This issue resolves the following user story: As a teacher, I can choose whether to share certain resource types (eg URL, file) as a "link" or an individual "file", rather than a Moodle backup, so their raw contents are available in MoodleNet and do not require importing into Moodle to be used.

Backend Requirements

1. An interface which can be overriden by activities/resources to allow them to specify share types other than backup (which is the default and used by any that do not declare an override).
2. The in-scope data types that will be supported are "Link" and "File".
3. Primarily, the above data types/overrides will relate to the URL resource and File resource respectively. Further research could be undertaken to determine whether any other activities/resources could benefit from these overrides.
4. The interface will also need to map where to find the relevant data (or be able to return it, depending on the what is needed for the implementation). For example, if you want to share a URL resource as a URL, the system needs to be able to map that to how it fetches the URL (because that may be different for different resource types, and we can't assume that the resources listed in #3 are the only ones to ever require this).
5. TBC: When implementing the ability to share a file, it may be necessary for us to identify the MIME type to send as part of the metadata, this needs to be confirmed in the final API spec which will be defined before work commences on this issue.
6. Unit tests implemented as applicable.

Frontend Requirements

1. Teacher should be able to toggle between resource and the alternate data type (link/file) if an activity/resource being shared supports that (as per prototype).
2. Only the options available for the resource being shared should be displayed (and if only backup is available, no toggle option will be shown).
3. Behat tests implemented as applicable.

Out of scope

• It is not a current requirement that multiple activities/resources can be shared through a single Share, so these alternate share types only relate to individual activities/resources being shared. Likewise courses are only shared as a course backup, so the additional functionality implemented in this improvement are not available when sharing a complete/select course.
• Due to the above limitation, Folder resources are probably out of scope, since each file would need to be treated as a separate MoodleNet resourced, which is not currently supported. Note: It could be possible to share as a file if the Folder contained a single file, we will need to determine whether this is a valid requirement when work starts on this issue.
• Any other data types than those specified as requirements.

Prototype

Prototype link showing a link resource, which can be shared as either a resource or a link.

This issue can be broken down into two tasks if needed (the UI additions and the backend to support it).