11 July 2012, 23:31

I am new to Mahara and performing a pilot to check if this product fits the need for our project. I have the following questions can some one answer:

(1)  I installed Mahara 1.5 in my local windows 7 machine and tried to setup institutions to verify the feature "Isolation and Trust relations" but I am not able to see the setting "Isolated Institutions" on the "Administer Institution" page. So should I enable something or should I apply patch to make it work ?

(2) I want to integrate mahara code with our existing home grown portal app, so is there a easier way I can modify Mahara's top navigation ? I want the navigation to look like our portal but links pointing to the Mahara's features or php url. Can someone say if this is possible by adding plugins or should we do a code change ?

(3) The top header has the Mahara logo/icon but I want to have my school's logo instead, is it ok to replace the logo ? Please clarify.

(4) I don't see "report abuse" link in any topics or posts or video uploads, so how do users report abuse incase ?

Thanks,

Jehin

12 July 2012, 8:44

Hello Jehin,

My first advice would be you read the user manual (http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.5_STABLE/index.html) to have a good overview of what Mahara has to offer and/or see what is new in 1.5 (See index [http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.5_STABLE/index.html] and search for "New in 1.5").

Moreover here is my answer to your questions :

(1) Te "Isolation" feature has never been developped in core. It was part of a special development made by and for LUNS (Lancaster University, UK), Ruslan Kabalin was the main programer on this if I don't say dum things. The is a description of this on the blueprint (aka the roadmap for Mahara, see https://blueprints.launchpad.net/mahara) but I think there is not a huge demand for this and aslo no fundings, unless something happens in the pas weeks.

(2) You can change the look and feel of your Mahara by designing a new theme. For this refer to the theme manual here : https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Themes.

(3) You can easily change the logo and the colour of your Mahara in 1.5 and onward when you go to the admin institution and use the logo button (see point 8.5.2 Add an institution (http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.5/site_admin/institutions.html?highlight=theme).

HTH

-dajan

15 July 2012, 2:48

Hello Jehin and dajan,

Thanks for posting your questions here, Jehin.

The logo exchange way that dajan suggests only works for institutions. If you wish to have only one theme in use for your entire site, the logo should be changed in raw or in a specially uploaded theme if you do not wish to change the other themes. The configurable theme does not exist for the default "No institution" which is pretty much the site level.

As for the video comments. In Mahara 1.5 you decide which artefacts shall have comments turned on by default in the plugin administration: http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.5/site_admin/extensions.html#artefact-type-file

Each user can still decide whether to allow comments on a particular artefact.

We do not yet have an objectionable content button for forum topics or posts. But that would be a good addition. I created a feature request on our tracker to keep better track of it and also included a few other instances where an objectionable content button would make sense: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1024872

Cheers

Kristina