Tania, thanks for creating this issue. I've voted for it!

Just adding a link to your forum discussion https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=219212 in case anyone else posts further comments there.

I would like to see frequently used comments moved to a core feature so it can be used everywhere (gradebook, modules, marking guide, rubric).

Thanks for reporting this.

Adding more detail to your suggestion will make it easier to work on.

If you can propose a code solution, that will help others who may have the same need and will increase the chance of this improvement/feature coming about sooner. If you are able to provide a patch or links to your Git repository branch, please add a patch label so we will spot it.

I'm not a coder, but I do want to expedite feedback to our students, so it would be awesome if this feature could be included.

We are seeing the same issue when we backup and restore a course with Advanced Grading and the Frequently Used Comments field enabled. After the restore the field and contents disappear. Backup and restore is performed with default settings. Here are the steps:
1. Create assignment which uses the Marking Guide grading method
2. Create the Marking Guide, making sure there are comments in the "Frequently used comments" field
3. Backup the course
4. Restore the course with or without users
5. Review the restored assignment's marking guide. All previously entered fields are present except "Frequently used comments".

Stephen and Zey, thanks for your comments. The best thing you can do if you're not a coder is vote for the issue (which I can see you have both done - thanks!) and make some noise by posting in the discussion https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=219212 as this increases the chance of a coder noticing and thinking 'Hey, I can make people happy by fixing this issue!' Alternatively, you could start a new discussion if you agree with Damyon about it being good if frequently used comments could be used in other places too.

Our instructors were very excited about the addition of the marking guide and equally dismayed when they imported/restored courses and the frequently used comments vanished. This issue limits the usefulness of the marking guide because, without the comments transferring too, it's just about as easy to start from scratch each term. I have instructors who have reverted to their old technique of typing frequently used comments in Microsoft Word and copy/pasting into Moodle. This has proven very frustrating and has given Moodle a black eye as far as many of our instructors are concerned.

This issue was assigned to me automatically, 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

Our university has just started to utilize the marking guides and we are discouraged to see the feedback has not been included during an Import, Duplicate, or Backup/Restore. Any chance of this being addressed soon?

Hi,

I believe that the path set for comments within the grading.xml backup file is incorrect. It is currently set to:

$paths[] = new restore_path_element('gradingform_guide_comment',

            $this->get_pathfor('/guidecomments/guidecomment'));

but should be:

$paths[] = new restore_path_element('gradingform_guide_comment',

            $this->get_pathfor('/guidecriteria/guidecomments/guidecomment'));

This, or comments shouldn't be as deeply nested.

Greg

Greg, thanks for your comment and patch.

I'm just adding the patch label and hoping it can be reviewed soon.

Thanks Greg - great spotting. They shouldn't be nested like that - the correct fix would be in backup_gradingform_guide_plugin.class.php

My guess - this:

$criteria->add_child($comments);

should be replaced with this:

$pluginwrapper->add_child($comments);

But that will only allow new backups to function correctly (which is a good start) - it might be worth adding some code to the restore process to check for the old badly stored data to allow it to be restored correctly as well. (Unfortunately I don't have time to look at this right now myself)

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your ideas. I've created a new patch that correctly nests the comments and provides a legacy function to handle any backup files with incorrectly nested comments. This was the easiest (actually the only way) I could figure out to manage both format of comments.

Also attached are two backup files with frequent used comments in both the existing and proposed formats for testing.

Regards,
Greg

Thanks Greg - any chance you could add that to a public git repo somewhere? - that way we can submit it for peer-review/integration a bit easier.

to see an example of this - take a look at MDL-43541 - you may not be able to add those fields to a tracker issue but if you have it in a public git repo and post the address in a comment I can set it up.

Hi Dan,

I've given it a shot - hopefully all is correct. I don't have the access to update the tracker fields:

master: https://github.com/greg-or/moodle/compare/moodle:master...master_MDL-37714
MOODLE_25_STABLE: https://github.com/greg-or/moodle/compare/moodle:MOODLE_25_STABLE...m25_MDL-37714
MOODLE_26_STABLE: https://github.com/greg-or/moodle/compare/moodle:MOODLE_26_STABLE...m26_MDL-37714

Regards,
Greg

nice!

Great work! - bouncing up for peer review. This will also trigger the automated tests (there are a couple of lines with extra spaces in your code that the tests should show up)

Results for MDL-37714

• Remote repository: git://github.com/greg-or/moodle.git

• Remote branch m25_MDL-37714 to be integrated into upstream MOODLE_25_STABLE
  • Executed job http://integration.moodle.org/job/Precheck%20remote%20branch/927
  • Details: http://integration.moodle.org/job/Precheck%20remote%20branch/927/artifact/work/smurf.html

• Remote branch m26_MDL-37714 to be integrated into upstream MOODLE_26_STABLE
  • Executed job http://integration.moodle.org/job/Precheck%20remote%20branch/928
  • Details: http://integration.moodle.org/job/Precheck%20remote%20branch/928/artifact/work/smurf.html

• Remote branch master_MDL-37714 to be integrated into upstream master
  • Executed job http://integration.moodle.org/job/Precheck%20remote%20branch/929
  • Details: http://integration.moodle.org/job/Precheck%20remote%20branch/929/artifact/work/smurf.html

Hi Greg - if you take a look at the links from CiBoT you will see a couple of errors about 2 lines that have extra whitespace - if you could delete the spaces and update your repo that would be great! - usually we try to rebase into a single commit on a small change like this too (if possible)

Hi Dan - I deleted the three branches, started again and have updated my repo. Hopefully that is ok.
Thanks,
Greg

great - makes sense to me, pushing up for integration!

Moving this issue to current integration cycle, will be reviewed soon. Thanks for the hard work!

Integrated (25, 26 and master), thanks!

Many thanks Greg and Dan, it's great that this improvement is going into 2.5.5 and 2.6.2.

This is working as expected.

Tested for 2.5, 2.6 and master.

Test passed.

This weeks weekly release is now available and includes your code.
A big pat on the back to you again for once more being a cog in the Moodle machine.

Best wishes, the Moodle integration team.

Removing docs_required label as I added a note in 2.5 and 2.6 docs http://docs.moodle.org/en/Marking_guide