Themes

The login boxes aren't in this release but yes I've had lots of emails asking for them to come back. Show of hands if you want them and if I see 10 or more hands I will put the login boxes in this release...

Go...

It seems to be a common problem with CPanel installs.

You will need delete your theme and reinstall it again but this time using cPanel. You may find this Moodle Doc useful, it explains how to do this.



Mary

Hi Shaun,

Brilliant decision!

You ROCK!!!



Mary

PS: I have a few comments which I will keep to a PM as they are mainly about coding issues and boring!

Shaun,

How did you fix the problem with the calender popup? I've been playing with this for hours and see you have it sort in 1.5

Troy.

"What is your next wish masters? hehehe ;D"

Is there a way to make the date in the menu bar link to a monthly view of calendar with global events hidden by default? Ican make the link a month view by adding ?view=month, but haven't been able to manipulate the default settings of the filters. Is this possible using the url?

Many thanks,

Jeff

I'm a new moodler, and I'm stuck already.
I've just downloaded 1.5, unpacked it, and uploaded it to my themes directory. When I select it from theme selector my header and top nav menu disappear, and I can't figure out what the issue is.
Can someone please help?
Here's a link to my site.

I installed it the same way to a test directory with a fresh moodle install, and it worked fine. I tried to do the same here but...

 

Our IT guys (who are off site) changed the authentication method on our Moodle site recently and now the Aardvark profile block no longer works. It returns an error message - you've tried to login too many times etc etc.

Anyway, it seems that we've moved to a CAS Server (SSO) authentication system. As an admin of the Moodle site I can see the various CAS config settings.  Hostname, Port, Host URL etc etc

I can also see (Under Admin > Users > Manage Authentication) an 'Alternate Login URL'

My question - how do I configure the profile block to work with these new settings. I had a look in profileblock.php - but that's like reading Japanese!

Alternatively, how could I edit the profile block to look like the original (which is nowhere near as pretty) which just had the word 'Login' - which would send users to the Login Page for our server.

Hi Don,
Aardvark - all the latest versions - have been tested in IE8, perhaps swapping themes to one of the latest non-beta versions would be best.
The biggest problem that seems to crop up with users like myself is with the yui menus - which is what appears to be the main problem in the screenshot you've given.
My similar problem, a while back, was as a result of not having updated the moodle package itself for a while (I know, I know!!! ) and so not having the necessary yui libraries included.

Richard

Hi,

I can't find a download for this particular version of Aardvark, or else I would have liked to try and find a 'fix' for this.

I do have a copy of the Alpha version, so is there any chance you could upload a copy of the header.html, aardvark_menu.php, and any or all of the css files related to your version of the theme so that I can mimic it on my WAMP server?

Cheers

Mary

Don,

I've narrowed this problem down to the user pic in the header. If you take out that particular include from the header.html I think you will find the menu rights itself. If not let me know.

Thanks Mary

Yes! I have, but it might cost you to find out how!

Hi Chris,

Which level is that border problem at, I don't see it in my version!

Mary

fix for this:

ul ul ul.first-of-type {
border-top: 1px solid #A0D1DB;
}

You can adjust the CSS to fix this problem...I'll try and find another thread in this forum with the answer...

CLICK HERE to read that other forum discussion...

Here's the solution which you need to add at the end of aardvark.css

.sideblock .commands {
background: url(images/sideblocks/commandsB.png) !important;
border: 1px dotted #ddd;
padding: 0;
}

Steve,

Everyone asks this same question at some stage, don't feel Noobish....

When your download the theme you will see a file called aardvark_menu.php > open this in a text editor (eg notepad, wordpad).

You'll see some text that looks like this.....

<li class="yuimenuitem"><a class="yuimenuitemlabel" href="www.your_link_goes_here.com">Menu name here</a></li>

Pretty simple, don't need any knowledge of PHP. My only advice, be careful removing or adding any bits of code eg <div> <li> etc etc

Best to test on a local server before going live.

Hope this helps

Hi Katerina,
Not sure how to remove the 'Resources' bit of the breadcrumb - it sounds as if you have already sussed how to add the items to the menu.
I don't know about other sites, but I know that on my school site the pages linked from the top menu are actually courses themselves rather than pages created in the courses. That way they just reference the Home - 'Course Name' in the breadcrumb. i use Topic courses and set the number of topics to just 1 or 2 depending on what I want to display on the page. My school site is a relatively small one compared to many but this works for me.

Hope that may be helpful?
Richard

Hi Katerina,

Questions are never stupid, how else can you learn if you don't ask?

There is nothing stopping you creating a separate 'about' web page and calling it about.html and then upload it to your 'site files' (Site Administration>Frontpage>Site Files) and link to it from the menu. This way it will be separate from courses/resources and will not show up in the breadcrumb navigation bar, but still be part of your theme.

If you want some help with this just say so. Creating a simple page template is pretty easy.

Hope this helps?

Mary

Yes it is. Easiest way is to change the #page max-width setting in aardvark.css and use this setting in its place.

#page {
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
width: 100%;
}

That should fix it.

