Moodle Plugins directory: PUMA/BibSonomy Module: Comments

Friday, 21 November 2014, 5:14 AM - David Mudrák

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 21:14:09 GMT

by David Mudrák.

Hi Florian. Thanks for your patience with the review and approval process, and for addressing the raised issues responsibly. I am going to approve the module now. Good luck with maintaining it and thanks again for sharing it with the community.

Thursday, 13 November 2014, 7:54 PM - Florian Fassing

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 11:54:49 GMT

by Florian Fassing.

Update:

- I adapted the code to the moodle coding style using the code checker.
- Fixed closing tag in thirdpartylibs.xml.
- licenses.txt added.
- lang/de folder removed.
- copyrights declared.

NOTE: The api-user and -key are now user properties and can be filled under "Edit profile".

Greetings and thanks again for your effort!

Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 11:02 AM - Anthony Borrow

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 03:02:37 GMT

by Anthony Borrow.

I also prefer to see the copyright declared in files you have modified and minimally in the version.php file

Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 10:58 AM - Anthony Borrow

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 02:58:30 GMT

by Anthony Borrow.

Also we will want to remove the lang/de folder as only English should be included with the zip file. After approval we can use AMOS to upload the de file and make those strings available as part of the language pack.

Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 10:56 AM - Anthony Borrow

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 02:56:27 GMT

by Anthony Borrow.

Florian - Thanks for tidying up the issues mentioned above. I was able to get it to install but for some reason had trouble authenticating to the server with the API key so I was not able to do much in terms of testing. While I did not get the coding exception I was seeing some PHP notices - usually these are easy to fix by initializing the variables:

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/m27/mod/pbm/lib.php on line 172

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/m27/mod/pbm/lib.php on line 174

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/m27/mod/pbm/lib.php on line 174

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/m27/mod/pbm/lib.php on line 178

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/m27/mod/pbm/lib.php on line 178

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/m27/mod/pbm/lib.php on line 183

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/m27/mod/pbm/lib.php on line 191

It is encouraged to follow Moodles coding style as outlined in: http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Coding_style and http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Coding

The code checker plugin can be quite helpful in fine tuning your code and can be found at: https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=local_codechecker

You may wish to consider using that tool to further improve your plugin. Below are the initial results:

Files found: 21

mod/pbm/classes/pbm_bibsonomy_url.php - 88 error(s) and 28 warning(s)
mod/pbm/classes/pbm_curl_http_request.php - 33 error(s) and 1 warning(s)
mod/pbm/classes/pbm_curl_http_request_proxy.php - 34 error(s) and 7 warning(s)
mod/pbm/classes/pbm_curl_http_response.php - 37 error(s) and 0 warning(s)
mod/pbm/classes/pbm_document_url.php - 43 error(s) and 12 warning(s)
mod/pbm/classes/pbm_fetch_bibtex.php - 66 error(s) and 4 warning(s)
mod/pbm/classes/pbm_fetch_document.php - 38 error(s) and 7 warning(s)
mod/pbm/classes/utils/pbm_mime_type_mapper.php - 15 error(s) and 0 warning(s)
mod/pbm/classes/utils/pbm_utils.php - 33 error(s) and 0 warning(s)
mod/pbm/db/access.php - 38 error(s) and 0 warning(s)
mod/pbm/db/upgrade.php - 16 error(s) and 2 warning(s)
mod/pbm/index.php - 15 error(s) and 1 warning(s)
mod/pbm/lang/de/pbm.php - 14 error(s) and 5 warning(s)
mod/pbm/lang/en/pbm.php - 14 error(s) and 5 warning(s)
mod/pbm/lib.php - 131 error(s) and 10 warning(s)
mod/pbm/libciteproc/license.txt
mod/pbm/mod_form.php - 65 error(s) and 25 warning(s)
mod/pbm/settings.php - 16 error(s) and 0 warning(s)
mod/pbm/styles.css - 1 error(s) and 0 warning(s)
mod/pbm/version.php - 12 error(s) and 2 warning(s)
mod/pbm/view.php - 28 error(s) and 7 warning(s)

Many of those are simply white space issues and are trivial but it will give you a way of cleaning up your code. Another small feature is the index.php which normally lists the type of activity for a given course. Your index.php is just a shell but you can get a good idea of how to do this by looking at one of the core modules like forum or page. When I went to check the code I did find that the last line of the thirdpartylibs.xml file lacked a proper closing (/libraries) and tossed an error. So that should probably be fixed before we approve it.

