Dear all,
I've managed to sort out the issues over the last few days with the Grid Format for Moodle 2.4. Please can you test it and feedback to me here. The code is available from: https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-courseformat_grid/archive/V2.4.0.3.zip
This MUST NOT be installed on a production server.
Once ok, I'll ask Julian to integrate it into the main repository for formal release.
Cheers,
Gareth
Thanks for all your hard work Gareth
I'll be sure to take a look at this and feedback over the next day or two (as much as i can in the run up to Christmas!)
Have a great Christmas and I wish you all the luck for the coming new year!
Richard
Thank you Richard, and you
Thinking about it, before testing you will need to 'Purge all caches' on Moodle and clear your browser's cache too.
Cheers,
Gareth
thanks gareth
will install it on return to school and let you know how it is.
llywelyn
I've just tried the 2.4 block and got mixed results.
On some courses it works fine.
However on some the image link is broken, ie clicking on it does nothing. The unit title is linked however.
When clicking on the link though instead of a pop up box I get a new page displaying just the topic content and options to move to the next and previous topics.
This is on moodle 2.4 + and the aardavrk theme
Dear Dan,
Thanks for reporting this. The issue is in fact the 'One section per page' mode in the course settings not being catered for completely.
Please download an update: https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-courseformat_grid/archive/V2.4.0.4.zip
To install in your case, just make a backup of the old grid files, delete them and replace.
The functionality I have implemented reflects what I consider to be the intent of 'One section per page', so there is no light box but instead the text and image take you to the single section only page as it does in the other core formats.
Cheers,
Gareth
New problem here. On one page it just hangs. On clicking grid icon, we get the following message:
Warning: Missing argument 2 for format_section_renderer_base::section_availability_message(), called in D:\Apache2\htdocs\course\format\grid\renderer.php on line 113 and defined in D:\Apache2\htdocs\course\format\renderer.php on line 408 Notice: Undefined variable: canviewhidden in D:\Apache2\htdocs\course\format\renderer.php on line 417
Dear Llywelyn,
Really odd as $canviewhidden is in core code and is not passed in by grid code to section_availability_message() as it only has one argument of $section.
Please could you attach your Grid format with the core /course/format/renderer.php and check that no inadvertant alerations have taken place.
Cheers,
Gareth
Hi Gareth. Grid version is 2012082200. I have attached renderer.php
Thanks.
Dear Llywelyn,
Thanks, definately the recent core issue, please could you test V2.4.0.6 as above
Cheers,
Gareth
correct the above. it's showing it on all pages. especially above every topic when editing is turned on.
Dear Llywelyn,
Ok, but I still need your copy of the Grid format, the core 'renderer.php' file and for you to check local changes! It does not happen for me as I really would have noticed it having developed with full debugging turned on.
Cheers,
Gareth
Dear Llywelyn,
Looks like a recent core change, please see: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=220224
Cheers,
Gareth
Dear Llywelyn,
Please download and test https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-courseformat_grid/archive/V2.4.0.6.zip
Cheers,
Gareth
Thanks Gareth. Works with new version.
I was getting the same problems as Tim regarding hidden sections. Will test with the added code.
Thanks Llywelyn, please let me know how it goes under lots of situations and I'll commit the code to Julian.
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda (happy new year)
Just applied on localhost site.
Seems to be working fine. My only two gripes (minor) are:
1) section names do not change to match first line of text in summary headings (they stay as Topic 1, Topic 2 etc unless manually changed).
2) images autosize to fit box, leaving grey border. pre moodle 2 version used to fill the box with the image, often cropping the image (which i thought added a cool artsy touch to the site!). is there any code to replicate this?
hope you don't feel pressured into making all these changes. i fully sympathise with you regarding time and funding.
thanks again for all your hard work.
Dear Llywelyn,
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i chi hefyd!
With 1, this is the same functionality as the core formats. Section names were introduced in Moodle 2. If you use the first line of text in the summary heading (which I had to do so with the 1.9 version of Collapsed Topics) then you have all sort of issues with where the text is truncated.
With 2, the 1.9 code used it's own image library function (in fact 'method' as it's in a class) 'resizeAndCrop', but from 2.0 onwards (I think) it uses in built core functions. You can browse the code at:
https://github.com/PukunuiAustralia/moodle-courseformat_grid/tree/MOODLE_19_STABLE
I don't think it should change as with the summary issue, cropping can give odd results. Perhaps there should be a 'Tartify' option on image upload?
Cheers,
Gareth
Shwmae Gareth
I'm not sure if I've explained my first point well enough. I've attached an image to show how it is working with the 2.3 version.
A tartfiy option would be great if anyone could code it. Above simple css and html, I'm no help unfortunately
Diolch
edit. Just realised I used a poor example. I'm not trying to highlight the truncation of text, just that 2.3 allowed section name to come from first line of summary.
Dear Llywelyn,
Odd. My version does not do that. What version of 2.3 are you using (full details of the version.php file please)?
I would say that how you show it is not how it should work. Only the topic name should be displayed above the image.
Cheers,
Gareth
2.3.2+ Build 20120914
should i pm you a zipped copy of the grid format folder in our current installation too?
Dear Llywelyn,
Sorry I meant the version.php of the grid format. If you want to attach it here it should be less than 100k zipped.
Cheers,
Gareth
Hi Gareth
It's version number 2012050300
I have also zipped ad attached a copy of it
Diolch
Dear Llywelyn,
Thanks I see. Your version contains the code in lib.php:
//Attempts to return a 40 character title for the section icon.
//If section names are set, they are used. Otherwise it scans
//the summary for what looks like the first line.
function _get_title($section) {
$title = is_object($section) && isset($section->name) &&
is_string($section->name)?trim($section->name):'';
if (!empty($title)) {
// Apply filters and clean tags
$title = trim(format_string($section->name, true));
}
if (empty($title)) {
$title = trim(format_text($section->summary));
// Finds first header content. If it doesn't found,
// trying to find first paragraph.
foreach(array('h[1-6]', 'p') as $tag) {
if (preg_match('#<('.$tag.')\b[^>]*>(?P<text>.*?)</\1>#si', $title, $m)) {
if (!_is_empty_text($m['text'])) {
$title = $m['text'];
break;
}
}
}
$title = trim(clean_param($title, PARAM_NOTAGS));
}
if (strlen($title) > 40) {
$title = _text_limit($title, 40);
}
return $title;
}
Which is an old version pre 'renderer.php' Moodle 2.3 changes. The latestish version from - - uses object orientated reuse of common core methods:
$this->section_title($section,$course)
Which is a call to the base '/course/format/renderer.php' method in the method 'section_header' in the file '/course/format/grid/renderer.php' to be consistent with the other formats.
You can get the code from https://github.com/PukunuiAustralia/moodle-courseformat_grid/tree/MOODLE_23_STABLE
The up shot of this is that I consider that truncating the summary text automatically to a maximum of fourty characters when there is no name to be problematic. I had a similar strategy with Collapsed Topics back in Moodle 1.9 and used to get questioned about it. So, rather than a situation with the users saying 'why the xxxx has it just done that', I prefer to empower the user to enter the name as a thought provoking action to good course design.
Cheers,
Gareth
Thanks. Does this mean I could apply this code to the 2.4 version and get similar results?
Dear Llywelyn,
Sorry, what do you mean? The 2.4 code works in the same way as the 2.3 code. Are you saying you want the trim code in 2.3 and 2.4?
Cheers,
Gareth
I was going to replace code in 2.4 version with the code you mentioned above. Now decided to change css of section name to edit colour and font size. A slight pain having to change every topic heading for the whole site, but nowhere near as much effort as you and Julian have put into this mod (apologises to missing out anyone else who has contributed)!
I may still experiment with changing the code, unless you think it definitely would not work.
p.s. I've noticed that the images have disappeared after upgrade to 2.4 grid format. Can I copy them from the database of the 2.3 version?
Dear Llywelyn,
Oh, the code will work in 2.4, just requires a little more than a copy / paste. I would not wish it to be in the baseline, so would have to be a special and therefore something I would kindly request financial compensation to undertake.
The images should have worked as no changes where made to the database or update scripts. Did you have the tables 'format_grid_icon' and ' format_grid_summary' in the 2.3 database that was upgraded to a 2.4 database? You can copy them from the 2.3 version as long as the course and section id's are the same, I cannot guarentee the result.
Cheers,
Gareth
Gareth,
I just looked at (installed on my experimental Moodle) your latest topcoll. I like that I can choose to center or left justify the heading.
The arrow directions, I think, are still pointing the wrong way. Here is what I think would be correct.
Here is what you seem to have.
