MooTyper

Activities ::: mod_mootyper
Maintained by AL Rachels
MooTyper implements a typing practice/instruction functionality into Moodle.
Latest release:
1001 sites
166 downloads
55 fans
Current versions available: 7

BEFORE YOU UPGRADE NOTE! 

MooTyper is an Activity module. A course admin, manager, or teacher creates the activity and prepares it for use by selecting the keyboard layout and lessons to use.  It can be set up to present a series of exercises from a lesson or to present one selected exercise from a lesson as a typing exam. Once set up, students can then start to type the current exercise. When a student finishes an exercise his achievement is saved into a database, so the teacher can then view grades.

Numerous keyboard layouts are available in MooTyper. If you do not see what you need, ask me, and I will see what I can do about developing it. Note, that if your server space is limited, you can go in and delete any un-needed layouts or lessons.

You can visit the website URL listed down below, create an account, and try any of the listed layouts. If there is a layout not listed, that you would be interested in trying, please make a request in the comments below, or at the github Source control URL location.

For this MooTyper release, immediately after you upgrade, you may need to go to one of your MooTyper activities and in it's Administration block, click on, Import lesson / KB layout, so you will get versions of all the new keyboard layouts and lessons. Depending on how you do the upgrade, your old keyboard files may be erased. In that case you will get an error that can be cleared by going to Setup for each MooTyper, and select a keyboard layout to use. Old keyboard versions are not necessarily compatible with the styles.css file included in this version. In some cases, this version includes multiple layouts.

Recent New Features - note that the page was getting so long, I have removed previous version, New Features, lists.

  • Missing settings for the activity setting page, have been added - Mode and Lesson name. Note that the list of Exercise names will appear below the selected Lesson name. The same list now shows on the Setting link that takes you to the mod_setup.php page.
  • Code changes similar to those needed for the Amharic keyboard layout, have been added for a Korean keyboard layout.
  • Note that, Your current input:, is added just below the name of the new, Korean(KNV7) Keyboard Layout, so the user can see how the syllable is being formed.
  • If you are deleting an Exercise grade, it must be the last one listed for the user. This is so the program does not get confused by a middle of the list missing result that can cause the database to get messed up.
  • It happens to me very often when creating new layout where the text to type just disappears. To help with this I have added, Reset my stuck attempt, for users and, Reset stuck attempts (all users). for teachers and admins.
  • New Completion settings are available, Exercise, Lesson, Precision, WPM, and MooTyper Grade.
  • Can use Whole grade for combined precision and WPM grade.
  • Can use Whole grade for just a precision grade.
  • Can use Whole grade for just a WPM grade.
  • Can use Rating average, count maximum, minimum, or sum for combined precision and WPM grade.
  • Can use Rating average, count maximum, minimum, or sum for just a precision grade.
  • Can use Rating average, count maximum, minimum, or sum for just WPM grade.
  • Added new grade column on both, View all grades, and on the, View own grades, pages.
  • When using Ratings, added new, Ratings information, section to the grades tables on both , View all grades, and on the, View own grades, pages.
  • Added date/time to the CSVexport file name.
  • Added new icon look feature for Moodle 4.0.
  • Added basic activity completion for Moodle 3.11 and higher.
  • Added capability to delete unused keyboard layouts.
  • Added links to, View all course mootypers, on the grade pages, the end of lesson page, and the end of exam page.
  • Fixed the bug where the cursor color was not being backed up or duplicated correctly.
  • Added plain text to the, Add new exercise to this lesson, button on the exercises page.
  • Added capability for an admin to remove database entries and physical files, for keyboard layouts that are not needed.
For other features and capabilities, visit the link below, More documentation on the plugin.

For any additional information please visit us on GitHub or post in MooTyper's forum topic.

 

Screenshots

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Contributors

AL Rachels (Lead maintainer)
Jaka Luthar: Original author
Luka P.: Original concept
Please login to view contributors details and/or to contact them

Comments

Show comments
  • AL Rachels
    Mon, 5 Dec 2022, 6:18 AM
    Send me a message using the email in my Moodle profile. You need to do like it says on the web site and create an account, and include your details in the message. Then I can upgrade your access in a course to, student or teacher.
  • Jenthe H.
    Tue, 19 Sept 2023, 3:42 AM
    Feature request: could it be made possible to allow a student to correct a typo, but only if the student notices the typo? At this moment there are only two options: 1) a student *must* correct the mistake OR 2) a student cannot correct a mistake. I would like to give my students exercises in which they correct a typo if they notice it, and if they do correct it it doesn't count for the error %. If they didn't correct it than it obviously does count for the error %.
    This is exactly what I would love to see in Mootyper:
    https://internet.intersteno.it/page.php?id_primario=8&id_secondario=121&language=fiammingo&language_text=fiammingo&external=true
    You can correct your mistake, if you do so, it doesn't count as a mistake. But if you don't notice it and you leave the mistake in it, it does count.
  • Jenthe H.
    Tue, 19 Sept 2023, 3:46 AM
    One other feature request: could it be made possible (in the form of a new setting?) to automatically end AND save the exercise once they finish typing the exercise? Right now they have to click a button to save the result, but some of my students forget to do so and click away. This is frustrating because I have no result and the student has to start from scratch. Automatically finishing the exercise once the text has been typed, would be amazing.
  • AL Rachels
    Tue, 19 Sept 2023, 4:18 AM
    Hi Jenthe - Thanks for your interest in additions/improvements to the MooTyper plugin. I will add both of your suggestions to my TODO list for future consideration, but do not expect speedy results. For the past eight months, I've been having pretty severe bouts with eye problems that have limited my work time and put me far behind where I would like to be, on my list. Right now I'm working on a number of "completion" settings and made the mistake of just today trying my new code in the upcoming Moodle 4.3. I about had a heart attack! NONE of them worked in the new Moodle code base. I went and looked at the ongoing QA Test directions for Completion, which I discovered is on hold, so my pulse calmed down for the moment. LOL They must be aware of the problems and are working on them.
  • Pablo S. A.
    Wed, 7 Feb 2024, 9:01 PM

