Substantial update to Essential for Moodle 2.9 and 3.0.

Substantial update to Essential for Moodle 2.9 and 3.0.

by Gareth J Barnard -
Number of replies: 5
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hello Moodlers,

I'm pleased to announce a substantial update to Essential for Moodle 2.9 and 3.0 with lots of new features and fixes:

M3.0: https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversion.php?id=10846

- FIX: Issue #351: Footer doesn't stay at bottom.
- FIX: Issue #627: Request for an unknown renderer.
- FIX: Issue #628: Course content search dialog does not show up properly on RTL mode.
- FIX: Issue #629: Hidden resources have low contrast.
- FIX: Issue #633: Increase performance of administration settings pages.  Thanks to 'Jan Dagefoerde' for the initial patch.
- FIX: Issue #634: Improve icon replacement performance.
- FIX: Issue #635: Course table of contents block navigation when static navbar.
- FIX: Issue #640: Edit profile style not set properly.
- FIX: Issue #641: Floating rows in the gradebook position after page scroll are wrong.
- FIX: Issue #642: Advanced Grading creating template form issue.
- FIX: Issue #643: Grading edit dropdown too small.
- FIX: Style guide settings tooltips and popups.
- FIX: MDL-52936 - Fix link hover bug on iOS.
- FIX: Apply 'aria-hidden="true"' to FontAwesome icons as much as possible.  Still a few 'content' CSS attributes to consider.
- FIX: Add 'speak: none' to FontAwesome icons for accessibility.
- FIX: Footer doesn't stay at bottom code fix when no footer.
- FIX: Alternative colour border colours.
- FIX: Narrow page width and page header.
- FIX: Tidy the header.
- FIX: Admin submit button hover on alternative colour schemes.
- FIX: Dimmed icon colours.
- FIX: Hidden course summary box colours to be dimmed.
- NEW: Issue #632: View StyleGuide without logging on.
- NEW: Issue #645: Add setting to toggle display of hidden courses in Custom Menu.  Thanks to Mathieu Pelletier for this code.
- NEW: Improve efficiency of colour switcher.
- NEW: Add logo width setting.
- NEW: Hide title area when showing social icons when collapsed.
- NEW: Bigger user picture when using the old navbar position and at the top.
- NEW: Refactor ColoursSwitcher into jQuery and optimise.

M2.9: https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversion.php?id=10845

- FIX: Issue #351: Footer doesn't stay at bottom.
- FIX: Issue #627: Request for an unknown renderer.
- FIX: Issue #628: Course content search dialog does not show up properly on RTL mode.
- FIX: Issue #629: Hidden resources have low contrast.
- FIX: Issue #633: Increase performance of administration settings pages.  Thanks to 'Jan Dagefoerde' for the initial patch.
- FIX: Issue #634: Improve icon replacement performance.
- FIX: Issue #635: Course table of contents block navigation when static navbar.
- FIX: Issue #640: Edit profile style not set properly.
- FIX: Issue #641: Floating rows in the gradebook position after page scroll are wrong.
- FIX: Issue #642: Advanced Grading creating template form issue.
- FIX: Style guide settings tooltips and popups.
- FIX: MDL-52936 - Fix link hover bug on iOS.
- FIX: Apply 'aria-hidden="true"' to FontAwesome icons as much as possible.  Still a few 'content' CSS attributes to consider.
- FIX: Add 'speak: none' to FontAwesome icons for accessibility.
- FIX: Footer doesn't stay at bottom code fix when no footer.
- FIX: Alternative colour border colours.
- FIX: Narrow page width and page header.
- FIX: Tidy the header.
- FIX: Admin submit button hover on alternative colour schemes.
- FIX: Dimmed icon colours.
- FIX: Hidden course summary box colours to be dimmed.
- NEW: Issue #632: View StyleGuide without logging on.
- NEW: Issue #645: Add setting to toggle display of hidden courses in Custom Menu.  Thanks to Mathieu Pelletier for this code.
- NEW: Improve efficiency of colour switcher.
- NEW: Add logo width setting.
- NEW: Hide title area when showing social icons when collapsed.
- NEW: Bigger user picture when using the old navbar position and at the top.
- NEW: Refactor ColoursSwitcher into jQuery and optimise.

Highlights:

  • I've spent a lot of time tidying up the header and making it look better, including a bigger profile image when the navbar is below the logo / social icon area and you are at the top of the page.
  • There is a new dotted line to separate the social icons as they seemed to flow together.
  • The style guide can be accessed without logging on - yoursite/theme/essential/pages/styleguide.php.  The purpose of which is a start on being able to run the theme with your settings against external accessibility tools.  Still a work in progress, but a start.
  • Accessibility - many many hours work: I've added 'aria-hidden=true' to as many FontAwsome icons as possible.  Still a few to get but have not worked out a way of technically doing this.  May in the end have to remove the problematic ones.  Also added 'speak: none' CSS attribute.  The hidden / dimmed text colour has been changed to be AAA accessibility contrast rated and made italic so that it is different.  What I lack here for accessibility is information, so if you have some with a good justification for a change then I'll have a go at implementing it.
  • The logo now has a width setting to give you greater control.
  • The footer now will move to the bottom and a little beyond when the page content is such that there would be space under the footer.  Funded with thanks by a client.
  • Finally worked out how to fix the floating gradebook row titles when the old navbar position is in effect.
  • Course search auto-complete works for RTL languages.

Cheers,

Gareth

Average of ratings:Useful (4)
In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Substantial update to Essential for Moodle 2.9 and 3.0.

by Danny Wahl -

Hey congrats on the new release, and kudos on all the accessibility work smile

FYI disabled/inactive UI elements are exempted from contrast checking (see 2nd bullet below), so hopefully you're not doing too much work trying to meet that requirement.

1.4.6 Contrast (Enhanced): The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 7:1, except for the following: (Level AAA)

  • Large Text: Large-scale text and images of large-scale text have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1;

  • Incidental: Text or images of text that are part of an inactive user interface component, that are pure decoration, that are not visible to anyone, or that are part of a picture that contains significant other visual content, have no contrast requirement.

  • Logotypes: Text that is part of a logo or brand name has no minimum contrast requirement.


Average of ratings: -
In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Substantial update to Essential for Moodle 2.9 and 3.0.

by Malcolm Hay -

Amazing work. I can't wait to try it out, especially the Course Table of Contents mod.

Keep up the good work.

Average of ratings:Useful (1)
In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Substantial update to Essential for Moodle 2.9 and 3.0.

by Ahmed Nobani -

Thank you Gareth for you amazing work

we appreciate your efforts Yes


Average of ratings:Useful (2)