Re: How to hide invisible assignments in gradebook?
Go to the gradebook and click the Settings tab. Look under User report for "Show hidden items". In theory, if you choose "All hidden", the item and grade should not be seen in the user report. However, that doesn't seem to be working in MOODLE 1.9. I have reported that. The "all hidden" setting does seem to do what you want in MOODLE 2.0.
NOTE: There is a difference between hiding an activity on the page and hiding it in the gradebook
I hope this helps.
Edwinna is correct. Assignments used to be automatically hidden in the gradebook, but since many users often want the full grade picture visible to students there, but perhaps not on the course page where it would be visual clutter, the "hide" function is now something you must do twice if you don't want hidden assignments showing up anywhere.
For my students, I individually hide the items in the gradebook categories and items listing, too, in addition to hiding them on the main course page. I still see these items when I look at their user reports, but they do not.
Hope that helps!
In MOODLE 1.9, my students do see the hidden assignments in their gradebook even though I have specified that they should be all hidden. I think that's a bug that seems to be fixed in MOODLE 2.
I think so, too. That is why I click the eye icon next to each individual assignment in my gradebook categories and items section. So far, it seems to work, but it is a bit of a chore to hide each one individually in the gradebook AND on the course page if I have a whole section of assignments that needs to be hidden. It's been a while since I looked at that function in Moodle 2, but I think you are right that we will be able to return to more global control of entire sections when we upgrade.