More plugins

And yes, a new sign into this blogger account using Chrome - a push email notifying me that someone, hopefully me, logged into my blogger account.  Firefox keeps getting stuck in our organizational block policy.....but, i digress.

Today, I have another email from a customer saying this

Hi James,

I am helping the GV BOCES LPN program with some housekeeping stuff. The major road block I'm experiencing right now is moving resources from one topic (not course) to another. Based on my research, there is a Moodle plugin called Mass Action Block which is used specifically for this purpose. Can you please help install this plugin for us? Thanks in advance.

https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=block_massaction

Henry

Fine, another plugin to install for a customer....

That is three plugins in three weeks for this guy.  Its all good, that he is doing this research and finding plugins to help him - BUT, there is always a tradeoff.  In this case the trade off is three maintenance points now introduced to the moodle version.

When I upgrade this moodle from 2.6.11, probably in the fall of 2016, I will have to remember these plugins.  When you upgrade the moodle, putting new code in place, the plugin code will be missing.  Now with any luck from the upgrading version of moodle, the Notifications | Plugins form will notice that the plugins previously installed are missing - they will exist in the DB, which is not getting replaced, and will inform the upgrade that those plugs are missing.

I actually have a couple choices here

Copy the plugin code to a safe location prior to the upgrade and copy it back into the new code base prior to the actual upgrade

or

Let the upgrade proccess tell me what is missing and will probably even include a link to the newest version of the plugin - and may even install it for me into my code base.

I'm not sure how much I trust this second option, but the reality is, as moodle matures and more plugins and users are involved, the more the second option makes sense.  Option 1 is more technically detailed and could result in more error.

Details on the massaction plugin

After I download the plugin, unzip and copy to the /blocks folder in the moodle install, and click on Notifications (in an admin role) - I get the expected Plugins Manager form

The plugin has the above instructions, but I did not have to do add anything to the default roles of manager, course creator or teacher - they could see the block below just fine, as long as they were in the context of a course.

Here is the block visible FROM A COURSE, is you are in the manager, course creator or teacher role.

Moral of the story?

Something good always has a price.