Plugins
From Mahara Wiki
Mahara has a very pluggable architecture, which allows people to add their own artefacts, blocks for views, methods for authentication and more. Mahara is a young project, but a few plugins are beginning to appear. Here is a list of them.
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!
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.
- Books by Christophe Mauras, Nantes University - meta-artefact tu create and edit Resume-like artefacts. First presented at French MoodleMoot - MaharaMoot. Next available in Mahara GitHub.
Blocktype Plugins
- 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
- 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
- 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)
- QR Code Generator by Emanuel Garcês. QR Code Generator block for Mahara 1.4.x.
- 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.
Authentication Plugins
- CAS plugin by Patrick Pollet
- 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.
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
- Mahara assignment submission plugin for Moodle 2: submit portfolio pages to Moodle for feedback
Search Plugins
- Sphinx search, by Antti Koskinen
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 Thumbnail Images
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 Development
- Plugins
- Mahara_Architecture_Introduction
- Plugin_migration_between_Mahara_1.3_and_1.4
- Tutorial: Creating a Blocktype 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: