Is there an easy way to delete a topic? At present I am moving it to the end of the course and then reducing the number of topics in the course.
Thanks,
Jim Robertson.
James- no way that I'm aware of, but you've got the way around it. For this reason I started using labels for each topic rather than editing the topic/section notes. It's more flexible later, as you are no longer tying your activities within a section to the label of that section (and vice-versa). Then you can move the label around just like anything else.
d.i.
d.i.
Has a "Delete Topic" feature been added yet? I am using 1.9.
Thanks. Don
Thanks. Don
Hi D.I.-
If you're still watching this forum, I'm curious: if you have to reorganize a course's sections, doesn't this label-based organization scheme become cumbersome? With course sections, you can move the whole section. With labels, you have to move each resource separately, one by one...
-Sean
Em resposta a 'James Robertson'
Re: Deleting topics / hiding the unused topic block(s)
por Adma Lim -
Hi,
I am also looking for solution to hide the topic block that the teachers did not use, currently our system admin gave us 10 block for each course. I clicked on the "eye" and then switch to view it from the student role, there just a message saying " Not available" and the block is still visible.
Could we hide the entire block when the "eye" is shut down (just like how it does for the resources inside the block)?
Maybe it just me who think that hiding of the usused topic block(s) is/are useful..
I am also looking for solution to hide the topic block that the teachers did not use, currently our system admin gave us 10 block for each course. I clicked on the "eye" and then switch to view it from the student role, there just a message saying " Not available" and the block is still visible.
Could we hide the entire block when the "eye" is shut down (just like how it does for the resources inside the block)?
Maybe it just me who think that hiding of the usused topic block(s) is/are useful..
Em resposta a 'Itamar Tzadok'
Re: Deleting topics / hiding the unused topic block(s)
por Alan Portman -
The topic your are trying to delete will still be accessible with the jump to controller at the bottom of the course. This is good, but not good enough.
Em resposta a 'Alan Portman'
Re: Deleting topics / hiding the unused topic block(s)
por Teresa Gibbison -
Hi Alan
If you hide a section and have hidden sections "Completely Invisible" as Itamar suggests they will only show in the Jump to dropdown at the bottom of the course for those who have the permission to view hidden sections (permission: View hidden sections [moodle/course:viewhiddensections]). This is usually the teacher, not the student so when a student uses the dropdown they do not see the hidden section.
Cheers
Teresa
If you hide a section and have hidden sections "Completely Invisible" as Itamar suggests they will only show in the Jump to dropdown at the bottom of the course for those who have the permission to view hidden sections (permission: View hidden sections [moodle/course:viewhiddensections]). This is usually the teacher, not the student so when a student uses the dropdown they do not see the hidden section.
Cheers
Teresa
This is the right answer. I try it and it works for me.
Is there really no way yet to delete topics?!? This was first posted over 4 years ago?
here's another vote for having a delete topics facility. i somehow mistakenly copied all 32 topics over from another course and am having to 'hide' them, per instructions above, individually. a pain.
Cheers!
I cannot believe this has not been rectified. Even an administrator can't do it?
I cannot believe this has not been rectified. Even an administrator can't do it?
For me the biggest thing missing in Moodle is the possibility to control topics fully. Like move them easily from first to 20th, to delete them, to copy them, to move them between courses.
The second biggest thing missing is the possibility to copy assignments. I really hate to make the exact same clicks for say 40 assignments, when you could just copy one for 40 times.
Is there any chance of those things happening?
The second biggest thing missing is the possibility to copy assignments. I really hate to make the exact same clicks for say 40 assignments, when you could just copy one for 40 times.
Is there any chance of those things happening?
It will be interesting to see if there are any changes in Moodle 2.0 concerning the deleting of topics. I hope that someone who is involved in the development or that is more clued up with the changes, will see this thread and make some comment. Does anyone know, is there an official feature request for this function - deleting topics?
>The second biggest thing missing is the possibility to copy assignments.
What exactly do you mean here Ohto, I'm not quite sure whether I follow you?
Greetings
Marius
>The second biggest thing missing is the possibility to copy assignments.
What exactly do you mean here Ohto, I'm not quite sure whether I follow you?
Greetings
Marius
Most of my courses contain mainly different assignments (Advanced uploading of files), usually about 40 of them.
When I create a new assingment, I choose Grade, disable "Available from" and "Due date", change maximum size, Allow notes, Email alerts to teachers, disable Send for marking. And finally Save.
Thats more than eight clicks per assignment. If I could copy one assingment 40 times per course, I would save lots of clicks and time.
On the other hand, is there a way to change default settings of a new assingment?
When I create a new assingment, I choose Grade, disable "Available from" and "Due date", change maximum size, Allow notes, Email alerts to teachers, disable Send for marking. And finally Save.