Dear Rick,
Interesting point, but it is as intened as the arrow direction indicates what will happen, so a prefixing down arrow to 'Open' states that the sections will be in the 'open' state after clicking and vice versa with 'close', just like a button entitled 'click to continue' indicates what happens after the button is clicked.
Cheers,
Gareth
Here my logic:
"If you want to open a section, click on the button that looks like this."
"If you want to close a section, click on the button that looks like this."
To me, this seems to be the logic for how the buttons show look. This logic should be applied consistently for both the headings, and for the arrows in any section (do this with my pictures in my post above). But maybe others will have some ideas about this.
Dear Rick,
An interesting point. But, I see it that the navigation arrows elsewhere and on the actual toggles themselves directly indicate state of the item and alter accordingly, however, the open / close all 'relate' to the thing they control but do not change themselves - a sort of 'shortcut' - which is why I think they should demonstrate what will happen when you click on them.
However, it is a really easy edit at the bottom of styles.css to change them
Cheers,
Gareth
When we were testing with our users i noticed this confusion as well.
does the image:
a) show the action to perform (verb) "clicking this will open"
OR
b) show the current state "this section is currently open"
why i moved to + / - (the old windows explorer style for opening closing folders, is users intuitively think clicking this is the "action" "+" will open the section
however i note in windows 7 explorer
they use triangles, with a slight difference from the moodle triangles
their traingles show "state"
i.e. > 'implies folder is closed but can be open
the have a hover effect for the action
but instead of downwards facing arrow they have diagonalfacing arrow
Dear Ben,
The image for the toggle all functionality performs 'a' - "Clicking this will open" in the context that it is signage that relates to the entity that will undertake the action. This is based on the pretext that to open a door signs show open door symbols and not closed ones for example. If you Google Image "open door sign" then the images show open door images - hence a down arrow. And vice versa for closed ones.
I am not going to change to the Microsoft way of doing things for several reasons:
1. They probably have it copyrighted.
2. If my software looks Mircosofty then that:
2.1 Will only discourage users who use other operating systems.
2.2 Attract members of the criminal fraternity that see another Mircosofty product that needs to be hacked to gain funds.
Ok, maybe 2.2 is a little over the top ;)
However, I would be prepared to put in an option to choose the between each possible solution as I believe that there is no definative 'yes, it is that way' - however, this would be an 'improvement' and hence added to the latest 2.4 when I get time or if I get funding. The later would support backporting.
I think this thead has how diverged and needs to be continued in a new one.
Cheers,
Gareth
Here is a video that I made showing how I think these arrows should point.
Wrong_Direction_on_Heading_Arrows/Wrong_Direction_on_Heading_Arrows
I'm learning Moodle, and I'm trying out Grid format for the first time. It seems like it installed successfully on ver. 2.4.1
I set it up as a default course format, and applied it to the existing courses.
Question about the layout:
I see the course content expanded underneath the Grid thumbnails. Is it normal? How to collapse the sourse sections?
Dear Anya,
Yes it is and turn editing off
Kind regards,
Gareth
Hi Gareth
We love the grid format and have just upgraded our site to Moodle 2.4+.
Moodle $release = '2.4.1+ (Build: 20130118)'
Moode $version = 2012120301.02;
Grid $plugin->version = 2012082200;
Grid software downloaded from here https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-courseformat_grid/archive/V2.4.0.6.zip
Our site is not live yet …we are still developing it and adding content.
This is a link to our site http://smart.perceptiveits.com.au
Since the upgrade the topics in the grid format no longer display when logged in as guest or a student. If we login as an admin user the grid format displays OK.
See the following course http://smart.perceptiveits.com.au/course/view.php?id=3
The above course is available for guest access and you will see that the topics initially display and then disappear. If you refresh the above page you will see this happen.
I have switched on debug and I get the following error. Not sure if this is relevant
"Warning: Missing argument 2 for format_section_renderer_base::section_availability_message(),
called in D:\web sites\sli\smartmove\course\format\grid\renderer.php on line 480 and defined in
D:\web sites\sli\smartmove\course\format\renderer.php on line 408 Notice: Undefined variable: canviewhidden in
D:\web sites\sli\smartmove\course\format\renderer.php on line 417"
If I switch the course format back to "topics" the topics display OK for all users
I attach a copy of the /course/format/grid/version.php file
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks
Dear Tim,
You have version 2.4.0.5 installed on your server - http://smart.perceptiveits.com.au/course/format/grid/readme.txt - and not 2.4.0.6 which fixes the issue and you say you are using!
