Moodle

Assigning to Petr... do you know the status of this?

They are still experimental, if I remember it correctly there are still some issues left to be solved...

I tried this out extensively recently all seemed well: visibility was correct based on the relevant capability inc. for groups. Emails were sent at appropriate times.

There was no duration (period) option as noted on MDL-17955

We've just started using this recently and have noticed a bug. The ability to view a post that has a future display start date is limited to the person that made the post.

If I as admin make a post with a future availability date, an instructor can see the post listed on the forum page. However if they try to view it they get "Discussion ID was incorrect or no longer exists" as if the post had been removed. Likewise if an instructor makes a similar post I as admin get the same error when trying to view it.

Permissions for both Roles are set to Allow for viewing hidden timed posts.

Darrel,

Is the behaviour the same if the poster and viewer both have "normal" course only role assignments?

At ULPGC have enabled timed post for the full academic year. The feature was well received by teachers and used in some courses.

We have found only three "bugs" or inconvenient behaviours that require changes in code

a) No indication of the time-restriction on the discussion once published
This is detailed in issue MDL-9070
Once the post is saved the author can see it, but not the students (if out of time interval), but there is absolutely NO indication of that fact. I propose to print "invisible/hidden" discussions as DIMMED, like activities in course page.
This would imply to modify function forum_print_discussion_header() in forum/lib.php to check timestart and timeend properties and set DIMMED class.

b) A mechanism to change dates or REMOVE time limitation AFTER the publication of the post.
Nos if the teacher erroneously save a post with time limitation cannot make it visible for all afterwards. Teh only way is to modify DB directly. A post in a news forum can be deleted and re-posted without limitation. But this is NOT possible for a whole discussion that was started by a time-restricted post

c) Error "Discussion ID was incorrect or no longer exists" in NEWS forums
Due to a) we have experienced the same confusing bug seen by Darrel Tenter
In a NEWS forum an people with permissions (teachers and admins) can see ALL discussions, but if you try to view a discusion you have not authored you are thrown that error "Discussion ID was incorrect or no longer exists"

I have traced the bug to some lines at the start of discussion.php script.
There, by line 45, you can find

    if ($forum->type == 'news') {
        if (!($USER->id == $discussion->userid || (($discussion->timestart == 0
            || $discussion->timestart <= time())
            && ($discussion->timeend == 0 || $discussion->timeend > time())))) {
            print_error('invaliddiscussionid', 'forum', "$CFG->wwwroot/mod/forum/view.php?f=$forum->id");
        }
    }

(similar in 1.9 version with message "Discussion ID was incorrect or no longer exists" hardcoded)

This is a limitation specific for NEWS forum that is quite nonsense. Students CANNOT see the hidden discussions, those are not printed in the list. This condition is affecting to teachers and admins, both with legitimate rights to access to those time-limited discussions.
In my opinon, either the condition is eliminated completely or the regular checks for applicable permissions are added.

reassigning to HQ