My original post on Decaf theme is getting too long to read, and there're still plenty of room to make it more user-friendly in term of usabilities. In this thread, I'll keep posting all my improvements on Decaf theme, please stay tunned and leave your comments below.
From my experience, course content is often too long to fit into visible area in the browser, then you'll scroll back to top for any setting changes. Awesomebar is now always on top, users don't have to scroll back to top of the page for any changes. It'll always on top of the page.
Just tried your updates great idea.
I'm having a problem with your menu drop downs being cut off if I add a custom menu.
I'm running Moodle 2.0.3 (Build: 20110505)
Cheers
Rob
Rob, thanks for your bug report. I've fixed it, you can dowload the new version that fix this bug.
Regards,
Lei
Lei, the awesomebar is...well...awesome. Do you know if that's available (or could be available) as a standalone addon for other Moodle Themes?
Joseph, the awesomebar is taking advantage of the new theme engine (Thanks Sam Hemelryk) override the default interface, it's very much tight to the theme itself. At this stage, I don't have a solution to make it a standalone addon for other themes.
As Mary suggested before, for theme designers, it might be easier to take the awesomebar parts out from decaf, drop them into their theme folder and make changes as necessary.
HTH,
Lei
Joseph,
As Lei and Mary say, taking the awesome parts out of decaf and utilising them in another theme, with any appropriate changes, is the easiest way to achieve this as the menu sits as part of a theme rather than as a module on its own.
I've done this previously with some of my themes, using Lei's original (and still awesome!) awesomebar and have found it to be an excellent (ok I wanted to say awesome again :D) tool to incorporate into a theme. Hopefully now i will get chance to update Krystle and Flexi_ii with Lei's new improvements.
Thanks Lei for making this available for us and for all the work you put in.
Richard
Have you ever find editing icons too small? In the latest change, I've enlarged the editing icons, made them more looks like buttons and align them to the right to make them more easy to read. I got this idea from Uni of Sussex elearning team's blog.
Hi Tom try turning Debugging on, you may have something wrong with your Moodle instal, see that there are some issues with the Simplespace theme also?
Site Administration > Development > Debugging - Set this to developer mode and read server logs to get error reports.
Mary
Thanks Mary, but this is a new installation of Moodle in a test environment.
When I turn debugging on it displays the following info:
Invalid get_string() identifier: 'pluginname' or component 'theme_leizhang-moodle-theme_decaf-56105de'
Should I change the name to the folder of the theme?
Hi Tomas, You'll need rename the folder to "decaf" for it to work.
Lei
Just released another new feature in Decaf, "Back to top" button. The button doesn't appear until you scroll pass the page heading; once you're back to top, it will disappear again. Hope you'll find it useful.
Dear Lei,
thank you! with the decaf theme, it is much easier to discover the moodle2.0 features. Thank you for this work. I asked newbies about decaf and standard white. The standard white shows the moodle theme. They told me, that they dont like the moodle-system, and they said the other one with the pulldown menus is terrific.
I had no trouble to install, but found some funny behaveior:
1) changing required fields in e.g. your profile, then the required field is pushed to the left.The page scrolls to a position, where the awesome.bar hides the input-field.
Where is the css related to it? I want it where it was before the error, otherwise people have to search for the field.
2) editing a nwiki shows a very tiny space for editing. But maybe in all themes?
I would sometimes like to have a look on a defac-demo site. this would be an easy way to verify, if my installation is currupted or if it is "normal".
3) decaf was developed on a huge screen I guess because sometimes it wastes space on left and right, that doesn't get smaller when you make the bowser window smaller. and it is sometimes difficult to find out how to change it.
4) a nice function for admins would be to show the version of decaf in the settings or on the message page.
5) to add my changes, I try to put all changes in one myTheme.css and add this in the $THEME->sheets, I was not able to use decaf as a parent - need more help to do so, I guess.
Hi Guido,
Lei's currently away on holiday, but I've had a quick look and worked out what the problem is for your first item (required fields). I don't have write access to his theme's git repo (I'll have to sort that out with him when he gets back from his holiday), but in the mean time you can fix this issue by changing line 65 of /theme/decaf/style/core.css to:
.mform .fitem .felement { margin-left: 31%; width: 68%;}
This follows the same pattern of using a width and margin to position the field as core themes do, which stops required fields from moving over to the left if left blank.
We'll get this fix pushed to git / the theme download next week when Lei's back. As for your other issues, could you please check (2) in other themes and see if it's a Decaf-specific problem or not? Screenshots would be helpful for any remaining issues, too.
Cheers,
Paul
Dear Paul
.mform .fitem .felement { margin-left: 31%; width: 68%;} solved the problem.
The nwiki issue need some more investigation on mmy side. I will check with other themes.
Thank you for giving me a extra portion of happyness with just a tiny css line!
