ATutor Integration

Fluid's Uploader can be integrated into a learning content management system, such as ATutor.  Files are uploaded for several purposes such as uploading images for teaching material, student-submitted assignments, and audio tutorial files.  The integration of Fluid's Uploader improves the user experience by allowing for multiple file uploads along with the progress bar and pause/resume features.  ATutor aims to integrate Fluid's Uploader and have it ready for it's next release (ATutor 1.6.2).

Implementation

The Fluid package is saved under /jscripts/fluid-components/ in the ATutor installation directory.  Fluid's Uploader script needs to also call a file handler (/include/lib/upload.php) which handles files after they have been uploaded.  The Uploader script gets called from the File Manager which is used in several places in ATutor, such as:

(logged in to an instructor account)

• Manage -> File Manager

• Content Editor -> File Manager
• Manage -> Tests 

Interface

Upon opening the File Manager, the user can click on the "Upload Files" button to open the Uploader interface.

From the Uploader, the Cancel button can be clicked to hide the interface and toggle back to the original view of the File Manager.

 For more information on the Uploader interface itself, please refer to the Uploader Wiki.

Flash Detection

The current Uploader of the Fluid Package (v0.4beta1) partly relies on Flash for its interface.  This poses a problem for an ATutor user who may not have Flash installed.  Therefore, it is necessary to provide an alternative method for uploading files when Flash cannot be detected from the user's browser.  The current implementation in ATutor does so by providing a simple single-file uploader.

Note that the Flash detection handler will most likely be improved at a later time.  For now, the Flash detection takes place outside of the Fluid scripts (in /include/vitals.inc.php).  If a later version of Fluid implements its own Flash detector and non-Flash script, the current Flash detection script can be easily removed.

In the current implementation, a Flash detection script gets inserted when a user initially accesses any page on ATutor.  The script returns a value of "yes" or "no", which gets saved in a cookie ($_COOKIE["flash"]) then sent to the server to be saved as a session variable ($_SESSION['flash']).  Once the session variable is set, the Flash detection script no longer gets called for the remainder of the session.  When accessing the filemanager, the php script (/include/html/filemanager_display.inc.php) generates the appropriate uploader depending on the value of the variable.

Demo

A working demo of the current Fluid Uploader integrated into ATutor is available at:

http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/fluidtest/
login: fluid
password: fluid

Screenshots