Thats more than eight clicks per assignment. If I could copy one assingment 40 times per course, I would save lots of clicks and time.
On the other hand, is there a way to change default settings of a new assingment?
OK, I see what you are getting at. I usually try to think of workarounds first before looking at feature requests. E.g. In your case you could create a template course that you import into a new course and then just make the changes you need for that specific course. You could have your 40 or so upload assignments in the template.
However, as you mentioned, what one really needs is to be able to change the default settings of new assignments. Now, there you have a point!
However, as you mentioned, what one really needs is to be able to change the default settings of new assignments. Now, there you have a point!
I came back here to this topic because of the anxiety of trying to merge two courses 
Why do you prefer workarounds? Is it not possible/propable to improve Moodle usability? If it is almost impossible to make Moodle better, then I fully understand.
It would greatly ease merging courses if there were better tools to handle single topics or multiple objects (like moving/deleting/copying several assingments at once). Come to think about that, they are really really basic things! Can't actually think of any other applicable computer system where that is still impossible
I also would love to have the possibility to edit files "inside" Moodle, without first downloading, editing, uploading and then possibly updating the link to the file. I am not sure if there is yet such add-on.
I really like Moodle and I really love the possibilities it gives in teaching, but the interface has really gotten too old. I will use Moodle for a long time even with these problems it has. So far the usefulness outweighs the pain of using.
But the truth is, compared to almost any other computer related interface, Moodle feels really ancient.
Why do you prefer workarounds? Is it not possible/propable to improve Moodle usability? If it is almost impossible to make Moodle better, then I fully understand.
It would greatly ease merging courses if there were better tools to handle single topics or multiple objects (like moving/deleting/copying several assingments at once). Come to think about that, they are really really basic things! Can't actually think of any other applicable computer system where that is still impossible
I also would love to have the possibility to edit files "inside" Moodle, without first downloading, editing, uploading and then possibly updating the link to the file. I am not sure if there is yet such add-on.
I really like Moodle and I really love the possibilities it gives in teaching, but the interface has really gotten too old. I will use Moodle for a long time even with these problems it has. So far the usefulness outweighs the pain of using.
But the truth is, compared to almost any other computer related interface, Moodle feels really ancient.
mmm before you get too carried away, please realise that Moodle is not a compiled program, it is a collection of individual scripts. The kind of functionality you are talking about comes with a huge overhead and some serious drawbacks. Some Linux programs will run in Windows, but few. I am pretty certain this cannot be said for MAC. Why, because Windows and MACs depend on proprietal software, which is inconsistent with Linux. If you want something to wiork in all environments, you have to offer three separate files
to ensure a reasonable coverage. For Moodle, it is the same files for all OSs', the write once/read anywhere concept.
Let's start with merging courses.
You can import from two existing courses to merge them, providing the person importing has minimum of Teacher access to both courses. It does not say merge, it says import. Try that.
"...compared to almost any other computer related interface, Moodle feels really ancient."
OK, Moodle is such that anyone can contribute, Draw something you can use for a theme for the interface, make it better. Send it to the people like Themza Team, they might help.
to ensure a reasonable coverage. For Moodle, it is the same files for all OSs', the write once/read anywhere concept.
Let's start with merging courses.
You can import from two existing courses to merge them, providing the person importing has minimum of Teacher access to both courses. It does not say merge, it says import. Try that.
"...compared to almost any other computer related interface, Moodle feels really ancient."
OK, Moodle is such that anyone can contribute, Draw something you can use for a theme for the interface, make it better. Send it to the people like Themza Team, they might help.
Hi, I have the same problem in that we want to create a bank of "lessons" (topics to Moodle) which can be moved around individually and dragged into new coureses topic by topic.
We found the Project Course Format pretty good (http://docs.moodle.org/en/Project_Course_Format) as this gives each topic (now called a project) a name and address so it can be backed up and restored individually.
As far as deleting topics goes, I discovered the same idea as the first contributor in 2005 of moving the unrequired one(s) to the bottom of the course then changing the number of topics shown.
If you try to convert topic based courses to project based courses (by restoring a topic based course back up to a pre-created project course) it doesn't work very well as it tries to identify a project name and gets confused. You can edit the file names manually but I am a bit wary of that in causing other problems down the line ...
My solution (yet to be verified) is to copy my topic course several times, then delete topics (by shortening the numbr of topics) then backing up a course with a single topic in it and importing it into a pre-created project based course. Starting to get a bit confusing ...
Bring on the topic delete function!
Hi, I also have been trying to find a "delete" topic button somewhere. I am using Moodle 2.0 and still can't find it, Rick. I'll do the work around suggested but agree Please put in a delete topic function somewhere easily found - soon!
If you want to delete the topic, just move it to the last topic and go to Settings (administration bar), in Number of weeks/topics put the number of topics that you want to have! It worked for me!
