Dear forum activity users,
You may have a heard elsewhere about a new feature coming in Moodle 2.5 - collapsible forms. You can see them in action on the QA testing site.
Consequently, many of the activity settings pages now need some reorganising in order to make the most of this new functionality.
For the forum, I've come up with a few ideas in MDL-38597. Has anyone else any ideas?
Helen,
I don't see the group settings or the completion/restriction settings in the tracker. Am I correct in assuming that they will be included?
Thanks,
Paula
Sorry, I was interupted ... I meant to say ... Am I correct in assuming that htey will be included in the colapsed sections?
Paula
Hi Paula,
You are correct - the forum settings will include Restrict access and Activity completion (if enabled), also Grade, Ratings, Common module settings and Outcomes (if enabled). You can see all the collapsed sections on the QA testing site if you login as a teacher and edit http://qa.moodle.net/mod/forum/view.php?id=21.
Just took two screenshots to show how it I think it makes the options seem less daunting (to me).
I agree with collapsing everything. As a forum is one of the first things you learn to do , it's very offputting when you have even a few things (like "read tracking" that you might not instantly understand) I would definitely go for collapsing everything - I personally would find it better to then point out where to enable or tweak certain features such as word count/number of attachments rather than have a long, as Dan says, daunting list. The number of times I have told teachers to "just type in a name and description and ignore the rest"...
+1 Mary
Hi Andrea,
The Show more link is for showing settings which were previously considered as 'Advanced' settings in Moodle 2.4 and earlier. As we are able to collapse sections in Moodle 2.5, as you point out, there seems no point in making users click a Show more link. Thus, for most settings pages, when we improve them to make the most of collapsed sections, we're also removing the 'Advanced' setting distinction. However, there is some discussion about having Show more links in activities such as the Quiz, where an admin can specify settings which are not used much on their site as advanced.
My +1 for a simplified form with only a very few parameters visible. However, I don't think "Forum Options" is the right name for the newly created section, this does not represent anything and as a user you will have to expand this section to see what's inside, and that's where you lose the purpose of simplifying the form. I also dislike the "Show more/less", especially in the General section.
Unfortunately I can't think of any name for the new section, but I'm trying to prevent "Options", "Settings" or "Miscellaneous" as if we allow them, we'll quickly end up with those sections everywhere.
However, I don't think "Forum Options" is the right name for the newly created section,
Neither do I, I just did that to demonstrate the less visible options, wasn't a suggested name,
Mary, I like the collaped headings. It is becoming common with "Collapsed Topics", and the forthcoming "Quiz" changes.
I have made this suggestion in several places. If anyone likes it, please vote for it (MDL-31355).
The Moodle Forums remain disconnected to the Calendar, and the priority of getting it connected needs to be raised!
In Moodle's 2.4 Assignments, there is now a "Cut-off date". The solution for Forums now becomes clear. The same "Cut-off date" method should be implemented for Forums, and this is how. The Forum's "Due Date" should show in the Calendar. The Forum's "Cut-off Date" should turn the rating feature off (which is what the current Due Date does). I believe that this logic provides a consistent logic with Assignments.
Thanks everyone for your ideas and comments. After further discussion in MDL-38597, we've arrived at the following solution. Hopefully everyone is happy with this in Moodle 2.5. If not, please say so now!
