Moodle 1.9 Extension Development

Table of Contents

• Preface

• Chapter 1: Moodle Architecture
  • Understanding the stack
    • Database
    • Operating system
    • Web server
  • Directory and system structure
    • Moodle code
    • Moodle database
    • Moodle data
  • Installing Moodle
  • Moodle program execution
    • Executing config.php
    • Including Moodle libraries
    • Getting our data
    • Displaying in Moodle
  • Configuring Moodle
    • Setting configuration variables
  • Moodle's API
  • Other important libraries
    • PEAR
    • ADOdb
    • YUI
    • XMLDB
  • Access control, logins, and roles
    • Moodle permission contexts
    • Capabilities
    • Moodle roles
      • Assigning roles
  • Summary

• Chapter 2: Creating and Modifying Blocks
  • Creating a block from scratch
    • Assigning content to our block
  • Adding a language file
  • Working with capabilities
    • Testing for built-in capabilities
    • Hiding a block based on capabilities
    • Adding your own capability
    • Checking for our new capability
  • Adding instance configuration
    • Capturing your configuration content
    • Displaying your content
  • Adding scheduled actions to our block
  • Reviewing a real world block
    • Reviewing block_instructor_contact.php
    • Configuring the instructor contact block
  • Using a block as a code container
    • Creating a block stub for our container
    • Creating capabilities for our container
  • Summary

• Chapter 3: Creating and Modifying Filters
  • How a filter works
  • Building a filter
    • Getting started
    • Creating the language file
    • Creating the filter code
    • Activating the filter
    • Adding configuration settings
    • Using our settings
  • Summary

• Chapter 4: Creating and Modifying Activity Modules
  • The scope of creating an activity module
  • Our module—activity Foo!
  • Getting started with the NEWMODULE template
    • Completing mod_form.php
      • Defining input values
      • Using common form elements
  • Making version.php
  • Setting icon.gif
  • Generating install.xml
    • Using the XMLDB editor
    • Defining our activity database
    • Defining the foo_responses table
    • Defining log types
  • Creating access.php
  • Updating index.php
    • Adding clean language strings
    • Looking up response data
      • Displaying our table of activities
      • Displaying course sections
      • Committing output
  • Finishing view.php
    • Including submit_form.php
    • Your code goes here
    • Context control
    • Developing a form
      • Cancel option
      • Submitted data
    • Setting grades
    • Displaying submission form
    • Displaying submissions
    • Group support
  • Coding lib.php
    • Function add_instance
    • Function foo_delete_instance
    • Function foo_user_outline
    • Function foo_user_complete
    • Function foo_get_participants
    • Function reset_course_form_definition
    • Function foo_reset_course_form_defaults
    • Function foo_reset_userdata
    • Inserting grades into the gradebook
      • Using grade_update
  • Upgrading our activity database
    • Using the XMLDB editor for database upgrades
    • Updating upgrade.php
  • Creating backup and restore support
    • Exploring backuplib.php functions
      • Common backup functions
      • Internal backup functions
    • Exploring restorelib.php functions
      • Common restore functions
      • Internal restore functions
  • Summary

• Chapter 5: Customizing the Look and Feel
  • Themes
    • How themes work
    • Headers and footers
      • header.html
      • footer.html
    • Project 1: Changing the navigation breadcrumbs
      • Creating our own theme
      • Adding the category link
      • The navigation string
    • Project 2: Adding a standard footer with site links
      • Creating the code
      • Running the code
  • Course formats
    • How course formats work
    • Creating our own course format
      • Creating the course format language file
      • Modifying our course format function
      • Changing the forum display
  • Summary

• Chapter 6: Developer's Guide to the Database
  • The database structure
  • Maintaining Moodle tables
    • install.xml
    • upgrade.php
    • Maintaining local database customization
    • The XMLDB editor
  • Using the Moodle database in your code
    • Retrieving data
      • Query by parameters
      • Query by "where" string
      • Query by full SQL
    • Storing data
      • set_field and set_field_select
      • insert_record and update_record
  • Common tables and relationships
    • Course and module relationships
  • Programming best practices
    • Take only what you need
    • Limiting your returned data
    • Using recordsets
    • Optimizing carefully with joins
    • Testing on more than one database engine
  • Summary

• Chapter 7: Developing Pluggable Core Modules
  • Assignment types
    • What is an assignment type
    • Identifying assignment types
    • Assignment type basics
    • Building our own assignment type
      • Getting started
      • Planning our data
      • Adding custom settings
      • Making it do something useful
  • Resource types
    • What is a resource type?
    • Identifying resource types
    • Resource type basics
  • Question types
    • What is a question type?
    • Identifying question types
    • Question type basics
      • The main class
      • The editing form
      • The main language file
    • Other important question constructs
      • Grading
      • Backup and restore functions
      • Import and export function support
      • CSS and JavaScript support
  • Where to get more help
  • Summary

• Chapter 8: Creating Moodle Reports
  • Creating course reports
    • Defining the non-participants report
    • Getting started
    • Updating mod.php
    • Controlling access
    • Language strings
    • Changes to Moodle's API
    • Exploring the People block
      • Setting $select
      • Setting $from
      • Setting $where
      • Making the query call
    • Modifying index.php
      • Making text substitutions
      • Changing the logical structure
      • Tracking active users using a hash array
      • Displaying the report
      • Cleaning up the final display
      • Using flexible_table
    • An exercise for you
  • Creating gradebook reports
    • Required components
      • Creating our report folder
      • Creating access.php
      • Assigning language strings
      • index.php requirements
      • Using version.php
    • Using the grade_report class
    • Fixing the outcomes report
      • Digging into the code
      • Reviewing our new report
  • Creating administrator reports
    • Generating the Hello World administrator report
    • Tweaking index.php
      • Viewing our administrator report
    • An exercise for you
  • Other output formats
  • Summary

