ConversionThingy 2


ConversionThingy 2

Home | Installation | Configuration | Converting Archives | Stats and Logs | Technical Notes | Revision History | Known Issues | License | What's it Worth? | About

ConversionThingy 2: Revision History

If significant changes or updates are made to ConversionThingy 2 or its documentation, an overview of those changes will appear here as the program updates are published. Here's what we've got so far...

Updates are likely to be few and far between.

  1. August 30, 2010 - General release of build 2.0.1.52
  2. August 31, 2010 - Documentation overhaul
  3. September 2, 2010 - Build 2.0.1.53 - New error message and procedure for handling empty Assessments. The fix appears in version 2.0.1.53. (Thanks to Mitch Baker at Lee University for his help in identifying this issue.)
  4. September 8, 2010 - Documentation fix (fixed Configuration page to indicate that a report and log entry does, in fact, accompany IMS-CC conversions; removed "The THE" construction on license page; replaced "are should not" with just "should not" on license page; added bold typeface to the license note prohibiting use by commercial entities; updated the PDF version of the documentation to reflect these changes).
  5. September 14, 2010 - Added reminder to respect copyrights to the "Converting Archives" page. Also added a video as a means of alleviating the high moral seriousness that had crept into the prose.
  6. December 11, 2010 - Build 2.0.1.54 - Added support for some multiple-blank fill-in-the-blank questions; incorporated hitherto neglected processing for ANGEL's "Section Heading" objects; incorporated a fix for the "Pause" alert (and the crash that would follow) in those instances when an ANGEL questionbank hierarchy had branches wholly unconnected to its root folder; added a process that, on launch, checks server for messages related to the installation; added a feedback/contact button to the invoice page; and, finally, began generating a new file--"ids.xml"--on program close to provide future continuity across version upgrades. See the technical notes page for details.
  7. January 5, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.55 - Fixed a problem I apparently created with the December 11 update: the issue, that ordinary single-blank fill-in-the-blank questions were not being created correctly, should now be resolved.  And I think the cloze question handling for the Multiple-blank questions survived the modification. [I was wrong--they didn't: see Jan 6 update note.] 
  8. January 6, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.56/57 - Pretty much fed up with the multiple fill-in-the-blanks format. As it turns out, the January 5 fix for the single blank questions broke the cloze questions. But they're all working with this update. I think. Also, this update includes a modification to the issue notification routine I'd started in December; as of this version, I can post an issue report or notification to the installation server and your installation will retrieve it on start-up. That function should be useful for drawing attention to issues that demand some attention.
  9. January 15, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.58 - Added a Moodle 2.0 output option, provided path for Moodle 1.x to Moodle 2.0 backup processing.  Fixed issue which required file resources to be opened and saved before they can be viewed); fixed issue that affected the integrity of some quizzes when multiple pool questions were being drawn from multiple question categories). Added a process (and an option on the configuration tab) to remove folders (with their contents) and question bank folders (with their contents) where those folders carry a user-specified title. (See the Configuration page for details.) Updated most of the pages on this site, excluding the "License," "What it's Worth," and "About" pages.
  10. January 17, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.59 - Added branch to the Moodle 2 processing of 1.98 files so that a backup file missing a default course GRADE_CATEGORY would still process more or less elegantly (instead of just failing). Thanks to Joseph Thibault at Moodle News (http://www.moodlenews.com/) for helping me track this down.
  11. January 19, 2011, wee hours of the morning - Build 2.0.1.60 - the Moodle 1.9x to Moodle 2.0 processing should now also be converting Glossary, Choice, and Database assignments. With the latter of these, the field names/types are converted, but records, if any exist, are not. And I may not have broken anything else in the process.
  12. January 25 or 26th - Build 2.0.1.63 - Added "Lesson" processing, with caveat that there's still a bug in 2.0 that makes the restoration of lessons lose their links. Rearranged the Configuration tab contents to make them more intelligible.
  13. February 7, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.64, late at night - Neither ANGEL nor Moodle conversions to Moodle 2.0 should fail to restore because of missing files anymore: a check for missing files is run and references to absent files are expunged from the files.xml file (and the inforef.xml file and maybe somewhere else too) before the Moodle 2 backup is generated.  Also: a number of pages on this site have changed, including the installation page, which now has a new location and a more consistent appearance.
  14. February 9/10 2011 - Builds 2.0.1.65-67. A latenight fix to address a program initialization issue I'd created in 2.0.1.64. The problem had an error message (and subsequent shutdown) appearing in fresh installations of (as opposed to updates to) 2.0.1.64.  I also moved the process by which it checks for updates: as of this 1.0.1.67, it checks as the program is launched.