Mary

Is this what you mean? see screen-shot below cause -> IE8, but OK in IE8 Compatibility mode.

I would hazard a guess and say that you have, more than likely, missed off a </li> tag in the menu at or just before the point where it breaks.

Intelligent browsers like Firefox and others ignore these little errors, IE8 is not so forgiving, but on the other hand is a great browser for showing up inconsistancy with drop-down menus!

If I have time, which I doubt, I'll have a quick gander at it and see if I can spot the deliberate mistake! LOL


Mary


EDIT: If you view source page in IE8(normal mode) @ lines 331 - 382 I think you will see some errors.

There are two ways you can do this. One way would be to just type in the words you want in the space where it says get_string('mycourses') which you would do like so...

echo '<li><a href="'.$CFG->wwwroot.'/my">My Subjects</a></li>';

The other way, and perhaps the preferred way, would be to create your own customised word string php file. The name of the file is important if it is going to be theme specific, you would call it theme_aardvark_pro15.php if you are using this theme version, or whatever theme name you happen to want to customise in this way.

So in a file called theme_aardvark.php (which could be used for all the various aardvark themes on your Moodle site that uses your newly modified new profileblock) you would type this...

<?php // custom strings

$string['mysubjects'] = 'My Subjects';

?>

You would then add this to a folder named en_utf8_local inside the lang folder in your Moodledata folder, and if it's not there create it and its corresponding folders too.

Then in you profileblock.php which you are altering you would replace get_string('mycourses') with get_string('mysubjects') and that will work just as well, however the added advantage of this last method is that the customised string can be translated into any other other language by adding the theme_aardvark.php file to any language folder should you need to have that string phrase translated. If you have the time, or the inclination, you can customise your menu link titles in the same way too.

I know, I know...this is beyond you! But if you never try it yourself you will never learn...now get on with it!



Mary

There is only one css file in Aardvark Pro 1.5 (Aquarium) it's called aardvark.css
In you will find a section header Core: YUI Menu

This highlighted element is one you need to change which styles background-color
.yuimenu a {
text-decoration: none;
background-color: #dceff3;
font-size : 0.9em;
}

The next 3 highlighted elements add the border around the drop-down menus the colors of which you can change too if need be.

a.yuimenuitemlabel /* Sub item link */ {
padding: 4px 24px;
border-bottom:1px solid #a0d1db;
border-left:1px solid #a0d1db;
border-right:1px solid #a0d1db;
}


This colour too can be changed but NOT the image so be carfull what you do here.

.yuimenuitem-hassubmenu /* Add right arrow to sub item */ {
background: #dceff3 url(images/menu/menuitem_submenuindicator_selected.png) right center no-repeat;
}


Hope this answers your question?

Mary

Hi Katerina,

There is a big problem with IE6 not just for this theme, but many others websites globally, and not just Moodle either. IE6 has security issues which are well documented. However we are aware that some companies have no alternative but to run IE6 because of their business software. But this should not stop them installing a different browser like Firefox which works well with Moodle and the preferred browser. IE6 and Firefox can work on the same machine.

But with regards this theme's menu, that won't work in IE6 because of it's design, and because of the issues connected with IE6 which are historical.

There are themes which will work in IE6, but it's doubtable if you could get a horizontal, dropdown menu to work in IE6 as efficiently as this menu does in Firefox.

The colour issue is because IE6 doesn't recognise PNG format and most of the images, background, menu & sideblock are all PNG format, and so it renders the depth of colour differently. But these can be changed to GIF or JPG format so that isn't an issue. But the menu is.

Have you tried using the Standard theme in IE6? Have you tired any other themes with menus?

It is a problem that isn't easy to get round, and many designers have abandoned IE6 as it is not in their interest to redesign for it.

Mary

You are at liberty to do whatever you want to a theme.

Does the menu work?

You will first need to delete Aardvark 1.5 from your theme's folder and then follow the instructions which you will find here Themes FAQ and read 1.1 How to install a theme using CPanel.

Hope this helps?

Mary

Hello Paullo,

You would normally add the Logo image in the header.html, however, the logo image in this theme is added in the css.

If your logo is the same dimensions as the one in the theme, all you would have to do is using a Text Editor like Notepad, delete this line in aardvark.css file.

#logo {
background: url(images/header/logo.png) no-repeat left top;
width: 100%;
height: 100px;
float: left;
left: 0px;
}

And then using a Text Editor or Notepad again, add the line, which is highlighted below, to your header.html file, making sure you do not disturb the other code already there, which I have shown in a light grey.

<div id="logo">

<a href="http://your-company-portal-URL-goes-here" title="Company Portal" ><img scr="<?php echo $CFG->themewww .'/'. current_theme() ?>/images/header/logo.jpg" height="???" width="???" /></a>

<div id="profileblock">
<?php
{
include('profileblock.php');?>
}
</div>
</div>

(Add the height and width values in place of ??? )

You may also find Themes FAQ and CSS FAQ useful Moodle Docs too.

Mary

Donald, you might like to try using this profileblock.php inplace of your current one that has flaws in the code.

