[Server-devel] EduBlog Revised Project Plan

[Tarun Pondicherry]

Hi Martin,
> Well, you can't tell what options to remove until you get real users
> using it, and you spot which options they don't use ;-)
>   
Thats true, but I'm also concerned we might scare them away!  I'd rather 
make it simple for the test, and then add the options back in as 
needed.  I believe a top priority for this project is to assure teachers 
that using it requires little or no learning curve.  This is something 
Greg can provide the best input on.
> I wasn't intending to put all of in on your shoulders...
>   
Phew!
> I know. I am expecting some help on that... So if you can make do
> initially with a spartan moodle theme and a simplified course (remove
> blocks!). Or are you seeing specific big bugs?
>   
Our project will still only focus on three pages (student, teacher and 
admin).  The teacher page (and functionality) don't exist in either blog 
or ou blog, though there is an SoC project that may put some of those 
features into the blog module 
(http://docs.moodle.org/en/Student_projects/Blog_improvements).  So we 
will have to add that in, perhaps we can use some of the code from that 
project.  I've also read your comments about avoiding admin pages, but 
there some options like where to post that have to be set on the user 
side.  How can we implement this without an admin page?
>> - Automatically authenticate so that students can directly access the post
>> blog entry page w/o logging in and navigating to it
Can I assume that all the pages will have knowledge of the course and 
student name, etc. once that is done?  I can hard code some things for 
the alpha version to get around this.
>> All html editors have complex UIs. And writing an html editor *is*
>> incredibly complex.
Agreed, since we must support IE, FF and Browse.  Moodle gives the 
option of using either HtmlArea or tinyMCE.  I think one will likely be 
removed for the XS install (don't see the point in sugarizing both) 
right?  Which one should we modify?
> The blog can be a sitewide blog - either using teh vanilla moodle
> blog,
Sorry, for my noobness, what is a "vanilla" version?
>  or a oublog in the "sitecourse" (aka the front page). IF they
> mainly want to use the blog, it will be right there, no need to fiddle
> w courses...
>   
We need to associate the blog with the course anyway, but 
automatically.  So, they shouldn't have to fiddle with courses, it just 
needs to be automatically set based on the teacher somehow.
> (Of course, they'll want to know more about moodle anyway ;-) )
>   
That's a bit optimistic, but we can hope =).
> So far the Moodle on XS team looks like:
>
>  - Julian Ridden - has offered to build a theme for us
>  - Gary Anderson has also offered help re theming
> http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=73022
>  - me!
>   
Cool, theming for browse would be a major issue.  I'm glad there is some 
help on this!
> I am right now @ a MoodleMoot - my main goal here is to get more
> people involved...
>   
Awesome!

Tarun