Re: [WWdevel] Re: [WWcvs] webwork-modperl: Rearrange top panels (change really from Bill Z.) plus

[John J. <jj...@as...>]

Michael E. Gage wrote:

>     Files at the top of directories like rochesterLibrary,
>     unionLibrary, etc. might need special treatment.  If your name to
>     the Rochester Library is called rochesterLibrary, then all of the
>     paths accessing those files will start with rochesterLibrary.  If
>     another person names the link Rochester, then none of those set
>     definition files will work.  So, by special treatment, I mean some
>     sort of munging of the paths to account for this.
>
> What we might do is this: if the file is rochesterLibrary/setFoo.def 
> the entries would be relative to the directory the set definition file 
> is in:
> hence an entry of set0/prob1.pg would be come 
> rochesterLibrary/set0/prob1.pg. would that work?

I'll have to think about it.  I can think of problems, but I haven't 
thought enough be know if I think they are serious.

>
>     To fit what Nandor wanted, he may want more depth in the searching
>     for the set definition files.  For example, maybe he would want to
>     have courses created with a symlink to a directory called Sets,
>     which has subdirectories MAT_110, MAT_111, etc., each of which has
>     his university's standard sets for those courses.
>
> I want to be careful not to search too deeply, since if the libraries 
> get large this will significantly slow down the creation of the 
> Library browser page.

I don't think this is a concern.  If this is activated by a 4th main 
button, then the searching only takes place if you click on that 
button.  If you do, it is no worse than clicking on "Local Problems", 
which does a full depth search for .pg files.

In fact, it might be faster since one could easily use the standard Perl 
File::Find module for the search.  We don't do that on the .pg file 
searching because it is more complicated by looking if problems should 
be treated as part of a parent directory or not.  An advantage of 
File::Find is that you can easily have it detect circular symlinks.  I 
have accidentally had some, and it really slows down the loading of the 
library browser page.

> I suggest that set definition files can only be used in
>
> the course templates directory and in
> any directory referred to in the $courseFiles{problibs} hash (in 
> global.conf).
>
> If someone wants to create "libraries" for MAT_110, MAT_111 and so forth
> they can add an entry either to global.conf or to course.conf. I don't 
> think that is too big a burden for those interested in doing fancy
> customization of local sites.

I think having all the .def files seen seems to the behavior of least 
surprise.  So, if there is some customization - searching for all of 
them should probably be the default.

John