Processing 1.0 - Processing Discourse - Processing Course CMS?

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Processing Course CMS? (Read 1731 times)

Dan Wilcox

Processing Course CMS?
Feb 21^st, 2007, 7:53pm

So I'm getting ready to run an intro to Processing course and after looking through several course web pages I noticed both the
UCLA: http://classes.design.ucla.edu/Fall06/28/
and
CMU: http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu:16080/%7Elevin/courses/dmc/iig_06f/
pages have the same custom Content Management System, etc. I'm looking to use a similar setup and, while in the process of building one myself, I realized I should see if that one was available.

REAS YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 712 CA	Re: Processing Course CMS? Reply #1 - Feb 26^th, 2007, 11:54pm We've been using this courseware for the classes at UCLA: http://atari.uniandes.edu.co/courseware/ The site seems to be down, hopefully temporarily. Some folks at Carnegie Mellon have written a new CMS, but I haven't seen it yet. Casey

Dan Wilcox YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 7	Re: Processing Course CMS? Reply #2 - Feb 26^th, 2007, 11:59pm Yeah I got that link too. I'm building one from scratch and the only thing I need to know now is how to extract a screenshot of the applet automatically on upload. Through javascript or ... ? I will post a link here when I get the course page up and running in a few days, plus the code if anyone else wants to use it.

fjen

Re: Processing Course CMS?
Reply #3 - Feb 27^th, 2007, 9:08am

i've been playing with automated preview creation for a while for builtwithprocessing.org . i decided to stay with the make-my-girfriend-do-them-by-hand method because most applets need some kind of input (mouse, sound, ...). you could give the java-robot a try. (you will need to sign the applet for Robot to work).

javascript won't work as it has no access to the image displayed ... and in many cases the javascript-java bridge will cause strange browser-crashes or not work. it's better to go the other way around and have a wrapper applet (modified PApplet) that grabs the pixels and sends them to the server. this applet can call javascript (or reload the page) to give feedback on the created preview (see here).

if you find a good solution please let me know. actually i'm interesssted in seeing the whole cms, if you're planning to share that once it's finished.

F

fry

Re: Processing Course CMS?
Reply #4 - Feb 27^th, 2007, 1:41pm

in-between automatic image capture of some kind, and making your girlfriend do it (florian!) is to simply ask the students to include a screen capture when they upload the work. i find this usually works best, just have them use saveFrame() and post that when they post their sketch.

matt thompson at cmu is working on a new courseware that we're testing this semester, it will eventually be available from http://nephi.la, though i'm not sure if he's planning to distribute it until he's had more time on it.

fjen

Re: Processing Course CMS?
Reply #5 - Feb 27^th, 2007, 1:56pm

well, you oughta stick to the system that works best .. right?

ok, in fact i get to work for her first and in return she get's to do stuff for me. fair trade!

i'm really interested in the courseware thing since i have a workshop possibility coming up on my horizon second half of the year. it would be great to hear about updates, experiences, ... from you guys!

thanks,
F

Dan Wilcox

Re: Processing Course CMS?
Reply #6 - Mar 13^th, 2007, 10:15pm

OK, I have the CMS up and running on my course website: http://130.241.66.214/~dan/

There's not much actual stuff on there yet as I just started giving out accounts yesterday.

I'm releasing this Open Source under the GPL. I don't have a name yet or anything. I'll post back here with a link to an info/download page if you want to try it out.

I basically built my own version of the cms on this page: http://classes.design.ucla.edu/Fall05/28/

Focus was on ease of use for people uploading and displaying their processing applets.

It has
- relative ease of use (i hope)
- built in applet / code display
- drop down box navigation
- thumbnails
- session management (students and admins)
- user account management
- an automated install script like wordpress, zenphoto, etc
- TinyMCE editor pages for updating Lessons, page info, etc
- a separate stylesheet for tweaking
- a separate config for tweaking
- a very gray and minimal theme so far

What I could add in the future, if desired:
- email functionality
- themes
- doodads

This is my first php/mysql excursion and I figured since there were a few expressions of interest that I would go the extra mile to build something useful for the community as well as learn a bit. All of the native XHTML / CSS is validated - obviously content cannot be, but the system itself has been checked. I used the object tags for the processing applets themselves but it would be very easy to put a switch in there to use the more accessible applet tags.

long live processing

PS: saveFrame() works quite well for now

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