Forum OpenACS Q&A: dotLRN 1.0 and oacs 4.6.2 differences...

1: dotLRN 1.0 and oacs 4.6.2 differences...

Posted by David Kuczek on 04/15/03 05:52 PM

I just installed oacs 4.6.2 on my newly configured nsvhr server and it installed like a charm... I might write up a little HowTo on "First Steps", because I think that some instructions are a bit complicated.

The dotLRN documentation tells me to follow the oacs installation steps. I know that both systems depend on the same core. How much are these systems interconnected? Can I use e.g. lars-blogger with a dotLRN installation? What about internationalization? Does it come with dotLRN 1.0 or oacs 4.6.2?

Could somebody elaborate a little bit on the differences and on the future roadmap. Some time ago I read about dotLRN becoming an installation option of oacs in the future?!

2: Re: dotLRN 1.0 and oacs 4.6.2 differences... (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 04/16/03 06:34 AM

dotLRN installs on top of OpenACS 4.6.2. For convenience the dotLRN 1.0 tarball includes all the packages it needs from OpenACS 4.6.2 and configures itself on installation. You can install as many additional packages from the OpenACS 4.6.2 tarball as you want, but since they don't have portlets or applets defined for them they won't integrate smoothly. However a portlet/applet pair for (say) lars-blogger would be easy to write (hint hint)

3: Re: dotLRN 1.0 and oacs 4.6.2 differences... (response to 1)

Posted by Roberto Mello on 04/16/03 06:44 AM

Don,

I need to write some portlet/applet combos, including lars-blogger. Is there documentation for that somewhere? If not, what code would you recommend I go over to figure out?

-Roberto

4: Re: dotLRN 1.0 and oacs 4.6.2 differences... (response to 1)

Posted by David Kuczek on 04/16/03 10:50 AM

What about vice versa? Having oacs 4.6.2 installed and wanting to have an instance of dotLRN running on top of this installation? That's the future isn't it? Will this be possible with 4.7? What are the plans?

5: Re: dotLRN 1.0 and oacs 4.6.2 differences... (response to 1)

Posted by Peter Marklund on 04/16/03 11:17 AM

David,
internationalization is not included in oacs 4.6.2 / .lrn 1.0 but will be in oacs 5.0 (previously called 4.7) / .lrn 1.1 (or will it be 2.0?) to be released this summer.

Simon Carstensen is working on integrating (portlet and applet) the blogger into .lrn.

Concerning the installation visions for the future the idea was that during installation you would be asked if you want e-learning (.lrn), an intranet (.wrk) or custom installation and everything would be set up automatically for you.

With Don's xml install config file (install.xml) you can specify which application suite you want installed. Another improvement we will make is that you will get only one form to fill out at the beginning of installation and after that everything will run through until the server is restarted and you are ready to go.