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• at the moment, it is only a draft of what the actual theme could one day look like, if you want to play around with it and help me improve it, feel free to do so
  
• you need administrator access to your application servers; so, if you're hosted, you probably won't be able to use it
• we're about to start testing on a large scale, so it's very much a beta release (perhaps even alpha, I'll look up the difference between the two B-) )
• it's aimed at our particular Blackboard setup (9.1 SP7, with custom modules for courses, organisations and notifications), so implementing it in another Blackboard environment will require some CSS-tweaking. this applies mainly to your portal pages, once inside a course or organisation, it should be fine (I assume)
  
• we're still frame-based (pre SP 10), so if you are on SP 10 or SP 11, accommodating the new iframes will require some modifications as well
• it's by no means rocket science, all customisations are CSS- and JS-based.
• many annotations are still in Dutch (I'll translate them when I find the time)
• it probably won't work properly (or at all) in Internet Explorer (although it does work in IE9 running in standards mode)
• oh, and did I say it's a work in progress?
  

[log in to unmask]" type="cite"> Dear lists/followers,
one last update before we start beta-testing on our production environment.
from now on, I hope to do nothing but troubleshooting and bug-fixing; the features I wanted to implement at the outset have all been implemented.
we'll gladly make this theme available to anyone who's interested (heck, even to Blackboard, if they put it to good use). I'll try and write down a step-by-step implementation guide over the Christmas holiday.
one hurdle for adoption at other institutions is the fact that we use custom modules for courses/organisations and notifications. somebody may have to add CSS-styling for Blackboard's courses/organisations and what's new modules. that shouldn't be very much of a problem, though.
you can take a peek here: http://www.screencast.com/t/c038HpW2
regards and happy holidays,
Bert


On 1/11/2012 9:30, bert coenen wrote:

[log in to unmask]" type="cite"> Dear lists,
some of you asked to be kept informed of the status of this project.
I'm glad to say that I think we're about ready to start testing properly (with a limited user panel).
shibboleth login works, we've got a designated url (m.etc.) that works etc.
one major update vis-a-vis the layout is the behaviour of forms. many inconsistencies have been tackled, some smaller issues remain (the icons are only placeholders, we'll need to spend some time on them).
I'll include a new screencast: http://www.screencast.com/t/PbaMyCA8
the screencast was made in chrome (on my laptop, over a not very fast internet connection) at 640 by 800 pixels.
looking forward to your suggestions/input.
regards,
Bert

[log in to unmask]" type="cite">

Sent: vrijdag 12 oktober 2012 12:42
To: bbadmin-l - listserv; blkbrd-l - A list for Blackboard course administrators and faculty; [log in to unmask]
Subject: [NLBBUG] blackboard mobile guerilla style (x-posted)

 

Dear list-readers,

some of you may know that I'm not a big fan of Blackboard's Mobile Learn app, for a variety of reasons:
- Blackboard is just too big to try and squeeze into an app
- Mobile access to Blackboard shouldn't be restricted to a small-ish set of devices
- It should come free of charge (as far as I'm concerned this is core functionality for a 21st century product)
- The iPhone and iPad app doesn't display any html; when I post an announcement with some links in it, students don't even know that the links are there
- there are simply too many "View in web browser" buttons
- I could go on ...

the kind of app I think Blackboard should have given (not sold!) us would be nothing more than a notifications system, but the best notifications system they could come up with and build (not one that marks notifications as "posted 1 hour ago" for items that were actually posted several days ago). this notifications system should lead the user to a mobile-friendly version of Blackboard, the real Blackboard.
Blackboard should be branded/themed in a mobile friendly way, users who cannot (or do not want to) use the app can access Blackboard anyway, users who do use the app can be sent to the mobile friendly branding (instead of always seeing a full-blown Blackboard).
and Blackboard should provide us with this branding or theme (and pigs can fly ...).

enter "blackboard mobile guerilla style", a project I've been working on for the last weeks.
using nothing but standard Blackboard tools (branding, theme, virtual host) -and one or two jsp/template-hacks B-)- I'm developing a mobile friendly version of Blackboard. I've basically added a CSS-file to our custom theme which hides everything except the tools and functions that I find indispensable in their context (add item in a content area, add thread in a discussion board, etc.).

it'll be some time before we release this to our users, I just wanted to post this here to get some feedback and see if anybody else is or has been trying to do something similar.

if you're interested, you can take a peek here: http://www.screencast.com/t/xUAMtNQ3

the screencast was made on my PC, performance on handheld devices is pretty good.

regards,
Bert