Another issue I want to make sure we do a good check on before approving are the licenses. I noticed that some of the json files used ^M for end of lines. Those should probably be replaced but that is not critical or urgent. Could you go through and spell out the different licenses found in the plugin. I noticed New BSD, jquery (essentially MIT license of X11), but I want to make sure I am not missing any. It would be good to have a licenses.txt file that list the various licenses found in the plugin. I think everything is OK with the licenses but wanted to see if I may have missed anything that you might know of.

For now, I am going to mark this plugin as needing more work until we get these issues resolved. Thanks for your patience with the review and approval process. Peace - Anthony

Monday, 13 October 2014, 9:33 PM - Florian Fassing

Mon, 13 Oct 2014 13:33:15 GMT

by Florian Fassing.

Thanks for the reapproval!
Here are some news:

"David Mudrák
Fr, 10. Okt 2014, 18:01
Hi Florian. Thanks for recent updates. Indeed it is possible to support as many Moodle versions as you wish. If there are changes
in Moodle API between versions (and it happens, naturally), maintainers typically address it by releasing multiple versions of
their plugin, each supporting certain Moodle versions. So you can have, for example, one version for Moodle 2.0 to 2.5 and another
one for 2.6 and 2.7. It is possible to even have one version of a plugin that works on Moodle 2.x versions, but your the code has
to include `if ($CFG->version > xxx)` statements so it implements what the given Moodle version expects. In any case, you have to
explicitly mark all supported versions in your plugin version form. Currently, you have just 2.0 selected so this module would
appear as not supporting any higher version. With certain consequences (such as sites not informed about new versions available
etc)."

We decided now to release this version for 2.6 and 2.7. For older version we might bring another pbm version up.

"I'm getting coding exception after the instance is added to the course in Moodle 2.7 (Argument 1 passed to pbm_cm_info_view() must
be an instance of cm_info, instance of stdClass given)."

I checked that and can't reproduce this error. I also actually thought I fixed this in the last relase.
Tell me if you keep getting this error.

"I can see some CSS selectors not being specific enough to your module's scope. Selectors like `.preview_pic` may likely affect
other HTML elements generated by other plugin, should they use the same class. Please use specific selectors."

Fixed.

"I believe the $string['pluginname'] can safely read just 'PUMA/BibSonomy'. The word "module" there is very redundant in the UI.
Also note, *_utf8 packages are not supported in Moodle 2.x. Also, the German language pack should better be uploaded to AMOS once
this module is approved and removed from the plugin's code."

Fixed.

"Please note, if you put your classes into the 'classes' directory instead of the 'class' one, the autoloading would work for you
in recent Moodle versions (see https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Automatic_class_loading)."

Fixed.

"Oh, I forgot. Please check https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversions.php?plugin=mod_pbm&validation=1 and fix the raised validation issues. TIA."

Fixed.

Greetings

Friday, 10 October 2014, 6:02 PM - David Mudrák

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 10:02:56 GMT

by David Mudrák.

Oh, I forgot. Please check https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversions.php?plugin=mod_pbm&validation=1 and fix the raised validation issues. TIA.

Friday, 10 October 2014, 6:01 PM - David Mudrák

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 10:01:43 GMT

by David Mudrák.

Hi Florian. Thanks for recent updates. Indeed it is possible to support as many Moodle versions as you wish. If there are changes
in Moodle API between versions (and it happens, naturally), maintainers typically address it by releasing multiple versions of
their plugin, each supporting certain Moodle versions. So you can have, for example, one version for Moodle 2.0 to 2.5 and another
one for 2.6 and 2.7. It is possible to even have one version of a plugin that works on Moodle 2.x versions, but your the code has
to include `if ($CFG->version > xxx)` statements so it implements what the given Moodle version expects. In any case, you have to
explicitly mark all supported versions in your plugin version form. Currently, you have just 2.0 selected so this module would
appear as not supporting any higher version. With certain consequences (such as sites not informed about new versions available
etc).

I'm getting coding exception after the instance is added to the course in Moodle 2.7 (Argument 1 passed to pbm_cm_info_view() must
be an instance of cm_info, instance of stdClass given).

