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Quickstart Guide

Download

Clone or download the Nobius repository, which includes the rendering scripts, docs, tests, and example/tutorial fixtures.

Prerequisites

Install the Python packages required by the scripts. They are listed in requirements.txt in the main download directory:

pip install -r requirements.txt

You'll also need access to a Mobius account with teacher permissions.

Setup

Info

Nobius relies on a small set of shared Mobius resources. Without them, rendered content will look garbled and be inoperational. More information about this is available here.

In a web browser, navigate to your Content Repository tab in Mobius. Click the Import button and upload ResourcesBundle.zip.

Now configure Nobius so the render scripts can reference the uploaded resources correctly.

There are 2 ways to discover the needed paths:

  • directly from Möbius while authoring, by browsing to the uploaded JavaScript file
  • from a real exported Möbius package by inspecting manifest.xml

The second method is often the most reliable because it shows the exact resource URIs Möbius actually wrote into an exported assignment or Course Module.

  • In the Mobius Content Repository, select Questions under the current class.
  • Create a temporary Mobius question with Create New -> Question/Text.
  • In the native Mobius Question Designer, use the image upload button in the question text editor.
  • In the Image Properties window, click Browser Server to open CKFinder.
  • Browse to the uploaded Scripts folder from ResourcesBundle.zip.
  • Open QuestionJavaScript.txt and copy the URL, starting from and including /web/.

Example

An example URL might look like this: /web/username/Public_Html/Scripts/QuestionJavaScript.txt

  • Paste that URL into the appropriate profile under profiles.<name>.render.scripts_location in nobius.json.
  • Set the corresponding profiles.<name>.render.theme_location value to the /themes/... URI used by that profile.

Alternatively, if you already have a rendered question or assignment in Möbius:

  • Export the question, assignment, or Course Module as a .zip package.
  • Open the package and inspect manifest.xml.
  • Search for:
  • /themes/...
  • /web/.../QuestionJavaScript.txt
  • or __BASE_URI__Scripts/QuestionJavaScript.txt
  • Copy those exact values into the appropriate profiles.<name>.render block in nobius.json.

In practice this means the JavaScript is uploaded to Mobius by importing ResourcesBundle.zip into the class Content Repository, while the CSS theme is uploaded separately in Mobius via Content Repository -> Create New -> Theme and then referenced by its /themes/... URI in the Nobius render config. DigitalEd's theme instructions are here: https://www.digitaled.com/support/help/admin/Content/INST-CONTENT-REPO/Themes.htm.

DigitalEd documents theme creation and content export, but does not explicitly document where these internal URIs appear in exported XML. The manifest.xml inspection step above is therefore an inference from exported Möbius packages, and is the workflow verified against the real exported ZIPs used in this repo.

Nobius is now set up.

Verify the installation

Once the dependencies are installed, you can verify that the local Nobius toolchain is healthy by running:

pytest -q tests
python -m ruff check Nobius

This executes the public regression suite against tutorial fixtures and importer fixtures bundled with the repo.

Getting started

Our tools come packaged with public tutorial sheets you can render to test your installation. Once you have completed the setup, simply run the command below. Detailed information for each of the scripts in Nobius is available in the Usage section of this documentation.

python export_mobius.py "C:\path\to\Nobius\Questions\t01" --write-missing-uids

UIDs and first render

Nobius expects question and sheet uid values to be stable. By default, rendering refuses to proceed if they are missing.

For first-time setup of a new sheet, initialize and persist missing UIDs explicitly:

python export_mobius.py "C:\path\to\sheet" --write-missing-uids

For a different deployment/profile, use the same command with --profile:

python export_mobius.py "C:\path\to\sheet" --profile exam --write-missing-uids

After that, normal renders should be read-only with respect to the source JSON files.

Once you've done this, a new renders folder will appear under the tutorial sheet folder you just rendered. This contains a .zip file containing all the questions and media that pertain to this sheet, ready to be uploaded to Mobius.

In the same way you uploaded ResourcesBundle.zip, you can upload the generated sheet .zip file directly to the Mobius Content Repository. A new folder will appear, containing all the questions from the sheet in the Mobius format.

If you later export edited content back out of Mobius, import_mobius.py can import that ZIP back into Nobius JSON. For course-module packages, the importer now reconstructs assignmentUnits as folders and keeps multiple assignments as nested subfolders.

You are now ready to start making your own sheets. A few useful starting points are: