[Xerte] Re: certificate printing by student if quiz passed

Fri Feb 4 21:11:10 GMT 2011

I pass information from Xerte to a PHP script that, after saving information to a MySQL database, uses an FPDF library to create a PDF certificate that the user downloads and can print or save. In Xerte, I have a script icon that runs after the quiz is taken. This runs whether or not the user passes.

// url of PHP script

URLString = 'http://myDomain/pathToScript/db_queries.php';

// pass values to external script

saveVars = new LoadVars ();

saveVars.action = 'saveData';

saveVars.sid = student.id;

saveVars.totCorrect = totCorrect;

saveVars.quesCount = quesCount;

saveVars.testTries = student.testTries;

saveVars.testStartDate = student.testStartDate;

saveVars.score = score;

saveVars.pass = scorePath; // scorePath will be 0 if score < 80, otherwise it will be 1

saveVars.complete = scorePath; // only set complete to 1 if student passed

saveVars.institution = student.institution;

saveVars.email = student.email;

saveVars.name = student.fname + ' ' + student.lname;

saveVars.product = productName;

saveVars.courseName = courseTitle;

// send to db

testScore.sendAndLoadVars(URLString, saveVars);

Then, my PHP script has (among other things):

    // pass -- boolean indicating whether student passed

    if (isset ($_POST['pass']) && is_numeric ($_POST['pass'])) {

        $pass = (int) $_POST['pass'];

        // if $pass == 1 set active to 0 (false) so user would have to re-register to take again

        if ($pass == 1) {

            $active = 0;

            // need to send email with certificate

            // must have courseName, student name, institution, completion date and email

            if (isset ($_POST['courseName'], $_POST['name'], $_POST['institution'], $_POST['email'])) {

                $completion_date = date ('m/d/Y');

                $url = 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '/wbt/certificate_link.php?';

                $certCourseTitle = ($_POST['product'] == 'SBA Lending Solution' ? 'SBA Lending Solution' : $_POST['courseName']);

                $qString = "courseName=$certCourseTitle&name={$_POST['name']}&company={$_POST['institution']}&completionDate=$completion_date";

                // encrypt $qString

                $rc4 = new rc4crypt;

                $encString = $rc4->endecrypt('someCipherSalt',$qString); 

                $to = "{$_POST['email']}";

                $from = "Education at example.com\r\n";

                $headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";

                $headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";

                $headers .= "From: $from\r\n";

                $subject = "Certificate of Completion for {$_POST['product']} {$_POST['courseName']}";

                $body = "<body style=\"font-family:arial;font-size:12pt;\">

<p>Congratulations on passing the {$_POST['product']}<sup>®</sup> {$_POST['courseName']}!</p>

<p>A Certificate of Completion for you is waiting at <a href=\"http://{$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']}/wbt/certificate_link.php?data=$encString\">this link</a>. Recertification is required after one year.</p>

<p>When you open the link, you will be asked whether to open or save 

the file. If you select Open, be sure to save the file after viewing 

or printing.</p>

</body>";

            $mail_success = mail ($to, $subject, $body, $headers, "-fEducation at example.com");

The encryption code is something I copied from the FPDF library. The script that creates the PDF file after the user clicks the encrypted link in their email:

<?php  # certificate_link.php

/*

    This script creates a pdf certificate of completion.

*/ 

// initialize variables

$course = FALSE;

$name = FALSE;

$company = FALSE;

$date = FALSE;

// class to encrypt/decrypt strings

class rc4crypt {

    function endecrypt ($pwd, $data, $case='') {

        if ($case == 'de') {

            $data = urldecode($data);

        }

        $key[] = "";

        $box[] = "";

        $temp_swap = "";

        $pwd_length = 0;

        $pwd_length = strlen($pwd);

        for ($i = 0; $i <= 255; $i++) {

            $key[$i] = ord(substr($pwd, ($i % $pwd_length), 1));

            $box[$i] = $i;

        }

        $x = 0;

        for ($i = 0; $i <= 255; $i++) {

            $x = ($x + $box[$i] + $key[$i]) % 256;

            $temp_swap = $box[$i];

            $box[$i] = $box[$x];

            $box[$x] = $temp_swap;

        }

        $temp = "";

        $k = "";

        $cipherby = "";

        $cipher = "";

        $a = 0;

        $j = 0;

        for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($data); $i++) {

            $a = ($a + 1) % 256;

            $j = ($j + $box[$a]) % 256;

            $temp = $box[$a];

            $box[$a] = $box[$j];

            $box[$j] = $temp;

            $k = $box[(($box[$a] + $box[$j]) % 256)];

            $cipherby = ord(substr($data, $i, 1)) ^ $k;

            $cipher .= chr($cipherby);