Guido
Hi Lei,
I installed your latest version of your theme (leizhang-moodle-theme_decaf-d434cd4.zip) to trial it and renamed it to "decaf" so I could see it in the theme selector. I am using the latest version of Moodle 2.0.3. I am running Firefox 4.0.1.
However when I selected "decaf" in the theme selector my page only showed the off-white page background and dark bar across the top with no text. I closed it down but when I try to get back in as an administrator I get the same thing once I login, so no commands are available to me. If I try to login again I get a message saying I am logged in already and offering me the choice to logout or cancel, and I see the "my profile settings" and "site administration" drop down menus up the top. However whenever I choose a submenu item to go to, I end up with a blank screen again, so again no commands are available to me. If I login as a guest it looks normal, but then I have no access to the theme selector to change it.
Do you have any suggestions on how to recover from this without restoring an earlier backup, and also how I can see the contents page normally?
Cheers,
Geoff
I recovered from this by renaming the decaf folder "decafold" in cpanel and changing the name of a different theme folder to "decaf". That then allowed me to access my commands again using the different theme.
However I would still like to know how to overcome the blank screen problem for the administrator, as I like the look of the awesome bar.
Cheers,
Geoff
Hi Geoff,
To work out what's going wrong, you'll need to turn on debugging (see Mary's post earlier in this thread, though if it's not a public/live site you may also wish to turn on the "display errors" setting so you don't need to dig into logs). Then try using the theme again and see what error(s) you get.
My guess is that it's a lack of memory - you may need to increase php's memory limit. Because of the way the Awesomebar is generated, themes which use it tend to use a bit more memory, so if your limit is low, problems such as the blank page may arise.
HTH,
Paul
Your suggestion was on the mark Paul. I turned on debugging with display errors and it showed a memory limit error. I increased the setting in php.ini in my moodle folder to 256Mb and it then showed up fine.
Many thanks.
Geoff
Inspired by your theme, I asked more people what they want.
Here is what I found out, but I don't understand the block_navigation enough to do the programming. And this is an off-topic for themes, but may be here are people who are interested to push.
Picture 1 shows a normal Navigation menu with Chapter 1 as "show only".
This would be perfect for starting with less experienced users.
100% expect to navigate back to here when using the menu-link "Chapter 1" - but nothing happens.
100% expect Chapter 2 to open, when using menu link " Chapter 2" - but it opens a submenu and everybody who is jumping into the activities will miss the description of chapter 2.
Here is what they expect:
To go back to the beginning of the course or to get an Overview, you can use the "Menu-Test" course name link. it works already.
much more appreciated would be to see an TOC like the followin UI simulation:
( all the content is there and could be generated automaticly, the option for TOC-generating could be in the settings of navigation block)
Maybe I missed something, and all this is posible with other themes or was discusses wit hprogrammers and depreciated, but I and the asked user think its much easier to understand.
How to implement this?
How about adding/copying the chapter description as another activity/resource. The topics then act simply as an index with ALL the contents, including the description being available from the navigation menu.
Richard
thanks for your reply.
possible if one needs an urgent solution for a demo, but (please foregive me) nothing to convince people from the ipad-age. And if you have 20 or more courses where you have to change redundant descriptions - this is somthing the computer should compute for my understanding.
Hi Guido,
You might want to try out the Course Menu block (Lei and I have updated and tweaked it for Moodle 2.0 - you can find our version at https://github.com/leizhang/moodle-block_menu_site_and_course ). If used within a course, it provides the links to sections/topics exactly as you seek - without all the extra clutter of the Navigation block. It also displays sections/topics purely based on their visibility setting (eye icon), rather than requiring an activity or resource to be present, so a section/topic with only a summary will still appear in the Course Menu (if it's visible), although it won't appear in the Navigation block.
Since the Navigation block's content is replicated in the Awesomebar, you can use the Decaf theme setting to hide the Navigation block if you like, using the much simpler and cleaner Course Menu block in its place.
Unfortunately, even though it might be possible, making the change you suggest to the core Navigation block would probably be quite a messy hack - I haven't looked at that area lately, but I don't recall there being any easy way to identify those specific nodes so that you could add the link in. I'll have a look and see whether it can be done relatively cleanly if I get a chance, though.
Cheers,
Paul
Thanks Paul,
exactly what I was searching for
but after install I get a
I changed the name to "block_menu_site_and_course", but install rejected.
I use 2.0.3+ (Build: 20110525)
Sorry, my fault!
the name was wrong, it needs to be "menu_site_and_course"
The block is exactly what I was looking for.
I attached a german translation.
I changed line 120 to translate "view"
$text.='<div class="icon column c0"><img src="'.$OUTPUT->pix_url("/i/one").'" class="icon"></div><div class="column c1"><a href="'.$CFG->wwwroot.'/course/view.php?id='.$COURSE->id.'&'.$format.'='.$section->section.'" title="'.get_string("view",'block_menu_site_and_course') .strip_tags(str_replace('-', '',$summary)).'">';
and attached a zip with lang files.