I can see some CSS selectors not being specific enough to your module's scope. Selectors like `.preview_pic` may likely affect
other HTML elements generated by other plugin, should they use the same class. Please use specific selectors.

I believe the $string['pluginname'] can safely read just 'PUMA/BibSonomy'. The word "module" there is very redundant in the UI.
Also note, *_utf8 packages are not supported in Moodle 2.x. Also, the German language pack should better be uploaded to AMOS once
this module is approved and removed from the plugin's code.

Please note, if you put your classes into the 'classes' directory instead of the 'class' one, the autoloading would work for you
in recent Moodle versions (see https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Automatic_class_loading).

I'll be happy to approve this plugin once we get the situation about the supported Moodle versions sorted out and the coding
exception issue is fixed. Thanks for your work on this.

Thursday, 9 October 2014, 8:10 PM - Florian Fassing

Thu, 09 Oct 2014 12:10:27 GMT

by Florian Fassing.

Hey, thanks for checking.

My intention was to support as many versions as possible.
I tested it under 2.4 and 2.7 and it would run fine under both.

As $plugin is supported since 2.6 and $module is deprecated since 2.7, is it impossible to support 2.4 and 2.7 (or simple > 2.0) ??
I mean in reality peopel don't keep their moodle up-to-date, do they?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I noticed that you create classes in the global PHP scope without the valid frankenstyle prefix or namespace declared. This is strongly discouraged in order to prevent collisions with (current and/or future) core code or some other plugin. See http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Coding_style#Functions_and_Methods for details."

I think that should be fixed too. At least for the plugin classes, of course not for third-party-libs.

"The fact that the module does not display anything at the view.php may confuse users a lot. Also, some standard Moodle features (such as access to the activity logs or local role overrides) actually rely on an existence of the page inside the module instance context."

Fixed in new version.

"I noticed that your plugin is storing its settings in the mdl_config table rather that the mdl_config_plugins. In order to avoid $CFG bloat and potentional collisions, it is recommended to use get_config to pull the data out of mdl_config_plugins."

Should be fixed.

Greetings

Wednesday, 8 October 2014, 11:54 AM - Anthony Borrow

Wed, 08 Oct 2014 03:54:35 GMT

by Anthony Borrow.

I am going to copy over David's comments from the initial entry as many still apply (I removed some of the content about renaming that this new entry resolves):

David Mudrák
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 7:18 AM

Thanks for sharing this plugin with the community. Currently, the uploaded version has supported Moodle set to 1.9 only. It seems that code is supposed to support higher versions, too (I was able to install it in 2.7). On contrary, the $plugin syntax used in the version.php will not probably work in lower versions including 1.9 where $module is expected (not tested).

I noticed that your plugin is storing its settings in the mdl_config table rather that the mdl_config_plugins. In order to avoid $CFG bloat and potentional collisions, it is recommended to use get_config to pull the data out of mdl_config_plugins.

Please try to avoid using PHP closing tags at the end of files. They are not needed and they may cause troubles in certain situations.

The fact that the module does not display anything at the view.php may confuse users a lot. Also, some standard Moodle features (such as access to the activity logs or local role overrides) actually rely on an existence of the page inside the module instance context.

I noticed that you create classes in the global PHP scope without the valid frankenstyle prefix or namespace declared. This is strongly discouraged in order to prevent collisions with (current and/or future) core code or some other plugin. See http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Coding_style#Functions_and_Methods for details.

I noticed that the recommended boilerplate was not used in the version.php file. The boilerplate is recommended at the beginning of each file and makes
explicit the GPL license. You may want to review http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Coding_style#Files to learn more about the boilerplate comments.

Directories like .hg should not be part of the Moodle plugin ZIP packages.

---

Kindly let us know what has been resolved. It looks like you have removed the .hg directories, PHP closing tags, added the boilerplate to version.php. What other work have you done?

Wednesday, 8 October 2014, 11:47 AM - Anthony Borrow

Wed, 08 Oct 2014 03:47:42 GMT

by Anthony Borrow.

Florian - For which versions of Moodle is this plugin intended. The zip file you provided shows that it is only intended for Moodle 1.9 (which has been unsupported for some time); however, the code look to be 2.x. Let me know which versions of Moodle you have tested this plugin. For now, I am going to mark this plugin as needing more work until we get these issues resolved. Thanks for your patience with the review and approval process. Peace -Anthony