Moodle in English: Drag & Drop into Folders

General help

Moodle is cool. However when a course gets too long, and the dreaded scrollies arrive, I'd like to add folders and drag into them related items in a topic.

Moodle folders seem to be designed to work with content that has not yet been uploaded: (i) make the folder, (ii) upload content into it.

However, if I add a folder and then hunt around for the files to put into it, it's nigh on impossible from the file picker to find that content to move it in. The file picker shows recent items or items of a certain type, but the presentation is nothing like the logical file order as presented by the teacher on the front of the course page.

It would be great to have the facility to be able to drag and drop resources and activities directly into new folders. - Has some clever programmer written such a tool into a Moodle module? ...Am I missing something?

François.

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Not quite sure I understood you right the first time around. I think you are saying you want to move files that you have already uploaded into new folders to display on your course? Moodle's file picker doesn't work like that - you can make a new empty folder and then select the files from recent or server files to add to it. With Ajax turned on on your course page you can drag and drop individual items up and down and standard in Moodle 2.3 coming out in June will be the ability you can drag and drop right from your desktop into your course. Alternatively there is a drag and drop upload block that you can add as a contributed module that also does a similar job.http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=block_dndupload (So I hope that has covered as much as I think you might have meant)

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Hello Mary. Thanks for the tips.

To explain myself better: users I think would like to be able to:

1. use the 'Add a resource' dropdown menu inside a topic area on a coursepage to instantiate a folder inside that topic area (e.g. the new one called 'Class Handouts' in the picture below);

2. drag and drop files, pages and/or labels etc. that are already showing inside the topic area, into the folder produced in 1. above. Viz:

Missing Moodle 2.0+ Folder Function

Depending on the age of the upload of the file (link) being moved, the file picker may not show those 'recent' (sic) or server files, for them to be re-located inside the new folder.

This is not about dragging and droppping files from local computer (desktop) to Moodle, but about being able to organise a growing collection of items into folders, after they have been uploaded to Moodle.

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Hi Francois,

I don't think it is possible to drag and drop activities and resources from the main class page into a folder at the moment. The block "Sharing Cart" only allows to copy individual acitivities and resources, but not folders. This may come in a later release.

Two things you may consider in order to avoid the "Scroll of Death."

a) You can use a different course format. I recommend using collapsed topics/weeks with current topic/week at the top.

b) Either with Moodle 2.3 or 2.4, the page or section format will be released, which will allow us to add subpages. Then, we can move resources to these subpages.

With kind regards,

Hartmut

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Thank you Hartmut.

The drag-into-folder feature described is an obvious and highly-practical one for any CMS offering folders.

I have suggested it be incorporated into Moodle core in the 'suggested features' section.

Fingers crossed.

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OK it's whinge time ...

Out comes Moodle 2.3 and it's great: drag and drop blocks, new ways of presenting topics etc., but folders ...

As a course grows, resource items accumulate, and as a natural progression, teachers would want to pop those items in a new folder to avoid the scroll of death.

Folders in Moodle however, seem to have been implemented only to work properly when the resource items appear after that folder has been instantiated. You make your folder and then you upload your files into it. Er, -no.

Why, oh why, oh why is it not possible to drag and drop resource items into a newly-made folder? Gosh, if I could programme this I would.

At the moment, there is the file picker, but this currently does two counterintuitive things:

1. it presents resources in a separate window from the course page, ordered by course category and course (yes); but then all logic seems to be abandoned. Resource items in the file picker are not presented by topic (or week), and they seem to be in upload-date rather than alphabetical order. - How are users supposed to find items in larger courses from the file picker?

2. Every resource item in the file picker has been put into a separate folder. - Why do users need to see that?

At the moment, the only work-around I can think of is: (i) to download all the resource files to go into the new folder; (ii) drag the downloaded files into a desktop folder; (iii) zip the desktop folder; (iv) delete the original resource files from the course page; (v) drag and drop the zipped folder into the course. This 'quick method' is described here:

http://docs.moodle.org/23/en/Folder_module_settings

...I have tried it but all it does is make a duplicate copy of the zipped file on my desktop.

Please, please, pretty please mighty developers: may we have a drag-and-drop facility to be able to pop pre-existing resources into newly-made folders?

François.

Praying

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Yes, yes, yes, I'm with Francois. Please make it a priority to allow this function. I would use it immediately in courses we're building.

Scott

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I am so with Francois as well. As a new designer as I tried different formatting I find it incredulous that it really isn't an option. Uggg! If possible it would be great if this could be part of the next update.

Thank you!

Kristine

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I agree! I am a new Moodler and would love for the above buttons to be available within the folders so that activities/forums/documents, etc. appear within the folder. This gives the user the appearance of opening a folder and finishing the tasks so that when they leave the folder they are done with this folder and will move on to the next. It is more confusing, especially to new online learners to go elsewhere for an activity.

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You might like this add-on: https://github.com/moodleou/moodle-mod_subpage

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François.

2. Every resource item in the file picker has been put into a separate folder. - Why do users need to see that? I've wondered about this, and posted this question way back, but never really got an answer.

As to your other questions about drag and drop: I have no idea if this is possible at all. I've had a quick check in the tracker, no joy. (Found it hard to find a good search term)

Your point about sections getting bigger and then needing to be tidied up: I know my comment that follows is more like "fix the user" but why not

Create folders
Upload files into these

rather then Upload a lot of individual files and then need dnd to get them into a folder. I know this involves planning.

-Derek

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My point to Derek Chirnside, is that Moodle course pages are living things that can and should change. Yes, one plans a course in advance; but then additional info. appears, new points of view, new conceptions and ways of understanding things which demand that the way in which information is grouped /categorised /valued /changed /reassessed etc. - changes.

As such, one must have the flexibility to change classification systems after the event.

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It seems I've made a mistake in this proposal for Moodle. Resources might be draggable into a folder, but perhaps not activities.

I suppose what we might really be looking for is the possibility of calling up a mini Topic File Directory. Through a 'make folder' and 'drag-and-drop' function, this would make it possible to structure resouces and activities within a Topic in a logiocal way for students, with some items hidden and some folders or items visible, depending on which directory or subdirectory students click on.

The current left-right arrow setup enables items to be presented in a structured way, but if a Topic contains too many items, presentation and whole page load times can become confusing and unweildy.

A mini file directory for Topics would enable teachers to present materials in a much clearer manner for students. I'd like to see it programmed to look something like this (NB not all folders [directories] have been named in the imaginary diagram below).

Structuring Topic Contents

Please could a clever programmer programme this? - Wow!

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It's not dragging and dropping but it does do a similar job of tidying up the main course page - have you looked at the Open University's sub page module? https://github.com/moodleou and also http://www.moodleblog.net/2012/01/14/sub-page-module-yet-another-way-to-avoid-the-moodle-scroll-of-death/

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Gosh, thank you Mary. The OU's 'sub-page' module looks terrific. I hope it's still compatible with Moodle 2.4 and will implement it ASAP.

The advantage of the arborial file directory model I'd proposed, is that users can selectively 'dig' to see what's in multiple sub-sections simultaneously, without leaving the course page.

Sub-pages is a feature which should really be part of the Moodle core so as finally to banish the scroll of death. ...En avant.

Best wishes for a happy and profitable new year.

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