Plugins Sharing and Maintaining Moodle Plugins

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2 Introductions: Who are you? (name/position) Where are you from? Why are you here? What do you hope to learn or take away from this session so that it will be meaningful and worthwhile? Where in the Moodleverse are you from?

3 Moodle's Plugins Facilitator Core development Forum aggregation types Feedback anonymity Various little patches Developed plugins Birthday block MRBS block Maintained plugin GBPv2 (1.8) patch Approves Particularly Helpful Moodler

4 What is a Moodle Plugin? M is for Modular Plugins Any code added to a Moodle installation that is not part of Moodle core to expand its functionality Designed to drop in without requiring any other changes

5 Moodle has many types of plugins to help you expand your installation. Some of the many plugin types include: Assignment type (prior to Moodle 2.3) Submission and feedback types (Moodle 2.3+) Course formats Themes Activity modules Blocks Repositories and portfolios Plagiarism Question types, formats, and behaviors Authentication types Enrollment types Filters Grade reports Local plugins Message outputs Reports Administrative tools How many tools can you fit in your belt?

6 Advantages of Plugins Expanded functionality Cutting edge - cool new toys to play with (that may cut both ways) Disadvantages Maintenance - not by Moodle HQ Security - may NOT be suitable for production sites Reliability/Stability may NOT be as well tested Usability - may NOT be well documented Upgrading - may NOT be supported in future Moodle versions Keep in mind that you are often relying on the free generosity of the maintainer Try this at home first! Have a test server and always make a good backup before trying a new plugin.

7 How to I find and install plugins on my Moodle site? The simple answer: Browse or search Download the zip file Unzip the file to your Moodle site - location depends on type of plugin For example, a block goes in the /blocks/ directory an activity module in /mod/ Login to your Moodle site as a site administrator and go to the Notifications page Afterwards, you may also need to setup or configure some of the plugin settings The less simple answer (but more powerful) See Git for Administrators No heavy lifting required!

8 An overview of the various Moodle tools used to support Moodle Plugins Moodle Forums discuss, ask questions, etc. Moodle Docs instructions for installing and configuring, explain features, FAQs, show examples, Moodle Tracker reporting bugs and requesting new features (develop to do list) system for managing shared plugins (share, find, and download plugins) AMOS translation Github.com working with code, providing patches

9 Tracker The Moodle Tracker is used to report bugs and request new features. As a maintainer, it is important to receive feedback, ideas, etc. back from your users. As a plugin maintainer, you can have a component created in the CONTRIB project. Your privileges will be bumped so that you can manage issues assigned to you. Any issue created for your component will automatically be assigned to you and you will receive an notifying you of the issue as well as comments made on the issue. Alternatively, you can use Github.com's tracker and manage things on your own. Complaining is helpful to developers. Listen to your users.

10 is the place to browse and search for plugins to install in your system. If you have created a plugin and would like to share it, you can upload a version which will then be reviewed. Upon approval, it will be visible to the rest of the Moodle community. Once a plugin is approved, particular versions are approved by default. We assume you know what you are doing.

11 If you have downloaded and installed a plugin, comment on your experience. Currently, you can subscribe to RSS feeds; however, there is a tracker issue to implement other ways of pushing these comments to the plugin maintainer ( , jabber, etc.) If you want to become a plugin reviewer and write a more extensive thorough review please contact: Your Plugins Facilitator anthony@moodle.org

12 What resources exist for plugin developers? 1. Guidelines for CONTRIB Code 2. Moodle Coding Style 3. Developer documentation for new plugins 4. Github.com 5. Git for Developers 6. Moodle Docs or Github.com Wiki 7. Moodle Tracker or Github issues

13 What kind of things do I typically look for when I review a plugin well, let's take a look: 1. Is it a valid zip file 2. Does the concept expand the functionality of Moodle? 3. Is the file structure correct? 1. Proper subdirectories 2. Good filenames 4. Are there extraneous files? 5. Does the version.php make explicit the GPL license? 6. Is there a README.txt file? 7. Does the code seem to follow basic Moodle coding guidelines? 8. Good variable names (English, simple words) 9. Do plugin settings use config_plugins?

14 Q&A What questions remain?

15 Let's unleash the power of collaboration! Thank you for your participation! Hopefully today's session has helped empower you to more actively participate in the Moodle community. I look forward to learning about your experiences of working with Moodle and how Moodle can continue to grow.