    Thank you very much for your work AL Rachels. I have created a course for my students and they are delighted.
    But I have a problem. Users with macOS operating systems cannot enter accents. Windows users can. How could I solve this? Thank you very much. I work on Moodle 3.8 and Mootyper version 4.2
  • AL Rachels
    Thu, 8 Feb 2024, 6:04 AM
    Hi Pablo
    Write to me, drachels@drachels.com. I need to know what language and what keyboard layout you are using. I'm sorry but the only thing close to a Mac that I have access to, is an old iPad that has to be a least ten yours old, so I might not be able to help much.
  • Ezekiel Lozano
    Tue, 13 Aug 2024, 1:38 PM
    Good day, AL Rachels.

    This is a great plugin. With this, I am wondering whether there is a way to change the mode from exam to lesson once the activity is already created?
  • AL Rachels
    Wed, 14 Aug 2024, 2:04 AM
    Hi @Ezekiel Lozano, Changing the Mode from Exam to Lesson or Practice is something that ONLY an admin can do but you really should NOT do so because in Exam mode the student is required to complete only the one exercise of the Lesson, that the teacher has selected for the Exam. Since some students may have already completed the activity and passed, the activity will still be shown as Completed for them if you change the Mode. Anyone who has not yet started the activity, or completed with a passing grade, they will have to do ALL the exercises in the Lesson. Yes, this means if someone tried the activity in Exam mode and FAILED, they will have to complete all the exercises in the lesson.

    So, if you really need to make the change, log in as a site admin, then start the MooTyper and click on the Settings button between the View all grades and View my grades buttons. As long as you are logged in as an administrator, the Mode drop down will be enabled and you can changed to any of the three modes, Lesson, Exam, or Practice. At this point, to be fair to everyone, the teacher or admin then needs to DELETE all the grades in the MooTyper activity so that everyone has to do all the exercises. I find that it is actually easier to just create a new MooTyper activity set to the Mode I want to use.
  • Ezekiel Lozano
    Tue, 20 Aug 2024, 10:52 AM
    Thank you, Al Rachels for answering my concern.
  • Al
    Fri, 28 Feb 2025, 11:44 PM
    We have upgraded mootyper. And get this message:
    Upgrading to new version
    mod_mootyper
    Exception - Call to undefined function xmldb_mootyper_install()

    More information about this error

    Debug info:
    Error code: generalexceptionmessage×Dismiss this notification
    Stack trace:
    line 891 of /lib/upgradelib.php: Error thrown
    line 651 of /lib/upgradelib.php: call to upgrade_plugins_modules()
    line 1937 of /lib/upgradelib.php: call to upgrade_plugins()
    line 719 of /admin/index.php: call to upgrade_noncore()
    Any ideas? We have removed the old version.
  • AL Rachels
    Sat, 1 Mar 2025, 1:05 AM
    Replied directly to the message you also sent.
  • Al
    Thu, 7 Aug 2025, 4:18 AM
    Hi Al
    I hope you are well, it's been ages.. MoodTyper appears to work on Moodle 5. Could you update the supported extension on your end to Moodle 5 so that it installs automatically each week when we update our Moodle instance? It saves us so much time. Cheers.
  • AL Rachels
    Sat, 21 Mar 2026, 4:45 AM
    @ Carpe Diem et al,
    I know it has been a long time since Carpe Diem inquired about a Korean KB layout and typing capability for MooTyper, and may not need it now, but others might. So, Just to let everyone know, a few minutes ago, I was able to complete my first full sentence of an exercise written in Korean. I am running Behat and other tests, but will push this code to the MooTyper master branch, soon, so that interested parties can try it out. If anyone wants to try it on my server, send me an email and I can give you access.
  • AL Rachels
    Sun, 22 Mar 2026, 5:36 AM
    Just completed the push to master branch. Many visible and many more changes "under the hood" as we say around here. I am still checking performance on various Moodle and DB combinations, but good so far.
  • AL Rachels
    Fri, 10 Apr 2026, 5:28 AM
    For anyone interested, the master branch at github listed above, has just gotten a revamped function for marking MooTyer results as, Suspicious. It also fixes a previously uncaught bug in the, All hits, result, which I just today realized was typically very wrong if someone just stopped typing an exercise, say, to play a game, instead of doing the lesson/exercise. 2026040902 Suspicion now tracks counter rollback anomalies and long no-progress gaps between check intervals in classes/local/results.php. 2026040903 In timed exercises, suspicion now compares typed pace against exercise length/timelimit context and uses an early-stall check (good initial pace, long idle tail, low completion ratio). 2026040904 Corrected full-hits tracking in all active typing scripts. Note that this "Fixes" those long exercises that take over ten minutes to type. If you work steadily, it will not be marked as suspicious, like before.

    I want to do a little more testing, but hope to release a new version next week after I have a chance to fix a couple more of my TODO items.

    If anyone has anything they would like to see added to MooTyper, send me a message or list it here and I will see what I can do.
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