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Create objects from Upload Directory

1 Initial Problem

Importing huge chunks of content takes a long time and sometimes aborts. 
The Helmut-Schmidt-University plans to deal with a truely astonishing amount of exporting and importing content and this woud be genuinely helpful. 

2 Conceptual Summary

• In the Create-Dialogue in the "Option 2: Import Category" a new option "Import File from Upload Directory" is presented. 
• Upon click the Upload directory is presented in an underworld. 
• User selects a file.
• ILIAS creates objects from that file. 

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Create Dialogue
• File upload directory settings in "Administration -> Learning Modules"

3.2 User Interface Details

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

{If the proposal introduces any completely new user interface elements, you might consult UI Kitchen Sink in order to find the necessary information to propose new UI-Concepts. Note that any maintainer might gladly assist you with this.}

4 Technical Information

The possibility to configure an upload directory in "Administration -> Learning Modules -> "Upload Directory" will be anbandoned.
Instead the content of the new directory "EXTERN_DATA/learningModules" will be offered as upload option for the existing SCORM and HTML-Learning Module upload feature. A migration of the content is not planned.

The content of "EXTERN_DATA/imports" will be shown as option in the creation dialogue according to "3.2 User Interface Details".
Files in this directory must follow the following conventions to be displayed in the creation form:

• The names must follow the export name convention: e.g 1588757425__4105__cat_66675.zip
• "personal" upload files could be stored in user subdirectories with the naming convetion of their content: personal root user upload directory "EXTERN_DATA/imports/6/1588757425__4105__cat_66675.zip

The creation dialogue will show all files directly stored in the upload directory which match the type. E.g category creation shows only files with name "*_cat_*.zip".
The creation dialogue will only show the subdirectory content which matches the current logged-in user-id.


The creation dialogue will reuse the UI-Inputs for the presenetation of the "Import TYPE" form.

5 Privacy Information

No special privacy information required.

6 Security Implications

By abandoning the possiblity to configure any file system directory in "Administration -> Learning Modules" the security will be increased.

7 Contact

• Author of the Request: Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt]
• Maintainer: Schmid, Fabian [fschmid], Meyer, Stefan [smeyer], Kohnle, Uwe [ukohnle], Killing, Alexander [alex]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

8 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• …

9 Discussion

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 02 JUN 2020 : I do not understand the mock-up in chap 3.2. Importing a category from a local file and importing it from the upload directory on my webserver are two very different things and do not belong in one form – or did I missed something?

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 19 JUN 2020: Thanks for the update of the mockups. This makes much more sense now. Last question: when choosing the radio box 'From Upload directory' you will see the files within this directory, right? Not before. What happens if the administrator has introduced sub-directories within the upload directory? When uploading media files from the upload directory into a media pool I can also switch in sub-directories. This is quite useful to prevent a long list of objects within a directory. I guess this wouldn't be possible with this approach, right? And embedding the file system UI here won't work. To be honest, I have no better suggestion for this. So I guess we should go this way and maybe leave a notice somewhere that zip-archives from sub-directories of the upload directory cannot not be imported.

Seiler, Yvonne [yvseiler], 22 JUN 2020: I still don't quite understand when I, as a user, have the possibility to select something under "From Upload Directory".
I find it hard to imagine anything under the two concepts "Import File" and "From Upload Directory", so I assume that other users also have difficulties to understand what they can do here with which requirements.

I stumble upon the following, for example:

1. "Import File" leads me to the conclusion that I can upload any ZIP file here (but I can only upload ILIAS XML export files in ZIP format).
2. "From Upload Directory" I would expect a kind of Explorer where I can access my local computer files. But this is not the case here. Who determines what things are available in the Upload Directory here: Me as user (is this "my" Upload Directory) or the sys admin?

Could this be improved with other language variables?

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 22 JUN 2020: We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 7. According to Stefan's description in chap. 4, this feature will introduce personalised upload directories, too. The setting to define the upload directory in the Administration will be removed. Instead of this setting a directory 'upload' has to be created in the external data directory with sub-directories for all object types. Stefan will add a README to the external data directory to explain how the directories should be named. Selecting media objects will be similar to ILIAS 6 (incl. file explorer).

10 Implementation

Category (same for other object types) export files are stored in the upload directory and are offered as import option in the "Add new item dialogue":

Additional information about the directory structure is available in a README.md

Test Cases

Test cases completed at 12. Nov. 2020, Meyer, Stefan [smeyer]

• Aus Upload Verzeichnis

Approval

Approved at 12. Nov by Koch, Karola [kkoch]