• Chapter 9: Integrating Moodle with Other Systems
  • Built-in services and plugins
    • Batch upload
    • Built-in authentication plugins
      • Manual/Internal authentication
    • LDAP/Active directory authentication
    • External database authentication
      • E-mail account based authentication plugins
    • Built-in enrollment plugins
      • LDAP enrollment plugin
      • External database enrollment plugin
    • E-commerce based enrollment plugins
    • Web services
      • Activity plugin as an integration bridge
  • Creating user authentication plugins
    • Exploring authentication requirements
      • Looking at auth.php
      • Making the language file
      • Testing simple authentication
      • Adding optional functionality to authentication
    • Creating the RLLDAP authentication plugin
      • Coding RLLDAP
  • Implementing Single Sign On
    • Creating a URL-based SSO
      • Digging into the code
      • Finding the user's account
      • Confirming that the login criteria have been met
      • Completing login
      • Redirecting the user to the correct location
    • Testing the URL SSO
  • Creating user enrollment plugins
    • Reviewing plugin requirements
      • Creating enrol.php
      • Creating the setup_enrolments function
      • Making the language file
      • Other requirements
      • Making the 'simple' enrollment plugin
    • Using optional enrollment functions
    • Assigning enrollment plugins to courses
  • Grade or completion passing
    • Working with the built-in import/export plugins
    • Creating grade import/export plugins
      • An exercise for you
  • Summary

• Chapter 10: Writing Secure Code
  • User access issues
    • Making sure that a user has logged in
    • Making sure that the user's session is the current one
    • Making sure that the user has appropriate capabilities
  • SQL issues
    • Taking a look at vulnerable code
    • Quote protection
    • Database API
    • Use of addslashes
  • Form issues
    • The Moodle formslib library
      • Specifying a type
      • Validation rules
    • 'param' functions
  • File system issues
    • Course file areas
    • User file areas
    • Other file areas
    • Getting a file URL
  • Screen output issues
    • The p() and s() functions
    • The format_text() and format_string() functions
  • Logging your actions
  • Summary

• Chapter 11: Sending Notifications to Users
  • Requirements
  • Setup
  • Using e-mail
    • Send e-mail API
    • Creating the subject text
    • Creating the message text
    • Sending the e-mail
  • Using Moodle messaging
    • Moodle messaging internals
    • Creating the message
    • Sending the message
  • Using RSS feeds
    • Setup
    • Creating the RSS XML file
    • Viewing the RSS feed
  • Summary

• Chapter 12: Constructing and Displaying Pages by Using the pagelib Library
  • Introduction to pagelib
    • Class page_base
    • Class page_course
    • Class page_generic_activity
  • Core modules that use pagelib
  • Using pagelib factory functions
    • page_import_types
    • page_create_instance
    • page_create_object
    • page_map_class
  • page_base member functions
    • page_base() and construct()
    • get_id()
    • get_body_class()
    • get_body_id()
    • edit_always()
    • init_quick()
    • init_full()
    • user_allowed_editing()
    • user_is_editing()
    • print_header()
    • get_type()
    • get_format_name()
    • url_get_path()
    • url_get_parameters()
    • blocks_get_positions()
    • blocks_default_position()
    • blocks_get_default()
    • blocks_move_position()
  • Meeting pagelib requirements
    • Looking at page setup
    • Examining requirements by reviewing quiz's view.php
      • Working with quiz blocks
      • Investigating quiz page display
  • Converting activity Foo! to pagelib
    • Creating a local pagelib.php
    • Updating view.php
      • Initializing $PAGE
      • Outputting blocks
      • Outputting the middle column
      • Viewing the results
  • Related libraries
    • weblib
    • blocklib
    • graphlib
  • Summary

• Chapter 13: Building Forms with formslib
  • Using formslib
  • Form definition and elements
    • addElement and createElement
      • Buttons
      • Checkboxes
      • Uploading and/or choosing a file
      • Date and time
      • htmleditor, textarea, and text
      • modgrade
      • password and passwordunmask
      • radio
      • select, multi-select, and selectyesno
      • hidden, html, and static text
      • Groups
  • Rules and validation
    • Rules
      • addRule
      • registerRule
    • Validation
  • Summary

• Chapter 14: Development for the Adventuresome: Web Services
  • Using Remote-Learner Web Services
    • Advantages
    • Disadvantages
    • Installation
      • Server-side setup
      • Client setup
      • Testing with ppdemo_trace.php
    • Setting up your Web Services connection
      • Debugging setup
    • Managing users
      • Creating users
      • Updating users
      • Deleting users
    • Creating a Web Services based Single Sign On
      • Creating our HTML wrapper
      • Web service connection setup
      • Processing SSO parameters
      • Using authenticate_user()
      • Closing wrapper
    • Enrollment management
      • Creating enrollstudent.php
      • Using enrol_students()
      • Creating unenrollstudent.php
    • Grade passing
      • Creating the CSV grade script
  • Using Moodle Networking
    • Advantages
    • Disadvantages
    • What is XML-RPC?
      • MNet XML-RPC supported service types
      • MNet XML-RPC security model
      • Using MNet in activity modules
      • Using MNet in auth/enrol plugins
      • MNet SSO model
  • Summary

• Index

Jonathan Moore

Michael Churchward

The book takes the reader through many examples of customizing and editing the Moodle code in an easy to understand, user-friendly way but also presents the reader with challenging and advanced concepts

This book clearly and methodically sets out the code you need to develop your own Moodle plugins

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