Plugins

Mahara has a very pluggable architecture, which allows people to add their own artefacts, blocks for views, methods for authentication and more. Here is a list of plugins developed by members of the community.

If you have a plugin that you'd like to contribute, we'd love to hear from you! Post on the Developers Forum with some information about it.

Please note: Plugins listed here are NOT subject to the same standards of review that the Mahara core is, and as such, may contain security issues or other problems. It's up to you to verify that the plugin will adequately suit your needs!

The updating of the plugins to suit currently supported versions of Mahara is the responsibility of the plugin developers and not the Mahara core project team.

Mahara plugins

Artefact Plugins

Mahara ships with plugins for profile information, a file repository, blogs and a resume builder. In addition, these plugins are available:

• Bookmark by Catalyst for Intel Education - Users can save links as Mahara artefacts. They are managed on a separate page under the My Portfolio menu, and can be selected for display in a block. Mahara 1.2 only. download
• Cloud plugin by Gregor Anželj - implement support/integration of external cloud services into Mahara and gives users option to show (or embed) files from different cloud services into their pages
• Europass by Gregor Anželj - implements Europass into Mahara, allows showing Europass data in Views and exporting this data into several forms
• Individual Learning Plan (ILP) by Ross Dash - Plugin for adding an Individual Learning Plan to Mahara
• Continuing Professional Development (CPD) by James Kerrigan and Geoff Rowland - adds a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) log to record details and total time spent on different CPD activities
  
• My Learning by Gregor Anželj - adds questionaires about learning styles and intelligences, with Flash-based visualisations that can be embedded in Views
• Survey (work in progress) by Gregor Anželj A generic version of MyLearning, where users can develop their own questionnaires and decide how to display the results. This page is currently being used to collaboratively document the plugin.
• My Reading by Jong-Dae Park - add comments on the books users read. The plugin was developed by modifying the code of blog artefact plugin developed by Catalyst and utilize web service from Korean online book company. The code need to be modified if users want to use webservice from the online book company in other countries. download
• Problems & Conditions by Catalyst for Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine - adds the ability for students to record case notes about medical conditions, and share them with others. A nice feature is a category browser that makes it easy for users to choose what conditions to associate with a given case note.
• Web Services Web Services support for Mahara (REST, SOAP, & XML-RPC)
• External Resource by Laurent Opprecht for the University of Geneva - allows you to add embedable content (videos, pictures, ...) and resources (pdf, rss, ...) to your Mahara portfolio. All providers that implement any of the protocols (oembed, ogp, ...) is supported - Youtube, Dailymotion, Slideshare, Google Books, and more.
• Notes by Laurent Opprecht for the University of Geneva - allows you to create documents/take notes and display them in views.
• Open Social Widget by Laurent Opprecht for the University of Geneva - allows you to publish your porfolio's blocks to an Open Social container - i.e. iGoogle, portal, etc.
• Calendar view of plans by the Technischen Universität Darmstadt - Plugin that creates a calendar view of all your plans.
• Booklet by Christophe Declercq, Nantes University - meta-artefact to create and edit Resume-like artefacts. First presented at French MoodleMoot - MaharaMoot. Next available in Mahara GitHub.
• Linkedin Plugin by Johann Luthi for the University of Geneva - allows you to connect to your LinkedIn Profil and extract (view) your Linkedin Profil Data.
• Library Plugin (with Recommender System) by Guillaume Nerzic for a MSc in Learning Technologies. This artefact (and dedicated grouptype) allows shared documents to be uploaded to a group's library.

