iLite's Weblog

Determining the number of days between to UNIX timestamps

ilite — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:37:27 +0000

So I needed to know how many days there were between to UNIX timestamp values, and here is the code for those who may also need it.

function dateDiffUnix($startDate) {

echo ‘$start_date ‘.$startDate.’ – ‘.date(‘Y m d G:i:s’, $startDate).’
’;

$endDate = time();

echo ‘$end_date ‘.$endDate.’ – ‘.date(‘Y m d G:i:s’, $endDate).’
’;

$difference = $endDate – $startDate;

return round($difference / 86400);

}

echo ‘Unix date difference: ‘.dateDiffUnix(“1292479971″); // start time

In my case the start date will be passed in as a value from the database, but for this sample, a hard-coded value will suffice.

Making a List item scroll

ilite — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 07:25:56 +0000

Have you ever wanted your List items to automatically scroll…. well I have. I am building a Flex application that shows the latest 10 items in a list container.

I would like to cycle through the list once every 5 seconds, taking the last item and displaying it at the top. I am using AMFPHP to retrieve the content from a MySQL database.

So this is what I did

private function load():void

{

gateway = new RemotingConnection(serverName);

gateway.call(“mydetails”, new Responder(onResult, onFault));

}

private function onResult(result:Array):void

{

ac = new ArrayCollection()

for each(item in result){

var o:TicketVO = new TicketVO();

o.ticketId = item["ticketid"];

o.summary = item["summary"];

ac.addItem(o);

}

lRenderer.dataProvider = ac; // lRenderer is the name of my List container

timer = new Timer(5000, 0);

timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, updateList, false, 0, true);

timer.start();

}

private function updateList(event:TimerEvent):void

{

var len:Number = ac.length;

var i:Object = new Object();

i = lRenderer.dataProvider.getItemAt(len-1, 1); // Get the last item in the list

lRenderer.dataProvider.removeItemAt(len-1); // Remove the item from the list

lRenderer.dataProvider.addItemAt(i,0); // Add it to the top of the list

}

The above is just a snapshot of the code I used.

Hope that helps some.

iShop

ilite — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:03:23 +0000

After months of hard work, we are proud to say that the iShop is up and available for purchase!

It’s a simple website with a shopping cart that has a customizable template. This allows you to showcase your products in an online shop without writing a single line of code.

The framework around the iShop is customizable and allows you to add as many products as you like. The process for your clients is simple and allows them to add and remove products from their shopping cart with a click of a button.

You do not need to be a programmer to use the iShop, some basic XML knowledge and an image editor for your product images is all that you need. Our online help file will assist you if you hit a snag.

Go to our website if you would like to purchase the iShop.

- Kirsten

Moodle Offline #2

ilite — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 06:13:27 +0000

Just to recap on this topic. The question was asked, “Would it be possible to build an offline client for Moodle, and if so, how?”

I previously looked at the different ways in which you could build a course, and then proceeded to discount them, leaving only Flash.

You could build a standard ‘Topic’ course in Moodle using Flash content for each lesson in the course. The Flash content can be tracked in Flash (Matt Bury), and the Flash content can be launched and viewed on it’s own. So, no web server need for the PHP.

So we could build a basic web page that looks like our Moodle course, and call the Flash content for each lesson. It’s manual work, and we have no tracking, but we do have an offline course that can be used by anyone.

And that’s where the story ends…….. not quite.

I’ve been playing around with AIR and SQLite db’s. For those not familiar with AIR and SQLite, I’ll explain briefly. Think of AIR as a desktop Flash application that can be installed on you PC, almost like an exe file. SQLite is a local database, that sits on your PC, and does not require a database server. Essentially the ‘data’ is written to a file. An easy example would be if you were to build an address book using AIR and SQLite. The AIR application would be the front-end, used for view, adding and deleting contacts. All the contacts are saved in a file on your PC, the SQLite database.

So, this is the idea then.

Instead of using a web page to hold the menu for the course and launch the Flash files, we build a small AIR application.
We start off by building an XML menu to define the course – Overview and lessons with links to the Flash content.
When we launch the AIR application, it uses the XML file to load a menu. Each item in the menu points to a Flash lesson from your course. These would be the same Flash files used in your Moodle course online.
Clicking a menu item will launch the Flash lesson.
As you work through the lesson, tracking data is back to the AIR application, which writes it to the SQLite database.

