Hi,
Since I updated Collapsed Topics to have structures which incorportates Collapsed Weeks, I have decided to discontinue the format in terms of devlopment of new features. However, there will be a 2.3 release version and I will continue to perform bug fixing.
To this end, there are new versions for Moodle 1.9 through to 2.2 on http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=format_weekcoll.
Cheers,
Gareth
Hi Gareth
It's kinda like saying goodbye to a good friend who has served you well all this time. Many thanks for the various course formats, among which, Collapsed Weeks is my all-time favourite course format. Till this day, just opening and closing those vertical tabs, gives me a joy. It lives on of course, in the incarnation of the Collapsed Topics. If not for your course formats and their varied functionality, Moolders like me would have been the victims of the Scroll Of Death long time ago. Thank you for all your dedication, and hard work in improving and perfecting the course formats.
Best regards
Frankie Kam
I understand your decision, Gareth. Continued maintenance will be great, especially since these add-in are already feature-rich.
I just updated to your latest code yesterday, and Collapsed Topics looks great!!! Everything that one could want.
I am still not quite sure how great add-ins are eventually integrated into "core". If it involves a "tracker" item, and voting, I am sure that your add-ins will get many, many votes.
Thank you Gentlemen for your kind words .
A the time of writing I realised that I was spending quite a bit of time repeating the same code in two different formats. I'm glad that I did make the transition as it has enabled me to concentrate on keeping Collapsed Topics (CT) in line with the improvements Marina Glancy has made in core.
Pragmatically I would like to see CT in core, however, perhaps on the flip side it is working well as an add-on for users to choose if it fits to their demographic. Martin D makes a good argument on https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=218947 - and I'm inclined to agree with him as it allows Moodle HQ to concentrate on the pureness and qualiry of core.
CT has come a long way since 2009 and it is thanks to all that have used and provided feedback that it has grown. At it's heart it is simply a way of collapsing sections to reduce scrolling and information overload. I found whilst teaching that I needed to make available all of the units of a course in one place and yet not all of it was needed by all students at the same time. As each student worked at their own pace they could choose what they looked at without worrying about what they did not need at any given moment in time.
I'm not sure where it will go next in terms of functionality. But I am aware of keeping it simple and easy to understand. The future lies with making it 2.5 compatible and supporting mobile themes more.
Thanks,
Gareth
Gareth, in general, I would say that I agree. However, the situation with "core" is that somewhere along the way, maybe with 2.4 or so, the "core" ability to collapse sections was removed! It was fortunate for me to find your CT, which not only gave me back the ability to "hide" sections, but of course, improved upon it. So I really think that some kind of "core" system should be included in Moodle to allow the user to compress sections.
If Martin believes that add-ins are the way to go, then maybe a programmer can be assigned to maintaining those add-ins that are "Moodle Certified" so that that users know that certain features will be available in the future.
Everything that I am saying is just a suggestion. I am very pleased with Moodle and your own dedication to these great add-ins.