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Melete Install Guide

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Installation instructions to deploy Melete 2.7.2 for Sakai 2.6.x

Melete is a lesson builder tool for Sakai (A.K.A. Modules). To work with Melete source, you need the same development environment as Sakai, essentially Java 1.5 and Maven 2. Melete supports MySql4.1 and MySQL 5.0.xx, Oracle and HSQLDB.

Note: If you are upgrading from Melete 2.6.x, see upgrade instructions.

  1. Get the Source
  2. Configure Melete
  3. Configure Commercial Sferyx Editor (Optional)
  4. Internationalize Messages (Optional)
  5. Compile Melete
  6. Prepare your Database
  7. LTI Configuration (Optional)
  8. Update Sakai Roles for Melete
  9. Sakai Portal Icon for Melete

1. Get the Source

Start by getting the Melete source code and placing it in your "sakai" development folder. You can get this source from the Sakai contrib SVN.

To get Melete from SVN, issue these SVN commands from your Sakai source folder:

svn co
https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/etudes/melete/tags/2.7.2/
melete


2) Configure Melete

2.1 Packagingdir settings

The dependency files for the IMS-SCORM export process are in the /var/melete/packagefiles directory in the Melete source code.

a. Copy the /var directory and its contents into a directory. Make sure the owner and group of the directory is same as tomcat user.

b. Configure melete.packagingDir setting in Sakai.properties

Eg. If you are on unix/linux, and your packaging directory path is /var/melete/packagefiles, specify in sakai.properties.

melete.packagingDir =/var/melete/packagefiles

2.2 Max Upload size for IMS import file

By setting this Sakai property, system administrators can set a different file upload limit for Melete IMS CP import than the upload max limit for content files. If this property is not set, then Melete assumes the max value as 50MB.

content.upload.ceiling=50

3) Configure Commercial Sferyx Editor (Optional)

3.1 Sferyx Source

  1. Purchase a license and binary source for Sferyx (http://www.sferyx.com)

  2. Download sferyx from https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/etudes/sferyx/trunk and place it under sakai source directory.

  3. Place the purchased applet jar file under /src/webapp/sferyx.

  4. Create a directory for enabling uploads of embedded media via the Sferyx editor. Make sure the owner and group of this directory is the same as that of the tomcat instances.

  5. Configure melete.uploadDir setting in sakai.properties for enabling uploads of embedded media. Specify the absolute path to this directory in sakai.properties as melete.uploadDir

    melete.uploadDir=/var/uploads
     

  6. Compile and deploy sferyx webapp using maven.

3.2 Default Melete Editor

This is done by specifying the following property. For example, if the default Melete editor is Sferyx,

melete.wysiwyg.editor=Sferyx Editor

If this property is NOT set, the code uses the editor specified by the wysiwyg.editor property.

3.3 Set Available Melete Editors  

You can set more than one editor in Melete (Sferyx and FCK Editor, for now). Users can select their default editor for authoring under Melete's Preferences.

List the editor choices for users in sakai.properties as specified below. For example, if the user has two choices, Sferyx and FCK Editor, the settings will be as follows:

melete.wysiwyg.editor.count=2
melete.wysiwyg.editor1=Sferyx Editor
melete.wysiwyg.editor2=FCK Editor

NOTE: Make sure that the names have proper spaces as this is used to display the labels of the available editors on the Preferences page.


4) Internationalize Messages (Optional)

If you want to run Melete in a different language than English, you need to update messages.properties of your language under melete-app/src/bundle and under melete-impl/src/bundle.


5) Compile Melete

At the command prompt, go to the melete source directory which you placed
under sakai and run maven commands just like you did for sakai.

To build and deploy Melete, run 'mvn clean install sakai:deploy'

Notes:

  • If you are using a sakai version other than 2.6.1, before building, change the version in pom.xml. The default version in pom.xml is <version>2.6.1</version>. Sakai version can be obtained from master/pom.xml from version element.

6) Prepare your database

  • Melete works with HSQLDB, Oracle or Mysql Database. It has been tested on Mysql4 and Mysql 5, but it has been deployed successfully with Oracle at many universities.
  • Melete shares the same database as Sakai's and adds a few tables to the database.

Set up the Melete tables

You can either run the sql script manually; it is provided under
/components/src/sql/mysql/melete27.sql,

OR

Turn on auto.ddl and when tomcat starts, hibernate will generate the melete tables on its own by reading xml files.

