Block Control

Block Control

Conrad Taylor tomonidan -
Number of replies: 7

Hi fellow moodlers

I was browsing the other day and came across this site

http://gniknalu.is-a-geek.com/demo/modules/ipboard/

The feature that I like was the block control which can be found on the breadcrumb (left hand side)

Block Control

By clicking this icon it hide/show the left hand blocks.. this feature I think is great as it provide the user with control..

I know the user will have more control over screen appearance when moodle 2.0 is release.

Conrad

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In reply to Conrad Taylor

Re: Block Control

W Page tomonidan -
Hi Taylor,

This feature is also found as a modification to some CMSs , [I will say what appears to be the dreaded word around here] like phpNuke and allows for the middle block to have more screen space when necessary. I do not know if it would really have a use in Moodle because Resources and Activites open up on pages without blocks, so, the content is already full screen full screen.

WP1
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In reply to W Page

Re: Block Control

John Papaioannou tomonidan -
I absolutely agree. The "we do it just because we can" mentality is seductive, but the discussions in these forums (Martin and Tom Murdock immediately come to mind) have shown me that it isn't always the way to go.

Jon
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In reply to John Papaioannou

Re: Block Control

N Hansen tomonidan -
In fact, full screen isn't necessarily the best design either, and in fact, sometimes I wish Moodle took up less screen real estate and had more "white space" around text. Best practice is to have lines of text of approximately 9-10 words, so as to reduce people's need to move their eyes back and forth. I'd rather see more side blocks rather than less, as they would force the main content of the page to be less strung across the page. Same problem with long pages, requires people to scroll too much. That's why I'm a big fan of the book module concept. It simply offers better page design.
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In reply to N Hansen

Re: Block Control

Martin Dougiamas tomonidan -
Core developers rasmi Documentation writers rasmi Moodle HQ rasmi Particularly helpful Moodlers rasmi Plugin developers rasmi Testers rasmi
Erm ... firstly, the width decision is in your hands: make your window smaller ... Many people don't have that choice: try using a complex block-ridden site on a 640x480 browser for a while and you will see why Moodle generally makes the most of the page width.  In future some sort of user option like the one at the top of this discussion would be a good idea, but in the meantime full-width is better overall.

And chunking long tracts of text into short ones is not always better page design, sometimes it's restrictive and frustrating. I'm guessing you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Block Control

N Hansen tomonidan -
I have looked at Moodle on smaller screens. It works well on them. But personally I would rather see a site optimized for a smaller size screen that would expand the "white space" on bigger size screens rather than expand the text. The decision may be in the user's hand, but that doesn't mean they always make the best decision because they may not even realize what is best. And if you work with image rich pages as I do you have to factor that into the equation, and that affects page load time, layouts etc. It's just my philosophy, but I believe a good Web site is one in which enough thought is put into these issues that the design is such that there is no need to give users control over their environment. Usability is the responsibility of the designers, not the user.
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In reply to N Hansen

Re: Block Control

Martin Dougiamas tomonidan -
Core developers rasmi Documentation writers rasmi Moodle HQ rasmi Particularly helpful Moodlers rasmi Plugin developers rasmi Testers rasmi
> there is no need to give users control over their environment

OK then, sorry I gave you control over your Moodle site - obviously you would prefer not to have it. Miltillatmoq Miltillatmoq

All you have to do is put a table starting in your header and finishing in your footer and you can enforce any width you like (in any strictly fixed font size you like) on your site users. Or use CSS to do this, your choice. Good luck!

Personally I like Moodle filling up my 21 inch screen with big fonts, while knowing that it still works for people with small screens.  You'd have me forcing myself to always work within 640 pixel-width pages all the time.  Miltillatmoq
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Block Control

Samuli Karevaara tomonidan -
Martin said: "...(in any strictly fixed font size you like)".

Is this true? In my experience the <font> tags around many strings force the font to be bigger, no matter what you specify in CSS or earlier on in the HTML page.
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