Hi Lei, I think Decaf is the nicest theme I've seen so far, looks really clean and snazzy. There is just a problem that is appearing on my test site, I'm not sure if it's a problem with my configuration or something else...
Moodle version is 2.0.3 with leizhang-moodle-theme_decaf-d434cd4.zip and the test account is a member of a course but NOT an "admin" account. When I use it to re-order the sections of the course (namely topics), a fatal error occurs.
Now I comment out the line 257 in /theme/decaf/lib.php. The navigation of the course resources and activities doesn't appear in the Awesome bar anymore although the fatal error has been solved. Would you kindly please help to check it?
Thanks for your support. Any suggestions welcome.
I appoligize for posting this twice (I made a "new" post in the themes forum last week) but no one seems to want to answer me there. Maybe because I accidentally misspelled your theme in my title; sorry!
So Lei I am hoping you can help me. I would like to add a couple pieces of functionality that I have seen in other themes on to yours, specifically from Binarius.
I love the Decaf theme and the awesomebar but would like to offer both block docking and the awesomebar at the top. What I love about the Binarius theme is when a block is docked it follows the scroll along the side and it is inside the outer edge (which makes it more obvious that it is docked) instead of being all the way against the browser window.
So in my perfect world (mind really) I would use the decaf theme with the awesomebar as it is and add the border (gray background in Binarius) around the outside. Then turn the new 2.0 docking on for your decaf theme but also have but have docked blocks act like it does in the binarius theme (however I would want my colors to match the decaf and not stay the orange in Binarius). Additionally, I have seen a couple other themes offer the ability to add a logged in users profile picture next to their login up at the top right.
Is this considered a "total theme re-do/customization"? Unfortunately, I am VERY new to programming/themeing so would love it if anyone could tell me specifically which file and lines to change if this is possible.
TIA!
Melissa
Hi Melissa,
First of all apologies for missing your original post - not many slip past everyone on the forum but yours managed to!
In terms of what you have suggested you want to do (use the decaf theme but with the dock enabled), you could try enabling the dock in the decaf/config.php
$THEME->enable_dock = false true;
and then you would need to copy the Dock section (it's well marked in the file) of the binarius/styles/core.css into decaf - you may want to create a new css file just for the dock code as many other themes have, in which case you would need to add this new file to the list of css files in config.php as well
$THEME->sheets = array('awesomebar', 'selected', 'core', 'course', 'mods', 'blocks', 'pagelayout','newdock');
One caveat - I haven't actually done this with binarius and there may be some other pagelayout or styling which may need to be looked at as well, but this should give you a starting point and we should be able to help you find and fix any other errors that occur. (I have created a theme - Krystle - which has both dock and awesomebar, which I am currently reworking with Lei's improvements to the awesomebar, but I did that the other way around, by taking the awesomebar code into a theme which already had the dock)
In terms of adding the profileblock, the easiest way to do that is to copy the profileblock.php file from Mary's aardvark_makeover theme (/aardvark_makeover/layout/profileblock.php)and paste it into your theme's layout folder. Then in both frontpage.php and general.php (in decaf/layout) replace the following line
echo $OUTPUT->login_info(); delete this line
<?php include('profileblock.php')?> add this line from aardvark_makeover, but without the <?php ?> tags - it is already inside a php block
You will again need to copy the css associated with the profileblock - in this case from aardvark_makeover/styles/aarvark_styles.css into one of the decaf style sheets (or again create a new one adding it to config.php as above)
I hope that gets you started Melissa. If you run into any problems, then let me know
Richard
Thank you Richard!
I am going to work on this today but in the meantime, is anyone else having issues with slow load time in decaf (no changes to the theme at this point)? I did already make this change same as Geoff Waring but I am averaging 20+ sec. with the following error:
Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /usr/local/moodleqa/moodle/mod/wiki/lib.php on line 520 Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /usr/local/moodleqa/moodle/mod/wiki/lib.php on line 520 Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /usr/local/moodleqa/moodle/lib/moodlelib.php on line 6388
This has been identified as an issue before with decaf, and with other themes using awesomebar. It is something that some users have identified but others seem to have no problem with. First thing to check is to make sure you have Lei's latest version of decaf, which I understand has dealt with many of the issues that some users were previously reporting. I was going to suggest increasing the php limit but from your comment and link you have already done that, and fortunately for me I am one of the users who has not experienced this issue with decaf/related themes - hopefully someone who has been able to sort this out can help you further with that.
Good luck having a crack at modifying the theme and come back to ask again if you need help
Richard
I do have the latest theme as of the new back to top arrow he added which I think was just last week. So with that in mind, if I make these theme changes, how often then should I be "updating" my theme if he makes changes/improvements? Or is the idea that once I get my theme the way I want that I wouldn't neccessarily need to update it?
