An XBlock runtime service for `can_view_answer`, ` can_view_correctness`?

dave · September 22, 2023, 3:42pm

I created an issue to track something that’s bugged me for a while, but I’m not sure how much of a problem it really is in practice. So to XBlock authors: would you use this if it was built?

The ProblemBlock has some sophisticated logic for determining whether the user should be allowed to see the answer (and also whether they were correct or not):

github.com

openedx/edx-platform/blob/f9148f032fc93bd339fb0ab50afb5cb3b1cdca21/xmodule/capa_block.py#L1400-L1457


      
          def answer_available(self):
              """
              Is the user allowed to see an answer?
              """
              user_is_staff = self.runtime.service(self, 'user').get_current_user().opt_attrs.get(ATTR_KEY_USER_IS_STAFF)
              if not self.correctness_available():
                  # If correctness is being withheld, then don't show answers either.
                  return False
              elif self.showanswer == '':
                  return False
              elif self.showanswer == SHOWANSWER.NEVER:
                  return False
              elif user_is_staff:
                  # This is after the 'never' check because admins can see the answer
                  # unless the problem explicitly prevents it
                  return True
              elif self.showanswer == SHOWANSWER.ATTEMPTED:
                  return self.is_attempted() or self.is_past_due()
              elif self.showanswer == SHOWANSWER.ANSWERED:
                  # NOTE: this is slightly different from 'attempted' -- resetting the problems

This file has been truncated. show original

This has been partially re-implemented in other XBlocks over time. We should refactor this into a runtime service that will return a simple True/False for this question, so that we can get consistent behavior without other XBlock authors having to think about it.