[Using Sakai] Sakai usage & features

[Steve Swinsburg]

Ok most of what I am about to write is for 2.8 and upwards. I'd be interested to hear about the upgrade issues you had going from 2.7 to 2.8.

You referred to a syllabus, is this the Syllabus tool? This is very limited tool and I wouldn't recommend using it for anything other than very basic items. Your best bet is to use the Lessons tool (previously called Lesson Builder) which allows you to create lesson material and link out to assignments, quizzes, external content etc. More info is available here:
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/LB/Contrib+-+Lesson+Builder

This is in 2.9 and onwards but works fine in 2.8. I am not sure about 2.7 though.

If you were just trying to use the rich text editor (FCKEditor in 2.7), then make sure you are using the Paste from Word function which attempts to clean up the text from Word. Again, though, FCKEditor is limited and outdated, replaced with CKEditor in 2.8 and onwards which is far superior. It sounds like you are hitting a number of bugs with the editor, could you perhaps send some screenshots and describe what browser and version you are using?

There is also a plugin for FCKEditor (and similar functionality for CKEditor is coming) called the Entity Picker which allows you to browse for certain items and link to them on any HTML page. Not all tools are supported though and it isn't in the core release:
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/SAKDEV/Entity+Picker

Similar functionality was recently announced as the 'turbocharged editor for Sakai':
http://collab.sakaiproject.org/pipermail/sakai-dev/2012-June/017466.html

For checking out what is possible, I recommend looking at the nightly trunk build:
http://nightly2.sakaiproject.org:8082/portal

It is rebuilt every four hours, check the status here:
http://nightly2.sakaiproject.org/

There are other servers you could try as well, there are also QA servers you could use, which will be down less often that the nightly builds:
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QA/Test+Instances

cheers,
Steve


On 18/07/2012, at 1:42 PM, Gregory Guthrie wrote:

> Thanks for the reply – we are using 2.7. We tried an update to 2.8 and had problems on both Linux & Windows.
> (I think the updates ran, but then crashed on usage.)
>  
> I certainly figure that with all the big-names and wide usage of Sakai, I must be missing something here.  J
>  
> -------------------------------------------
> 
> From: Steve Swinsburg [mailto:steve.swinsburg at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 10:40 PM
> Cc: sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org
> Subject: Re: [Using Sakai] Sakai usage & features
>  
> Hi Gregory,
>  
> Which version of Sakai are you using? There are some tools that will make your life easier, but we need to know the version you are using.
>  
> cheers,
> Steve

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