Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -
Number of replies: 14

It seems we're unable to enable appearance in topic subfolders? I just uploaded the entire course in topic/folder/subfolder structure, and belatedly realized I'm unable to get files (pdf, word and png files) to appear in popups or separate windows..just the instant download behavior.  Does this mean I need to reupload the entire course? And come up with a different structure? The course has around 500+ file items so far...


If so this is incredibly bad..much worse than the 15yr old+ online platform I'm migrating the course from. Any suggestions?  I'm looking at 3-4 lost days of work....žalostan

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Emma Richardson -
Slika Documentation writers Slika Particularly helpful Moodlers Slika Plugin developers

The folder/subfolder is purely that.  It is a way for storing a lot of files that are designed to be downloaded.  Word files are only ever going to download regardless of how you add them to a course because browsers won't open them.  

There are many better ways to present your information - the book activity for example.  In the book you can lay out all your content in chapters and pages.  Plus, if you use completion settings, students will have to look at every page in the book to be marked as completed.

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Tim Hunt -
Slika Core developers Slika Documentation writers Slika Particularly helpful Moodlers Slika Peer reviewers Slika Plugin developers

A folder of 500 files is not a course.

Presumably some of those files are the main ones that tell the student what to study each week (or however your course is structured) and the rest are just background resources.

You need to set your Moodle course to the appropriate format (topics, weeks, ...) then upload the key files one at a time into that layout, and give them appropriate names and descriptions so that students know what they are supposed to study.

Perhaps once you see what you can build directly in Moodle, you won't need so many different files.

Then the background resources can just be dumped into Moodle folders.

It might help you to see an example of a well-structured Moodle course, e.g. https://learn.moodle.net/course/view.php?id=10464 (oh! except that they have hidden the later weeks there, so you cannot see the whole thing.) The main documentation is https://docs.moodle.org/30/en/Course_homepage

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Thanks for the replies.  This is for a client whose pc expertise is limited to very basic wordpress and editing word files.  I was hoping to keep the structure as simple as possible (no need for progress bars, SCORM etc apart from the occasional quiz) so that they can update the course themselves (edit and replace word files).  Thus the ultra simple folder arrangement. The whole idea is to obviate the need for someone to update content via a wysiwig interface (thus lectures in word and pdf form).


Looks as though I will have to redo the whole thing.  At present the course is structured by topic..however (a maritime course) each topic has 7-8 subtopics (folders), and each subtopic 7-8 (subfolders/lessons)  with corresponding word/pdf files and high res illutstrations (and eventually quizzes). Thus not having a way to organize topics into larger entities is a real pain. Will have to spend a day looking at instructional vids.


It's absolutely essential that students be able to view at least pdfs in a pop-up or separate tab. I can live with word being downloaded, although viewing in-browser is preferable (ditto pngs and jpgs).

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Edit: the 'course' is more than just resources for students...it is pretty much the entirety of the course material, i.e. all the lessons.  Classroom time is devoted to practicing navigation, reviewing course material, questions etc (recreational coastal skipper's ticket).


Will attach a screencap of old and new platform to show my dilemma...(in Norwegian but you get the gist)..

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Edit 2: The client doesn't want to pay and seems to have locked me out (just as well I took a nominal sum upfront!), so I guess my job is done.....ljut

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Tim Hunt -
Slika Core developers Slika Documentation writers Slika Particularly helpful Moodlers Slika Peer reviewers Slika Plugin developers

Right, so make a topics-style course in Moodle.

Upload each file to the course page using drag and drop.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Actually I did, but each topic needs chapters and subtopics...but see above post guess I don't need to worry about it anymore. Still would be good for moodle to enable pop-up functionality regardless of where in the file hierarchy the file sits...

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Edit 3?:

Client's email and sms was down for 2 days! so am still a go on that project...whew! A little bit 'noia' there....turns out on enrolling (myself using clients username) I changed the username and was unable to log in. Huge relief...still no guarantee of getting paid, but am at least able to complete the job.

So instead of giving up and going skiing, looks like the next 2-3 days are redoing the course (will just make another one!), in some format that allows pop-ups of pdf's, word etc in-browser as well as quizzes. 

Any suggestions given the chapter/topic/subject layout of the course? Will have to do some lynda.com'ing of moodle (newb), but want to keep it as stupidly simple as possible so that client is not relying on me to update course for next 10 years. I.e. course content in pdf and word pop-ups, editing of course material in word, no complicated scorm or progress stuff, just KISS...one of the teachers is a retired naval commander nearly 80 years old, so editing word files and uploading updates is about as complicated as I want to make it.screencap current moodle 'course'...

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Additional info: upgraded to moodle 3.0.xxx (latest), but didn't actually go ahead and upgrade databases to 'barracuda' or whatever it was...not a programmer (unless you count maya/3ds max etc! animator and casual web-design is about it for me...).. 

