Change/Customize the profile Page

Change/Customize the profile Page

by Joseph Vargas -
Number of replies: 23

Hi all:

I have been showing Moodle to many of the players in my organization.

So far I have buyin on everything, except the first interface that a user sees. The profile screen.

Comments include:

  • Where are the fields for State and Zip code?
  • Why is the address, phone1, phone2 fields located at the bottom of the screen?
  • Can additional fields be added?
  • Instead of phone1, phone2, how about Home, Work, Cell?
  • Why does the form for entry take up so much room?

Is anyone up to the task of reformatting this screen?

My concern is that it is a bad first impression and it is making it difficult to sell the attributes of the rest of the site.

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Thomas Robb -
I remember Martin saying something about making the initial account application screen customizable. Right now, there are only a limited number of fields there because the consensus was that it should be as simple as possible.

The user "Profile" page lists all fields.

It would be great if there were a neat interface that allowed the administrator to select which fields should appear on the initial screen, perhaps with check boxes next to each desired item.

Right now, however, you can accomplish the same thing programmatically by editing the login/signup_form.html file by pasting in items found in the user/profile.html. Each item is in the same format in both files delimited by <tr> tags.

If you wish the file to be more compact, change the "cellpadding" parameter in the <Table> tag to a smaller number, even zero. Right now it is set to "9"!

Use with care and be sure to save your original files in case something goes awry!
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In reply to Thomas Robb

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Gustav W Delius -

Not only the initial sign-up page but also the main profile update form should be customizable. The administrator should be able to choose which fields are displayed, which ones can be changed, which ones are required, and what default values should be used. If Moodle is used for university teaching for mostly resident students for example it is not very sensible to require a city field. I have been doing this customization in the way Thomas suggests by editing cvs:/moodle/user/edit.html as well as the function find_form_errors but having a convenient interface would be much better.

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In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Gustav W Delius -

How about an interface like the one shown in the screenshot?

C: This field is required already during the account creation

R: This is a required field that the user must fill in when editing the profile

O: This is an optional field that the user may change

A: This field can only be changed by the administrator

N: This field is not used

Attachment mockup.gif
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In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by W Page -

Hi Gustav!

Have you done anymore work on the "Configuration" page you referred to in the post above using the C-R-O-A-N format you referred to above.   This would allow an administrator and/or teacher to totally customize and control the data input they want on the Student's Profile Page.

Do you have a script ready for CVS yet?

WP1

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In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Darren Smith -
I have been trying to cut down my edit.html file also to get rid of things like phone number and the like.

Is there a way to force the country and city in the form? I thought of using a value= for the field but it's a mixture of php and html in there so got a little confused.

I like the idea of a cutomisable version which admins can tinker with.

Edit: I have just seen Gustav's CROAN which sums up what I was saying

Actually, thinking about it. It would be sensible to have an additional screen for user settings.
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In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Timothy Takemoto -

Dear Darren,

I got rid of phone number and the like in my hacked version of user/edit.php below.

You can force the country in the site set settings.

You can use value="whatever" to pass defaults.

But I think perhaps the new database table reffered to below does pretty much what an admin screen would do, except you have to fiddle with the database.

Tim

tkmt

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In reply to Thomas Robb

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Ger Tielemans -

... and also:

  • which field should be editable or not
  • which filed should be checked against the external database - when there is an external database - on the moment user logs in.
    (Now only course creators is checked every time, but in august we need to change the department code for all the 4000 students by checking it against that external schooldatabase(s): would be most flexible if the admin could decide in both cases
  • Also adding extra fields or leave fields out would make it fit in more situations
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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Anthony Johnson -

...and also:

  • Students should have the ability to make certain fields public or private.
  • If public... admin decide wheather fields are shown only to participants in a current enrolled course or community wide.

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Joseph Vargas -

I see that many of us are interested in a customizable profile.

I wish I were a programmer, but alas I am not.  Is there anyone out there interested in developing this?

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Joseph Vargas -

Does anyone know where i can find information on how to customize the profile.

I need to add fields, make some fields required and reorganize the layout of the page.

While I am sure fields can be simply added to the table mdl_user, would this be a problem regarding compatability with future upgrades?

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Marilyn Fleming -

If you just want to remove fields that are currently shown (as opposed to adding new fields), you can modify user\edit.htm and change edit boxes to hidden fields. If you hide a required field, be sure to supply a default value for it.

