Medi QnA Component

Add a question set, then add some questions and answers to it.
It's that easy!

Medi-QnA is a Joomla! 1.5 native component developed for medical websites but can be used on any site that wants to offer educational content in question and answer format.

The administrator can add as many 'sets' of questions as needed. Each question 'set' can have as many questions as needed. Adding a question is as easy as adding a regular article and uses the normal Joomla! editor so they can contain pictures and carry html formatting too.

Having viewed a question the reader selects a 'show answer' button and the answer is revealed.

Point your menu link to the default layout to get your readers started on latest question set added. They can also access a listing page with all available sets to choose another if they wish.

Report

bychrisxs5 on November 4, 2009
I installed the component with hopes that I could use it a particular way, unfortunately I couldn't. I did however did something I have never done before, I didn't uninstall it. I was very much impressed with it's simpleness and ease of use that I just unpublished it for now. I intend to switch my FAQ section from articles to this later when I get the chance or use it when I can think of a good idea for it. Very nicely made. Thanks.
Owner's reply

Dear chrisxs5,

Thank you very much for your kind words. I very much hope you find a new and interesting use for this component, please let us know as and when so we can share your success!

byday on October 10, 2009
I am lucky to find this simple, unassuming extension be to handy for a special purpose. It is quite good for a Q&A session grouped as Sets.

One problem I face is the limited size of the input box for entering the Set Description. Is there anyway to increase it to accommodate a note that runs into some 300 or 400 words?
Owner's reply

Many thanks for your kind words.

You can change the description quite easily, I've posted a note on how to do this at our website:

http://www.famouswebsites.biz/JED/Medi-QnA/Medi-QnA.php

It's towards the bottom of the page, see 'Custom Edits'.
Should do the job for you, hope that helps. Remember to back up your site and DB first, this edit hasn't been tested yet.

byBullajami on July 11, 2009
Having trouble with installation and cannot find any support. E-mail to address provided bounced as undeliverable. No installation support available on website. Would like to try this extension, but it may not even be possible. If support is available, it should be more obvious.
Owner's reply

Hi Bullajami,

Thanks for your interest in Medi-QnA

The email address you refer to is working perfectly, it's a regular gmail account and indeed, I tested it 2 minutes ago, it's fine. If you're getting bounces it must be because gmail thinks you're a spammer or else have a virus or else are on a black list somewhere. All I know is I haven't seen anything!

I can not offer support per sey, there's quite good coverage on the Medi-QnA homepage especially given this is actually quite a simple component. Beyond that I'm not sure it's safe to 'assume' any software is supported as this is one of the most time consuming and therefore expensive parts of the industry. With freebies, if you get one to one support too the developers are very generous!

There have been thousands of downloads of Medi-QnA to date and as far as I know not one installation failure. If it were to fail my guess would be either a corrupt zip file or a non-standard Joomla installation are the probable causes. There could also be server limitations. The component was written for and tested on LAMP servers, if yours is not LAMP there could be an issue there? You would need to consult your log files to see if an error has been thrown.

I hope this helps, kind regards, Alan

byblinx on April 15, 2009
I found all as it promises. It is simple in setup, works smoothly as well. Would be nice to develop a little more, maybe to make a list of latest Qs on the frontpage and an important Search field. Thanks anyway
Owner's reply

Hi Blinx,

Thanks for the comments.

Famous Websites are not planning any upgrades to this but anyone who wishes to take advantage of the Open Source rules and forward its development is free to do so. In fact, if you look down this list you'll see xiaomifeng may have done just that! Why not try to contact him to see what the result was?

Anyhow, thanks again, hope it helped your website. Alan

bywebdongle on April 10, 2009
All it does is display Questions and then displays the answer.

I see no point in the component except for having it as a complicated Q&A.
Owner's reply

Where in the description have I said it does anything other than displays questions and answers?

I'm amazed you bothered to post this review when you obviously could not be bothered to read what it does beforehand. If you had not been so lazy you would have realised this is NOT what you want.

This component gets about 2000 downloads a month 99.99% of those seem to be happy with it.

byxiaomifeng on April 2, 2009
I'm a new user of joomla for couple days, your component are very easy to read. I've created a powerful quiz system with the enlightening of your component. Thanks for the talented work and sharing.

a small one need update: in the file views/mediqna/view.html.php, this line
if(empty($CurSetProg)){

needs to update as:
if(empty($CurSetProg) || $sid != $mainframe->getUserState("mediqna.CurSetID")){

otherwise it will keep staying in the same sets until user clean the cookies.

Rgds,
Bee
byrholzler on March 25, 2009
I really thought this would collect data from users, but it only displays one question and answer at a time. Its a good start, but without the ability to collect data, its usage is very limited.
Owner's reply

It's a QnA system not a survey. It doesn't claim to be anything more than a simple QnA session tool. I think its simplicity is one of its strong points.

byweb.dude on January 21, 2009
It's true. I had other motives for this tool but didn't find it all that appealing in it's design and use. The name is a misnomer -- this is not Q&A but rather Quiz and Answers.

It's a great start for what it is, so if you don't mind tweaking it yourself, you're golden.
Thank you so much! I am using it for a national Breastfeeding and Breast Cancer campaign.

It allows you to create a the flow of the questions you wish to ask, thereby, allowing you to educate the individuals.

Looks good too.
Owner's reply

Thank you very much, it's great to see the hard work appreciated! Best of luck with your site, Alan

byDanielKonstanz on December 26, 2008
Nice gadget but useless - it shows only one question at a time, so you have to scroll through all the singe questions... who does that in the real world ?
Maybe just write an article in Joomla and put a list of questions and answers there, much easier than loading another useless module.
Owner's reply

On a site where there are multiple administrators, offering varied content, using the Joomla! article manager to mimic a question and answer format quickly becomes impractical, we tried. This is why Medi-QnA was developed.

There was (and with over a thousand downloads in its first month) still is a need for an application like this, proof indeed IT IS A USEFUL tool for very many administrators.

Allowing readers to 'cherry pick' individual questions from a list has no benefits and defeats the administrators efforts to guide the reader through the question set since each question may have a logical place within the series.