I hope the link works, if not just scroll down the page to Paolo's comment (below) in responce to the one I had made where I uploaded the file originally.

Mary

Very nice theme.

In my moodle i have this problem

undefined property: object::$lastname in C:\wamp\www\moodle\theme\aardvark_pro\profileblock.php on line 4.

I use this code if (!isloggedin() or isguestuser()) {...................

}

and i have the same error

Can someone help me on this!

Thanks

I'm in the process of doing just this. If you want a copy to take for a test drive I'll upload a copy to my site with a link from here. Just let me know will you?

It's in it's rough stages, as not all areas have been looked at yet, but it does look the same, although I'm having problems with the menu, and the user picture, but I think I've got that sorted.  To get over the menu problem I have added the menu from a previous version of Aardvark, which is CSS based, but works in all modern browsers.

Cheers

Mary

The Aardvark menu allows anyone to see the menu items without being logged in. However, if you want standard webpages linked to the menu but also have these pages share the theme's stylesheet, you can do this but would require someone to maintain them manually.   You could link Moodle with a CMS like Joomla, or Drupal and achieve what you are asking, it just needs a nice theme to work with.

Aardvark lends itself to change and I am sure if you ask Shaun he would design a theme for you which does what you want.

Mary

The hover colour is actually an image...... controlled through aardvark.css file.

2 options

1. Look in theme folder > images > menu - look for a file "hovergrad.jpg". You will need to change this file, probably easiest to leave the same name, size dimensions etc or
2. Create your own image with colour as needed, then open the aardvark.css file and search for 'hovergrad.jpg' and rename this to whatever file name you created.

Probably number 1 is best option......

Good luck

 

Hi Nathan,

Looks pretty good. Have you tried customising it for Moodle 2.0.

Now there's a challenge!

I learnt CSS while using IE6 and was not aware of it's strange behaviour until I started to use Firefox.  LOL

I would love to know how to get pages to print in IE7...am having a prob with a theme, which strangely enough is built on standard theme. But why it wont print is beyond me.

Any thoughts?  Any hacks?

Cheers

Mary

Hi,

If you have added the image to your images folder, and changed the name of fins.png to the name of that image, then it should work.

What exactly have you done. What changes have you made to the CSS. Perhaps it is just a small error, which is stopping the CSS being read properly by the browser.

Mary

This is a great theme, thanks! I"m wondering about the menu creation... Do I need to manually go into the code to set the links in the menus, or is there some way to have these links generated automatically? I saw some references to some JS regarding the menu links, but can't track down the specifics.

My current process is to get the link from a course list, then copy and paste that link into the menu.php file, which is all well and good, but if theres an automatic way of updating these links that would be awesome too.

I'm currently implementing the theme and have been searching through this forum without finding the specifics on this...I apologize if the answer is already in here somewhere.

 

Thanks!

This is a CSS issue which can be fixed easily enough. Use Firefox and Firebug to pinpoint the problem areas so that you can add some new CSS to your css file in this theme's folder.

If you get stuck let me know and I'll try and fix the problem for you.

Cheers

Mary

I had a similar issue while putting the site together, and I would guess it is related to a file path not being correct, or a file not being found (could also be realted to file permissions). I used the Firebug plugin with Firefox, select the HTML tab, then went throuht he document head to find the missing file.

Hope that helps...if you include a link we can look at the site from our setups to see if the problem is consistent as well.

In moodle 1.9 this is usually caused by broken code, whitespaces in config.php, partly unfinished upgrading.

That's all I know about it as I have had the same problems in Moodle 2.0 but that was caused by a CSS issue.

Try enabeling debugging Site Administration>Server>Debugging Set the top box to Developer mode and have error messages sent to header.html. Any errors will show up at the top of the page usually. But there are other setting in that page you may like to try.

If you find something major then copy the Error message and paste it into Notepad and save it as a txt file then upload it to a comment here and we will try to help solve the problem.

Thanks

Mary

Hi Ciaran,

A link to the site is alwasy useful in diagnosing the problem. Of course I can't guatantee a fix for the problem, but might be able to find a work around.

Cheers

Mary

Hi Catherine,

It is possible for Moodle to detect browser version and change theme accordingly, or at least I think it would be possible. It's the HOW bit I am not sure of.

It might be better if you start a new discussion thread in this forum, then those who have more experience could answer you better.

Your Question could be something like...

Can Moodle detect IE6 and redirect user to appropriate theme?

Then in the body of the comment you can add your full question much the same as you have added here.

Hope this helps?

Mary

Hi Mike,

I'm not too sure about how YUI works but there are lots of examples and help HERE which you should find useful.

You will find all the YUI scripts (js & styles) used by Moodle themes in Moodle core @path  moodle/lib/yui/

Hope this helps?

Mary

 

Aardvark 1.5 uses a fixed font size of 14px which you will find in the body tag in aardvark.css file. If you change this to 100% then I think your users will be able to resize their work which they submit using the Text Editor.

If this does not solve the problem, please let me know.

Thanks

Mary