Hi
How can I get a Main Menu block to appear inside my courses?
The Main Menu option is not available from the drop-down Add Block
TIA
Mark
You can't...main menu is for the frontpage course only.
Steve
Mark,
You can easily create your own Main Menu block within a course by adding the HTML block and just calling it Main Menu. Within the wysiwyg editor add links and images as needed. There is also a cool block called Course Menu you might want to take a look at.
You can easily create your own Main Menu block within a course by adding the HTML block and just calling it Main Menu. Within the wysiwyg editor add links and images as needed. There is also a cool block called Course Menu you might want to take a look at.
The side bar block is another potential candidate. You can vote here for this to be included in the core moodle (Tracker account required).
Mark,
To add to the suggestions above, you might want to look at this post I found in the General Developer's Forum (a place I rarely check):
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=92521
I e-mailed for a beta version to try on a test site.
I am using the above mentioned HTML block approach on the production site. While it works, it's a pain in the patootie to use on every course page. Move or add one navigation item and you have to change every instance throughout the site. Within courses, Course Menu or YUI Menu work great -- I can't live without them on my classroom site but they are course blocks, not site-wide.
To add to the suggestions above, you might want to look at this post I found in the General Developer's Forum (a place I rarely check):
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=92521
I e-mailed for a beta version to try on a test site.
I am using the above mentioned HTML block approach on the production site. While it works, it's a pain in the patootie to use on every course page. Move or add one navigation item and you have to change every instance throughout the site. Within courses, Course Menu or YUI Menu work great -- I can't live without them on my classroom site but they are course blocks, not site-wide.
Within courses, Course Menu or YUI Menu work great -- I can't live without them on my classroom site but they are course blocks, not site-wide.
YUI menu dev here. There's no particular reason the YUI Menu isn't displayed at the main page or user pages except that I couldn't think of a use case for it. It wouldn't display anything. If you can tell me what you'd like to see, I'm interested in getting it to work.
I'm not clear what you mean by site-wide. If you want it to show all the courses/categories then what I'm about to say won't help. But if you want it to show deeper into a course, then perhaps it will...
We're keen users of the YUI menu at OpenLearn, and we've just decided that for our next site update in a few months time we want to display it on all our HTML resource pages too.
The idea is that we configure the block with Outline switched on, so if you're looking at a resource in section/week 1, you can move straight to the next resource in the section/week without going back to the course home page.
I attach a screen shot so you can see what I mean. I've just finished updating the YUI block in contrib CVS so that the section/week that contains the resource you're looking at is automatically expanded - and there were a few other minor errors where the block hadn't expected to be used in this way before.
We're keen users of the YUI menu at OpenLearn, and we've just decided that for our next site update in a few months time we want to display it on all our HTML resource pages too.
The idea is that we configure the block with Outline switched on, so if you're looking at a resource in section/week 1, you can move straight to the next resource in the section/week without going back to the course home page.
I attach a screen shot so you can see what I mean. I've just finished updating the YUI block in contrib CVS so that the section/week that contains the resource you're looking at is automatically expanded - and there were a few other minor errors where the block hadn't expected to be used in this way before.
Perhaps it's an odd need, but this particular site needs a consistent navigation menu from the front page to the courses which are not used as "courses" but as "areas" (I'd love another description but area is all I could think of for now).
I'd like the menu to display the course/area categories (Information/Research/Professional Development/Curriculum). For example, users would jump from a course (Home/Curriculum/Mechanics) over to another (Home/Professional Development/Workshops) without visiting the front page (Home) to get to the Professional Development area. The site will be mostly a resource repository and discussion forum not a traditional course. I expect most users will not be taking the time to understand the Moodle-ness of the site -- I want the navigation to be as seamless as possible.
Within a course/area, YUI menu should function as it usually does -- with the tree menu displaying the content of that particular course/area. (Jenny, I take it your code is now incorporated into the version on the Download page? -- I'm off to check.)
I hadn't thought about the sticky block/html block option -- it's a good solution to the problem. Fortunately, I have spring break next week and some time try these suggestions. Thanks a 106!
I'd like the menu to display the course/area categories (Information/Research/Professional Development/Curriculum). For example, users would jump from a course (Home/Curriculum/Mechanics) over to another (Home/Professional Development/Workshops) without visiting the front page (Home) to get to the Professional Development area. The site will be mostly a resource repository and discussion forum not a traditional course. I expect most users will not be taking the time to understand the Moodle-ness of the site -- I want the navigation to be as seamless as possible.
Within a course/area, YUI menu should function as it usually does -- with the tree menu displaying the content of that particular course/area. (Jenny, I take it your code is now incorporated into the version on the Download page? -- I'm off to check.)
I hadn't thought about the sticky block/html block option -- it's a good solution to the problem. Fortunately, I have spring break next week and some time try these suggestions. Thanks a 106!
Hi Mark
Taking Brian's suggestion of an HTML block a bit further. Can this not be achieved by using a sticky block. Create an HTML sticky block and then put all the links you want in that. By setting it to course pages instead of My Moodle it will then appear in all courses and has the benefit of not being delete-able by teachers.
To update you simply go back to sticky blocks update the HTML block there and changes are then updated site wide.
Hope this helps.
Simon
Taking Brian's suggestion of an HTML block a bit further. Can this not be achieved by using a sticky block. Create an HTML sticky block and then put all the links you want in that. By setting it to course pages instead of My Moodle it will then appear in all courses and has the benefit of not being delete-able by teachers.
To update you simply go back to sticky blocks update the HTML block there and changes are then updated site wide.
Hope this helps.
Simon
Hi
I have tried creating a sticky block for courses with the required Main Menu links. However, it only appeared in the top-level course pages (ie the ones with the list of activities/resources) NOT in each individual activity/resource. <sigh> it seems there is no way to have a site-wide block of links in the side bar, so I'll have to add it manually to each resource. Luckily it should be reasonably static.
I also tried changing the "Default Blocks Override", adding "site_main_menu" as a default block for every page. This created a block on every page, but the "site_main_menu" block for pages inside a course is just a list of the activities/resources in the first (unnumbered) topic of the course, not the actual site Main Menu.
Thanks for all your suggestions
Mark
I have tried creating a sticky block for courses with the required Main Menu links. However, it only appeared in the top-level course pages (ie the ones with the list of activities/resources) NOT in each individual activity/resource. <sigh> it seems there is no way to have a site-wide block of links in the side bar, so I'll have to add it manually to each resource. Luckily it should be reasonably static.
I also tried changing the "Default Blocks Override", adding "site_main_menu" as a default block for every page. This created a block on every page, but the "site_main_menu" block for pages inside a course is just a list of the activities/resources in the first (unnumbered) topic of the course, not the actual site Main Menu.
Thanks for all your suggestions
Mark