Thanks again!
Melissa
There are two ways of approaching it Melissa,
either clone Lei's decaf theme to create your own - in this case if Lei makes any further changes or improvements you would have to manually add those changes to your own new theme
or use decaf as a parent theme for a new theme which only incorporates the changes you want, that way anyway decaf is updated your new theme would automatically pick up any changes made to your installation of decaf.
I'll take a look at this tonight and give you some detailed instructions shortly.
Rich
Since he makes improvements frequently I think that making his theme a parent would be our best solution. I appreciate all your help and I look forward to your instructions!
Hi Melissa
Attached is a theme which uses decaf as a parent and brings in the dock from binarius and the profile block from aardvark_makeover.
It is NOT a finished theme and there is quite a bit of work that needs doing - particularly with the layout which is thrown out by adding the left margin to make room for the binarius dock.
But hopefully it will give you a good starting point to develop your theme from and I (and others) can help you take it from here as you progress with it.
Steps:
Create a theme folder with the necessary subfolders and config.php, /lang/en/theme_newtheme.php language file and /styles/newtheme_style.css files.
create the config file
<?php
$THEME->name = 'decarius';
$THEME->parents = array('decaf','canvas','base');
$THEME->sheets = array('decarius_style');
$THEME->enable_dock = true;
and language file
<?php
$string['pluginname'] = 'Decarius';
$string['region-side-post'] = 'Right';
$string['region-side-pre'] = 'Left';
$string['choosereadme'] = '<p>Decarius is a Modified Moodle Theme designed for Moodle 2.0 by Richard Oelmann<br />
It is based on a combination of Decaf and Binarius for Melissa Ochsner</p>';
Copy the layout folder from decaf and add in the profileblock.php from aardvark_makeover
Create the styles css file and copy in the necessary css from binarius for the dock and from aardvark_makeover for the profileblock
edit the frontpage and general layout files to remove the
echo $OUTPUT->login_info(); and add in include('profileblock.php');
I also copied the decaf pagelayout css into the decarius css in order to have all the layout rules in one place and to add in the margin-left to match binarius rather than leave the dock floating in the middle of the page - this is not really necessary, you could just add the margin-left rule as needed rather than copy the whole lot, but most of the pagelayout is going to need adjusting because the margin then throws out the rest of the layout - it may be better to use the pagelayout code from binarius rather than decaf - but that would probably also need adjusting to allow for the features of decaf
I hope this gives you a good starting point Melissa - as I said above, it is far from being a finished theme, but hopefully the steps will give you some idea of what I did to get you to this point and you will be able to progress from here.
Don't hesitate to ask for help if needed to move forward with this.
Richard
So I did everything above and I get the profile image but with this error below it:
extralocations parameter in get_string() is not supported any more, please use standard lang locations only.
Not sure what to do with these
try the file I've posted in my other reply and let me know what happens - it's working on my localhost.
If you have made any changes to the original decaf, you will need to replace the original as that is used as parent for the 'theme' I've posted.
Richard
I understand you want to manipulate the dock in some way specific to your purpose. I spend some time figuring out how to do this. The is a useful page:
http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Styling_and_customising_the_dock
In your theme folder, you can overwrite JS by creating a javascript folder. Here you have to place for example dock_mod.js.
In the file you just created you have to overwrite the js functions:
function customise_dock_for_theme() {
M.Core_dock.fixtitleOrientation = function(item, title, text) {
// learn YUI
// add some custom elements such as HTML
}
}
Last but not least you will have to register your changes in config.php.
It is not easy but possible.
@Melissa, I have just added another new feature which let you enable/disable user picture in the page heading area.
Setting screenshot:
This is fantastic! I appreciate that you are always making updates to this theme. Is this already in your latest version if I go download decaf again today?
My only wish now was that I could figure out why I can't get better than 20+ seconds a screen load time. Someone metioned that others have had this issue but no connection to the slowness could be pinned down since others can use it without issue. Until I can get that figured out I can't put it into my production site. Any thoughts or things to have my sys admin change for settings are welcome.
hi Melissa,
Although I don't get the speed issue on my local webhost, I did experience it today on my external website - the difference for me was I had needed to turn theme designer mode on. This seemed to slow the page loading down a lot, but when I then turned it back off (so that moodle can cache css again as it normally does) the site returned to a reasonable speed (2sec page download over my relatively slow internet connection).
As you have been doing quite a bit of work on your theme and site, do you have theme designer on as recommended? If so, try it without to see what the effect will be normally.
HTH
Rich
@Melissa, yes, download link always point to my latest version.
As Richard already mentioned, you'll need turn theme designer mode off for your production site, it complies dozen of YUI stylesheets together into one single stylesheet to speed up page loading, this will also ensure your site working properly for IE7 as it can't handle that many stylesheets.
In your site administration settings, check following configurations and make sure they're ticked:
Make sure you allocate enough memory for php, memory_limit in php.ini (<--configuration file for your php) should have at least 256M, in other words, don't leave it at default level in 128MB.
In case you're like me, check your config.php and make sure you don't have any of the following line:
HTH,
Lei
Thank you @Lei and @Richard. I forgot all about the designer mode; I do hope that helps when I turn it off!
@Lei I will make sure to also have my sys admin check those configurations.
I appreciate all the help and will keep you posted as I keep plugging away at my theme
@Lei
Since I went a different route and added your awesome bar to the binarius theme I am not sure where to find the Show user picture setting.
Also, when I have a block docked, the user menu "falls" behind the blocked dock. In fact, where my mouse is pointing is the ONLY place that will prompt the menu to expand and then I am not able to go to any menu items becuase it thinks I want to use the docked block. Do you know where I can change this so that your awesomebar is always in front perhaps?
Melissa, the show user picture setting is only available in decaf, this setting is under decaf theme setting under site administration.
To fix your stylesheet, make sure your dock has a z-index property, and the value must be lower than awesomebar(In decaf, z-index is 100) in order to have awesomebar always show in front of everything.
HTH,
Lei
For those who love dock feature in Moodle2, this is now available in decaf too.
Hi Lei, thanks for the theme that you had designed and it is really good. Appreciate it a lot. I have a question about the background, how to change the background to image ya ? And I'm not that good with CSS also, can you guide me how to put background image and also header image (banner) into the theme? Thanks!
w3schools has a really good tutorial on css background to demonstrate how to add image to the background, and this techniques can be applied to header image too.
your syntax should look similar to that:
body {background-image:url('paper.gif');}
To use images in moodle 2 theme, read the following article in moodledoc: http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Themes_2.0#Making_use_of_images
HTH,
Lei
I managed to create child theme including setting.php
But I am not able to switch off the Navigation and Settingsblock anymore.
Can you hgive me a hint, where I can find some thing about the setting?
in mychild/setting.php I renamed all theme_decaf into theme_mychild
the footnote settings etc. work fine. but not the hidenavigationblock nor hidesettingsblock.
Its saved, but nothing changed. I cleared the cache in the browser and in moodle.
How can I remove setting and nav block?
I think this is due to the way in which the items from the sttings page are used within the code
The actual code which hides the settings block and the navigation block is in renderers.php and because it calls $this->page->theme->settings->hide......block the renderer needs to be in the same theme as the settings page.
ie. if you are using decaf as a parent theme, you will need to copy the renderers.php (or at least this part of it) into the child theme and not rely on it working from within the parent.
Richard
so glad that I got a responce. Thankyou Richard - you where really fast.
I copied the renderer.php, changed the "decaf" entries into "mychild" (its not much left in the parent)
but nothing changed. Any other Idea? How to hide the nav and settings block?
Hi Guido.
Can I ask how you are declaring your parent theme?
If decaf is parent and decaf uses base theme, you need to declare these as ('decaf', 'base') and not the other way round.
To make settings work you need to copy the renderers page inful, not just be selective. But you don't need to add the layouts or the styles unless changing colours., then you can add one style sheet if you prefer, but this needs to be declared in config for your theme.
Also you can be quite minimalistic in what is written in your theme's config.php. You need your theme name, and your style sheets , the parent theme and the stylesheets excluded from parent themes that includes base as well as decaf.
You do not need to specify theme layout as that's in the parent, unless you want to style a page differently, like the frontpage, then your theme layout may just have that one page specified.
HTH
Mary
I tried this config.php:
<?php
$THEME->name = 'mychild';
$THEME->parents = array('decaf','canvas','base');
$THEME->sheets = array('mychild');
/*to switch off setting and naigation blocks: */
$THEME->enable_dock = false;
$THEME->hidesettingsblock = true;
$THEME->hidenavigationblock = true;
$THEME->showuserpicture = false;
I guess, I copied the 'canvas' wrong ?
Do I need a php-end tag?
How can I exclude style - files?
Why should I add more then just decaf? Is this necessary? Decaf uses canvas and base??
( Mary- THANK YOU! <-- Big one. I followed the forum for a long time now and I learned so much from your explanations. I give you all points! )
Guido,
You'll need to add
$THEME->rendererfactory = 'theme_overridden_renderer_factory';
to tell the config that you have a renderers file
Richard
Hurrahh!!!! Works!
I try a summary:
A child theme (the name here is: my_child_theme) of decaf needs in addition to the normal child/parent configuration some extra files to be able to switch off the Navigation_block and the Settings_block.
Copy renderers.php and settings.php from decaf and inside the files substitute alle occurence of 'decaf' with 'my_child_theme'.
add $THEME->rendererfactory = 'theme_overridden_renderer_factory'; to the config.php.
