Themes

Wow, good work, thx Gareth!

Hi Guilherme,

Thank you.  I'd need to work out the navbar issue in CSS, but as I said above "I need to take a little break from Essential in order to progress with other real work that has suffered as a result of all the time I've expended recently" so do not have time.  There are two fixed width modes, one with 1200px and the other with 1600px.  The variable width extends across the whole page.

To be honest, technically it is not as good as other themes and needs improving, please read: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=264484#p1148280.  I would say that my other theme Shoehorn is technically better, likewise with the underlying Bootstrap version 3 and indeed Elegance all being themes that have come after Essential where the theme designers have learnt from the past.  In fact, Shoehorn is an improvement on Shoelace and Mutant Banjo, which in turn are a vast improvement on Fluffy Bunny Foot.  Progressional improvement.

Visually I think its a matter of personal preference.  I think Essential is ok, but for me Shoehorn is cleaner, crisper and more elegant.  Perhaps I'm biased.  However variety is the spice of life and we should get inspiration from all angles.

Cheers,

Gareth

Thanks Márton, I hope I have a good summer but its not a break as I'm an independent contractor.  I'm only having a break from Essential.

If you want to change the slider caption background colour then use the CSS in the custom box:

#essentialCarousel.carousel .carousel-inner .carousel-caption {
background: rgba(48, 173, 209,.75);
}

Where you will need to pick the colour you want and convert each hex pair to decimal for each colour.

Cheers,

Gareth

The background repeating don't work. Today I changed from moodle 2.5 to 2.7 and there is no default background in essential 2.7.4 

I took the body.png from moodle 2.5 but it won't be repeated. There 2 settings for the background: in appearance/designs/more and in appearance/designs/essential/color settings

I used body.png in booth settings but it don't work. I have the file in the background but only one time enlarged.

Whats wrong?

Heinz

S. Ali did you ever find a resolution to this?  I am having the same issue.

S Ali, did you get a resolution? I am having the same trouble.

Hi Alex,

Interesting points, so:

1. What do you mean by a 'greed style'?  With size and picture, possibly.
   
2. Shoehorn already has this switch, so just a matter of making it happen in Essential.
   
3. True, not hard, but again like two a matter of making it happen.  And that depends on time and how that time is supported.
   

From a pragmatic point of view there is a fine line between user options and bespoke customisation.  It is easily possible to exponentially increase the number of options available in a system that is COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) such that the manual that comes with the product is bigger than the product and becomes overwhelming.  The user is bombarded with option overload.  Whereas what they really want is a complete bespoke system tailored to them.

Consider physical COTS products, you purchase them as supplied with a user manual.  That manual tells you how to use it and what configuration options are available.  The options are designed for all customers to be able to customise the product to the degree where it is usable by them.  However, the product instance you have is just the same as another persons with a few settings changes.  When you get the manual you don't want to be spending a week reading / configuring before it becomes ready.

With bespoke products you first specify exactly what you want and then it is made specifically for you with what you want.  The options you specify more often than not will be a mixture of elements that everybody wants to change and those specific to you that others do not want.  And indeed the specific options would be undesirable to other users.  Bespoke products tend to cost much more and take longer to deliver.  But you get exactly what you want and you stand out from the crowd.

The same is true of themes.  Like other contributed themes, Essential comes with a range of options that are COTS friendly.  Options that everybody wants to change.  That they will not mind setting because they want to change them.  The number of options is not overwhelming or unwanted by all for the most part.  Yes, it may not have the exact options you want for your specific requirements but it will do the job.  If you want specific options then its time to employ somebody to make your changes for you to what you want without alienating other users of the COTS theme by adding options they do not want and cause option overload.

Hence it is very important to get the balance correct between the options in the COTS version and what are really bespoke options specific to an instance of the theme on one installation for a client.

Thus I am wary of adding too many options to the COTS versions of the themes I am involved in.  With Essential this involves discussion with the theme lead, David.  This is certainly true of my course formats where I consider that they are for the most part where they need to be without causing the scroll of death on the settings page.

Software needs to be functional and usable without coming with a manual that doubles as a door stop.

Cheers,

Gareth

Hi,

Yes, thank you, we know that #78 is an still an issue.  Its related to this: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=264955.

The current workaround to test please is, go to a colour setting when the language is displayed as an RTL one, change it to another colour and save the setting (if need be change the colour back).  This should regenerate the CSS cache and collated the RTL css into the output which has the fix.  NOTE: This is on the master branch and the next release - just realised!

For current moodle.org release (2.7.4) please read instructions in 'config.php' file.  Which was referenced in the readme.txt file for the 2.7.4 release by the big word 'NOTE'.

Cheers,

Gareth

Thanks Kees, https://github.com/DBezemer/moodle-theme_essential/issues/131 raised.

There are a number of z-index issues in Moodle already, so it is a pity that this image is not in English as it is not easy to identify exactly where this problem manifests itself and when is it triggered?

Also more importantly, if it is Moodle specific then Essential theme is not at fault, but Moodle itself.

So for clarity, can you please be more specific? What is the path taken so that we can replicate this problem?

In other words how do I get to that page and what must I do to get the dialogue box to show up on that page?

Thanks

Mary

Hi Frances,

Yes there is.  Wait for the next release to be stable: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=266437#p1152057

Cheers,

Gareth