UploadPDF

Assignment types ::: assignment_uploadpdf
Maintained by DavoDavo Smith
Annotate student's work within your browser and return it as a PDF

UploadPDF 2.x (Build: 2013011200)

Moodle 2.0, 2.1, 2.2
Released: Wednesday, 30 January 2013, 4:30 PM
This plugin for the assignment module allows a teacher to annotate and
return PDF files that have been submitted by students.

Teachers can add and position comments and draw lines, ovals and rectangles
onto the student's work, from within the browser, before returning the
work to the student.

This plugin is available in Moodle 2.0-2.2 and Moodle 1.9 versions.
This is the **Moodle 2.0** version - you can download the Moodle 1.9 version
from here:
https://github.com/davosmith/moodle-uploadpdf/zipball/MOODLE_19_STABLE

There is a replacement plugin set for the Moodle 2.3+ assign module, which can be
found here:
https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=assignsubmission_pdf
https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=assignfeedback_pdf

!! THERE ARE A FEW IMPORTANT ITEMS TO NOTE IN THE INSTALLATION, PLEASE
READ CAREFULLY !!

==Recent changes==

* 2013-01-12 - Fix for possible conflicts when both this and the new assignsubmission_pdf plugin is installed
* 2012-10-05 - Fixed possible file confusion during submission (which could result in students ending up with another's work)
* 2012-04-30 - Fixed JS bug preventing plugin from working in IE
* 2012-04-16 - Fixed broken image URLs when 'slasharguments' is disabled
* 2012-02-11 - Fixed alignment of 'highlighter' tool
* 2012-02-07 - Fixed bug in temporary path when creating submissions
* 2012-02-04 - Added 'highlighter' tool & 'stamps' tool
* 2012-02-04 - Can now cope with any PDF version; fixed browser caching of images when PDF is changed, YUI CSS path
* 2012-02-02 - Fixed postgres compatibility - thanks to Ruslan Kabalin
* 2011-12-07 - Fixed jquery conflicts
* 2011-10-21 - Fixed issues with updated version of Raphael library
* 2011-10-10 - Fixed IE9 incompatibility issues
* 2011-08-30 - Previous version posted on Moodle.org

==Installation==

Note: this plugin needs PHP 5.2.0 (or above) for the JSON library.

1. Download and install GhostScript ( http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost )
- or install from standard respositories, if using Linux.
Under Windows, do not install to a path with a space in it - that
means you should install to something like 'c:\gs'
NOT 'c:\Program Files\gs' (note you only need the files
'gswin32c.exe' and the dll file from the 'bin' folder, all other
files are unnecessary for this to work).

2. Unzip the Uploadpdf plugin files to a folder on your local machine

(3.) (Windows server only): Edit the file 'uploadpdf_config.php' to
include the path to where you installed GhostScript (see instructions
in that file for more information)

4. Upload the plugin files to /mod/assignment/type/uploadpdf

5. Log in to Moodle as administrator, then click on 'Notifications'.

All being well, you should now be able to add assignments of type
'uploadpdf' to your courses.

==How to use==

* Add a new activity of the type 'Upload PDF' to a course. (This may
well show up as 'typeuploadpdf' see 'Known Issues', below).

* Configure all the usual settings - you should be aware of the
following additions:

Coversheet - this is a PDF that will be automatically prepended to
the start of any files submitted by your students

Template - before submission your students can be (optionally) asked
to fill in some text fields, the template is used to add these
entries to the coversheet

Edit Templates... - see section below

All files must be PDFs - set to 'No', if you want to collect in some
supporting documents, which could not be marked as PDFs (e.g. a
spreadsheet, with formulas you want to check)

Display checklist (only if the 'checklist' plugin is installed) - you
can choose to dispaly the progress bar for a checklist after the
introduction text

Checklist complete before submission (only if the 'checklist' plugin
is installed) - you can prevent students from submitting work when
they have not yet ticked all the items on the checklist


* When a student uploads their files and clicks 'Submit' they will be
checked to see if they are all PDFs (depending on the setting
above), before combining them together into a single
'submission.pdf'.

(Hint: to help students generate PDF files, either use OpenOffice.org
- http://www.openoffice.org - which has PDF export built in, or
install a PDF printer, such as PDF Creator -
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator
Hint2: A copy of PDFTK
Builder - http://angusj.com/pdftk - will help students to combine
their PDF files together in the order they want; my 'uploadpdf' plugin
will just join them in the order they are uploaded).

* The teacher can then log in, go to the usual marking screen (I
particualarly recommend 'Allow quick grading') and click on
'Annotate submission', which will bring up the first page of the
student's work on screen.

* Click anywhere on the image of the PDF to add a comment. Use the
resize handle in the bottom-right corner of a comment to resize it,
click & drag on a comment to move it. Click (without dragging) on a
comment to edit it, delete all the text in a comment to remove it.

* Right-click on a comment to add it to a 'Comment Quicklist'. You can
then right-click anywhere on a page to insert comments from this
'Comment Quicklist' (with the same text, width and background as the
original). Comments can be delete from the 'Comment Quicklist' by
clicking on the 'X' to the right of the comment.

