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Develop a block for Moodle

Proj. ContextMoodleIntentionDiscoveriesToolsOutcomesMy BlockPotential

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Project Context• Speakers

– Michael de Raadt– Yajuvendrasinh V Mahida (Masters student)

• Moodle Trial Project• Moodle as new StudyDesk• Independent Studies ‘Mini-project’

– Develop a block for Moodle


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Project Context

• Semester 1 March 2008 - CSC8480 Computing Complementary Studies

• Supervisor Mr. Michael de Raadt

• I was asked to develop block for Moodle

• I went with proposal of E-Commerce Portal

• In initial findings about Moodle I found it interesting and decided to develop block for Moodle


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Moodle

• I found that Moodle is really revolutionary e-learning platform

• Moodle is modular. It is having potential for keeping up with the time and new technologies

• Development of Moodle is on going process by diffused network of commercial and non-commercial users which are streamlined by the Moodle company based in Perth, Western Australia

• The following Moodle Statistics are success story of Moodle http://moodle.org/stats/


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Moodle Statistics


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Intentions

• The project was divided in two phases

1.Research work on Moodle and Block

• To find out what is Moodle, how it works, what is the file structure etc

• Finding a way for creating a block, what is block, how it works and understanding what you find

2.Creating a block

• Carving the research work to develop block


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Discoveries

• The first difficulty was to find exact information regarding to the development

• The http://docs.moodle.org have very useful documentation for Developer under MoodleDocs. I used this documents as secondary source for the information

• I feel that there is a need of more detailed and practical documentation work for Developer as the current documentation is inadequate


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Discoveries• For my development work I downloaded the

blocks developed by developer from the Moodle website’s Modules and plugins section

• I studied them and tried the Trial and Error method and also used the MoodleDocs for block development

• Many times my Moodle Software was crashed and I learned lot of things through this

• I found that already developed blocks are the best source for developer as starting point


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Discoveries• After all these findings I developed the

simple Ajax Google Search block

• It was just simple block which was showing the Google Web Search results

• I showed to supervisor Mr. Michael de Raadt and he advised me for adding more customization through the Instance Configuration and Global Configuration

• I downloaded and studied the block that have configurations. And I used that finding to add customization feature to my block


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Tools1. Eclipse with PHP plugin

• It is really good IDE with powerful features

• You can connect to the CVS repository http://cvs.moodle.org

• I found that it is very complex and not easy to start with

• The setting up Eclipse for Moodle development is good guide to start with http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Setting_up_Eclipse


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Tools2. fabFORCE DBDesigner 4

• DBDesigner 4 is a open source visual database design system that integrates database design, modeling, creation and maintenance into a single, seamless environment

• I used this tool to explore the Moodle database system

• This is really good tool for playing around the MySQL database of Moodlehttp://www.fabforce.net/dbdesigner4/downloads.php


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Tools3. NuSphere PHP IDE

• It is really good IDE with powerful features like friendly user interface, debugger, code navigator etc

• I used this IDE is as a real time editor for my block http://www.nusphere.com/

• The other features can be useful but I have never needed to use it


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Outcomes• Finally I developed the fully customizable

Google Search Services block

• I submitted this block on the Moodle’s Modules and Plugins section which was accepted as valid block and can be found at http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=1608

• Till today’s date I have received some general queries regarding to the block from the Moodle community and some few users across the community have given me positive feedback about the working of the block


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Outcomes• Through this course and project I had

chance for the experience with the real world development

• I learnt lot of things in terms of academic and professional skills

• My supervisor Michael de Raadt kept me on the right track during the project work. This was really important as sometime one can easily lost during the track in absence of proper guidance


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Outcomes• I have learnt the theoretical aspects of the

PHP, HTML, CSS, AJAX through my academic learning

• With this project I put all these theoretical skills into the professional and real world development

• This course has proved worthwhile for me….


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Moodle Google Block


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Moodle Google Block File Structure

Instance Configuration HTML File

Global Configuration HTML File Main Block File

Lang directory

Cascade Style SheetDirectory

Images necessary for Block


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Block’s Language File Structure

Language File

HTML Help files to use with Block’s help buttons


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Main Block File block_moodle_google.php


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Language File block_moodle_google.php


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Global Configuration Source-Code

config_global.html


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Block’s Global Configuration

Global Configuration can be accessed

by Site Administration

Block

This parameters are loaded from the config_global.html file


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Instance Configuration Source-Code

config_instance.html


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Block’s Instance Configuration

Press the edit buttonfor

Instance Configuration

This parameters are loaded from the config_instance.html file


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Integrated Help Function• The help functionality is implemented

using the Moodle function helpbutton. This function is defined in weblib.php library.

helpbutton($page, $title, $module='moodle', $image=true, $linktext=false, $text='', $return=false,$imagetext='')

Help button using helpbutton function


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Integrated Help Function• When you press this button help page

(html) is called from the directory\moodle\lang\en_utf8\help\moodle_google_help

Help Page is displayed as pop up


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Integrated Help Function

• I found all these functions very late during work

• These functions are described with all arguments and required parameters. This can be said the Moodle APIs

• This is really very smart APIs and with few lines of code one can achieve big functionalities within the Moodle

• Use of these functions makes the development work very easy


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Integrated Help Function

• The Moodle Community have defined all these various Moodle functions under various library on http://xref.moodle.org/nav.html?index.html


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Potential for Future Students• Undergraduates

– Advanced/later-year programming undergrads• JavaScript in Block• Simple blocks modifications• Simple DB access

• Postgrads– Some groundwork but still steep learning curve– Block development– Modifications to existing Moodle code

• Project Clients– Pseudo-client– University (lower priority feature requests)– Moodle Student Projects


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Useful Links

1. Moodle Docs - Developer Documents for Moodle Developer

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Developer_documentation

2. PHP Cross Reference of Moodle 1.9- Moodle Functions References and other Stuff

http://xref.moodle.org

3. The CVS archive - This archive contains all the source code for Moodle

http://cvs.moodle.org/


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Useful Links4. Moodle Documentation Development:Block

Step by step guide to Creating Blocks http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Blocks

5. Moodle Google Block

This block’s source codes have the comments for each piece of the code.

I have tried to explain each piece of code and what it does

This makes easy for any newbie to start developing block

http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=1608


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Thank you very much…..

Date post:	24-May-2015
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