Now you can use the Site-admin->Appearance->Themes->my_child_theme for hideing the blocks.
SOLVED!
Thanks to Richard and Mary.
Only one thing is left:In themedesignermode . Is this normal?
Only one thing is left:
In themedesignermode . Is this normal?
the path is not handled correctly.
some thing else is missing maybe?
$theme->picturefactory = 'this_is_all_magic_to_me._how can I find out more...";
Hi Guido,
Once your theme is working as you want it to you can switch Theme Designer Mode off. By the way Theme Designer Mode only clears some cache NOT all. JavaScript cache is still held and needs purging using Purge all caches which is found in Site-Administrator>Development>Purge all caches
Whilst you are learning a lot, how do you think I learned all I know? By being active here on the form, is my answer. And there is still a lot I don't know. So I too am learning.
There are lots of areas which still need lots of development, and it's people like yourself who ask questions and so we go out of our way and learn how to fix the problem so that we can pass our knowledge on, so a BIG -> THANK YOU for asking such a lot of questions
If I were you I would turn Theme Designer Mode off now and if you need to clear the cache just use Purge all cache. I made a link to it in my Moodle menu! LOL I got so fed up looking for the link, double click here, double click there - clickety click everywhere! LOL as though we have nothing better to do all day.
So is the theme working OK? Can we see it...or is your website private?
Cheers
Mary
I followed your advise and pulled a link for cachepurge in the firefox link section.
But I found a purge all cache also as a footnote in the the theme after switched on debug-> developer mode.
I switched Theme designer mode off.
( sorry the page is private for a while - I don't want to publish the link but if needed, contact me via message )
And there must not be any empty lines at the end of the config.php !!!!
you will get
PHP Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by...
and some pictures will load late after second refresh of the browser.
I love decaf as I stated above.
During usage I divovered some area with high potential for further improvements:
The bigger edit-Icons are great - but the edit question, sort question area needs some maintanance to be beautiful in decaf now.
The bigger glitch is in the quiz report.
A quiz with 15 questions need a screen with more than 1450 pixel width to be viewable. The scrollbar is there, but scrolling shows white areas of the right block column.A Quiz with 30 Questions needs a 3000 pixel wide screen )
Here is a picture for a 1024 screen to illustrate the problem. I think css can help - but how?
and now scrolled:
Hi Guido,
I had exactly same problem from a lecturer the other day, you can fix it by tweaking stylesheets, but you'll end up with a long twisted quiz report. This bug should be fixed in code level rather than presentation level. Highly recommend you try the enhanced quiz report from UK Open University, it's much better than the default interface.
Lei
Lei or anyone who can advise me,
I am having the same trouble with displaying quiz results (in various themes - even default themes ) but I also don't see an "enhanced quiz report" anywhere available for download and install... Maybe I missed it?
Can anyone help with advice on how to be able to see results from my quiz that has almost 40 questions? I can only see about 10 ~12 of the questions
Jason
You could add a "go bottom" arrow, like the go top arrow.
Because a course creator needs to jump down a lot during course creation.
Do you anounce new versions here or should we check this in git?
Guido,
To be honest, I don't like "back to top button". From designer point of view, it's very neat. I got this idea from Khan Academy, and adopt it using YUI as it is officially supported javascript framework. On the other hand, it's not efficient to load this code on every page load, I'm very tempted to remove it if not many people find its useful for them.
Back to your question, "go bottom" wouldn't be a good idea in this case. If you only design it for course creators, and not for everyone else, then it's not the theme should make changes, it should be the course creation interface.
I'll announce changes here if there is any visual changes/new features for end users, any minor fixes will just take place in git.
I want to show a better button for the "Answer the questions..."
in the Feedback Module. It hides a little and users did not trust it.
(I use Firebug and I have some experience changing the CSS)
can s.o. give an example?
Hi Guido,
Did you think of something like this? 
In Firebug I changed the button text in the quiz module. Searching the web for "nice buttons," I came to this site.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Thanks a lot!
I got red ears when reading "searching the web..."
My biggest problem seems to be to write the correct questions.
Can you help me to find the CSS - Code in the Feedback module, that is responcible for the small "Answer the question..." link?
I can not find it.
Hi,
If you look in the Afterburner theme in Moodle2.1 you will find this css which styles all the buttons the same...
/* Button
-----------------------*/
select, input, button {
background-color: #34637f;
color: #fff;
}
#loginbtn, input, button, select { cursor: pointer;}
This last css rule ensures the cursor changes to the 'pointer' which looks like a little white hand witha pointing finger.
HTH
Mary
Thanks a lot for this code.
(My biggest problem seems to be to write the correct questions.)
I try again:
Can you help me to find the CSS - Code in the Feedback module, that is responsible for the small "Answer the question..." link?
I can not find it.
