Develop "mahara" repository plugin for mahara

I take it you guys are customising Mahara for this? It might be a good idea to actually talk to the Mahara developers

Hi Penny, yes I'm playing with Mahara at this moment, I added some xmlrpc functions and now are looking for core functions to use. I'll talk with Mahara dev for sure

Cool, just make sure you talk with us early, so we can advise you in the right direction, rather than just send a patch at the end that we might have to ask you to rewrite.

You can use dev@mahara.org if you like, or #mahara-dev on freenode

thanks Penny, I'll go to the IRC chat.

Ok the current version is working and integrate search + preview
I think I need to have a look to the pagination and also to display the folder before the files.

In order to test:

On moodle activate Networking, add Mahara peer, activate all host services for the Mahara host.
On mahara activate Networking and add your Moodle institution with XMLRPC authentication
Then you should be able to remotely access to Mahara

Then add Mahara repository plugin and set it up to the Mahara peer. The Mahara repository should be now available in the file picker.

Ok we'll probably not implement the pagination yet as there is currently some problem with path + pagination together in some browser.
I have to look to the logout button, see if it could close the mnet Mahara session ...

Ok done, pending Mahara acceptation. I commited the Mahara code into the git branch: moodle-repository-plugin (git.mahara.org/git/mahara.git)

You can assign this to Penny/myself if you like

Good, I assign it to you Nigel

I've had a go at trying to test this, though I haven't had success so far.

I managed to set up a new Moodle 2.0 and a Mahara 1.2, and got them networked together correctly. The services I have enabled are:

• Portfolio services: subscribe
• SSO IDP: Publish
• SSO SP: Subscribe

On the Mahara side, I have enabled "They SSO In", "We auto-create users" and "We import content". SSO works fine at this point.

Again on the Moodle side, I allowed users to create their own repository, then added the Mahara for my admin user in their repositories section. But I can't use it when trying to attach a file to a forum post. I can see the Mahara repository, but clicking on it just has a big spinner for ever, and I have this in firebug:

repo is undefined
repo.viewbar.set('disabled', false); repository.src.js, line 270

The POST that happened just before it returned:

At this point, I went hunting in the roles interface, and found the permission about Mahara repositories, but even allowing that didn't fix the problem (even after I logged out and in again).

So it looks like there's two problems there:

• what permissions do I need to fix to make it work?
• how come the code doesn't handle this case more gracefully?

Hum I just remember this repository plugin, and I've just discover Nigel comment, I though nobody never answered ...
I suggest to remove Mahara plugin from HEAD

I will need to:

• recontact Mahara team to get access on my git rep where the Mahara code is (I just tried bu I can't access it, I don't know why)
• check out why it is not working, but as it's a very old code, and since this time, Mnet has been reworking and the repository code / file picker code evolved.

It could be quite some works...

Dongsheng, can you move this to contrib for now? Hopefully it can come back in after 2.0.

I've tidied up the Moodle plugin a bit and it appears to function ok - it just looks like the Mahara side doesn't have the right code - The Moodle code refers to the methods
'get_folder_files' => 'repository/mahara/lib.php/get_folder_files',
'search_folders_and_files' => 'repository/mahara/lib.php/search_folders_and_files',
'get_file' => 'repository/mahara/lib.php/get_file',

but I can't see these methods implemented on the Mahara side - is there some extra Mahara code floating around that I can grab?

ah - found it in the old git branch: moodle-repository-plugin (git.mahara.org/git/mahara.git)

Good to see you looking after the Mahara plugin Dan Thanks.

thanks Jerome,

FYI - I've just pushed the old git branch into our new gitorious repo here:
http://gitorious.org/~danmarsden/mahara/dans-sandbox/commits/moodle-repository-plugin

appears to be working now - didn't need much work to get it going on the mahara side.

Mahara code has now been pushed into master:
http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/3dabe26c86e780498447d8807917a9d7c0596f44

Moodle core is currently here:
http://cvs.moodle.org/contrib/plugins/repository/mahara/

Hi folks,

Just wanted to check if this is going to be in 2.0 this week or if its been pushed back to 2.1. I've been trying out 2.0 daily builds with Mahara 1.3 and it doesn't look like its in there atm.

Thoughts welcome, just curious

M.

Assigning to myself. From my pov this will require some work in the way how the service rpc's are registered in Moodle.

Is this still on track to make it into 2.1? Again - can't wait to see this in as one of the critical pieces in the Moodle/Mahara puzzle

Mark.

