BB9 Feature loss SP9->SP11

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Bob Walker

Moving from BB9.1 SP9 to SP11 introduced two functionality losses when choosing a File from the Content Collection  (From a course, Build Content -> Create File -> Browse Content Collection).

  1. Loss of Folder View of files in File Picker window: Clicking the Browse Content Collection brings up a File Picker window. There no longer is a  Folder View in the pop-up window. A user must now navigate every time they choose a file.

    Previously in SP9, you could navigate the File Picker window using the left-hand menu Folder View.  On subsequent invocations,  the Folder View previously selected was retained. This was useful when linking a number of files in the same directory, especially as we can’t select multiple files for a Learning Module as we could in Vista.

  2. Default Display name is blank: Once a file is selected using the above method, the default display name is now blank. Previously in SP9, the display was defaulted with the file name. This was useful when the file name already reflected the display name. This was originally identified as planned behaviour (as we should always identify the content separately from the filename) but was later changed to a bug introduced in SP11, to be fixed in a later release.

Both of these changes were implemented without warning and supposedly for the user’s benefit, but have resulted in reduced functionality and a more awkward user interface.

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Uninterrupted work

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Bob Walker

My calendar keeps getting full and I can’t get any work done.

This seems to be my common complaint these days. One of the problems of having an open calendaring system is people find holes and book me for meetings. I’m going to have to get pro-active and start booking free space to keep as free space. Strange.

I’m no longer doing programming full time, but I read something recently about programmers and space that I think still applies: the need to have uninterrupted time to load the whole problem in your mind and work on it.

In why-programmers-work-at-night (http://swizec.com/blog/why-programmers-work-at-night/swizec/3198#ixzz2IYyaur85)

Paul Graham wrote about the maker’s schedule in 2009 – basically that there are two types of schedules in this world (primarily?). The traditional manager’s schedule where your day is cut up into hours and a ten minute distraction costs you, at most, an hour’s worth of time.

On the other hand you have something PG calls the maker’s schedule – a schedule for those of us who produce stuff. Working on large abstract systems involves fitting the whole thing into your mind … This is why programmers are so annoyed when you distract them.

Because of this huge mental investment, we simply can’t start working until we can expect a couple of hours without being distracted. It’s just not worth constructing the whole model in your head and then having it torn down half an hour later.

Exactly. This is why in a day where you have 3 hour long meetings with an hour between each you can’t actually get any ‘work work’ done. Yes you can check your mail and respond to specific problems, but those big problems are still just sitting there waiting…

Likewise from: http://paulgraham.com/head.html:

A good programmer working intensively on his own code can hold it in his mind the way a mathematician holds a problem he’s working on…  You hold the whole program in your head, and you can manipulate it at will …

It’s not easy to get a program into your head. If you leave a project for a few months, it can take days to really understand it again when you return to it. Even when you’re actively working on a program it can take half an hour to load into your head when you start work each day.

… A programmer can leave the office and go and get a sandwich without losing the code in his head. But the wrong kind of interruption can wipe your brain in 30 seconds

… Oddly enough, scheduled distractions may be worse than unscheduled ones. If you know you have a meeting in an hour, you don’t even start working on something hard.

As mentioned, I think this applies to work other than programming. I’m currently trying to get a handle on how we’re going to manage users in our new systems. After about 30 minutes of thinking, I can start to see it. My wife, who is a writer, talks about the need for start up or ‘open time’ to be able to get into a story, and a knock on the door can dispel it all.

So my next step is to book more free time. Isn’t that an oxymoron?

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Adding css to a Blackboard Course page

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Bob Walker

As we found out in previous posts, the TinyMCE editor in Blackboard 9 does not allow css to be embedded in course ‘Items’. Creating and editing an ‘Item’ (as opposed to a File) with TinyMCE  strips out all css, inline or referenced, from the item.

Also recall that creating an HTML re-usable object in the Content  Collection does support full html including css and referenced css file.

So, by using a little trick we can load css into the course page, which can then be used by the Item.

  • Create an HTML reusable object in the Content Collection that is blank except for css definitions, either inline or referenced.
  • Add this file using Item -> Insert file option on the course in question.
  • Make it not visible but active by colouring the text white and leaving it available.
  • Move it down to the bottom of your course.  It will appear as extra, but blank section.

Now you can create an Item that uses the css classes in this referenced file.  Note the css affects the entire page, so you may want to define your css classes carefully.

Update – May 2015 (as comments don’t seem to be working)

I checked it out, and it still works. The css in the first file needs to be external, can’t be embedded. So:
1. testcss.css Contents .foobar { color: green; font-weight: bold;}
2. testcss.html – ‘Linked’ from within an Item in the course(use absolute url). Contents:
<html>
<head>
<link href="http://{myblackboard.edu}/bbscwebdav/courses/{mycourse}/testcss.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body></body>
</html>

3. Second Item in course:
This is a test of the embedded css
<span class="foobar">This line should be green.</span>
This line should not.

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TinyMCE and Blackboard 9

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Bob Walker

Here’s some of my notes on how the TinyMCE embedded html editor functions in Blackboard 9. This info was gleaned from a stand-alone version of TinyMCE(v3.5.6), then comparing that to what is delivered in Blackboard.

