30 September 2015, 4:29

I need to group resources as to their function and not with regards to their content type.

I would like to provide a list of links to external websites as part of a list of resources in one block whether in a folder or 'downloadable' content block is irrelevant. I do not want to create an html page with a link in it, just give the link.

I do not particularly want to embed a website as an external resource but will do if need be.

How can I get a URL to appear within a list of contents?

30 September 2015, 8:41

I am not sure if this answers your question, but (at least in Windows) you can create a file in notepad with the following content, e.g.:

[InternetShortcut]
url=http://www.apple.com

Then save that file as, e.g. apple.url (note the url extension instead of txt!)

Then you can upload that/these file(s) to Mahara.

Example can be seen here: https://mahara.org/user/anzeljg/files-with-urls

User can download these files and when they double-click them, the links (URLs) open in the default web browser.

HTH, Gregor

30 September 2015, 11:34

Could you just put a Note block on the page, with the list of links in it? Or are you saying you want to be able to intermix links & files, within the same block?

Mahara blocktypes generally only allow you to pick and display artefacts of one type. The idea is that if you want to aggregate different types of artefacts together, you do that by putting them on the same portfolio page, not within the same block.

Although I guess another complicating factor here is, we don't really have a generic "URL" artefact type currently. I guess the need for one has never come up before.

If you've got any PHP development resources, it would be possible to write both of these things, as Mahara plugins. A "URL" artefact, and a "list of artefacts" block that lists artefacts of all different kinds, together.

Cheers,

Aaron

30 September 2015, 23:45

"Or are you saying you want to be able to intermix links & files, within the same block? "

That is exactly what I'm looking for, a block that can display links to multiple artefact types. I understand that mahara organises by content type, but this makes it difficult to organize a artefacts within a view according to their function, e.g. theoretical resources, tutorials, other related information. These groupings can contain internal or external resources, which can be files or simply URLs. Creating separate views for each 'function' which would then need to be grouped into a collection which cannot contain any other information other than the links to the views is inadequate and too much.

I wish i did have PHP development resources, your proprosed solution sounds perfect.

cheers,

Kalli

09 October 2015, 10:23

The other thing you might do is just, within a page, use Text blocks to create headings for the different categories, and then put multiple blocks underneath each heading.

Or, depending on how many categories you've got, maybe put one category into each column.

10 October 2015, 1:45

Or another option that would be nice would be to be able to include links to files on the system within an HTML block, that way links and documents could be combined in one block.