        }

        if ($case == 'de') {

            $cipher = urldecode(urlencode($cipher));

        } else {

            $cipher = urlencode($cipher);

        }

        return $cipher;

    }

} // end of class rc4crypt

// require the fpdf script

require_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/fpdf/fpdf.php';

// require subwrite script to allow superscript/subscripts

require_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/fpdf/subwrite.php';

// require fpdf_protection script to add security to the document

require_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/fpdf/tools/fpdf_protection.php';

// validate required data

if (isset ($_GET['data'])) {

    // decrypt data

    $rc4 = new rc4crypt;

    $deString = $rc4->endecrypt('someCipherSalt', $_GET['data'], 'de'); 

    $qString = $deString;

    // parse string into parts

    parse_str ($qString);

    // convert date

    $date = date ('F jS, Y', strtotime ($completionDate));

} // end of $_GET['data'] conditional

// create pdf if required fields present

if ($course && $name && $company && $date) {

    $pdf = new FPDF_Protection();

    $pdf->SetProtection(array('print'),'','somePassword'); // restrict to view and print, no user password, owner password needed to edit doc

    $pdf->SetMargins(72,96,72);

    $pdf->SetLineWidth(20);

    $pdf->SetDrawColor(0, 128, 0);

    $pdf->SetFillColor(197, 255, 197);

    $pdf->AddPage();

    $pdf->Rect(0, 0, 790, 610, 'DF');

    $pdf->Ln();

    $pdf->SetFont('Times', 'BI');

    $pdf->SetFontSize(36);

    $pdf->Cell(0, 48, 'Certificate of Completion', 0, 1, 'C');

    $pdf->Ln();

    $pdf->SetFontSize(24);

    $pdf->Cell(0, 24, "$name", 0, 1, 'C');

    $pdf->SetFont('', 'I');

    $pdf->SetFontSize(18);

    $pdf->Cell(0, 18, "of", 0, 1, 'C');

    $pdf->SetFont('', 'BI');

    $pdf->SetFontSize(24);

    $pdf->Cell(0, 24, "$company", 0, 1, 'C');

    $pdf->Ln();

    $pdf->SetFont('', 'I');

    $pdf->SetFontSize(20);

    $pdf->Cell(0, 24, "has achieved certification in", 0, 1, 'C');

    $pdf->Ln();

    $pdf->SetFont('', 'BI');

    $pdf->SetFontSize(24);

    $pdf->Cell(36, 24, '', 0, 0, 'L');

    // modify course name if $course == 'SBA Lending Solution'

    if ($course == 'SBA Lending Solution Exam') {

        $pdf->Cell(120, 24, '', 0, 0, 'L');

        $pdf->Cell(225, 24, 'SBA Lending Solution', 0, 0, 'L');

        $pdf->subWrite(24, 'Â®', '', 12, 9);

        $pdf->Cell(0, 24, ' Exam', 0, 1, 'L');

    } else {

        $pdf->Cell(36, 24, '', 0, 0, 'L');

        $pdf->Cell(92, 24, 'LaserPro', 0, 0, 'L');

        $pdf->subWrite(24, 'Â®', '', 12, 9);

        $pdf->Cell(0, 24, $course, 0, 1, 'L');

    }

    $pdf->Ln();

    $pdf->SetFont('', 'I');

    $pdf->SetFontSize(18);

    $pdf->Cell(0, 18, "on", 0, 1, 'C');

    $pdf->SetFontSize(24);

    $pdf->Cell(0, 24, "$date", 0, 1, 'C');

    $pdf->Image('hfs_hc_background.png', 100, 465, 207, 32, 'png');

    $pdf->Image('cert_sig.png', 400, 460, 285, 80, 'png');

    // create file if $certDest and $certFile exist, otherwise display in browser

    if ($certDest && $certFile) {

        $pdf->Output($certDest . $certFile . str_replace (' ', '_', $course) . '.pdf', "F"); 

    } else {

        //$pdf->Output();

        $pdf->Output('LaserPro_' . str_replace (' ', '_', $course) . '.pdf', 'D');

    }

} else {

    echo "<p>Required data missing, no file created.</p>\n\n";

}

?>

FPDF can be found here: http://www.fpdf.org/

Of course, all this requires that your course is on the web, your web server has PHP installed and configured and you've installed the FPDF library.

Cheers,

Paul

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of KnowledgeWare
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 12:03 PM
To: 'Xerte discussion list'
Subject: [Xerte] Re: certificate printing by student if quiz passed

Wow it's great to see the volume of this list expanding..but hard to keep up!

I'm wondering if anyone has built a page to print a student certificate or has suggestions around how to do this. Ideally, if the student passes the quiz I'd like to allow them to print a certificate and/or email it to themselves from xerte (not LMS). Anyone doing this now?

TIA

RonM2

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