We now have an offline course that:

Provides tracking information to a database
Uses the same content as the Moodle course
Does not require a server to be installed

In the next addition I’ll be looking at a few limitation and possible roadblocks to this idea. Please feel free to pull my theory apart, or agree.

Sean

Moodle Off-Line Application

ilite — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:15:05 +0000

Someone asked me recently what the chances would be of building an offline client for Moodle. To be honest I had not thought about that, so I did. Moodle has three types of content essentially:

Courses built using the Moodle authoring tool
SCORM courses (including Authorware)
Flash modules in the Moodle course

To my mind the offline client should be a stand-alone application that is installed on the Users PC. The application should permit the following:

Log in using their Moodle Username and Password (Network access required)
View all their courses
Do a Course
Resume a Course they are busy with
Save the progress and results locally
Manually (or automatically) synchronize their data with the Moodle server.
View grades
Update their profile
See which other students are online (red dot, green dot)

Now back to the courses. I think, and if I’m wrong please let me know, that all the courses use PHP pages to move the data from the content to the database. So, unless you install WAMP as part of the deployment, you’re pretty buggered.

So, now the question is, how can you build a course that can be used in Moodle, as well as in an offline application, that does not require Apache/MySQL and that will meet all the other requires I have mentioned above.

I have an idea, but would love to hear from you what your idea is.

iLite’s New Website

ilite — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:42:11 +0000

Happy New Year! It feels like yesterday that we were saying that to 2009.

With the start of a New Year, we thought “what better way to start the year off than with a new website design”. And there you have it… It’s up and running.

The design is slick, easy to load and all the information about us is really easy to find. You want to download a trial version of the iLite Moodle Dashboard? It is so easy, click the Trial button, fill in some details about yourself and download the trial.

Have a look, browse around the site and if there is anything more you would like to know about us, our products and services, drop me a mail.

www.ilite.co.za

-Kirsten

Where are your Users

ilite — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:26:10 +0000

User Location Map

The User Location Map plots the location of your Users on a Google Earth map. The plot point is added dynamically when the map loads and the data is pulled from the database.

You may look at this and think it serves no purpose, and you would be correct. Sometimes as a developer it’s nice to look at something, and ask yourself, “I wonder if I could…”

..and then a few hours later you are pulling the locations from the mdl_user table and plotting them. I love visualizing the data. I know that the City is stored in the database and displayed as a word in a column – that’s boring, dead. Plot it on a map, see where it is, zoom in on it – now we have living data.

That is really the Dashboards core reason for existing. It exists so that you can interact more visually with your data. Like the relationship map, that allows you to view the Users that have done a Course, and then the Courses they have done, etc.

Sean

New Feature in iLite Mobile Moodle

ilite — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:23:54 +0000

We have added a new feature! The iLite Mobile Moodle now shows all the attempts made in a quiz and scows all the scores for all the attempts in a specific quiz.

As you can see in this image, this shows you all the courses that iLite Mobile Moodle has.

Select the course “French in Moodle”.

As depicted in this image, all the quizzes for “French in Moodle” are displayed.

Select the quiz “Basics”.

As you can see by the above image, there were two attempts on the quiz “Basics” with the date and the score.

- Kirsten

New Additions to iLite Mobile Moodle

ilite — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:49:22 +0000

We have added to additional features to Mobile, they are My Profile and My Grades.

My Profile

Shows a list of your details, your name, User ID, email, city, country and when you first and last accessed the site.

My Grades

This shows a list of all the courses that you are registered for. When you select a course, it shows the quiz and the grade obtained for that quiz.

http://www.ilite.co.za/mlearn/ (mary, password)

Mobile is only available to clients who host with iLite. For more information please contact me and I will gladly assist.

- Kirsten

Download a trial version of the iLite Moodle Dashboard

ilite — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:41:57 +0000

Visit iLite to download the 7 day trial version of the iLite Moodle Dashboard.

There are some funky new additions to the Dashboard which include the multi-lingual support, improved User search functionality and the Course Relationship Map.

The Course Relationship Map is something completely unique to the Dashboard. As you can see in the image below, we can see that the Course – iLite Dashboard, has 8 Users. We can also see that 5 of the 8 Users have a small (+) sign below them. This indicates that they are enrolled in other Courses. By clicking on the (+) sign, we expand a 3rd level, which shows the Courses that this User has enrolled for. Hover over the icon to view the Course name.

You may be wondering what is the purpose of the Relationship map, well it is to help you see what Courses the Users are doing at a glance. If a Course has prerequisites, you can view if they have been met simply by calling up the Relationship map.

- Kirsten