Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Dan Leighton -
Number of replies: 41

Hi All

<frustrated rant begins>

I have a long course.  36 topics. I also have several hundred students between the ages of 11 and 16 who use Moodle 1.9 every day for all their coursework.  They range from lowest to highest ability for their age range.

I would love to move to 2.0 as there are some very enticing features. However, the usability and navigation system is, as far as I can make out, an unmitigated disaster for anyone who is not a university level student (and even then...)

I understand I have to individually go through and change all the Section Headings in 2.0 so that my Topics appear with the correct name in the navigation system. I will have to manually fix this for our hundreds of other courses...but there we go - someone decided that would be a good plan instead of just using the Heading at the top...who am I to argue.

What I cannot figure out is how my students are supposed to use the navigation system to show only the topics they are working on.

For instance, they want to see Topic 3 called "File Extensions", intuitively, they click on the link in the navigation bar called "File extensions" and everything else should disappear and Topic 3 and it's summary should appear.

Instead, they click on the Topic link and only a list of activities and resources appear.  How are they supposed to get to the summary which has all the key information they need without using the Jump To button (which has always been a bizarre way of navigating that they hate)? Why not simply have the whole topic appear when you click on the Topic link? As it always has done if you use the old 1.9 Course Menu Block?

Aaagh! Someone tell me there is a simple setting I have missed.

</frustrated rant ends>

 

sigh

 

help please...

 

d.

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In reply to Dan Leighton

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Hi Dan,

I do sympathise about the topics format, it can be improved a lot (and I saw some good work being done on it recently that I'd like to get into 2.1), but I don't quite understand the particular problem you're describing ...

When "zoomed" into one topic, you should see the whole topic as well as the "topic 0" at the top.  eg http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5&topic=2

Perhaps an annotated screenshot would help.

Cheers,

Martin

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Clarence Prudhoe -

Hi Martin,

I think I understand what Dan is concerned about.  I have the same issues.  This is where the Navigation block could be improved:

  • When I use a Topic section, I name the section and write a description of the topic and add instructions at the top of each topic section.  Then I add activities and resources as needed.
  • You can scroll down to each topic heading, read the description, and instructions, and click on an activity link.
  • Or you can use the Navigation Block and access the activities from there.
  • The topic heading is listed in the navigation block, but it is not a link to the section.  It only opens the menu so you can see the activities included in the topic section.
  • When you click on an activity link  in the Navigation Block, it opens directly to the activity and it does not show the topic description or instructions.
  • It would be a big improvement if the topic heading could appear in the Navigation block as a link to the topic section and zoom to the section when you click the topic heading.
  • To solve this deficiency, I create buttons in section zero that link to the sections and zoom into them.  When you click a section button, it will hide all of the sections except the one I want to show.
  • Each section is addressable so it should be an easy thing to make the topic heading a live link to the section in the Navigation Block .

Thanks for developing such a great product and making it available as Open Source. 

Clarence Prudhoe

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In reply to Clarence Prudhoe

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Dan Leighton -
You got it exactly right Clarence. That is exactly the problem. I will get some screenshots up tomorrow to illustrate. Thanks for the input guys. D.
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Dan Leighton

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators

I agree that it makes sense to get the topics title as link to see the whole topic. But I don't think its a nightmare.

This is only a workaround: The navigation block is a new feature in 2.0. If you like the 1.9. behaviour, deactivate the block on system or course level and all works like in 1.9.

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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Elena Ivanova -

Hi Ralf,

When you say "deactivate" what are the steps you would take to do that ? Hide?

If you remove the block, then how one would access Navigation > Course > Reports, or Navigation >  Quiz > Results > Statistics?
I would vote for not doing it that way - but those pages are now part of the Navigation block, and there is no way to access them without the block.
Am I missing something? smile

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In reply to Elena Ivanova

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators

Hello Elena,

I tried a little bit more with the block settings. The settings show course structure has no effect. I made a bug entry: MDL-26477

I can understand your answer. Its a bug. May be that you add something to the bug entry.

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In reply to Dan Leighton

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Derek Chirnside -

Don't forget the screenshots Dan

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Dan Leighton -
I will do! Just on holiday skiing this week. Will do it when I return.
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In reply to Clarence Prudhoe

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Hartmut Scherer -

In the meantime the upgraded course menu block for Moodle 2.0.x may be helpful.

With kind regards,

Hartmut

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In reply to Hartmut Scherer

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Dan Leighton -

Hey Hartmut

Great news. The Course Menu block is one of the THE most useful blocks for us.  I will get it installed asap.

Does it still pick up the headers of the section or do I still have to manually got through and rename them all?

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In reply to Dan Leighton

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Hartmut Scherer -

Hi Dan,

If you gave a section a new title, the course menu block will pick and show this title automatically.

With kind regards,

Hartmut

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In reply to Hartmut Scherer

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Dan Leighton -

Yes...that's what I was worried about.

The course menu used to pick up the first line of the section and use that as the title...which was perfect...

Now I have to go and individually put in section titles for thousands and thousands of sections...!!

Not at all funny.

Could course menu perhaps have an option that allows you to ask it to pick up the first line as a title as in the previous version?

Many thanks

d.

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In reply to Dan Leighton

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Alex Contis -

Hello Dan,

"Could course menu perhaps have an option that allows you to ask it to pick up the first line as a title as in the previous version?"

My answer is yes. Write down the specification, send a few screenshots and we can include it in the next release of Course Menu for Moodle 2.0.

Sincerely

Alex Contis
NetSapiensis AB

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Elena Ivanova -

My issue with the Navigation block is that it has inverse logic in regards of Generate navigation for the following:

I believe that instructors/students do not really need to jump between courses, instead they need to be able to navigate from one activity to another in the same course, without going back to the course homepage.

If I set the block to show Everything, then my users will be able to navigate from one page/activity to the next. Great smile
But, at the same time, they end up with a huge list of unnecessary courses in the block, which clutters the interface. 
So, if your course happens to be last one on the list 20+, then in order to use the navigation block, you will have to scroll down on the page every single time you want to jump to another activity.
Have I missed something again? Anyone knows how to avoid the list of courses?

If I set to to show  Categories and courses, then the block becomes pretty useless. Yes, I do see  my courses to go to, but users can add Courses/My Courses block to achieve the same.

Therefore, it would be nice to develop a new new setting for Generate navigation for the following: "Course Activities only", or "Everything on the course Level"

Then the block would stop displaying list of courses altogether when you are inside some course.

p.s. And yes, I would vote for putting Quiz navigation back to tabs format, because those are so easily missed. sad Other activities have both Tabs and links in the Navigation block, so it would be nice to have it consistent, and "right into the face" of the user smile

What people think?

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In reply to Elena Ivanova

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Clarence Prudhoe -

Hi Elena,

I guess I don't follow your logic.  I have my site set to un-check "show all courses" and "show course categories".   And I set the Navigation Block to show "Everything".

When I log in as a student, I can only see "My Courses" and it shows the student all of the resources and activities contained in the courses he is enrolled in.  Students may be enrolled in more than one course so they do need a way to navigate between courses.  In "My Courses" no other courses are listed so there should not be a long list of courses showing when you use the "Everything" setting.  I think the student can do everything you are suggesting that he he should be able to do.

What am I missing?  What should the Navigation Block do that it doesn't do now except ZOOM to the topic section when you click on a topic heading?

Clarence

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In reply to Clarence Prudhoe

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Elena Ivanova -

Hi Clarence,

Yes, Navigation block works OK, if you have only  2-3 courses you are enrolled in.

If you have 20+ courses, and you are in the course that is listed at the bottom of the block, you will have  to scroll like crazy to access the next resource.

We already have a separate "Courses" block, which converts into "My courses" block when you are logged in, and  allows one to jump from course to course. Thus, I would use that one instead to allow students to jump from course to course.

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In reply to Elena Ivanova

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Steve Slisar -

Elena, Did you find a solution to this?

