Display of Date Type ‘PlugIn‘ in Fields of Data Collection

1 Initial Problem

The Datatype 'PlugIn' of a field is offered regardless of whether a PlugIn for a field exists in the data collection. In the most installations, this does not contain anything and therefore no useful action can be executed.

By the way, the field can be created and nonsense can be produced.

2 Conceptual Summary

• If there is no PlugIn on the ILIAS installation, then the PlugIn option should not be available for the field type. 
• If one or more PlugIns are available on the ILIAS installation, then a separate entry should be displayed for each PlugIn in the radio group for datetype of a field. The PlugIn provides the title of the datetype so that it can be clearly identified – if available also a description. In this way, each datetype PlugIn is equivalent to other datetypes and can be better recognised. In addition, the user does not have to deal with the information 'PlugIn' for which he has no added value. The user must know what kind of field it is.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Form for an new Field of a Table of a Data Colletion
• Column 'Field Data Type' in Fileds Overview of a Table of a Data Colletion
• Form of a new Data Colletion Record containing a PlugIn-Data

3.2 User Interface Details

• Typically: A value in the radio group is not necessary.
• If a PlugIn exist, a selection option is offered for each PlugIn

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

None.

This is the moment when this central screen for the DC is switched to new forms.

3.4 Accessibility Implications

No special requirements in respect of accessibility are to be expected.

4 Technical Information

{ The maintainer has to provide necessary technical information, e.g. dependencies on other ILIAS components, necessary modifications in general services/architecture, potential security or performance issues. }

5 Privacy

No personal data is stored or processed to implement this feature. 

6 Security

We do not see any changes for special security issues.

7 Contact

• Author of the Request: Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila]
• Authority to Sign off on Conceptual Changes: Seeland, Per Pascal [PerPascalSeeland], Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila]
• Authority to Sign off on Code Changes: Seeland, Per Pascal [PerPascalSeeland], Szmais, Ingmar [iszmais]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: Szmais, Ingmar [iszmais]

8 Funding

• Katholische Hochschule Nordrhein-Westfalen
• Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

9 Discussion

Discussion at the time when the FeatureRequest was called »Abandon Field Type "PlugIn" in Data Collection«.

Katho NRW; Marvin Hackfort: We are using multiple plugins in the data collection (developed by Databay) to handle our Thesis submissions as well as other final papers. A dismissal of this plugin would be horrendous for us!

More discussion

10 Implementation

The feature was implemented as intended. Due to a major misconception of plugin fields within the current stable ILIAS versions (https://mantis.ilias.de/view.php?id=42178), this feature was a intwined with a bugfix and therefore also implemented and distributed for ILIAS 9 and 8 (the bugfix itself has no own implications for the UI or process).

Plugins can now provide a title and byline for their field through the language variables field_type_name and field_type_info. If those are not provided the plugin will be displayed with its name as title and without byline:

The editation view will change accordingly to the creation view. Due to the last recent changes only the selected plugin field will be visible:

Test Cases

Test cases completed at 13-11-2024 by Szmais, Ingmar [iszmais]

• C77657 : Plugin installieren
• C77658 : Plugin nutzen
• C77660 : Plugin deinstallieren

Approval

Approved at 02 Oktober 2024 by Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila].