Nested Sections within Grid Format

Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Al Brocklehurst -
Number of replies: 9

Hi All

Moodle 2.8.7+ (Build: 20150828)
Using Clean theme

Grid Format: Version 2015040302 - Release 2.8.2.4

I've stepped into an Admin role for a High Education institute with the above configuration. Generally all going well and thanks Gareth for the Grid Format it works well.

In our Courses we have 5 sections set up as:

Assessments |Resources | Weekly Tasks |Communication |Teacher Area

The Teacher Area is hidden from Students.

In the Weekly Tasks section is where most of the course content is which is separated into weeks by labels containing the heading, content followed by any activities and or resources for that week. So this is where the 'scroll of death' get's reinvented in a way.

The challenge was asked last week by a teacher was "can I easily hide a week" which my reply was well no you have to hide each Label/Activity and Resource for that week which got me thinking wouldn't it be great to have the ability to have nested sections like Flexible Sections Format https://moodle.org/plugins/format_flexsections does but within the Grid Format. This way you only need to click the eye to hide that weeks nested section.

I also did a bit of a search to see if it was possible to do some 'smoke and mirrors' with Bootstrap Tabs or Accordion but no real luck.

So the goal here is to enable an easy way to hide a Week's content that is currently constructed using Labels/Activities/Resources and if possible to reduce the 'scroll of death' yet make it easy to edit.

Any ideas from the community most welcomed.

Thanks

Al


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In reply to Al Brocklehurst

Re: Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Richard Oelmann -
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I believe there are (or were) issues with the flexsections course format in that it is/was 'destructive' in terms of being able to move back and for to other formats (although in itself I think its a great format).

One option that springs to mind immediately for hiding/revealing content based on weeks would be to make use of the conditional access tools.

Another alternative might be to look at the OU SubPage module - The single subpage activity for each week would sit on the main page (with a single hide/show), but allows activities to be added to that subpage (rather than the Page module which is a single page with its own content). https://github.com/moodleou/moodle-mod_subpage

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In reply to Richard Oelmann

Re: Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Al Brocklehurst -

Revisiting this idea again and it seems SubPage module won't work out for our Moodle setup moving forward beyond 2.8.

Ideally if the Page module had the ability to add/attach an activity or Resource to it then this address the 'scroll of death' within a section. Each Page would act as a substitute section for the weekly tasks. 

The workaround of course is to hide the Activity/Resource and add a link to the Page content which would work fine but more labor intensive and a bit more technical for time pressured teachers.

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In reply to Al Brocklehurst

Re: Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Derek Chirnside -

This is probably in the top three problems I have with Moodle.  Scroll of death for sections.

Consider the official documentation on the book module:

MDLSITE-1789 | https://docs.moodle.org/31/en/Book_FAQ#Why_only_two_levels.3F

I quote, for the book:

Why only two levels?

Two levels are generally enough for all books, three levels may lead to poorly structured documents. The Book module is designed for the creation of short multi-page study materials. Consider uploading a file in PDF format for longer documents.


Books have pages and subpages; So I think the same for navigation: like sections and subsections.  Sub-sub sections I think is a result of poor planning.

I prefer: 

  • Side navigation between sections.

  • Tabbed navigation between subsections.


No format seems to give this functionality (that I know if) without a significant 'gotcha'.

Al, what do you mean by this:   ????

I also did a bit of a search to see if it was possible to do some 'smoke and mirrors' with Bootstrap Tabs or Accordion but no real luck.

This is the workaround that I use.  A little bit of Bootstrap tabbed stuff gets things looking quite nice.  See the posts here: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=325446 for instance.  The bottom image above is simple bootstrap tabs.

The problems with this workaround:

  1. You can't link to a specific tab.  So I say ""See "Mini teaching Exercise" in the Tasks section"". and they go to Tasks section (with course menu) and then click on the Mini teaching Exercise Tab.
  2. You loose some tracking options.  Moodle events are not sophisticated enough to gegister all the clicks as clicks.
  3. It's a little tricky to troubleshoot.  Like if you are editing a tab name and click one backspace too far.
  4. Rearranging tabs is a pain.
  5. Hiding tabs is a pain.
  6. ??  

IMHO someone who managed a two level presentation of sections in this way would be doing MoodleINC a great favour.

My 2c worth.

-Derek



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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Al Brocklehurst -

Hi Derek

What I meant by this was to enable content to be hidden ie. a Tab or Accordion but not an easy process for a Lecturer to do as you have identified.

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In reply to Al Brocklehurst

Re: Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Richard Oelmann -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Although the sub-page ReadMe suggests it may not be supported after Moodle2.8, there is actually a Moodle3.0 branch in the github repository, it was updated as recently as 20hours ago (Its currenly nearly 6am 18Nove2016 in the UK) and I have it working fine on a Moodle3.1 site smile

https://github.com/moodleou/moodle-mod_subpage

Richard

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In reply to Richard Oelmann

Re: Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
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Ok....

If I were to come up with a solution whereby you could specify that a section in the Grid format was 'within' another section - so it had a 'parent' section.  Then displayed as such.  What would this be worth to you financially wise?

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Al Brocklehurst -

Hey Gareth

That would be fantastic and greatly enhance the Grid Format. Unfortunately I'm not the money holder and are part of a bigger mechanism so will work through this process were possible moving forward.

Cheers

Al 

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In reply to Al Brocklehurst

Re: Nested Sections within Grid Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
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Thanks for your reply Al, what do you mean by "so will work through this process were possible moving forward" please?

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