How does saving progress work?

Submitted by otacke on Fri, 08/18/2017 - 00:42
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I glanced at some of the content types in order to identify the way that the progress or state is saved, but so far I have only found the code for retrieving those two from contentData. How does storing work? 

tomaj's picture

tomaj

Mon, 08/21/2017 - 09:49

Hi Oliver,

The content type needs to implement the getCurrentState method, which enables saving objects, that are returned later as contentData.

The getCurrentState function is called in regular intervalls, as well as being triggered on most xapi statements.

- Tom

otacke's picture

otacke

Mon, 08/21/2017 - 12:59

Thanks, Tom!

otacke's picture

otacke

Tue, 08/22/2017 - 07:41

I had a look at it. Very simple if you stay within your own content type. Nice! But it seems to be a little more tricky if you build upon other libraries (which in turn may build upon other libraries) as "Document Tool" does. Is there any recommended approach to tackle this problem? Would implementing a serialize/deserialize methods for each library that could be called by other libraries be a clean solution?

tomaj's picture

tomaj

Tue, 08/22/2017 - 09:04

I don't think there are that many cases where the libraries has a state, so I've not encountered this problem myself.

But yea, I think letting a library keep the code for serializing/deserializing (maybe trough a getCurrentState-method) would be the easiest way.

- Tom

otacke's picture

otacke

Tue, 08/22/2017 - 09:33

I encountered that problem yesterday when having a brief look at the documentation tool, but maybe I simply don't see the obvious. It references several "page" libraries that in turn use a variable number of TextInputFields, etc. If I wanted to store the content state of the documentation tool, I'd have to collect all the current values of fields and parsing the DOM seemed to be a little weird to me.

tomaj's picture

tomaj

Wed, 08/23/2017 - 08:59

I think it depends a bit on what you are trying to do.

For most content types some user input is stored as a member variable when submitted, so it's easy to access from getCurrentState. But in other cases (like Documentation tool), it needs to grab fresh data the dom.

Do you have some code to share, maybe I can provide some better feedback?

- Tom

otacke's picture

otacke

Wed, 08/23/2017 - 09:24

I was actually looking at Documentation Tool for a colleague who would love it to save the content state. I figured that I couldn't do it in a couple of hours, but maybe I missed something.

tomaj's picture

tomaj

Thu, 08/24/2017 - 08:54

Ah ok.

I've not worked on Documentation Tool myself, so I don't know alot about it. But good luck, if you're going to try to sort it out! :)

- Tom

otacke's picture

otacke

Thu, 08/24/2017 - 09:09

I guess I will, but my list of stuff I could do for H5P is growing longer every day and there's this nasty thing called job that takes quite some time ;-)

tomaj's picture

tomaj

Thu, 08/24/2017 - 09:09

Hehe

otacke's picture

otacke

Thu, 08/24/2017 - 23:50

What about this code? It could be used to build something like a "getCurrentState cascade" from "Document Tool" over "standard page" (and the other three page libraries) down to "text input field" (and the other basic libraries).

I tested it with my demo of Essay that also uses "text input field" and now can store the user's text. Works fine.

tomaj's picture

tomaj

Fri, 08/25/2017 - 09:10

I just glanced over the pull request, and it looks pretty straight forward.

We are just finishing up a release here now, so I created a task for reviewing your pull request, and assigned it to the next upcoming release (Thrud).

- Tom

otacke's picture

otacke

Fri, 08/25/2017 - 09:15

Thanks! Enjoy you day of awesomeness when the release is done :-) You will have earned it.

tomaj's picture

tomaj

Fri, 08/25/2017 - 09:57

Thanks! Sure I'll enjoy my "day of coolness", and I'll work on my new combine the pairs content type.

- Tom

otacke's picture

otacke

Fri, 08/25/2017 - 12:18

Gee, nice. It's often used when teaching languages AFAIK. It will probably be pretty useful to a lot of people.

serettig's picture

serettig

Thu, 08/31/2017 - 14:30

Hi tomaj,

is having a getCurrentState() method all that is necessary to store the state or do I also have to implement xAPI? So far, I've put in getCurrentState() but not implemented xAPI besides calling triggerXAPI('interacted') when the user does something of relevance. However, getCurrentState() is never called. In h5p-blanks it seems that it is called when creating the xAPI template for the event 'answered'. So must it be called manuelle after all or can getCurrentState() be considered a virtual method that I can override and is called by parent code?

