Moodle 2 - adding a new Resource Folder?

Moodle 2 - adding a new Resource Folder?

by Duncan Walker -
Number of replies: 2

I've just upgraded to Moodle version 2. We've been on 1.8 for a long time now, but it seemed practical to move to version 2 what with 1.8 not being supported anymore and we had the odd bug that we often had to work around, so I assumed version 2 would have ironed those out by now.

The way I see Moodle is as a learning tool that is made up of well defined areas which contain relevant information or content to aid in the education of the student.

I was more than happy with the issue in 1.8 of relating content to each course by uploading it to the course that needed it. Granted this did not always work in a practical sense, if you had a piece of content that you wanted to use across more than one course. But it was an acceptable issue that we could work round.

I now come to try and update some of the courses our staff have worked hard on, only to find that adding a single file has become more complicated than ever. It's been hard enough coaching staff on how to add a single file, now they have to start all over again with their understanding?

To add to the conffusion, and I'll pose a question, why can't I add a 'folder' as I could before? Before I could add a 'folder view' and see the contents of a folder which may contain 20 or 30 files. The people in the know out there may say, that's not an available option anymore. My reply would be,

1. why not, as it was very handy and a practical option

2. if it's not available, why is it there as an option when adding resources in edit mode? I get the same dialogs as you would when you want to add a single file. It makes no sense!

Please could someone explain this to me, as I now have the stressful task of explaining to all my staff that the way they'd got use to adding content has totally changed and at first glance makes no sense at all.

I really wish I'd not upgraded at the moment and stuck with the old 1.8 version. If there is one thing I would have thought needed simplicity and rock solid common sense, it would be the ability to add content to a system that basically is useless without it.

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In reply to Duncan Walker

Re: Moodle 2 - adding a new Resource Folder?

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

You can still add a folder. Have you tried it?

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Moodle 2 - adding a new Resource Folder?

by Duncan Walker -

Hi Tim,

Yes, after a calmer period and a lengthy discussion with a work colleague I've realised that it's not adding a 'folder view' as it was in 1.8, but actually adding a physical folder to the task area, which you then populate later with content.

I think my misconception seems to be that you could still upload files and create folders prior to setting up the links and structure on the actual course page. But this is not the case anymore, it seems that you have to load the files or create the folders as you're creating the course content.

I can see the bonus side of this, which helps prevent people simply dumping files in to a folder and leaving them there unused taking up space on the server etc ... But it's still a bit of a jump from one way of working to another.

I think the right path was taken in development, but there is very little in the way of signposts to guide you on your way down this new path. I hope that at some stage the process will be a little bit more intuitive.

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