TinyMCE can run in two modes: with the ‘fullpage’ plugin and without. Without is the default.
With the fullpage plugin, html, head, and body tags are enforced (that is, if they don’t exist, they are created). css and js is fully supported anywhere and isn’t mangled. In a sense, TinyMCE in ‘fullpage’ mode operates the same as Dreamweaver. Blackboard Content Collection seems to invokes TinyMCE in ‘fullpage’ mode.

Default TinyMCE is non-fullpage and strips ALL js and css. It’s possible to add to the default config to maintain css links (add ‘link[*]’ in the config area).  There may be a way to maintain js as well, but I couldn’t find it in default TinyMCE install or docs. Blackboard LMS (editing an Item within a course) seems to invokes TinyMCE in non-fullpage mode, but with a slight change to default configuration that keeps js links, mangles inline js, and removes css links.

A nice Blackboard implementation of TinyMCE would be to keep the config mods that BB added to the LMS version of TinyMCE (which keeps js links) and add the ‘link[*]’ to the same config (to keep css links), this would go a long way to providing acceptable functionality. Our limitation is that we would have to provide js and css in external files and link to them.

Workaround for inline js:
As mentioned, inline js gets mangled in the Course version of TinyMCE. A possible workaround is to extract the js to a file and reference the  file.  A js file reference does not get mangled.

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TinyMCE and Blackboard Re-Usable Objects

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Bob Walker

Our LMS team just enabled the new TinyMCE editor in Blackboard (v9.1SP9). There is a significant change to how re-usable objects were handled with the previous VTBE editor. We knew this was coming, but (at least I) didn’t really know what the ‘this’ was until it actually was installed.

Here’s some notes on what I’ve found so far. This may not be all encompassing, but just some gotchas I found that are specific to Faculty of Medicine.

The summary of the change to VTBE is: html re-usable objects can no longer be edited directly in a course.

It’s important to make the distinction between an ‘html object’ and an ‘html file’ . html objects are displayed inline in a course (as soon as the content page is rendered). An html file exists as a link on a content page, and must be clicked before it is rendered. This entry is talking only about ‘html objects’, those that display inline.

One of the nice things (I thought) of re-usable objects in BB9, pre-VTBE, was the ability to create an html re-usable object as an Item in a course, and be able to edit it either from the course or from the Content Collection (and BB-drive). With this approach, users could edit from the course, and we (IT) could clean up the mess with BB-Drive. As well, the content could be versioned and tracked using the Content Collection features. No longer. Time to move on….
Now, with VTBE, there are two options:

  1. Create an Item in a Course. This is an html document that exists within the course only, and does not have an imprint in the Content Collection. It can only be edited in the course. (To add a bit of confusion, you can Discover Content in a course, which will make a copy of an html re-usable object that exists in the Content Collection. Once the copy is made, it has no relation to its parent and is as if you started from scratch.) The problem with this approach is you lose all the nice Content Collection features, such as versioning and tracking. This is the downside to being able to edit within the course.
  2. Build a Re-usable HTML object in the Content Collection, then add it using ‘Insert File’ in the VTBE. This content can only be edited in the Content Collection. Cannot be edited in the course. In the course with edit mode off, the content displays inline. When editing the Item, the content appears as a link.

Insert File link in VTBE

There is one other gotcha: If you created an Item and saved it as a re-usable object in the old editor, you can edit it from the Content Collection or BB-Drive and the changes will be reflected in the course.

However, as soon as you edit this content in the course, a new copy is made and it is disassociated from the original copy. The original copy remains in the Content Collection , but is orphaned. Similar to using the Discover Content option.

A pro-active approach might be to make decisions about all your previous re-usable objects and make the necessary changes.

Possible approaches (aligned with previously defined functionality above):

  1. Edit the object in course (to create the disassociation) and delete the Content Collection version to avoid confusion. Only editable from the course. Note: you lose versioning  and tracking.
  2. Delete the Item in the course and re-create with an Insert File link to the Content Collection re-usable html object as the only entry in the Item. Only editable from the Content Collection.

 

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Live on Connect

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Bob Walker

Got access to Connect’ (the live UBC-wide Blackboard 9 production server) this week . Now we can start to actually build the MEDICOL courses.

The one Vista – MEDICOL course is now broken up into 4 (possibly 5) BB9, and it’s really a migration. It’s a rebuild, not quite starting from scratch, but pretty close.

This is great news for the Migration Team, we’ve been working in theory for a while, but now can start to put it in practice.

There’s few ‘tricks’ we’re using. Nothing too fancy.

First make all the courses look the same in terms of basic left-hand navigation:

Second: Create an icon bank that acts as shortcuts to the blocks and folders. This is (sort of) non-standard BB as we have to discover the links and put them on the icons. And, of course, we’re storing the actual html in the Content Collection so can edit the nasty html from an external text-editor with BB drive. Nice….

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Welcome

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Bob Walker

Welcome to the UBC version of Bob. New employee working in MedIT.

Working with Blackboard online learning systems, specifically MEDICOL and CMED.

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