We had a problem with the contents of our htaccess file which required RedirectMatch URIs to contain & symbols.  This was creating all sorts of problems with the resulting URL appearing in the browser. e.g. RedirectMatch ^/eveningclasses$ http://192.168.41.66/dumgalportal/index.php?pageid=evening.cts&site=cts The &site=cts part is lost and the word eveningclasses is appearing in place of the & before the word site. There are many solutions on the web involving Apache configuration, ReWrite rules etc. But there is a much simpler solution available: Double…

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When a student logs in to the current version of the Android app an Async task makes a web service call which returns a private key if the credentials match. This key is used for subsequent calls from the app as this is a much safer solution than asking students to log in to remote systems every time the app opens. An Async task is necessary because network activity has to happen off the main thread. This is how the…

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Having completed a few of the excellent Java and Android related courses on Lynda.com I have started to work on Android Studio to achieve some of the tasks I need to develop a fully featured app. This starting activity contains several TextView and Button objects which display information based on network connectivity. There are two buttons at the bottom of this activity. Only one button is visible in the running app offering the chance to login if an internet connection…

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I have just completed the course Java Essential Training on lynda.com.  The course covered primitive data types,  Exploring Syntax and Flow, Working with Complex Objects, Exception Handling and Debugging, Using Data Collections, Creating Custom Classes,  Working with Inheritance and Polymorphism, Working with Files, Preparing an Application for Deployment. Although I was familiar with a lot of the subjects covered the actual  syntax in Java can be a little upside down looking.  I was also a bit confused about superclasses and…

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In my new portal content delivery system I use content files as a storage medium. I have only one set of database tables on the whole site which are used to display and store data from forms. There are presently three forms on the site: my personal details are wrong have your say report bullying There are several functions in the interface class devoted to handling forms (retrieving form definitions, storing data etc.). I have decided to use Stored Procedures…

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I don’t know anything much about design but as my staff development involves working with mobile applications and responsive themes I thought it high time I tried to build up a basic responsive layout using various online sources. I have used the new portal site I have been working on as the target of the theme. My main goals with this theme are: Respond to different client resolutions using media queries Do not rely on javascript to achieve anything which…

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I’ve had occasion recently to install a plugin on over 100 existing WordPress ePortfolio sites. The users themselves were unaware of the change and did not have to do anything to activate the new plugin. The plugin itself is fairly simple ‘Allow SWF Upload‘. This plugin overrides get_allowed_mime_types to allow Shockwave files to be uploaded. I found directly altering wp-includes/functions.php and removing the unset call for $t[‘swf’] didn’t work as WordPress put this straight back when I logged in so…

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I have started to build a timetable page for current students which should give them the option of viewing today’s timetable or this week’s timetable on a stand alone page. To facilitate this I’ve added an HTML facility to the timetable web service I use to get the data. Up ’til now it’s just returned XML which has to be parsed and displayed in whatever host code calls it but I want ready made HTML. Because the timetable data source…

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As I work on updated versions of Moodle modules I have found some difficulty in changing the default values of fields. The symptoms of this were successful module upgrades but that the default field values in the database had not changed. This turned out to be a result of my lack of understanding of the module upgrade process. Here is an example taken from the corepack module table which is used to store statutory course information in our Moodle system:…

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As the php.net site informs us, the mysql_connect() and similar functions are now deprecated and will be removed in a later version of php. I will be upgrading the live LearnNet and ePortfolio servers over summer so I decided to stay ahead of any potential future issues by updating all of my own application and Moodle plugin code to the new mysqli functions (Which stands for MySql Improved Extension). mysql_connect() Here’s a quick, incomplete version of how database connections have…

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