Any site in the development should be tested from different angles: HTML-layout, functionality, server load, usability, and it is necessary to check on the test content. But if in the case of a conventional site, we can easily and quickly fill several pages of simple content like lorem ipsum, then, in the case of Moodle, the content must not only many times more, but at the same time you need to fill in a sufficient number of different fields. Also, faced in real life with complex cases use Moodle (for example, a course with more than 1000 items), system can work incorrectly, so you need to check the possibilities of the server (Moodle hosting). How can that be?
Moodle developers have taken into account the moment and created a tool to generate test content: courses and users. This tool is available in the Moodle admin panel. At the same time, you can test the different amount of content.
WARNING: do not use this feature for the current working system with real students and courses, only to verify that the server load, Moodle plugin test, initial testing and so forth. If you want to use the system in the current domain and server, after debugging will be necessary to remove the generated test courses and materials! also back Developer mode in the normal user mode (See below).
How to create a test environment
First of all, you need to activate the so-called developer mode, without this system does not give the possibility to deploy the test environment. To do this in the administrator panel of your Moodle pass in the following way: Block Administration -> Site administration -> Development -> Debugging. This page have the option Debug messages, select DEVELOPER: extra Moodle debug messages for developers, click Save Changes.
Next, you need to actually create the test environment, so go Block Administration -> Site administration -> Development -> Make test course.
There are three types of application options:
- XS — 10 kilobytes, create a quick one course and the minimum number of tests
- S — 10 Megabytes, created in 30 seconds, one course and all kinds of tasks
- M — 100 megabytes 5 courses and all kinds of tasks
- L — 1 GB, created long, includes 10 courses and 100 elements of the course
- XL — 10 GB, contains 100 courses and 1,000 elements of each course, creates a very long time
- XXL — 20 gigabytes, contains 1,000 courses, test video
Select the desired size of the courses, create and enter a short name and click Create a course. Wait for some time until the server will handle requests and record them in the database.
Note that the estimated size of the test environment — it is the size of (mostly) database . It is clear that for the full test Moodle «middling» you need only a small number of test courses, assignments, and students in them, so in this case, we recommend that you use the options XS, S, or M. If you have a huge database of courses and students, it is tested on a large scale of courses.