Thanks
Sebastian

otacke's picture

otacke

Thu, 08/31/2017 - 14:47

If implemented in your content type, getCurrentState() is called by the h5p-php-library automatically in regular intervals, given that you activated the Save Content State option in your plugin's settings. You don't need xAPI statements here, although those containing the verb completed or progressed also trigger saving the current content state if the Save content State option is set.

serettig's picture

serettig

Thu, 08/31/2017 - 17:28

Thanks, I didn't have Save content State enabled in Drupal. Now it works!

otacke's picture

otacke

Mon, 09/04/2017 - 19:04

Just a question that crossed my mind: In order to store a user's input within the host system, he/she needs to be logged in. This makes sense in course-like settings, but there may be scenarios where users are not required to log in somewhere but you still want to give them the opportunity to interrupt their work and continue later on. In that case would it be feasible to store the data in a cookie and to retrieve it from there? Storing the data within the host system should still be prioritized because this way users are more flexible with using different devices. However, having a cookie as a fallback solution might be nice. What do you think?

thomasmars's picture

thomasmars

Tue, 09/05/2017 - 14:00

Yes, this might be useful. Perhaps it should be stored using the web storage API though, since it does not really need to be sent to the server.

otacke's picture

otacke

Tue, 09/05/2017 - 14:02

I'll put it on my list ... :-D

otacke's picture

otacke

Wed, 07/31/2019 - 13:21

Hi Thomas!

This is a thread well aged now :-D Do you think there's any reason (security in particular) for not pursuing this?

  1. Use regular save content state for users who are logged in.
  2. Use local storage for users who are not logged in.
  3. Use local storage for users who are logged in instead of the regular save content state (would mean less traffic/storage required which could make sense for web servers with tiny resources).
  4. Use local storage for users who are logged in as a backup in addition to regular save content state. Could be useful to prevent the need to start over if the author just corrected a typo (did that for H5P.Cornell where it makes sense not to touch the students' notes). Downside: The host system should provide a mechanism to force a task reset if the author really requests it.

Keeping it at 1 and 2, maybe also 3 could be a reasonalbe step already. I just wonder if the local storage should be an extra option in the host system settings or if it should be automatically included in the save content state option (thus ruling out 3). And which storage (database vs. local storage) should take precedence if someone has two states, one from not being logged in (local storage) and one from being logged in (database)? Could be solved by comparing timestamps, just needs to be done ...

Cheers,
Ollie

 

thomasmars's picture

thomasmars

Wed, 07/31/2019 - 13:30

Yes, I see no problems having local storage in addition to save content state.

otacke's picture

otacke

Wed, 07/31/2019 - 13:43

Cool! I guess I might implement that very soon then.

otacke's picture

otacke

Fri, 03/27/2020 - 21:06

The university of Freiburg, Germany decided to fund the required changes for the H5P core and for the WordPress plugin.

There you go:

Details can be found in the pull request descriptions. Let me know if I should create a JIRA ticket based on those.

Cheers,

Oliver

p. s.: For user questions: Latest changes by Apple to webkit will erase localStorage entries after not using them for one week in Safari/on iOS, cmp. https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocking-and-more/

camille miozzo

Fri, 04/24/2020 - 14:15

Hello, I am not a developper and I don't really understand how this works. Should I count on this feature implemented in the next update of H5P wordpress plugin ?


otacke's picture

otacke

Fri, 04/24/2020 - 18:53

Hi!

I don't know if the H5P core team is going to include this (ever). If they do, then yes, it'll be in one of the updates to the WordPress plugin.

Best,

Oliver 

BV52's picture

BV52

Fri, 04/24/2020 - 18:54

Hi Camille,

Pull requests are changes that were made to the code and waiting for approval from the person that manages a specific code repository. Once the pull request is approved it will be merged into the official version and will be released as an update. Right now this specific pull request has not been reviewed, tested and merged yet. I won't be able to provide any timelines when this may be released.

-BV