Hi Mark,

yes, this is still on my TODO list for Moodle 2.1. I was actually able to get it running after I hacked the required XMLRPC handlers manually at very low level. I believe I shall find a way how to integrate the plugin back into core nicely.

Thanks for being patient meanwhile.

When I was playing around with this, it seems like it is a requirement to integrate authentication between Moodle and Mahara to get Mahara to work as a repository. Because my institution uses external single sign-on authentication, it seems like we should be able to skip this step or at least flag that single sign-on is being used with both applications. Thanks for reviewing this comment.

Thanks David, response appreciated

Hi David,

I'm thinking of doing a session at the Australian Moot in July on the improved integration between Moodle and Mahara - do you reckon this will be available by then? If not I'll do something else, as this is an important piece of the puzzle IMO.

Cheers,

Mark.

Hi Mark. I'll do my best to have this in 2.1. You can help by spreading the word about this issue to gather even more votes (twitter works pretty well for this) so this issue will get higher at the todo list for 2.1 release.

I'm seeing 20+ votes and no activity. Any updates on this David?

JR

Yes, I think there is a large number of us who use both Moodle and Mahara who are waiting for this as the last impediment to upgrading to Moodle 2.x and we were hoping it could be done by 2.1 ready for the next semester. I'd like to see it high on the priority list.

Hi, the German speaking community is looking forward the #mahara repo. Please give it a VERY high priority.

I will speak about this project at the Mahara UK 2011, today and tomorrow in Southampton and also during the MoodleMoot FR 2011, in Tunisia next week.

This feature is really the one Mahara and Moodle users are waiting for.

I can second that. Its a great feature that would complement moodle and mahara in a very powerfull way.

The french agricultural public schools are for so impatient for this repositery. We vote for high priority. Thanks

My vote too. Mahoodle is a killer combination.

Go David go!!!! The German moodlers will be happy to have this feature too!!! We are spreading the word! Will pay you huge Mojito next time!!

This issue is affecting MP clients. Please give it priority.

I know there are lots of other issues to resolve, but the Mahara plugin for Moodle 2.x keeps getting pushed back and it would be really helpful if this could be confirmed and committed to for 2.1.2. Is that possible? If it is committed to, then we can all plan.

Increasing priority of this to Major. However I do not think this will happen for Moodle 2.1.x, sorry. Putting this into DEV backlog. The code that was part of Moodle 2.0dev before it was moved to CONTRIB is now available at https://github.com/mudrd8mz/moodle-repository_mahara If someone has capacity to look at it and try to come with the solution of how to integrate it with the current MNet framework, that would be highly appreciated. I am personally committed into other projects for 2.2 and won't have time to work on this anytime soon.

Just upgraded from Moodle 1.9 and mahara 1.3 to Moodle 2.1 and mahara 1.4 - astonished this functionality is not here. As a UK school with a national reputation for elearning we are crying out for it - it is fundamental to the development of e-portfolios

Is there anyone out there who is able to get this plugin working? We use Mahara extensively but would love to use Moodle as well for its structure and gradebook. This plugin is crucial to getting that to work for us and I'd prefer not to implement an old version of Moodle to make that happen.

Hi David,

At LUNS we are Mahara & Moodle core developers and could work on this plugin, however we have a very busy schedule and would need funding in order to spend time looking at this. Get in touch with me if you are interested.

We are using Mahara <-> Moodle.

I believe this would be a desired feature.

I might even have some bandwidth to pick up the torch.

Is somebody minutes away from submitting a patch, or shall I dig deeper?

Has there been any progress with this feature?

Not at my side, sorry. But given the number of votes, we should really escalate this.

Thanks David, would be good to see this implemented as Mahara 1.5 release exports dashboard info to Moodle. To me, making the integration of both systems more appealing with the additional integrations

Any further progress on this? Has come up again in discussions as something which would be really useful to have.

Sorry, no progress at my site. This issue is a bit complicated as the future of the MNet framework (which is the current communication protocol between Mahara and Moodle) is a bit uncertain as it has been deprecated. I believe we will need to cooperate more tightly with Mahara guys to decide what form of communication protocol would be useful for both sides in longer term period.

Hi all,
I heard on the grape wine that Catalyst IT will be working on the assignment integration over LTI...
Anyone can confirm?
Cheers,
Shane.

This issue was assigned to me, however I will not be able to work on this issue in the immediate future. In order to create a truer sense of the state of this issue and to allow other developers to have chance to become involved, I am removing myself as the assignee of this issue. For more information, see http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Changes_to_issue_assignment