  15. February 12, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.68. Rewrote program initialization. Most other issues addressed here involve ANGEL conversion fixes, finding elusive images and files when they're not actually embedded in the ANGEL backup. Changes to almost every page on this site, including the license. Please read it all over: this will be on the exam.
  16. February 14, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.69. Validation button added to config option for ANGEL server field, so that you can know it's pointing to the right path and won't draw an error; rewrite of the routine for identifying and pointing to server-based images in ANGEL archives.
  17. February 22, 2011. Documentation modification. Added section called "When Things Go Wrong" to the "Converting" page, as a reminder that ConversionThingy has no affiliation with Moodle and that any failure of a ConversionThingy-generated course site to load into Moodle should be generally be considered a ConversionThingy problem, not a Moodle problem.
  18. February 28, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.70 - 2.0.1.75.  A pair of fixes for ANGEL issues that are creeping out of the woodwork.  First, the gradebook construction problem fixed. Also, a small fix to take care of the appearance of this--"" (a character code for a vertical tab). What such a thing is doing in the source file is anyone's guess, but it doesn't play well with XML. Don't get me started.  Also a documentation modification on the "Converting" page, drawing attention to a potential restore problem on Moodle 2 servers with timeouts set too low. Sorry about the version leap: there's no change between .70 to .75 builds except that the installer may actually work with the last of these.
  19. March 4, 2011 - Builds 2.0.1.76-2.0.1.78.  Something for everyone this time, with a fix correcting the mapping of quiz-level question bank folders. That adjustment means that pictures in the text of questions (which should already have been passing through for course-level question bank questions) should now also be appropriately linked for the quiz-level questions. This fix also catches some problems with dropped question bank folders/questions in ANGEL conversions. The modification has a significant enough impact that this upgrade is required, not optional. There's a small chance this might gum up Moodle-to-Moodle conversions in ways I've not anticipated. Let me know if something unseemly happens...
  20. March 6, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.79.  Moodle-to-Moodle2 conversions: adjusted code to bring in images in Lesson pages; adjusted code to allow for spaces in filenames lurking in the course files area; adjusted mapping of course-level questions so these remain local to their quiz (as they were in Moodle 1.9x). ANGEL-Moodle2 conversions: changed question mapping (see technical notes page). All conversions: added the previously omitted .flv mime type.
  21. March 10, 2011, late at night - Build 2.0.1.80.  Moodle-to-Moodle2 conversions: fixed issue 19, in which a Moodle 1.x file would fail to convert (and raise an unrecoverable error) whenever that file contained Course Category or System level question bank folders. Didn't see that coming, I didn't. Fixed now. Those question bank categories and their questions are now appropriately processed (I think), though they will be restored to the course level categories when the backup is uploaded to a Moodle 2 system.
  22. March 28, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.81.  Moodle-to-Moodle2 conversions: tweaked file handling to catch some embedded files that went missing before. ANGEL-to-Moodle conversions: tweaked file handling to catch some file objects that went missing before; addressed a gradebook concern regarding activities that must appear in Moodle's gradebook but don't necessarily appear in ANGEL's.
  23. April 7, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.82.  A required update. ANGEL-to-Moodle conversions: added a cautionary message for users who uncheck the option for converting a gradebook. All conversions: for the sake of continuity, the conversionstats.xml and ids.xml files no longer get left behind when a new output folder is selected; the "Pay for It" mechanism has been modified to make invoice generation simpler--that last change was made just for you, dear reader...
  24. April 12, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.83. Another required update. ANGEL-to-Moodle conversions: addressed  issue in which an odd encoding of a reference to a server-based image/file had the potential to crash the program. It happened rarely, I suspect, but it was doubtlessly annoying when it appeared.
  25. May 1, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.84. Fixed an issue (see the Known Issues page) in the construction of the number-to-letter grade table in ANGEL-to-Moodle conversions.
  26. June 1, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.85. Something for everyone. Moodle 1.9x conversions will now also process "Feedback" activities--these get mapped to the corresponding Moodle 2.0 feedback activity. ANGEL conversions from 7.3 and 7.4 will now process ANGEL "Surveys" to Moodle 1.9 and 2.0 "Feedback" activities. ANGEL conversions will now also process the links from the ANGEL "Resources" tab, collecting these into a page called "Resources" that gets put into the first Moodle topic.  ANGEL conversions also benefit from a fix to the placement of labels from ANGEL subfolders.