In 2.1 moving the topic to the end and then reducing the number of topics produces a number of Orphaned Activities. How do you then delete the Orphaned Activities
Change the number of topics back to what it was originally and then delete them manually.
If I many resources in many orhpaned weeks and I want to permananetly delete them, do I have to do it one by one?
I've read this entire post. I want to delete and not just hide topics. Is there a way to do it manually?
There is no UI for that, but if you have access to the database and are comfortable with DB queries and with the possibility of helplessly corrupting your data, you can try deleting the topics from mdl_course_sections. First query the list of sections for the desired course id sorted by the 'section' field, and then delete the undesired sections (empty 'sequence' means that the section has no activities attached to it).
We are using moodle 2.7. In order to delete a section we had to do the following steps:
- Access the database and search for the course section you want to delete in the mdl_course_sections table (Use course id for searching the sections)
- Delete the desired section
- Remove the course module from the table mdl_course_modules where the section attribute is the same as the one you just removed
- Purge the cache (Site administration / ▶ Development / ▶ Purge all caches) and reload the course
I may have solved my issue. If you delete all of the content of an orphaned topic, the topic disapears. I didn't see this solution in the docs or posts.
I don't think too many are concerned with deleting topics when there are other, arguably more urgent, issues with the course formats and topics rendering.
AFAIK, undoing an import I have just made involves, using the GUI, more than 400 clics.
I know, the soft is free, but let me feel extremely angry! I cannot believe it!
I know, the soft is free, but let me feel extremely angry! I cannot believe it!
Federico,
This is why I usually make a course back up with all user data before I do a lot of importing, etc. It only takes a couple of minutes and is easy to delete if I don't need it. That way, if things go wrong, I can quickly restore the course without having to do 400 clicks.
I think the best way to do this might be to do a full course backup of everything except the topic you want to delete.
Then restore from that backup. One of the options will be to delete the contents of the current course and restore from backup... or something to that effect.
I'm trying it right now on my site.... seems to have worked.
In terms of what the server is doing, not a very efficient way to go about things, but a LOT better than the death by mouse click of manually deleting everything in a large topic.
Tracker item here: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-10405
Does not have many votes yet, even though it is now seven years old.
There is a solution in the plugins.
This is one of those things that is basically a no brainer to code. It's just priorities. All the Moodle As Moodle Partners who run their own distros have built in solutions, so there is no pressure for change there. Some of the Moodle partners who run hosted services have installed a plugin. Ditto.
So poor old Moodle core is just stuck with lots of clicks.
I would really like to see this in the Long term supported release 2.7
-Derek
Tracker item here: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-10405
Does not have many votes yet, even though it is now seven years old.
There is a solution in the plugins.
This is one of those things that is basically a no brainer to code. It's just priorities. All the Moodle As Moodle Partners who run their own distros have built in solutions, so there is no pressure for change there. Some of the Moodle partners who run hosted services have installed a plugin. Ditto.
So poor old Moodle core is just stuck with lots of clicks.
I would really like to see this in the Long term supported release 2.7
-Derek
We would love the ability to check boxes on the homepage and then click a button to delete them. Our faculty ask for this every semester.
Here is the way to do it:
1) Place all topics you want to delete at the end of your list of topics.
2) Edit settings
3) Course format
4) Format: Topics format
5) Number of sections: add a number that equals the number of topics you wish to show - everything after that number will be deleted (or at least I cannot see the additional topics any more).
This is also the way to add new topics.
6) Save changes
Thank Christof for the tip. It worked for me and this is what I was looking for: Completely getting rid of a topic instead of just hiding it.
Shams
Hi Christof! Which version are you using?
I'm using 2.6 and following your instructions I got Orphaned activities. Sadly files are still there.
Seven years on from the original post. Have they finally fixed this?
As far as I can tell (moodle 2.7.3) we are still having to do the tedious solution of dragging labels and activities around - instead of a simply delete function?
If thats the case (and I could be wrong!) does anyone else find that amazing it is still not addressed/fixed?
We can delete topics now (2.9 and higher)...just not in versions that old. (2.7)
Arghgh !! Sods law I have the one version that doesnt have this. Version 2.9? It was about time !!! Only took 7 years!
Well, since I took on responsibility for two old activity plugins, I can understand why it takes so long to get "new" capability added. I'm wanting to add a new keyboard color setting to MooTyper and with all the other stuff I have going on, I haven't got to spend more than maybe thirty minutes in the past week on it. Mainly because I always like to help out with QA testing which is ongoing right now for Moodle 3.1, and I also learned about the Code Checker plugin...ran it on the two plugins...I have fixed over 12 thousand errors and warnings since last Saturday.
I know that sometimes there are good reasons for staying on an old Moodle version, but I think some of the new stuff in 3.1, such as the new Competencies capability, would make it worth the effort to upgrade.