Cheers,
Gareth
Sorry Gareth, I have now updated to 2.4.0.6 and I still have the same problem!
http://smart.perceptiveits.com.au/course/format/grid/readme.txt
I simply removed the /course/format/grid folder, replaced it with the contents of the 2.4.0.6 folder and purged the cache. Is there anthing else I need to do?
Any further help would be appreciated.
PS Gareth, The errors in debug no longer appear, but the icons and topics are still missing.
Admin users ARE able to view the icons and the topics.
Thanks
Sorry for more comments Gareth but I have been doing some more research.
I can get the topics to display for all users by setting the course "Formatting options for Grid format" to "hidden sections are shown in collapsed format"
I can also resolve by editing the line 282 of renderer.php and commenting out some of the operators and brackets to narrow down the criteria. The currently build reads as follows;
*********************************************************************************
$showsection = $has_cap_vishidsect || ($thissection->visible && ($thissection->available || $thissection->showavailability) && !$course->hiddensections);
*******************************************************************************
We would really prefer the hidden sections to be invisible and presume that a small change may be required to the code???
Hope this makes sense.
Thanks for your help.
Tim
Tim,
I haven't tried this for a few weeks so i could be wrong here but..
In Grid format, the hidden sections do not show an icon or title whether they are collapsed or invisible => a student using the page cannot see them either way, while someone with editing rights would be able to, regardless of whether they are collapsed or invisible?
Please could you clarify the usage for collapsed or invisible within Grid format for me?
Richard
Hi Richard,
On our test system running the latest version of the Grid software (2.4.0.6) on Moodle 2.4.1 it appears that when the "course"/"formatting options for grid format" is set to "hidden sections are shown in collapsed form" topic icons and text ARE displayed for guest or students.
If I set "course"/"formatting options for grid format" to "hidden sections are completly invisible" the topics and text is hidden for guests and students. All I get is a blank page.
The above applies to ALL sections even though NONE of them are hidden.
Hope this makes sense.
Hopefully Gareth will confirm/clarify this.
Thanks
Tim
Dear Tim,
Just tested as a teacher in a course set to 'Hidden sections are completely invisible' with a hidden section and cannot seem to replicate the issue - I have debugging turned on.
So, therefore I need more information to help. Would it be possible to have either a guest login to the course that shows the error or a copy of the course that I could install locally? Or screen shots of the error? I need some way of replicating the issue and then confirming that the fix (if any) works.
Cheers,
Gareth
Hi Gareth
If you look at the test site (http://smart.perceptiveits.com.au) and then the course block on the front page you will see the following courses that have guest access;
Test Grid 2 (grid setting: "hidden sections invisible" - displays nothing)
Test Grid (grid setting: "hidden sections invisible" - displays nothing)
The SmartMove Safety Passport Program (grid setting: "hidden sections are shown in collapsed format" - displays grid format)
NO ERRORS ARE DISPLAYED...THE PAGE IS EMPTY.
I can toggle the "hidden sections invisible"/"hidden sections are shown" parameter on a course and the topic will display/hide accordingly.
I have PM’d you a temp admin account so that you can do further tests
I think the reason that a teacher can see the topics is because the “context” will allow them to "viewhidden" topics???
**************************** renderer.php line 135 *************************
$has_cap_vishidsect = has_capability('moodle/course:viewhiddensections', $context);
***************************************************************************
Sorry if I mislead you, but as yet we have no teachers configured on the course, only students/guests and admins)
I hope that I have explained this OK, if not hopefully the admin access will allow you to troubleshoot, if not I can zip you up the software and send you a copy.
Thanks
Tim
Dear Tim,
Thanks for the login and the extra information, I can now replicate the issue locally. Please give me some time to look into it. The logic has been around for a while.
Cheers,
Gareth
Dear Tim,
Please replace line 282 in renderer.php with:
$showsection = $has_cap_vishidsect || ($thissection->visible && ($thissection->available || $thissection->showavailability || !$course->hiddensections));
It solves your issue, but needs testing in different situations to verify all of the logic paths. The change is to do with the latter end of the logic and not '$has_cap_vishidsect' which is correct.
Cheers,
Gareth
Hi Gareth,
Yes that makes sense and it's cracked it. The topics are now being displayed OK.
I will let you know if we come across any other issues.
Thanks again
Tim