  27. June 2, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.86. Moodle->Moodle conversions should no longer lose manually created items from the gradebook. ANGEL conversions should no longer have a mismatch between the the gradebook "max grade" and the grade attached to quizzes, dropboxes and ratings scales for forums. The ANGEL conversions will now also prevent grade values of greater than 100 or less than zero from being passed to Moodle: these get adjusted to an even 100 and a note gets made in the conversion report. The issue concerning manually created items also gets fixed for ANGEL conversions.
  28. June 8, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.87. A required update, with better handling for "points" based gradebook conversions from ANGEL, a new HTML cleaning option for ANGEL content that was pasted from Word,  a new standard insertion of the conversion report as the top document in the Moodle 1.9 and 2.0 files generated by ANGEL conversions, an option to map ANGEL folder titles/text into labels instead of topic titles/summaries. See the Configuration page's section on "Conversion Options for ANGEL Archives and Backups."
  29. June 9, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.88. A required update, again. Fix for newly discovered issue, under which a badly constructed fill-in-the-blanks question in ANGEL will crash the entire conversion process. Also a fix for the encoding on for the titles in generated if the topic-summaries-as-labels option is selected in for an ANGEL conversion. [The installer for this update turned out to be a dud: that problem was fixed about an hour after the update was first posted.]
  30. June 21, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.91. Another required update, for the benefit of ANGEL users, improving the identification and processing of images to be downloaded (where they don't exist in the ANGEL backup file); also some adjustments to error strings that you will hopefully never see.
  31. July 19, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.92. ANGEL conversions: added Word cleaning process to question text parsing for ANGEL conversions.
  32. July 23, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.93 All users are likely to benefit from this fix, addressing Issue 32, concerning mismapping of images in matching questions. Verified, by the way, that the rest of the image mapping in quiz questions/answers is also correct for Moodle 2.1. Images will display in the choice fields of a Moodle 2.1 multiple choice/multiple select questions (though this still isn't an option for Moodle 2.0x).
  33. August 11, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.94. ANGEL conversions. This fixes a problem in which some option configurations in ANGEL's multiple-blank fill-in-the-blank questions would draw an error message (see issue 33).
  34. August 27, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.95. ANGEL Conversions. ANGEL 7.3 and 7.4 handling of multiple blank fill in the blanks questions should again be parsing correctly to cloze questions; ANGEL 7.4 tree structure being converted more elegantly (it was a mess) when there multiple levels of nested folders within folders; ANGEL 7.gradebook containing "extra credit" item(s) no longer causes crash.
  35. September 6, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.96. ANGEL conversions: added configuration option to map all quiz questions to course level question bank, even where those questions had not, in ANGEL, been added to the question bank. See issue 37.
  36. September 14, 2011 - Build 2.0.1.97. All conversions: set UTF-8 encoding for the HTML conversion report that gets generated for each converted file. ANGEL conversions: added some error detection to prevent badly constructed ANGEL questions--those missing point values for some options,  fill-in-the-blanks questions that haven't actually identified any blanks, or single-blank questions set to the "shared answers" option--from passing those problems into the Moodle file (and then drawing an error on restoration). Also added a handler to prevent recalcitrant non-ASCII character entity references from gumming up the works: accented characters in object titles should no longer cause the program to halt on unseemly error messages.
  37. September 20, 2011 - Builds 2.0.1.98/2.0.1.99. Dropped the ANGEL-IMS-CC fix option as no longer necessary. Adjusted code so that a meaningless error message doesn't appear when the output folder is changed back to a previous location.  Made adjustments to every page of the documentation, in most cases simply excising mention of IMS-CC reprocessing functions.
  38. October 4, 2011 - Build 2.0.2.0. Added .nb, .nbml, .ma, and .m4v mime type references for conversions to Moodle 2; improved process for handling of non-archived image retrieval from ANGEL server, reducing prospect of having conversion fail when file reference is oddly constructed.
  39. November 28, 2011 - Build 2.0.2.1. All conversions: unrecognized mime types now all incorporated as octet-stream by default. ANGEL conversions: adjusted decimal figures (from 10 to 5) in gradebook entries to sidestep error when Moodle is run against MS SQL server; added error condition to note (and skip processing on) labels that exceed maximum 65kb size. Trimmed "Known Issues" page to reflect only current issues.

ConversionThingy 2 - ©2010 Peter Friesen
All other trademarks are the  property of their respective owners.