XBlock

Note

This is extremely preliminary documentation. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions or concerns. Do not make any plans based on this document without talking to us first.

The ideas here are our current best guess at how XBlocks will work, but some parts are more settled than others.

To create rich engaging online courses, course authors must be able to combine components from a variety of sources. XBlock is edX’s component architecture that makes this possible. Courses are built hierarchically of pieces called XBlocks. Like an HTML <div>, XBlocks can represent pieces as small as a paragraph of text, a video, or a multiple-choice input field, or as large as a section, a chapter, or an entire course.

XBlocks are not limited to just delivering courses. A complete educational ecosystem will make use of a number of web applications, all of which will need access to course content and data. XBlocks provide the structure and APIs needed to build components for use in all of these applications.

Contents:

• Concepts
  • Roles
  • XBlocks
  • Runtime
• XBlocks
  • Python Structure
  • State
  • Children
  • Methods
  • Views
  • Handlers
  • Querying
  • Tags
• Fragment

API

• Fragment
• Runtime
• XBlock