* You can add lines to the PDF by holding 'Ctrl' ('Alt' on Apple Macs)
whilst you click and drag with the mouse (or alternatively hold 'Ctrl'
then click once for the start and once for the end of the line).

* You can also choose different drawing tools by clicking on the icons
or by using the keys c (comments), l (lines), r (rectangles),
o (ovals), f (freehand lines), e (erase lines), [ & ] (change comment
colour), { & } (change line colour)

* Navigate between the pages by clicking on the 'Next' and 'Prev'
buttons or by pressing 'n' and 'p' on the keyboard.

* Click on 'Save Draft and Close' (or just click on the Window's usual
'close' button) to save the work in progress.

* Click on the 'Generate Response' icon to create a new PDF with all your
annotations present (that the student will be able to access).

* You can view the comments you have made on a student's previous
submissions by choosing that submission from the 'compare to' list

* You can quickly find comments you have previously made by clicking
on the 'find comment' list.

* Add any feedback / grades to the usual form and save them.

* Note: If you have a problem with the javascript based page navigation
(added on 22 Nov 2009) or prefer having the list of pages to view,
then change the setting in 'uploadpdf_config.php'. The javascript
method preloads pages to reduce the delay when changing from one page
to the next (and probably reduces server load if you do a lot of
switching back and forth between pages). The old navigation is not
tested regularly and may well break when I make further changes to
the code.

* Note2: The 'View XX submitted assignments' link has been updated to
show both the total number of assignments submitted for marking and
the number still awaiting responses (in brackets). The second number
is only shown if there are unmarked assignments.

==Edit Templates==

* Click on the 'Edit Templates...' button on the 'Settings' page

* Choose the name of the Template to edit (or select 'New
Template...')

* You can change the name of the template, delete the template or make
it available to everyone on the site (administrators only, for this
last option). Only administrators can edit site templates.
Note: you cannot delete templates that are in use (click 'show' to
find out where it is currently being used)

* The list at the bottom allows you to choose an item in the template
to edit, or choose 'New Item...' to add a new one.

* The types of item you can add are:
text - a block of text, which will re-flow at 'width' pixels
'value' will be the prompt the student sees to fill this in
shorttext - similar to text, but without word-wrapping
useful for 'name' or 'type your initials to state this is all
your own work'
date - fills in the date that the assignment was submitted
'value' is the format to record the date

* To position the items on the template, upload an example PDF
coversheet (using the bottom form) then type in the position
you want to place the PDF (x position, y position, in pixels).
Alternatively, click on the coversheet image to set the position of
that template item.

* When you are finished, save any items you have changed, then
close the window. The list of templates on the 'settings'
page should have been updated.

==Uninstall==

* Delete any instances of the module from courses.

* Delete the contents of /mod/assignment/type/uploadpdf.

* Use mysql/phpmyadmin to delete the following tables:
'assignment_uploadpdf', 'assignment_uploadpdf_comment',
'assignment_uploadpdf_tmpl', 'assignment_uploadpdf_tmplitm',
'assignment_uploadpdf_qcklist' and 'assignment_uploadpdf_annot'

==Known issues==

There is no way of configuring the GhostScript path via the
Administration menu (this is a Moodle limitation that I have not
yet found a solution to).

There is no way of deleting this from the Administration menu (Moodle
limitiation, again).

There is no way to annotate the PDFs without JavaScript.

The user interface has just had some major changes to it (Apr 2011).
It is possible, despite exentensive testing, that there are some bugs
in it. If you need to, you can get the old version of the user interface
here (install it over the current version):
https://github.com/davosmith/moodle-uploadpdf/zipball/moodle20-originalui

Highlighter tool was (briefly - for about 2 hours, until I realised a better
way of coding it) unable to export highlights properly to the PDF -
this has now been fixed.

==Thanks==
This is heavily based on the 'Advanced Uploading of Files' Assignment
module and makes use of GhostScript and the FPDI and TCPDF libraries
for PDF manipulation; Mootools is used to help with the JavaScript.

Thanks to the creators of all those libraries, as this wouldn't have
been possible without their hard work (and their free software licensing)

==Contact==
moodle AT davosmith DOT co DOT uk
or via http://www.davodev.co.uk/contact

Davo Smith

Version information

Version build number
2013011200
Version release name
2.x (Build: 2013011200)
Can be updated from
2.x (Build: 2012100500) (2012100500)
Can be updated to
2.x (Build: 2013022200) (2013022200)
Maturity
Stable version
MD5 Sum
e437b7580249449556bbf93c3983510a
Supported software
Moodle 2.1, Moodle 2.0, Moodle 2.2

Version control information

Version control system (VCS)
GIT
VCS repository URL
VCS branch
master

Default installation instructions for plugins of the type Assignment types

  1. Make sure you have all the required versions.
  2. Download and unpack the module.
  3. Place the folder (eg "myassigntype") in the "mod/assignment/type" subdirectory.
  4. Visit http://yoursite.com/admin to finish the installation