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In reply to Steve Slisar

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Elena Ivanova -

No, I was just trying to bring the point across big grin

In short my suggestion for 2.0 Navigation stays the same:

- Remove list of courses from the Navigation menu. It clutters the view and forces you to scroll down a lot, when you try to go from one activity to another.

- Essential for the activity items need to be added  back (or duplicated)  right on the activity interface.
E.g. try finding  Reports for  your quiz -  they hang down somewhere at the bottom, hidden from the user view.

Attachment scroll.png
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Steve Slisar

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Elena Ivanova -

And the same navigational challenge occurs when you have bunch of Topics or  Resources/Activities in one course.

Overall, if there are more than 5 activities/resources on top of some activity in the  given Topic, then its navigation tend  to go off the visible area on the screen.  And 5 is a rather small number. sad

Probably Navigation can be made relevant to the page content?
E.g. If you are in the quiz, then Navigation bock could show only quiz-related navigation. (Of course, this will depend on the institution needs smile)

Attachment scroll4.png
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Elena Ivanova

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Derek Chirnside -

Elena,you say

"I believe that instructors/students do not really need to jump between courses, instead they need to be able to navigate from one activity to another in the same course, without going back to the course homepage"

I agree: what I am working towards is this: Inside ONE course ONE menu to navigate between sections.

I was sure I had posted this video somewhere, but I cannot find it.

Two items are needed:

  1. Menu Block
  2. Single section Format.

Neither require hacks.  The items in the menu block take their names from the section titles.  Anyone who has watched a new user try to cope with the standard navigation menu with a course with a decent number of items in the sections will know what I mean.

The good news is that one big institution has said the would code this for 2.  But unsure exactly when.

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Derek Chirnside -

Elina,just checking in.

Lei Zhang has finished his modules.

The code repository for single section and course menu block. There is a download button on the right top corner of each page for downloading.

https://github.com/leizhang/moodle-course-format_sections

-Derek
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Steve Slisar -

From someone who is not particularly technical.... what do we do with that Download when we have it on our computer? Sorry, probably very basic question for most.....

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In reply to Steve Slisar

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Derek Chirnside -

I cannot remember the exact folder names

Copy the format into a folder I think is format

Copy the block into a folder named blocks

The system then finds them nd offers them as options in the Admin > Settings > format and tge Add blocks dropdown

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Dan Leighton -

Hi All

Back from holidays now.

Please try the following video which should explain things a little.  I would try embedding it...but we have had bad luck with that recently!

navigationissues

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In reply to Dan Leighton

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Dan Leighton -

Oh.  Incidentally, at 2.35 of the video I linked to, it says "Where has the navigation bar gone?", we resolved that.

In the last section of that course, someone had embedded an iframe in a strange place.  It forced the nav bar off the screen and hid half the section.  We resolved it by going into the MySQL DB and hacking out the iframe!  Only way to resolve it in the end...

If anyone knows why the iframe would force the Navigation off the page, do let me know!

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In reply to Dan Leighton

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares...

by Steve Slisar -

Fantastic video to show the problem that we too are having.

We put a nice simple How it Works link on our website:

http://www.myobcourse.com.au/training/page_how_it_works_7_navigate_myob_training_course_videos.html

But it appears that Moodle 2.0 doesn't support this and I can see from several other comments that this is a sorely required feature.

Please let me know if someone comes up with a solution.

Steve

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In reply to Dan Leighton

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Matt Bower -

Hi. I've just started using Moodle 2.0 and have noticed a pretty bad bug - when I try to use the jump-to dropdown menu navigation system it repeats the same dates (ie not incrementing counter somewhere). See the picture below.

junp to error

Is this a known bug and is there a fix? Please advise urgently as I go live with this unit this afternoon.

Best wishes and thanks,

Matt

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In reply to Matt Bower

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Matt "... the jump-to dropdown menu navigation system... "

What's that? Where is it? What is is supposed to do? More screenshots would help.

Joseph

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In reply to Matt Bower

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Elena Ivanova -

Matt, what is your exact moodle version?