How is that going to affect my deployment? This is for a client/friend, so not exactly huge sums involved...prbly not nearly enough given time used...

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Edit 5? 

How much is a plugin that enables docs to be read online going to cost (as far as I can tell, files sit on amazon servers or something), and will such a plugin (do they work for blocks or for main content as well?) work for files in my current folder/subfolder structure? 

Looked at renting at amazon for rendering, but not this kind of thing.

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Emma Richardson -
Slika Documentation writers Slika Particularly helpful Moodlers Slika Plugin developers

The problem with this idea for word documents, is it is going to be browser dependent.  Some browsers are still going to download just as, depending on personal settings, some computers are set to open Adobe documents outside of the browser too.

I still think that you would be better off to use a built in activity like the book.  It is going to give you much more functionality.  Just teach your teacher to enter his text straight into the book on Moodle - it is no harder than word.  Cleaner, more functional, and it gets you away from hundreds of documents.  Yes, more time on the frontend to set up but a much more functional course in the long run.

You can also you the book to link directly to the other activities such as quizzes so that the main course is just run through the book module which takes them through in an organized way.

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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Yes I realized early on that word would require an institutional word-license for viewing on the cloud (thus all course docs are both in pdf and word - easy enough for the 2 teachers/owners to export a pdf from within word once updated/edited - this course requires constant updating). 

However after a lot of ploughing through lynda moodle vids and other online resources, it seems pdf's and word docs uploaded to an activity such as a book/chapter/page etc still aren't viewable in-browser...

This is a major downside when you need some kind of overarching organizational format (we have around 7 main topics, several with 7-10 subtopics, each of which are comprised of anywhere from 2-10 lessons, each with corresponding word and pdf files as well as quizzes and media files). 

Pop-up functionality is pretty essential for students who will often be relying on ipads, tablets, mobile phones etc (not to mention, being forced to download and open in acrobat reader for every lecture is downright primitive).

Flattening the course structure just to enable popups or separate tabs entails creating 50+ 'topics' and no way to group them. 

I don't recall this problem using commercial solutions in undergrad or grad school (USyd, Cornell) whether it was blackboard or whatever it was we used back then. In fact I don't see why such an obvious shortcoming is such a problem for developers to address. 

It seems quite a few people out there on the great internet have resorted to hacking moodle source code to overcome this..! Not about to try, know some basic html and css, but that's as far as it goes.

My clients have access to Word and that is pretty much it. As far as effort, copying pasting text and illustrations/embedding media into pages using the wysiwig interface is a no go. They want to simply download word docs, edit, export as pdf, upload them again. Neither has the time or inclination to mess around with the atto editor.

Me adding html code to enable iframes or popups etc obviates the whole exercise, which is to keep this as simple as possible, and completely self-sufficient/self-reliant (no reliance on IT people...a 6th grader should be able to manage it).  Ditto they have no time to learn new software packages. I will have to teach them how to upload docs, and enroll students, but that is about as far as it goes ( I don't want to be tech support for the next decade either!).

Thanks for the replies, will have a play around with the books thing, but a bit disappointed frankly with the platform (lots of great stuff! but viewing docs inline not to mention a decent file management system seems pretty basic!).



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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Arne Pursell -

Didn't mean to be snarky there (must be the time spent in aus), but the main problem is that copying/pasting our finished word documents with a lot of formulas, mathematical symbols etc for navigation and so on is incredibly time consuming....the formatting from word just goes haywire in wysiwig interfaces, and with 150+? documents, it would take months.  In fact it did when I helped my Commander put up the old course. Even converting the old course from wysiwig to pdf to word took ages (finding a workflow to convert pdf to word in Norwegian without completely messing up the formatting/turning everything into indecipherable hieroglyphics).

So really that's my dilemma. Have perfectly functioning word docs and pdf's but don't really want 100+ topics with no 'chapters' just to enable pop-up functionality. Or I could just copy paste everything into the ATTO editor (taking months, and then clients are reliant on me for every little update).

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In reply to Arne Pursell

Re: Change file behavior properties in folder/subfolders

napisao/la Emma Richardson -
Slika Documentation writers Slika Particularly helpful Moodlers Slika Plugin developers
Totally understand the time issue.  Just not a fan of courses full of documents - I think that is why Moodle does not put time into that area.  


An alternative would be to create your individual areas in topics and then just drag the documents in without putting them in folders.  It is the folder feature that is taking away your popup functionality.  Once they are out of the folders, you could use the database to bulk update the display settings.  Again, Word is still going to download, but PDF can open in browsers.   This would be the easiest way for teachers to update because they could just drag the updated document to the appropriate section.

Or use a page for each subsection and link to your documents from the page - again that will give you the display options.  

You might also look at the MIcrosoft plugins. Haven't used them but maybe they will help.

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