"Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

"Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

by Stephen Overall -
Number of replies: 11

The "Show only this section" toggle squares, usually visible in the upper right-hand corner of each center column section on the course main page, seem to have gone missing in all themes. See attached screenshot.

Course setting "Course layout" set to "Show all sections on one page." Toggle squares missing in Topics and Weekly formats. I had been allowing course themes; unchecking that site Themes setting does not bring back the toggle squares. I first noticed this issue earlier today using the Leatherbound theme with a very slightly tweaked core.css (changed only a few colors and the header image, nothing else). I've tried switching to other unmodified core themes, but still no cute "Show only this section" toggle squares visible.

I updated two days ago from Moodle 2.3.7+ (Build: 20130524) to Moodle 2.3.7+ (Build: 20130614).

Can anyone else replicate this issue?

Attachment show-only-this-section-missing-1.jpg
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Stephen Overall

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

by Mary Evans -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Good Morning Stephen,

Stay calm, Make TEA I'll be back in a few minutes after I go and investigate.

Thanks

Mary

In reply to Stephen Overall

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

by Mary Evans -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

OK...first you need to Turn editing ON and then the toggle switch looks like an EYE and allows you to HIDE each topic section individually. The only other alternative is to make each section conditional so that Students have to fulfil their obligations by completing a given task/assignment whatever.

Hope this helps?

Mary

In reply to Mary Evans

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi there. I think the setting you mean has gone from 2.3 as there is now a course layout setting "one section per page" See http://docs.moodle.org/23/en/Course_settings and the section "Course layout" (for 2.3 )

In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

by Stephen Overall -

Good morning to both Mary's! I am blessed by your quick responses.

@Mary Evans: If I'm logged in as a teacher, yes I can turn on editing and hide sections from learners. That I understand.

I'm pointing here to the core course layout "Show all sections on one page" format (a course admin setting) from the student's or teacher's point of view with the editing off. In "Show all sections on one page" course layout format, clicking the toggle square on a particular section would show only that section, collapsing the other sections to let the learner focus on that one content section. Clicking the toggle square again "un-collapsed" all the other sections again. As you will recall, this was a core functionality of the "Show all sections on one page" core course layout format from 1.9 and into Moodle 2.

@Mary Cooch: Yes, I understand that there is a new course layout setting "Show one section per page". In fact, I used the "Show one section per page" course layout setting in all my Spring 2013 semester courses. I liked the format myself (possibly because I already know where my course content is), but I had quite a few students who complained that the "Show one section per page" format "hid" too much content from them. They told me they preferred seeing everything all at once (like cats prefer all doors open all the time?). The "Scroll of Death" page length did not seem to horrify them as long as they could also choose when they wished to collapse the sections to focus on just one section. (I also use the Course Content block so you can jump down to any section.)

Mary C., are you gently telling me that Moodle, in developing the new course layout setting "Show one section per page," consciously decided to *degrade* the functionality of the older "Show all sections on one page" core course layout format by removing the collapse/show section toggle squares? So that now in Moodle 2.3+ (and 2.4?), if I choose to use the "Show all sections on one page" core course layout format, my students are forced to work with a non-collapsible "Scroll of Death" page length?

If I'm understanding correctly and this is the case, please help me understand the reasoning behind such a decision. Why would adding a new course layout format necessitate degrading the functionality of, taking functionality away from an older, still core course layout format? Is there a real and practical reason why the core course layout "Show all sections on one page" format cannot fully function as it always has in the past?

Thanks!

In reply to Stephen Overall

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

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

Dear Stephen,

I was going to reply, then Mary Cooch beat me to it!  I deal mainly with course formats.  It was a conscious decision to remove the 'show only this section square' as it was found to be confusing.  In fact when I was teaching, often my students and fellow teachers would get stuck wondering where all the other sections were.

So, it was decided to remove the functionality in favour of the 'Show all sections on one page' / 'Show one section per page' option in the course settings taking the control of the course layout to the educator.  It is possible to put the functionality back (as the code will still exist in the version control history), but that would mean creating a new custom course format.

In the mean time, there are lots of contributed course format's that help with the scroll of death, please have a wander through my iMoot 2013 presentation:

http://www.slideshare.net/gb2048/course-formats-presentation

Cheers,

Gareth

In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

When I was looking after Moodle as a teacher in a high school my headmaster emailed me at 11 pm on a Saturday night (and yes, I responded..) saying he had a major problem with his Moodle course in that all but one section of his course had vanished. When as admin I logged in as him to check, you guessed it; he himself had (accidentally) clicked the box "show only one topic".

In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

by Elizabeth Dalton -

We just upgraded from 2.2 to 2.4 on Monday, and we have already received multiple complaints from faculty and students about the missing "show only this section" toggle. Can we discuss making it a sitewide option, rather than removing it completely?

In reply to Elizabeth Dalton

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

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

Dear Elizabeth,

The code is within the course format's area of Moodle and not the themes.  It is entirely feasible to put it back and make it an option on the course with a site wide default such that educators can choose to have it on their courses.  This can either be done by patching your site or creating a custom course format.

Personally I hated the option because it caused confusion and lots of issues.

Mary / Richard - from a moderators point of view, this post and replies belongs in the course format's forum.

Cheers,

Gareth

In reply to Elizabeth Dalton

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

by jared beck -

This was a function that could be either incredibly helpful or confusing; depending on how one uses Moodle.  For our purposes it was incredibly helpful and it should be considered a mistake to remove it altogether.  Would it be possible to allow it as a setting to opt for, rather than removing it altogether?  Clearly it was a valuable function to many Moodle users that now is gone (none of the alternatives suffice to replace it).

In reply to jared beck

Re: "Show only this section" toggle squares gone missing

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

Hi Jared,

I had a quick look in the tracker and there appears to be nothing open requesting it be put back, so as it's entirely possible to get the code back from previous versions and employ new course format setting functionality then there are two options:

  1. Create a tracker issue (preferably with the completed code as a patch to the master branch - being an improvement) to have optional "Show only this section" in the core course formats.
  2. Create a clone of a core format and implement your own contributed course format.

With '1' then you run the risk of doing lots of work and it not being accepted.  However, with both cases you would have the code, so if '1' failed then '2' would not.

Cheers,

Gareth