[Server-devel] Various / PDF resources in Moodle

David Leeming david at leeming-consulting.com
Wed Dec 23 20:47:55 EST 2009


Martin, 

Regarding pushing activities, I agree that putting them on the XS to allow
the users to manage themselves is the best way. If a teacher wants to make
sure that all have it installed, they can always create a folder with the
activity uploaded to make it unambiguous. A "Todays files" folder would be
useful, with the teacher directing children to it using sharing Bookmarks
(Browse), so they have only to join the shared activity and then click on
the Bookmark - 2 clicks to the resources for the lesson.

3 questions, 

(1) what happens if the version on the XS is different (higher or lower)
than a version one already on the XO? Do you get duplicates or does the
latest downloaded/run version preside? 

(2) how can one upload an activity to a folder on the XS from an XO?

(3) What is the location on the XS of site files and course files, in case I
want to load stuff manually?

Here is a combined report on several related non-critical issues. 

Firstly, I took note of your suggestion and updated my four XOs (2 B4s and 2
C1s) using 802/2QE41 and the latest version of the activities. I upgraded
all of them using the same memory stick using the fresh install method (four
game keys on boot). So they should have been identical software wise.

I discovered two issues in this process. 

(1) It's difficult to know which are the latest stable versions of
activities as the OLPC and Sugar activities pages differ (unless I missed
the small print). Sugar has more advanced versions. However, I noted that
you referred to Browse 102 which is the current version on the OLPC wiki for
that activity. I decided to use the OLPC wiki Activities page for all the
"G1G1" core activities and the Sugar site latest versions for the rest. I
have yet to test them all but all seem OK so far. SO, I am using Browse 102
and Read 56.

(2) At risk of seeming to make a fuss out of nothing, this issue has the
potential to cause a lot of confusion and time wasting. After noticing some
activities and collections failed to start or appear, I suspected that some
of the downloads were incomplete. This was confirmed when I looked at the
shell screen that appears at the stage when activities are installed one by
one. If there are errors, the activity is shown with an exclamation mark
rather than a plus sign. I found several of the files were not installing
properly. This I found to be because they were incomplete. The downloads had
terminated partway through, however with no indication of anything amiss. I
used a download manager and re-downloaded the ones that had failed to
install. True enough, they now all installed and I can see all the
collections, for instance. The issue here is that in countries where there
is unreliable connectivity (slow with outages, as is the case here in
Solomons) this will be something people will experience. Can the downloads
be provided in a more reliable way so that one knows that one has got the
full file? Or otherwise recommend people to use download managers. 

Now to the other issues.

(A) PDFs uploaded to Moodle folders always open in the Rainbow-Daemon
dialogue when you left click on the links. If you go to hyperlinks on HTML
pages either in my local public folders or out on the net, a PDF file always
opens in the Browse version of PDF reader when you left click on it. In all
my tests it is fully reproducable using both B4 and C1s. I would prefer them
to open in Read activity, which has but it's not a huge problem, they are
very similar. One can also Keep and then open from the Journal. But why the
rainbow-daemon window? 

Thanks!

David Leeming
Solomon Islands Rural Link 
http://www.leeming-consulting.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Langhoff [mailto:martin.langhoff at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, 22 December 2009 12:43 a.m.
To: David Leeming
Subject: Re: [Server-devel] PDF resources in Moodle

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 4:30 AM, David Leeming
<david at leeming-consulting.com> wrote:
> Yes, it is reproducible. I am using 802/Q2E41 and Browse-98.xo and the XS
is
> the current latest version stable build.

Thanks.

Orange flag right there: Browse-98.xo? Get Browse-102.xo from
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities/ (and I think that will fix your
B4s that don't auto-authenticate ;-)

So

 - upgrade Browse, retest!

 - are you using Squid? If yes, switch it off, retest...?

 - other websites serving PDFs -- test one from
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Category:PDF

> Where do I register bugs, sorry I should know that. Let me know and I will
> do it if you confirm you can replicate.

http://dev.laptop.org/ get an account there. It's a rite of passage
;-) If you want to draw more attention to the usability issues for
future releases of Sugar, also get an account on
http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ and file a bug there.

cheers,


m
-- 
 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





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