NOTE: Auto.ddl does not create some indices.

a. Make sure secondary indices on user_id column of melete_user_preference table and on course_id of melete_course_module table are created. Hibernate sometimes doesn't create it.

b. We see duplicate indices created by hibernate on module_id column of melete_course_module and melete_module_shdates table. section_id column of melete_section_resource table. Please remove the duplicate keys. It will improve the performance.

c. Melete stores content in the database tables as well as in the /private/meleteDocs folder in ContentHosting.
Through Melete, users only have access to the /private/meleteDocs folder and not other parts of Resources.


7) LTI Configuration (Optional)

Melete can link to Publisher's content using BasicLTI and SimpleLTI (IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability standard).BasicLTI allows the launching and sharing of information with an externally hosted tool using standard protocols, signed securely using the OAuth (www.oauth.net) security mechanism.

To use this feature, enable "Show Link to Publisher's Content option" under melete preferences.

Sometimes a vendor gives a site-wide license to some content i.e a single secret/password that is used to sign all of the requests coming from a LMS system.

Configure below stated properties in Sakai.properties file to set site-wide license. This is just an example here, your vendor will give you the key/url and passwords.

basiclti.consumer_instance_guid=etudes.org
basiclti.consumer_instance_name=Etudes Inc
basiclti.consumer_instance_url=http://etudes.org
basiclti.consumer_instance_secret.mhhe.com=xxxxx

basiclti.consumer_instance_key.dr-chuck.com=lmsng.school.edu
basiclti.consumer_instance_secret.dr-chuck.com=secret

Properties for SimpleLTI lauch are:
simplelti.org_id=etudes.org
simplelti.org_secret.appspot.com=secret

For detailed specifications, you can consult this document. https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/basiclti/trunk/basiclti-docs/resources/docs/sakai_basiclti_portlet.doc


8) Update Sakai Roles for Melete

Update Sakai Roles (under realms) to include Melete permissions to your roles. If you are upgrading Melete in your Sakai instance, no roles changes are needed.

  1. Log on as Sakai admin.
  2. Check appropriate Melete permissions under the roles in !site.template.course.

  • Check melete.author for instructor, teaching assistant types of roles (maintain) to which you want to give 'authoring / manage' rights.
     

  • Check melete.student for student types of custom roles that you have (access) to which you want to give 'viewing' rights.

  1. If you have project sites and related roles in !site.template.project, appropriate permissions (melete.student or melete.author) need to be checked as defined above, based on what rights you want to give to the roles.

CAUTION:

a. IF YOU FAIL TO CHECK THE MELETE.STUDENT AND MELETE.AUTHOR PERMISSIONS FOR YOUR ROLES, MELETE WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY.

b. IF YOU ADD MELETE TO _EXISTING SITES_, USERS WILL NOT HAVE THE MELETE PERMISSIONS THAT YOU CHECKED. YOU WILL NEED TO USE !SITE.HELPER OR OTHER SCRIPT TO PROPAGATE THE MELETE PERMISSION TO EXISTING SITES.


9) Sakai Portal Icon for Melete

Sakai 2.5 and later supports icons in the portal for each tool. Sakai comes with icons for the tools that are bundled, and you can make a few simple edits to add icons for other tools such as Melete. The icons are part of the Sakai skin. The skin files are in the "library" webapp, which is located in your deployed tomcat in the folder

webapps/library/skin

The skin has to be enhanced in two ways:

* make the new icons available
* change the skin .css file to reference them

There is a "default" skin, and perhaps, depending on your customizations of Sakai, other skins. You need to make these changes for the skins that you are using.

The following instructions show how to change the "default" skin, in the "library/skin/default" folder. To change the others, apply these same changes to the other skins, located in folders under "library/skin/".

You can add an icon for Melete here:

webapps/library/skin/default/icons/

Create this folder, and download the icon into it:

The Melete tool icon is modules-menu.png

You can get it from melete-app/src/webapp/melete/images

or download it from here: Modules portal icon

The file "portal.css" is where the icons are referenced. For the default skin, this file is here:

webapps/library/skin/default/portal.css

There is a section in there that lists lots of tools. We want to add one more:

.icon-sakai-melete
{
background-image: url(icons/modules-menu.png);
}


Questions?

Contact sakai-dev@collab.sakaiproject.org or dev@etudes.org


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