[Using Sakai] Home Page Components [and Templates]

[Marshall Feldman]

Zhen Qian wrote:
> Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:29:41 -0400
> From: Zhen Qian <zqian at umich.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Using Sakai] Home Page Components [and Templates]
> To: Marshall Feldman <marsh at uri.edu>
> Cc: sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org
> Message-ID: <8F0AA60A-B779-4EEE-B961-1085620A1A40 at umich.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Marshall:
>
> As for the "!user" and "!worksite" templates, Steve Swinsburg had a  
> better explanation recently: http://sakai-ftd.optimizedlearn.com/ 
> pipermail/sakai-dev/2009-May/001313.html
>   
Yikes! This is about building Sakai. I just want to customize the home 
pages for my courses.
> All the templates are stored in db in OOTB Sakai. You can log in as  
> admin user and view the settings from the Sites tool in his  
> MyWorkspace site.
No I can't because I don't have admin user privileges. (Aside: This list 
is called "sakai-user," but just about every piece of advice I've 
received since I posted several questions a few days ago has assumed I'm 
either an administrator or a software developer. Aren't there any 
instructors or students on this list?) I'm just a lowly professor trying 
to set up his courses for the fall.

> You can later copy those template for other user  
> type (e.g. !user.template.TYPE) or site type (! 
> worksite.template.TYPE) within that tool, and the results will be  
> saved into database, too.
>
> By default, all course site creation would use the same template ! 
> worksite.template.course. However, if you want more finer control of  
> template sites, here is one feature that just implemented, http:// 
> jira.sakaiproject.org/jira/browse/SAK-16419. However, this feature is  
> not in the 2.6 build.
>   
This looked like it had potential until I read the following: "By 
marking any site that you want to use as a template, via the 'Sites' 
*_admin _*tool, with a property called template set to true, we could 
make these sites available to be copied as new sites."  What about those 
of us without  admin privileges?  Also, looking at the images on the 
issue page, it seemed that the Template and Course Website options are 
mutually exclusive. Can an instructor use a template to customize the 
home page for a course?
> On the other hand, you can always by pass all those default settings  
> in Worksite Setup tool, and customize your site creation via Web  
> Services calls approach...
>   
I assume you're referring to the feature described here: 
http://bug.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/WEBSVCS/How+to+use+the+Sakai+Web+Services. 
Besides having to program in Java (or Perl, PHP, or Python), something 
the average English Professor can't do, this technique also seems to 
require admin privileges. For instance, the page says, "I recommend you 
edit the jws files in the source and rebuild/deploy the webservices part 
of the Sakai source, rather than edit the deployed ones."

Comon. Surely you can't expect every professor who simply wants not to 
display the course calendar on their course home page to rebuild and 
redeploy Sakai!

I really do appreciate you help, but please realize I'm neither a Sakai 
administrator nor a Sakai developer.

    Marsh Feldman

-- 
Dr. Marshall Feldman, PhD
Director of Research and Academic Affairs

Center for Urban Studies and Research
The University of Rhode Island
email: marsh @ uri .edu (remove spaces)


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