WebLearn/CopyUI/Current

Description of the current design & implementation

This page is intended to describe the original copyUI work that was done as part of the SPWS project. A version of bodington at sourceforge that contains this can be checked out with the following arguments -r HEAD -D '2006-02-14 11:00'. An equivalent version of this patched onto WebLearn can be retrieved with the following arguments -r branch_WebLearn_copyUI -D '2006-10-12 13:00'.

Basic description of use

The following gives a simple description of how the current implementation is used in practice. (Some of the concepts in this walkthrough are explained elsewhere on this page). Bear in mind that initially it was only implemented for the logbook tool. This describes exporting a resource to the best practice area.

1. Access the logbook you wish to copy (you need to have manage rights on it).

2. Select Edit Questions -> Export to 'best practice area'.

3. Press the Browse Best Practice Area button.

4. The step above creates a second window displaying the root of the best practice area (in fact you can navigate to anywhere you are allowed to go to from here). Resources to which you are permitted to copy the logbook will be marked with [here?] surrounding a radio button.

5. When you have found the location to which you wish to export to, select this via its radio button.

6. Press the Copy button. As this has already been indicated as being a valid location the copy process should execute without a problem(!).

Best Practice Area

The notion of a best practice area was a concept from the SPWS project. The idea was that where a content creator felt (or was informed!) that a particular resource was an exemplary example of the genre, e.g. 1st Year Medical Sciences Logbook, they could export this to a known area, in order to make it available to others. Conversely, someone wishing to build on or use an exemplary resource instance as-is, they could browse the best practice area and then import this to a suitable location. This was implemented in the following way:

• there was a property called best.practice.area which could be set on a system-wide basis defining the root of the best practice area hierarchy.

• when exporting, the BPA browser used the property in order to determine the initial resource it should display.

Enriched Copy UI

Enriched copy UI concepts

Overview

• adopter & peer!ToPeer styles of copying.

• key features of adopter:
  • is essentially the form of copying that already exists.
  • between a source and a new parent (adopter). These are termed copyPeer1 and copyAdopter accordingly.
  • an implicit resource is created which is a child of the adopter. This is the actual destination of the copy.

• key features of peer!ToPeer:

  • between two resources of the same type. These are termed copyPeer1 and copyPeer2 accordingly.
  • basic properties are preserved in destination (copyPeer2).

Implementation

• adopterCopy: save implicit resource as copyPeer1 (source), browse for copyAdopter (parent of destination).

• peer!ToPeer:

  • import: save implicit resource as copyPeer2 (destination), browse for copyPeer1 (source).
  • export: save implicit resource as copyPeer1 (source), browse for copyPeer2 (destination).

Limitations of existing implementation

• only implemented for logbook tool.

• not implemented for bring (moving resources).