Hi Guido,
If you want to change the text ("Answer the questions..."), you need to go to line 50 in mod/feedback/lang/en/feedback.php
$string['complete_the_form'] = 'Answer the questions...';
I you want to center the text, add the following code in mod/feedback/styles.css at the bottom
#page-mod-feedback-view .generalbox {
text-align: center;
}
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Hi all,
I've just pushed a few updates to github (use the link in the first post to grab the latest version), which:
As per usual, please share any feedback - issues, suggested improvements, etc - so that we can keep making Decaf better.
-Paul
Hi Paul,
Thanks a lot for your patience with me. You did a great job and improved a very nice theme. I had no problems with the awesomebar or custom menubar. No more blank pages now.
There is a minor issue with the profile block. Because of the padding, the proportion of the profile picture has changed.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Great stuff thanks Paul!
I'm going to check it out now.
Cheers
Mary
Hi, first thanks for a great theme! Unfortunately I am having some performance issues with decaf since moving to Moodle 2.1.1 (Build: 20110801) I have downloaded the latest version of Decaf and it still has the same issues - when accessing anything in site administration its extremely slow and is performing an excessive amount of DB reads compared to when i use any of the standard themes. Any ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated! Thanks!
For example, when i go to site notifications this is what I get:
Thats 25+ seconds to load and 6673 DB reads compared to the standard theme at 607 db reads and <1sec load time.
Hi Daniel,
Those figures sound like what I'd expect from the previous versions of Decaf. Can you please download the latest version again, just to make sure? Try purging all caches after you've dropped the new version in (Site Administration -> Development -> Purge all caches) as well, to make sure that Moodle isn't holding on to bits of the old version.
Hi Paul, Thanks thats got it sorted - just me been a plank and forgetting to purge all caches! Its still quite a bit slower than the other 'standard' moodle themes when accessing anything under site administration, for example notifications still takes 3.6 secs to load and performs 1388 DB reads compared to the standard theme at 0.7 secs and 318 DB reads. This is pretty much the same accross the whole of site administration, Its useable but i am concerned that come september when i get a few hundred students using moodle its going to really grind. I dont know much about themes in moodle so i cant really understand how a theme would cause such a drop in performance?
Sorry to moan so much, but its such a lovely theme I cant possibly go back to using the standard one!
Thanks for your help and hard work!
Hi Daniel,
Unfortunately, we have to expect a performance hit (and some extra DB queries) as a tradeoff for the Awesomebar, because of the work it has to do to generate the menu structure (for example, some bits of the Navigation block are loaded via AJAX, but the Awesomebar generates these in the page itself so that these items are available in the Awesomebar).
I don't have a great deal of time to work on Decaf at the moment, but I do hope to continue to improve performance where possible - pull requests on github are welcome, if anyone else has time to work on it
-Paul
Hi Lei and Paul,
I downloaded your latest version of Decaf yesterday and have just installed it, and now have it running on local host WAMP server on Win7. Every thing works fine except the HOME link which throws up a CODING ERROR which must be fixed by a programmer! So IS THERE A PROGRAMMER IN THE HOUSE!
Log output to screen gives...
Debug info: Argument 3 passed to global_navigation::load_activity() must be an instance of navigation_node, boolean given, called in C:\wamp\www\moodle211\theme\decaf\lib.php on line 528 and defined Stack trace: line 359 of \lib\setuplib.php: coding_exception thrown line 1755 of \lib\navigationlib.php: call to default_error_handler() line 528 of \theme\decaf\lib.php: call to global_navigation->load_activity() line 424 of \theme\decaf\lib.php: call to decaf_expand_navigation->initialise() line 277 of \theme\decaf\renderers.php: call to decaf_expand_navigation->__construct() line 284 of \theme\decaf\renderers.php: call to theme_decaf_topsettings_renderer->navigation_node() line 244 of \theme\decaf\renderers.php: call to theme_decaf_topsettings_renderer->navigation_node() line 55 of \theme\decaf\layout\frontpage.php: call to theme_decaf_topsettings_renderer->navigation_tree() line 654 of \lib\outputrenderers.php: call to include() line 612 of \lib\outputrenderers.php: call to core_renderer->render_page_layout() line ? of unknownfile: call to core_renderer->header() line 1291 of \lib\setuplib.php: call to call_user_func_array() line 89 of \index.php: call to bootstrap_renderer->__call() line 89 of \index.php: call to bootstrap_renderer->header()
What's casuing this? Is it my version of Moodle do you think or something wrong with the theme? (The link I used was the one at the top of this page) I was wondering if Moodle caches these links? However the version I have is...
leizhang-moodle-theme_decaf-857be30.zip
Thanks Mary
I use moodle 2.1.2, decaf c8ff09c
I am not able to edit blocks on the start page anymore.
not logged in: all blocks visible
logged in: no blocks
no difference, if I switch editing on or off
I remember it was working in 2.0.3, I have added and edited the blocks - this proofs that it was working once up on a time.
how to find out what happended? And how can I edit my blocks again?
