Page Comparison

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However, for options 1-3, the new capabilities need to be added to hard-coded lists in the platform. For example, there is a list of URLs, a list of tab types, a list of reports, a list of instructor dashboard components etc. This seems simple to update, but it means that the platform has to be changed to receive each new feature.

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Use Cases

Here is a quick summary of how four recent features were implemented. For more details, see the Appendix: Recent Feature Audit.

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• There is no way to extend the platform SASS, so instead independent SASS was written which is included in addition. This won't play well with theming.
• XBlocks do not support RequireJS 
  • This made it hard to ensure that the block has the dependencies it needs
  • It also required that a custom mechanism be used to modularize the code into smaller files 
• Studio authoring view is not truly integrated for xblocks
  • ORA 2 had to fake out the Save and Cancel buttons as Studio can only save changes to xmodules today
• The only option for admin views is through the Studio authoring view or through staff-level features added to the courseware block
  • It is painful to have to navigate to the component to be able to administer it. It would be preferable to have ORA 2 admin views in Studio and in the Instructor DashboardAdding admin views inside an xblock is powerful but constrained by the space provided
    • It could be better to have links from the xblock to a full-page admin view (maybe as a tab on the instructor dashboard)
  • It would be useful to add ORA 2 reports to the "Data Downloads" tab
• There was no easy way to write integration tests that get run with the platform release
  • Separate sandbox was provisioned for automated tests but it stopped working and has been disabled

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• New configuration settings were added to lms/envs/common.py
• New course settings were added to InheritanceMixin in common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/modulestore/inheritance.py
• The core HTML component was updated to render notes inline
• The AnnotatorJS library was added as a vendor library to common/static/js/vendor
• A new LMS "Notes" tab was added to common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/tabs.py
  • The URL for the new tab was added to lms/urls.py
  • Mako templates for the new tab were added to lms/templates
  • CSS for the new tab was added to lms/static/sass
  • The JavaScript Backbone views were added to lms/static/js
• Tests were written for all the new UI
  • Jasmine tests were added to lms/static/js/spec
  • Jasmine HTML fixtures were added to lms/static/js/fixtures
  • Bok Choy tests were added to common/tests/acceptance

Plug-in Architecture

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5. Student Data Tab

Here is an upcoming use case from Braden MacDonald:

We have a custom XBlock used throughout certain Harvard courses, and their instructors want to export all the student data associated with those XBlocks (stored in edx-submissions). So we want to be able to add an instructor-only tab to the course in the LMS, where we can put a new UI for instructors to generate .CSV exports of that data.

Plug-in Architecture

There are a number of changes that are needed to support the ability for a new feature to be implemented purely within its own Django app:

• Stevedore extension points should be provided for each of the common UX changes that need to be made
  • Note: see the Audit below for a comprehensive listAn initial list would includeAudit below for a comprehensive list
  • The first such extension point has been provided by PR 8015
    • This allows any Django app to provide new views for a course
    • These views are shown as tabs in the current web client
  • Some important first extension points are as follows:
    • "Feature flag"
      • Note: this will be a ConfigurationModel derivative (which includes a built-in enabled column)
      • We recommend this over using a Django settings feature flag
      • It would be useful to allow all associated extensions to obey the feature flag automatically
    • URLs for new UI and REST APIsLMS tabs (although the concept should be more general as mobile won't render these items as tabs)
    • Instructor Dashboard components/tabs
• XBlocks should be extended to provide more capabilities
  • Course-scoped fields for configuration settings

    • Jira Legacy
      server JIRA (openedx.atlassian.net) serverId 13fd1930-5608-3aac-a5dd-21b934d3a4b4 key TNL-1804

  • Studio editing tabs for xblocks

    • Jira Legacy
      server JIRA (openedx.atlassian.net) serverId 13fd1930-5608-3aac-a5dd-21b934d3a4b4 key TNL-850

    • Jira Legacy
      server JIRA (openedx.atlassian.net) serverId 13fd1930-5608-3aac-a5dd-21b934d3a4b4 key TNL-851

  • Admin views for both Studio and LMS
  • Need built-in support for RequireJS or AMD compliant dependency management

    • Jira Legacy
      server JIRA (openedx.atlassian.net) serverId 13fd1930-5608-3aac-a5dd-21b934d3a4b4 key PLAT-481

• The Django asset pipeline needs to be improved
  • Have the pipeline pick up assets from all installed Django apps (to support CDNs, minification etc)
    
    • A spike was done at the beginning of the quarter: PR 7610: Django extension spike
  • RequireJS Optimizer support should be added to the LMS

    • Jira Legacy
      server JIRA (openedx.atlassian.net) serverId 13fd1930-5608-3aac-a5dd-21b934d3a4b4 key TNL-1322

    • See also RequireJS in the LMS
• There are some interesting aspects of supporting arbitrary plug-ins
  
  • An order must be established for visual aspects such as tabs. Today the order is implicit in the hard-coded list.
    • If in doubt, sort the items alphabetically by name
  • How can plug-ins adopt the correct look-and-feel?An initial thought is that we could view plug-ins render the correct page
    • For example, how does a new tab render the correct header and footer for itself?
    • The simplest solution is to document the boilerplate that each plug-in type should is required to include
    • Miki suggests that maybe we should use inheritance to our benefit here, where the superclass renders the boilerplate
    • Eventually we might want to use a mechanism more like XBlock that can be rendered inlineso that a plug-in only owns a block and not the entire page
      • A possible challenge with this is that it is subverting the Django framework
  • It needs to be decided how mobile can benefit from these plug-ins
    • If they provide new UI as URLs then they won't just drop in to mobile
    • XBlocks will just appear, but only by using a web view to render the HTML
    • React, a JavaScript library from Facebook, might help with native rendering of HTML

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