I have looked at and  2.0.1+ (Build: 20110125) and  2.0.2 (Build: 20110221), and those are OK.

@Joseph, this menu appears at the bottom of the course homepage, if you view one topic at a time (collapse your view) smile

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In reply to Elena Ivanova

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi Elena,

Thanks for your explanation. Since Matt did not mention he was using the weekly format (which I never ever use), and did not mention he had collapsed the topics view (which I never ever do), I was totally lost!

Anyway, I set a course to Weekly format and collapsed the topics and everything looks fine in my dropdown list, using Moodle 2.0.2+ (Build: 20110223).

Joseph

Attachment 24-02-2011 18-17-07.jpg
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In reply to Matt Bower

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Derek Chirnside -

@Matt, if I don't hear back anything soon to say this still is an issue, I will test this out on our server.

There is another little video (2min) from http://learn.canterbury.ac.nz/ which shows another way of navigation with the section Nav menu block I like in 1.9.  What interests me is that you can describe the navigation to a student totally completely in two screen shots and two sentences in less than 25 seconds.  Unambiguously.  Try doing that with 1.9 or 2+.  cool

As I said elsewhere, Lei has redone this nav for 2+, available of Github.

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

I've just tested this out - on  the QA Moodle there are no problems -on my own Moodle (20101225 mind you, so old) it worked fine in a course I had made myself but in one that I have just restored from another Moodle I got the same bizarre error as you - so I think it is something worth investigating, at least.

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Matt Bower -

Hi. Sorry for the late response - embarressingly I couldn't see where I could determine my Moodle version in Moodle 2.0 (any hints appreciated).

I've worked out that the date is not incremented for hidden weeks - if you unhide a particular week it becomes available, so somewhere in the code someone has forgotten to increment the dropdown dates for hidden weeks.

Let me know how you go.

MB

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In reply to Matt Bower

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Helen Foster -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi Matt,

Please see Moodle version for how to determine your Moodle version.

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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Derek Chirnside -

Is there a way to find the version if you are NOT a system administrator ie just a user?

I tried view source.  smile

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In reply to Matt Bower

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Debra Dotson -

I'm having the same problem with the Jump to menu as Matt (Moodle version 2.0.2+ (Build: 20110223)). I have a ten-week course using the weekly format, dates ranging from 22 February through 2 May. I have week 1 (22 Feb - 28 Feb) hidden as well as week 3 (8 Mar - 14 Mar), week 4 (15 Mar - 21 Mar), and week 5 (22 Mar - 28 Mar). When I show only week 2, the Jump to menu looks like this:

Jump1

When I then select the first 1March - 7 March, it will jump to week 3 (8 March - 14 March) of the course and the Jump to menu will look like this:

Jump2

Also note that the Jump to menu only shows nine weeks instead of ten.

Debra

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In reply to Debra Dotson

Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Debra Dotson -

Oops! blush It makes sense that it would only show nine weeks instead of ten (you don't need to "jump to" the week you're already showing). It's just confusing to see the week that is already displayed on the course page appearing in the Jump to menu (in this case 1 March - 7 March).

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In reply to Debra Dotson

Svar: Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Flosi Kristjánsson -

If the user has set AJAX and Javascript to No: use basic web features, there may be some unfortunate consequences. One of my colleagues in Reykjavik ran into this same problem. It appears that on updating to Moodle 2, dated February 23 2011, the setting for AJAX got stuck in a disabled state.

You should enable AJAX sitewide in order to be able to change this for the user. Administration > Appearance > AJAX and Javascript. Choose Enable AJAX (the first setting) and Enable AJAX course editing. Then the user in question will be able to change their personal profile setting AJAX and Javascript to Yes: use advanced web features.

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In reply to Flosi Kristjánsson

Re: Svar: Re: Moodle 2.0 Navigation Nightmares... Jump to bug

by Debra Dotson -

Thanks, Flosi, for the response. Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be the problem in this case. AJAX was already enabled and set to Yes by the user.

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