This doesn't require "programming", just a bit of HTML editing. Of course, you would have to fix it every time you download a new version.

I can provide an example if needed.

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Marilyn Fleming -

If you just want to remove fields that are currently shown (as opposed to adding new fields), you can modify user\edit.htm and change edit boxes to hidden fields. If you hide a required field, be sure to supply a default value for it.

This doesn't require "programming", just a bit of HTML editing. Of course, you would have to fix it every time you download a new version.

I can provide an example if needed.

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Joseph Vargas -

I started this thread about a year ago, but there still seems to be no solution in place.  Hope noone minds if I ask again.

Is there any plan to allow for the information on the profile page to be customized?.

I need to add fields, make some fields required and reorganize the layout of the page.

While I am sure fields can be simply added to the table mdl_user, would this be a problem regarding compatability with future upgrades?

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Chardelle Busch -
Picture of Core developers

Hi Joe,

It's nice to have you back on the forums.  Rather than adding to the user table, see this thread:  http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=14676

I know that a user-interface to "customize" the profile page has been discussed, it just isn't quite there yet--hint hint Gustav.

Chardelle

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In reply to Chardelle Busch

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Timothy Takemoto -

Joe,

The new table that Chardelle mentions is probably the way to go. But alternatively you can hack the moodle/users/edit.php

I enclose a hacked version, to my requirements, on this thread.

To try it out, change the name of your edit.php to old_edit.php and then upload the file attached. Bear in mind that it was for moodle 1.4.1 so, especially with the new table, it may not work in 1.5.

Tim
tkmt

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In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Timothy Takemoto -
I am now going to attempt to edit the edit.html (or edit.php) or both for 1.5.2 to allow only the fields I like.

Thank you Marilyn Fleming for reminding me about what needs to be done, in this thread above.  

I will post my minimalised user/edit.hml if I get it working.

Timothy
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In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Timothy Takemoto -

I managed to minimalise edit.html so that there are fewer fields for the new students to input into their profile. I attach the edit.html that I am using now. I think that it works.

I kept "city" and "country" since I am using them for student number and department. This means chaning

1) moodle/lang/yourlang/moodle.php
To chance the annotation on city and country to student number and department

2) moodle/lang/yourlang/countries.php
to change the list of countries to a list of deparments.

The only major glitch that I had was that in the past I have used

INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME=description VALUE=" "

Just before the commented out user description, but 1.5.2 would not allow me to pass a space. Now I have

INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME=description VALUE="I am a student"

And that seems to work.  

Thanks, Marilyn Fleming, for reminding me of what I had to do.

Hack with great care.

Timothy

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Joseph Vargas -

I started this thread about 3 years ago, but there still seems to be no solution in place to customize the profile page.

Given that there appears to be no plan to allow for the information on the profile page to be customized, is there anyone who would consider developing this? 

I would do it myself if I could, but writing code is not my expertise.

I need to add fields, make some fields required and reorganize the layout of the page.

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In reply to Joseph Vargas

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Chardelle Busch -
Picture of Core developers
Hi Joseph,

I haven't talked with you for years!!! Glad to see you are still moodling. If you can wait just a little bit longer... this is expected to be in 1.8. See the docs. If this doesn't do what you want, contact me and I can help you.

Chardelle
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In reply to Chardelle Busch

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Seth Dickens -
Hi guys!

It would be great if the login page was made customisable.

I'm setting up a Moodle site here for my language school in Italy and if we collect personal data we MUST get students to agree to having it collected under the local privacy laws. A small tick box would be enough I reckon. Just something to say they've read and agree to blah blah etc.

Do you think this will be possible?

Seth.
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In reply to Seth Dickens

Re: Change/Customize the login Page

by Robert Allerstorfer -
Hi Seth,

not sure if that helps, but there is a 'policyagreed' flag for each user in the 'user' table, which is set to 0 (zero) per default. Probably you can do something useful with this.

best,
rob.
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In reply to Robert Allerstorfer

Re: Change/Customize the login Page

by Seth Dickens -
Thanks Robert,

I'll check it out! Hopefully this might be the sort of thing I'm after.

Seth.
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In reply to Seth Dickens

Re: Change/Customize the profile Page

by Rick Barnes -
In 1.7.1 there is an option to set a site policy that users must see and agree to the first time they log on to the Moodle.

Site Administration Block
Security
Site Policies

You need to upload the policy into the site files or create a web page in a the home course that you can link to. (make sure that the policy is visible)

Rick.
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