Best practice with web technologies (coding languages) in widgets

Hello everyone

this may not be the most typical common question that comes up, and I thought this forum was a good place to ask it. It is regarding best practices around the use of coding languages in the LMS.

One of the things that we can do is take HTML code and place it into dashboard widgets (when in designer mode). This empowers us to do lots of different things. Up to this point I have incorporated some basic animation, course hyperlinks (to prevent people from having to filter to find them), branded text with certain colors and attributes and created help menus with embedded email and other contact links to quickly get people in touch with someone who can help them with something. This has been done for learner dashboards.

As we continue to grow our LMS and create better user experiences, I am asking a question about the technologies people have used to do this. To my knowledge HTML can be used in the LMS, but not CSS nor JavaScript. I am wondering what other programming languages might be used to make enhancements that are allowed by the LMS in widgets. Also what types of projects are you working on using similar technologies?

We’ve seen the potential of what we can start to do with lines of code in some of the widgets. Right now, I’m using Dreamweaver to generate some basic HTML and then embedding the code. Are there any other technologies I could use with the LMS? Are there best practices in this regard?

Thanks so much everyone. Your input is greatly appreciated.

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Comments

karobinson

We too have used HTML, both in Designer and Social Learning.

We haven't used any other technologies but it will be interesting to see if others are and what those are.

patrick-matyja

Hi Rich,

A tool that I like to use to verify code related issues is W3Schools tryit editor. Its fairly easy to use and allows you to verify proper coding.

rburton

Thanks Pat. I think that the LMS does not support CSS and JavaScript if memory serves. Are we limited to HTML 5 only in the widgets? Just want to make sure. Thanks.

rburton

Thanks as always Kathy. To my knowledge we are limited strictly to HTML 5 in the widgets. I am trying to figure out whether or not I should invest more into JavaScript and CSS, but I don't think it is compatible with widgets. Getting confirmation from Pat. Always trying to figure out ways to make what is there even better. It pays to know what the limitations are before going down that path.

unknown

Hi Rich!

I'm also new to the LMS world (within the last 6 months or so) and have really been appreciating your posts! I'm part of that "we" Kathy mentioned, and was involved in the fun related to your distributions question

I don't have much exposure to widgets yet, but I've recently been working with HTML, CSS, and a very small amount of JavaScript to develop Social Learning spaces within our LMS.

Obviously it depends on the specifics of what you're building, but if it were me, I wouldn't worry too much about CSS for widgets in particular. CSS is very useful for 'blanket' applying styles to HTML, but you would have to set the CSS so that it includes every widget within its scope, and I'm not sure whether that's possible within the LMS - whereas HTML is able to do most of the basic things CSS can do, it just requires you to style them inline.

For example, in CSS you can say "every element with the 'styled' class attribute should have bold, 14pt font", and then all you would have to do in your HTML is add class="styled" to every element you want bolded/sized. If you don't have CSS, you can achieve the same in HTML by adding style="font-weight:bold;font-size:14pt;" to each element individually.

Writing styles inline to the HTML is much more repetitive and doesn't scale as nicely as having CSS, but unless you have dozens of widgets or extensive styling needs, you'll probably be fine. (I also think Dreamweaver might handle all of that for you, though I've never used it myself)

JavaScript is incredibly useful when it comes to creating more interactive content, but because it goes beyond the ability to simply display content it also has the potential to interfere with core application functionality. I don't know definitively whether the LMS allows JavaScript, but I would doubt it.

All of my coding languages are self-taught (so please take what I say with a grain of salt) but I do love diving into possibilities for better UX. Hopefully I've been more helpful than confusing, at least!

rburton

Thanks Jessica. These comments are really helpful. I was able to get my first distribution rule turned on. So far so good!

From what I understand the Infor LMS won't support CSS or JavaScript, but it will support HTML. Let me know if I am wrong.

I (like you) self-teach myself things and when doing research on how to code in HTML, CSS and other things often come up... hence my reason for asking. Best to avoid technologies that would not work in the LMS (even if you coded solutions correctly with them).

I appreciate your comments about in-line styling and even some suggestions about what to add to the code itself. I will keep that in mind as it seems to be the only way at this point.

I really enjoyed reading this post and found it helpful! Thank you!!

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