Hi Guido,
Have you checked that Javascript is enabled in your browser?
Another cause could be they are all docked automatically after the last time you visited the page?
Cheers
Mary
One other thing is that with decaf, the navigation and settings blocks can be hidden through the theme settings page as they are also part of the awesomebar at the top of the page. If those were the only blocks on the page, then you would have no blocks visible either on the page itself or in the dock
?
Richard
I have been looking for the 'Google - like - Fixed - Top - Menu - Bar' for years.
This theme is a great achievement for usability practice. The 'fixed top menu bar' make users' navigation experiences much easier.
This tech only available in Google Site. I've searched for 'Googlelike Topbar' or 'Top Menu bar' many times, but no result. Until I found this Decaf, it is amazing!
I strongly suggest that it should be included into Moodle core theme folder.
I also have some wish-list for this theme:
1.
I dislike the navigation block, because it shows all courses in my site. I have a lot of locked courses which shouldn't be shown to a guest. So, I turn off the navigation block in:
Site admin>Plugins>Blocks>Manage blocks>Navigation/hide
But, the decaf extract this block content into the top menu bar, at the second icon next to Home icon.
Then, I have to comment out this line in two files:
In Decaf:frontpage.php line 55, remove navigation and home icon at front page
// echo $topsettings->navigation_tree($this->page->navigation);
In Decaf:fgeneral.php line 58, remove navigation and home icon from all other pages
// echo $topsettings->navigation_tree($this->page->navigation);
Wish list 1: Turn these two icons off in Decaf setting page.
-------------
2.
I hate the section number, so I change it to the same colour with background colour
in Decaf: core.css: line162: .course-content ul.topics
li.section .left {font-size:2em; color:#FFF} //I set the bg coulour to #fff in decaf setting
Wish list 2: Change section text colour in decaf setting
----------------
3.
I hate the 'Topic' outline so, I remove it:
in Decaf: core.css: line89:
.headingblock, h2.headingblock { border-width:1px;margin:0;padding:5px;font-family:"Trebuchet MS", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;display:none;}
Wish list 3: Hide 'Topic outline' in decaf setting
-----------------
4.
The user image looks slim, so I change it back to square shape:
In Decaf: core.css: line28, make square, no padding
.headermenu img.userpicture{width:55px;height:55px;float:right;border-top:1px solid #eee;border-right:1px solid #dadada;border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;border-left:none;background:#fff;margin-top:10px;padding:0px 0px;}
Wish list 4: Option for 'slim/fat' user pix in decaf setting (just joke)
Many thanks to Lei Zhang, you are awesome!
Cheers
Dear Zhang,
The Glossary edit buttons are missing under the Decaf theme, only one pair apeared at the top of Glossary Module. I changed to standard theme, then the two buttons apeared as normal, at the right corner of each entry.
I am in Moodle2.2.1
Hi William,
This issue had the same cause as the misplaced edit buttons on the calendar page which came to light recently. I've made some changes which fix this (and hopefully any other similar cases which haven't been discovered yet). I also added a light grey line between entries in the glossary, to give better separation between entries (and to help make it clearer which entry the edit buttons are for, since they sit below the rest of the entry).
As per usual, you can get this latest version from the plugins database.
Cheers,
Paul
Dear Paul,
It is good to see your latest upgrade version 2012012001, has fixed two problems which had annoyed me for a long time.
1. Glosaary edit icons displayed at top only and not for every items
Now, both 'delete' and 'edit' icons displays for every items perfectly. even better, has a light colour line between each entry. Thanks!
2. On a handheld, The top menu bar works for a user, but not for Admin's part. The Admin menus can be seen, but not clickable.
Now, I tested the top menu bar for Admin on iPhone, iPad and Android, all works fine. Thanks.
Dear Paul,
Please ref to my other post, the Wish List 4:
The user image looks slim, so I change it back to square shape:
In Decaf: core.css: line28, make square, no padding
.headermenu img.userpicture{width:55px;height:55px;float:right;border-top:1px solid #eee;border-right:1px solid #dadada;border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;border-left:none;background:#fff;margin-top:10px;padding:0px 0px;}
Do you have a plan to change it, or you DO make the photo slim on purpose?
Thanks.
Hi William,
On my Moodle 2.2.1 test site I just installed the latest version of Decaf (from https://github.com/leizhang) and the Glossary is working as expected.
Are you sure you are using the correct version of Decaf for your Moodle version?
Joseph
Hi Joseph,
Looks like a case of incredible timing here - you managed to grab a copy after I pushed the fix up to Github but before I'd managed to upload it to the plugins database and post here!
-Paul
Hi Paul,
I just took advantage of the timeshift between our 2 opposite locations on the surface of the globe.
ATB
Joseph