Efficient deployment of experiments?

[normanius]

Hi all

We love phyphox, and we just discovered the possibility to extend phyphox with own experiments.

When working on the phyphox file, I felt that it was a bit cumbersome to edit the file, and transfer that file to the smart phone and install it there. There are plenty of ways to transfer a file: By sending an email, by airdropping it (for ios), by using a cloud storage service like google cloud or sharepoint, by using the OneDrive app or other file syncing tools, ... 

Reading the article about how to transfer experiments, I got the impression that these approaches do not always work robustly, and that the recommended way is to use a direct download link to the phyphox file, replacing https:// with phyphox://, and converting that URL into a QR Code. All this requires some steps, which I felt were a bit annoying. As I work with students, I would like to suggest to them one robust way that works for everybody.

Firstly, I would like to ask: what is the most efficient way to deploy a new phyphox file to the app? Have I missed something?

Secondly, I would like to suggest an improvement: In the phyphox editor, we miss the possibility to modify or upload an existing phyphox file (XML) and to directly convert it into a QR code there. This possibility (linking an XML via a QR code) seems to be in place already for the XMLs created within the editor. But one cannot edit this XML directly.

1. Edit the phyphox file in some editor
   
2. Upload the file to the editor
   
3. Create a QR code for it
   
4. Scan the QR code with the smartphone and import the experiment
   

I think that would be neat workflow, and would also be accessible to students or phyphox beginners, without having to install file syncing tool (like OneDrive), or sending dummy emails around.

What do you think?

[fbouquet]

Hello,

How to easily drop some experiments on a phone is something I struggled a bit with at the beginning. In the end, the easiest for me was to drop the file on a server, create a qrcode, and flash it on my phone. A bit cumbersome during development, but since I kept the same file name, I only had to generate the QRcode once... Once I am happy, I share the QRcode with my students.

I could not use the online experiment editor, since I always ended doing something that was not allowed by the editor, and I am anyway not a fan of all the comments that the editor adds to the code, so I use plain text editor. Using the online editor of course gives you quick access to a qrcode.

In the end, I created a small php/js webpage to automate my procedure. If you want to take a look, the public version is here, you can use it, but I can not provide any guaranty of storage: https://hebergement.universite-paris-sac...generator/



Jens asked a few weeks ago for some ideas for the new phyphox web site: I think a similar service (drop a file, get a QRcode), more robust (more secured, and with secured storage for a given duration), would be of help to anyone who would like to test writing or modifying a phyphox experiment. For a beginner, having to jump through all the hoops to get the experiment on his/her phone is a bit daunting. This very forum provides a similar service, it would be "just" a matter of giving access to this tool outside the forum.

Cheers,

Fred

[normanius]

Dear Fred,

Thank you for your answer. I somehow missed the notification, so I'm replying only now.

I could not use the online experiment editor, since I always ended doing something that was not allowed by the editor, and I am anyway not a fan of all the comments that the editor adds to the code, so I use plain text editor. Using the online editor of course gives you quick access to a qrcode.

I agree. It would be great if the editor supported the uploading/importing of own phyphox files, just to use the handy QR-code feature.

In the end, I created a small php/js webpage to automate my procedure. If you want to take a look, the public version is here, you can use it, but I can not provide any guaranty of storage: https://hebergement.universite-paris-sac...generator/

Fantastic! Thanks for this. Works great. We need the data only for short time periods (during a lecture). So, the tool can be useful to disseminate an experiment among students. (Practical option 1)

Alternatively, one could work with a cloud-storage service such as SharePoint / OneDrive. If data synchronization is enabled on both the development machine and the smartphone (through an app), it is sufficient to click on phyphox file again on the smartphone to re-import it into the app. This option is useful to test edits quickly. (Practical option 2)

[fbouquet]

Hello,


Well, when I say that I can not provide any guaranty of storage, it means that if there are too many files on the server, so many that my quota rings an alarm, then I will delete the oldest files. Since the phyphox files are small, it should be OK. I am more worried about someone trying to break the tool...

So you should be able to use it without problem, but if you want to be sure, you can host a clone on a server of your own, that's OK.

Cheers,

Fred

[Jens Noriʇzsɔɥ]

Some late additions to Fred’s answer:

When working on the phyphox file, I felt that it was a bit cumbersome to edit the file, and transfer that file to the smart phone and install it there. There are plenty of ways to transfer a file: By sending an email, by airdropping it (for ios), by using a cloud storage service like google cloud or sharepoint, by using the OneDrive app or other file syncing tools, ... 

Reading the article about how to transfer experiments, I got the impression that these approaches do not always work robustly, and that the recommended way is to use a direct download link to the phyphox file, replacing https:// with phyphox://, and converting that URL into a QR Code. All this requires some steps, which I felt were a bit annoying. As I work with students, I would like to suggest to them one robust way that works for everybody.

The article is rather old and things (hopefully) changed in this regard – particularly on Android, iOS should always have been fine. My personal workflow is editing on iCloud and open the .phyphox results in files on my handhelds. In workshops, I use either airdrop (schools overwhelmingly use iPads here) or share a QR-Code to a file on our ownCloud variant.

Firstly, I would like to ask: what is the most efficient way to deploy a new phyphox file to the app? Have I missed something?

Secondly, I would like to suggest an improvement: In the phyphox editor, we miss the possibility to modify or upload an existing phyphox file (XML) and to directly convert it into a QR code there. This possibility (linking an XML via a QR code) seems to be in place already for the XMLs created within the editor. But one cannot edit this XML directly.

The most efficient way is by QR code to an online file that could be hosted almost anywhere. You just need to take care that the hoster directly provides the file. GitHub and ownCloud, for instance, can do that. Local hosting should not be a problem for universities and schools tend to restrict outbound access that would require it anyway.

There are free tools for creating QR codes. QRCode Monkey is neat, nowadays I prefer a (really) free service of the German federal state Lower Saxony https://qr.kits.blog/ (in German).

Please note that the editor is quite outdated and might not handle files on import that well. A new blockly based editor is on its way.