Blocktype Plugins

• CalDAVCalendar by Tobias Zeuch, allows for displaying a remote calendar via the CalDAV protocol. See also the mahara-page
• Chem 2D NIH by Geoff Rowland - uses the NIH NCI/CADD Chemical Identifier Resolver service to display an image of a 2D chemical structure in a Page (View).
• Code highlighting by Luke Carrier - displays a syntax highlighted representation of an uploaded file
• Embed.ly by Gregor Anželj - embeds tons of Web 2.0 stuff - (This is not needed anymore from 21.04 onwards as it's now integrated into Mahara embedded media)
• Facebook Like / Recommend by Gregor Anželj - adding Facebook buttons to a Mahara page so that updates can be sent to that service (bug tracker and code repository)
• FreeMind Flash by James Kerrigan and Geoff Rowland - adds an interactive Flash rendering of a FreeMind mind map to a Page (View).
• Google +1 block by Emanuel Garcês. Google +1 button for Mahara 1.4.x.
• GoogleApps by Gregor Anželj - allows for making Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, calendars and maps visible in a View.
• Jmol by James Kerrigan and Geoff Rowland - displays an interactive 3D chemical structure file rendered with Jmol in a Page (View).
• Jmol NIH by Geoff Rowland - uses the NIH NCI/CADD Chemical Identifier Resolver service to display an interactive 3D chemical structure rendered with Jmol in a Page (View).
• LinkedIn Profile by Gregor Anželj - embeding LinkedIn public Member Profile to a Mahara page - updated for Mahara 15.10 in the repository
• LinkedIn Share button by Gregor Anželj - adding LinkedIn Share button to a Mahara page so that updates can be sent to this service
• My Forum Posts block by William Mair - displays your posts from multiple forums (bug tracker and code repository)
• Open Badge Displayer by Discendum. Code. The plugin is not needed for installations from Mahara 16.04 onwards as it is part of Mahara core.
• Page status created for iCampus21 by Catalyst for Mahara 15.04 and 15.10. Puts a block onto a page in which you can show the status of the page as "In progress", "Needs help" and "Done" to indicate on collaborative projects where the development is on the page. See the forum post for more information.
• Popular Views block by Catalyst IT. Allows users to display a list of popular Pages on their Dashboard page.
• QR Code Generator by Emanuel Garcês. QR Code Generator block for Mahara 1.4.x.
• QR Code by Ruslan Kabalin. Displays QR code for Page URL (Mahara 17.10+).
• Rubrics by M. Miyazaki.
• Scratch by Gregor Anželj - embeds Scratch files
• Twitter by Florian Eder - embeds Twitters Tweets or Twitter Timeline
• Twitter Tweet buttons by Gregor Anželj - adding Twitter buttons to a Mahara page so that updates can be sent to that service (bug tracker and code repository)
• WindowsLive by Gregor Anželj - embeds documents, Hotmail calendar and Bing maps in a View.
• Switch theme by Antonella De Chiara

Authentication Plugins

• CAS plugin by Patrick Pollet - CAS for 15.04 adjustments by Robert Lyon
• Janrain Engage by LUNS Ltd. for Learning Arabia - provides a single sign on to Mahara using identity from the popular websites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! and many others. It uses Janrain Engage (former RPX) service.
• LDAP group enrolment (File:Ldap enrol.php) by Amer Hamade allows you to get the users automatically added to the specified group on Mahara upon login.

• Radius authentication plugin by Stanislav Tsymbalov.
• Shibboleth by Laurent Opprecht for the University of Geneva - designed to work primarily for Shibboleth but should work as well with other web server based authentication schemes.
• OpenID Connect plugin by Remote-Learner. This can be used to authenticate users from identity providers that support OpenID Connect, such as Azure Active Directory, and enable single-sign-on (SSO) between Mahara and Office 365

Integration with other systems

• Blackboard/Mahara Integration A script written specifically for AUT University, which can be inserted into a building block to send usernames from Blackboard to Mahara. Some more information about how to use the script.
• LDAP sync by Patrick Pollet: sync Mahara user accounts and groups with an LDAP directory. More information in the forum post - Not needed anymore if you are running Mahara 1.8 or higher
• Mahara assignment submission plugin for Moodle 2: submit portfolio pages to Moodle for feedback

Interaction plugins

• Open Badge Factory by Discendum

Search Plugins

• Sphinx search, by Antti Koskinen

Other

• memcache sessions, by Catalyst IT (just a patch, not a full plugin)
• LTI integration for Mahara from Learning Apps - This plugin has outdated code and has been replaced by the Mahara core LTI integration work first implemented in Mahara 17.04
• School info by Kevin Rickis, for EdICT Training LTD, Glasgow, Scotland; read the forum announcement

HTMLPurifier custom filters

• File:Htmlpurifier-hackpad-filter.zip by Gregor Anželj (Instructions: Unzip the contents of the zip file to htdocs/lib/htmlpurifiercustom folder of your Mahara installation. Then go to Administration => Extensions => HTML filters and click Install button. Usage: On desired Mahara page create new Text block, click left-most button of the first row of the editor to show all the buttons, then click right-most button in the last row, the one with <> icon - that will open new pop-up window into which you should paste Hackpad embed code. Save the page and voila!)

Plugin Installation

Unless the plugin has an installation manual, to install the plugin, download it first, then decompress it in the appropriate plugin type directory. For example, if you download an artefact plugin, decompress it in the 'artefact' subdirectory. If you download a blocktype plugin, decompress it in the 'blocktype' subdirectory.

Plugin Update

Generally the procedure is:

1. Delete the old plugin code (files)
2. Copy in the new plugin code (files)
3. Go to "Administration".
4. Trigger the update process.

Plugin Thumbnail Images (1.5-1.7)

You may also wish to use the following new plugin thumb images for visual consistency with the new Mahara 1.5, and later, Page editing interface.

• Plugin_thumb_images_for_Mahara_1.5

Plugin Development

• Plugins
• Mahara_Architecture_Introduction
• Plugin_migration_between_Mahara_1.3_and_1.4
• Tutorial: Creating a Blocktype Plugin
• Artefact plugin template
• Remove_Plugin

If you want to include third-party code as a part of your plugin, please verify that that code is compatible with GPL v3, which is the license that the Mahara is licensed under.

You can verify license compatibility using the following references:

• Fedora Project - Software License List
• GNU GPL-Compatible Free Software Licenses

Subpages

• Artefact
• Auth