Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by Julian Ridden -
Number of replies: 8

Evening all.

While I have attempted to update other posts with this information where issues have been reported, I am eager to ensure this update gets out and so am therefore making a new post.

Last year a fantastic course format called "Grid Format" was written by Paul Krix and released online. While working, the code was full of bugs and issues and Paul was unable to support it. So towards the end of last year I was made maintainer.

Those who have installed previous itterations will know just how buggy the format was. It was called a "beta" release for very good reason. And sadly I did not have time other than to make some quick small patches.

The good news is that over the Christmas break myself and the Pukunui team had a good chance to give the code a good overhaul and bring it up to scratch. And due to this I am happy to announce that the code is now in Release Candidate phase.

What does this mean. Well the following is now true:

  • The code now meets Moodle coding standards
  • With developer debugging enabled it generates NO errors
  • It now caches properly and thus performance has been slightly increased
  • Depreciated calls have all been updated
  • All features work as they should.
  • Russian translation added

So, if you have installed Grid on your 2.x site I would encourage you to download the latest version from the Modules and Plugins database or directly from Github ( https://github.com/PukunuiAustralia/moodle-courseformat_grid ) ASAP and upgrade your site.

Remember, if you do have issues to report, please post an issue in the tracker and/or a forum post. I would ask you respond to this thread with new issues if you can to better allow me to track them if you can't use the tracker.

Lastly, I would like to encourage those who can to assist with translations. I have received emails regarding German, French, Spanish and Chinese translations being requested. As I speak none of these languages help from the community would be appreciated.

Thankyou again for your patience. I'm looking forward to continually working and improving this format moving forward.

Regards

Julian (moodleman) Ridden

Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Dear Julian,

I wish Moodle forums had a 'like' button as this format uses database interaction in a course format which I believe is the first instance I have seen.  This will help me to develop my formats further.  I think that I read or heard somewhere that Martin D said he hoped that the ability to add custom formats would lead to lots of imaginative ideas but this had not happened.  Perhaps now with the snowball effect things are now starting to change.

With the translation issue, I have used Google translate in the first instance by converting from English to the target language and back again to see if it made sence, then tinkering with the wording.  This then sparked native speakers to correct them for me smile - for which I am grateful.

Cheers,

Gareth

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by Gideon Williams -

This excellent news Julian and thanks for your (and many others no doubt) hard work. We have contacted our support company to get the layout installed and really look forward to putting in place what is, for our younger students (and less confident staff), a super format.

Cheers

big grin (my "Like" button)

Gideon

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by Carlos Sánchez Martín -

Dear Julian

I have a couple of questions, I guess they are easy to answer...

1. When you use the grid view, do all the topics "blend" into one at the bottom of the page or they disappear until you click on one of the boxes?

2. Is there an easy way to select how many columns do you want to show in your grid?

Thank you,
Carlos

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In reply to Carlos Sánchez Martín

Re: Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by Carlos Sánchez Martín -

My own answers:

The problem with all topics merged together at the bottom was caused by a JS that I had running in all pages... removing it fixed the problem. 

The number of columns displayed, was easy to fix, just by changing the styles.css:

.course-content #iconContainer {
width: 100%;

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by paul krix -

Great to hear, so grateful that the format has been taken up by such a exceptional team.

I've just started taking a course which uses the format, it's kind of a surreal experience.

Cheers

Paul Krix

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to paul krix

Re: Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by Julian Ridden -

Hi Paul,

We wouldn't be here with such a cool theme if you had not wirtten and released it to start off with. My hat is off to you my friend smile

Julian

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by Carlos Sánchez Martín -

The Grid Format errors:

This is a new instalation of Moodle 2.2.1+ (Build: 20120119), with the default theme, on a Windows Server 2008r2, MS SQL Server 2008r2 and IIS7.

This error happens when we attempt to create a new course that uses the Grid View:

Error when creating course with Grid View

This error happens when we attempt to change from other course format to the grid view:

Error when switching to Grid View

Any light on this would be appreciated. 

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In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Grid Format significantly updated and moved to Release Candidate phase

by Joseph Rafter -

Downloaded the latest version of Grid on 1/30/12 from github.

Running Moodle 2.2.1+ (Build: 20120127)

I am using the Anomaly theme, although problems also appeared when tested with the standard theme.

The topics are listing instead of appearing as a grid:

 

listing topics

 

Also, when I open a topic/grid in the list, the floating window is transparent.

 

transparent window

 

Lastly, I am still unable to add images to my grids.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Joe

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