I am trying to created a new topic type format so when a student enters a course they are presented with section 0 only or the current topic if it is set but I have no idea what I am doing!
I have identified $displaysection but setting it to 0 displays the whole of the course and not section 0 on it's own. For the moment I have set it to 1 as default but cannot work out how to override this if a topic is marked as current (they always get section 1 rather than the current topic unless they change it themselves).
Thoughts? Help! Did that make sense?
Thanks in advance
Darren
Darren,
I believe I have a course format that may be of interest to you:
It never displays more than one topic.
At each time of the year the teacher can mark a specific topic as the default topic shown when a user logs in.
Students are presented a menu with other topics to choose from.
I used this because I wanted to get rid of the topic collapse button, and because this way I can mark a topic as the active topic before going to a computer lab. That way when students log in they are automatically presented with the topic that's under discussion.
You can take a look here
It is not finished, but I can send you the code if you want to have a look at it.
Yes please - that would be great 
Exactly what I am trying to do.
I have my menu built using the HTML bock - is yours a separate block or built into the course format?
Thanks in advance.
Darren
I have my menu built using the HTML bock - is yours a separate block or built into the course format?
Thanks in advance.
Darren
We have a pretty much similar course format here:
Oh, that reminds me of another customization: the front page of the site also serves a course, so we have more places to put stuff to.
- We are always showing the topic 0 + one extra topic. The topic zero can be used to show a static "deparment title"
- When the topic 1 is shown, the latest news forum posts are shown after that topic
- Other topics don't have the news forum posts after them
- We are hiding the "Jump to.." menu, topic numbers and such stuff with the theme
- Then there is an extra block to serve as a menu: it reads the topic summaries and takes the first text inside a heading to use as a "topic name"
Oh, that reminds me of another customization: the front page of the site also serves a course, so we have more places to put stuff to.
I'm attaching the above mentioned block here. The course format is a bit too tied to our processes at the moment, but I'll clean up and release that too later.
The block is quite simple: basically it generates an unordered list that have the topic summary texts as links to the individual topics.
BTW, "Reppu" means "backpack" in Finnish.
The block is quite simple: basically it generates an unordered list that have the topic summary texts as links to the individual topics.
BTW, "Reppu" means "backpack" in Finnish.
This is great. Thanks for sharing 
. Going to save me ages hardcoding the HTML for each course.
I look forward to seeing the course format appearing also.
Jan-I really like this-I would definitely use this if it were available.
I would like to know how well it interacts with activity locking. For example, if all of the activities in a particular topic were hidden from a student, would he be able to see that topic at all? This was a problem with the CDC menu block.
I would like to know how well it interacts with activity locking. For example, if all of the activities in a particular topic were hidden from a student, would he be able to see that topic at all? This was a problem with the CDC menu block.
Hi Jan,
Again, another great idea from you (I love the random picture and glossary blocks!!!).
Would you please post this code when it's ready (is it 1.6 compatible?).
Thanks!!
Again, another great idea from you (I love the random picture and glossary blocks!!!).
Would you please post this code when it's ready (is it 1.6 compatible?).
Thanks!!