[Server-devel] Offline moodle notes in moodle.org

Tue Oct 14 12:14:58 EDT 2008

Wow, I don't understand. gears, according to the presentations out there is
intended to make run the application while offline ?

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 4:52 PM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org> wrote:

>
> I've talked to Google specifically about using Gears on the XO.
> Once they understood OLPC's goals and operating environment,
> they didn't think Gears was appropriate.   It was really designed
> for constant connectivity.
>
> That doesn't mean Google should support Gears in a BitFrost
> environment (for those kids fortunate enough to have connectivity).
> But it does call into question building anything for ALL XOs on top of it.
>
> wad
>
>
> On Oct 10, 2008, at 5:51 AM, Ludo (Marc Alier) wrote:
>
>  Gears sounded like a exciting way to go right when Martin L told me on
>> Skype two weeks ago. That's why I've committed a talented guy like Ruben to
>> dig on this task. We are starting to work on it, and it might even work
>>
>> BUT, in I've been working on a WS architecture for Moodle that can allow
>> SOME features of Moodle to be taken out to offline clients (I'm thinking
>> about Java Phones, iPhones and other no Gears powered machines.
>>
>> As Martin L. says some things move so fast we will not keep up to, BUT
>> maybe we can choose a part of moodle that makes sense to have in a limited
>> device like a phone or an ipod or nintendo ds, and bring it there. This way
>> will never aspire to take out all the features (due to the development
>> rithms that wise ML tells me ) like the gears approach... but hey! is worth
>> a try. So I will put people on both bets. And we are working on WS for other
>> purposes as important as this one
>> http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-12886
>>
>> Sleeping is optional, sure :p
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Martin Langhoff <
>> martin.langhoff at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Posted on moodle.org http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=107920
>>
>> Hi all! I have been away for a while working on other olpc stuff, but
>> now my attention is returning to Moodle, and offline moodle is
>> definitely in my roadmap.
>>
>> In the AU and NZ moot I had good chances to talk with Dan and MartinD
>> about a cunning plan to get a Gears-based offline moodle going.
>>
>> When we disscussed architecture for the current moodle-on-a-stick
>> (MoaS) based we also talked quite a bit about a Gears-based approach.
>> At the time, it looked huge and risky. Google had just released GG,
>> and was talking about upgrading Reader to use it.
>>
>> So there many things stacked against it: Noone had seen Reader doing
>> the offline thing yet, Gears had a somewhat restrictive license, and
>> it seemed that we'd have to implement a significant chunk of Moodle as
>> an AJAX application.
>>
>> Things have changed between then and now. Google has made things much
>> simpler now with a BSD license and Reader shows it can make the
>> offline thing work very well.
>>
>> Reimplementing Moodle as an AJAX app was still a big monster in my
>> head until recently. But a volunteer approached me recently saying he
>> could take a stab at it, and I thought "what would be the simplest
>> thing that could possibly work?"
>>
>> The answer was suprisingly simple: store the damn HTML, CSS and JS in
>> the sqlite DB that Gears provides.
>>
>> So from the course page, we can "go offline" by
>>
>> - Storing the html+css in sqlite -
>> - Requesting a special 'manifest of resources that are ok to use
>> offline' - published by the course-format page...
>> - Retrieving those offline resources. Initially, just mod/resource
>> contents. Later we can extend this support to work with other modules.
>> - When we use the course homepage later while offline, we'll walk the
>> DOM to show CSS blocks 'disabled' (by graying them out) and we will
>> disable links to resources we cannot support offline.
>> - As the user browses the content we do have offline, the JS code
>> keeps track of resources visited. Upon reconnection to the moodle
>> site, we push back the collected logs to mdl_log(*)
>> - Other modules (mod/forum for example) can be supported with ob magic
>> and/or more explicit/AJAXy use of JS.
>>
>> * - we'll need to review the log handling code. So far we've never had
>> "out-of-sequence" log entries, and this will introduce them for the
>> first time. I'm sure there'll be a few gotchas there.
>>
>> Hearing this, MartinD suggested that - as long as we go the "store
>> html" way (supported with output buffering tricks if needed) then we
>> can add the ability to produce a plain old zipfile with a course
>> homepage + static resources. I think it's a good secondary goal to
>> have -- though I'm not sure what limits we'll have with this.
>>
>> Tony Anderson - the volunteer who sparked this - has been working on a
>> proof-of-concept implementation. It currently uses Gears and
>> GreaseMonkey, and requires a few manual tweaks. Unfortunately, I don't
>> think that code can be merged directly - we will want to refine the
>> approach to avoid GreaseMonkey and other inconveniences. My take is
>> that we can either adapt it, or use it as a reference for a more
>> moodlish implentation -- Tony is not a moodle dev, so he's not
>> necessarily familiar with our odd style smile ).
>>
>> Tony's code is here
>> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/server-devel/2008-September/002101.html
>> together with some discussion around it.
>>
>> I also hear noises from Barcelona -- Ludo and Ruben may be able to get
>> involved. This could start getting interesting.
>>
>> Getting this from a PoC to something shippable will take a bit of
>> work. Right now I still have a ton of work to do on other aspects of
>> Moodle that are more urgent for OLPC, but I will find the time to work
>> on this working with Tony, Ludo and Ruben. Sleeping is optional,
>> right? wink
>>
>> Once the urgent infrastructure stuff for olpc is sorted, I'll be keen
>> on bringing this to completion -- at least of an initial stage.
>>
>> --
>>  martin.langhoff at gmail.com
>>  martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
>>  - ask interesting questions
>>  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
>>  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ---
>> Ludo ( Marc Alier)
>> UPC - granludo at gmail.com - Tel. +34-934137885
>> http://orangoodling.blogspot.com - http://www.dfwikilabs.org -
>> http://ososdeviaje.dfwikilabs.org - http://mossegalapoma.cat
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>

-- 
---
Ludo ( Marc Alier)
UPC - granludo at gmail.com - Tel. +34-934137885
http://orangoodling.blogspot.com - http://www.dfwikilabs.org -
http://ososdeviaje.dfwikilabs.org - http://mossegalapoma.cat
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