Moodle has great framework, but lacks the fluidity of Flex. A Flex hack is being developed which will take advantage of Moodle's framework, but give the advantage of a more fluid interface.

Parasitic-Hack Methodology

The hack involves a parasitic-host relationship. The advantage of such a hack is that other components can be easily brought under the Flex umbrella (such as wordpress, Mediawiki, PHPBB, etc...), and these components can be presented in a different more fluid format depending on user needs.

So in this hack we keep the same php page structure of moodle, but rewrite the functions of Moodle so that the "party-in-the-front" idea of Adobe's HTTP Services in Flex can be utilized. In addition, this approach allows us to utilize moodle more fully without destroying its authorization/security structure.

The Hack

This hack is scheduled to be completed during the month of November 2007. Code will be posted periodically as the project proceeds. Please check back weekly for updates.

Hack Outline

Hack #1 (hack1 - Course Summary Page) by Mike Lively

Flex Interface showing course summary & links to various additions to moodle - completed 8 Nov.

Hack #2 named Hack2Matt (good one) Note:Hack3 "Featured" and Hack2 and Hack3 of the Wiki - Matt broke. He is dangerous, but that is why we let him hack!!!

(Extended Database Code - Hack2Matt) by Matt Overwine

Combining the databases of four different applications (Wordpress, PHPBB3, Mediawiki, Moolde).

Hack #3 (Hack - Key) by Mike Lively The work flow of the hack is important since it gives us the ability to systematize the process. Given Moodle's large number of files (some consisting of 6000 lines) such a hack might seem daunting at first. However, in actuality the hack is quite simple. Simply put an xml tag structure needs to be inserted into the moodle code for Flex to interact with. In using e4x, Flex does not even need to know the XML structure, just the node names it is navigating to. Pretty Cool!