discovered the new formslib PHP library and am building from the question_edit_form class. This is a real improvement, although it took me some time to figure out which elements did what and what parameters could or should be passed.

I especially liked the validation($data) function, which performs all the necessary validation before the question being authored/edited is actually saved, refusing to save it if not validated, and precisely displaying the errors exactly where they occur. I could even manage to test that parentheses and square brackets are correctly matched in the regular expressions used in the Answer fields before saving the question, rather than afterwards as I had to do before.

Thanks to all who made this possible. And I'm looking forward to a more user-friendly, less cluttered Quiz interface later on, as described in your post.

Joseph

PS.- Could you please have a look at bug MDL-8576 which is really blocking me at the moment? (after you have recovered from the jet lag...)

Thanks in advance.

Hi Peter,

As Gordon says in his reply, this looks like an exciting idea. However...

> How do we make the self-help experience better so that more people can have more of their questions answered?

or rather ... so that more questions get more relevant answers...

> But as you type text into the subject line, an area on the right side of the page dynamically updates with other users' posts that relate directly to what you are entering into the subject line.

What about those (not so infrequent) message subjects like: "stupid thing", "just learning, and feeling lost", "Help needed desperately", "Really URGENT! Please help", etc. ? They won't bring out much help, will they?

The helpfulness of these Moodle forums can certainly be enhanced by some technical devices, but more importantly, people who ask for help have to learn a) how to help themselves b) how to formulate their problem to get a better chance of getting help c) to be patient d) to take the time to observe the rules and customs of these forums. People giving help have to observe the same rules, plus a) try to elicit from help-askers the information necessary to understand their problem and b) take the time to test their "solutions" before posting them... In other words, no amount of technology (be it Ajax or otherwise) will replace human common sense and a strong sense of community, the latter being a characteristic of the Moodle community (and of many other discussion board communities).

Peace (as Anthony would say),

Joseph