Now that we are several weeks into the term I always have to scroll down my course home pages quite a way to find the current week. I therefore find it useful to have a little link "Jump to current week" in the header bar, as indicated in the attached screenshot.
It is probably not necessary because adding a link and an anchor is something anyone can do, but I will attacht a context diff anyways that shows what lines to add to cvs:/moodle/course/format/weeks.php to get the "Jump to current week" link.
Thanks Gustav,
I hope I find time to implement this, your hack. Since there is space in that bar, I think that it would be nice to have in the cvs. But perhaps this sort of thing will be covered by the improved templating system in the future. The way that moodle jumps to the top of the page each time one returns to the main page means that there is a lot of scrolling down. You may also consider making the current week pink. However both methods will not work on the morning of the class in question.
Tim
Timothy Takemoto
I hope I find time to implement this, your hack. Since there is space in that bar, I think that it would be nice to have in the cvs. But perhaps this sort of thing will be covered by the improved templating system in the future. The way that moodle jumps to the top of the page each time one returns to the main page means that there is a lot of scrolling down. You may also consider making the current week pink. However both methods will not work on the morning of the class in question.
Tim
Timothy Takemoto
I'm not sure how DIFF files work, so please correct me if I am wrong, but if this line is added:
+ print_heading_block($headertext, "100%", "outlineheadingblock");
Shouldn't then the next line be removed (should there be a minus sign - out front)?
print_heading_block(get_string("weeklyoutline"), "100%", "outlineheadingblock");
The ":weeks.php.diff.txt" file doesn't show this. I ended up getting two headers until I removed this line.
Dan
You are quite right, thanks for pointing that out.
Gustav, thank you for the link code.
My students really appreciate the "jump to current week" link since my courses are 42 weeks long
My students really appreciate the "jump to current week" link since my courses are 42 weeks long
It is now time to upgrade Moodle for the upcoming new term in the UK. It is also the run-up to the new Moodle 1.2. Thus this is a good time to try to get some of my modifications to Moodle into the main code.
The screenshot below shows such a small modification. It provides links at the top of the page to jump directly to a particular week. The link to the current week is bold. This is an alternative to the "Jump to current week" link presented earlier in this thread.
These links proved to be extremely useful towards the end of the term when the course home page was rather long. If there any chance to get this into CVS I would provide the code.
Thanks, Gustav.
I currently can't see much added value in this over the existing jump menu on the course page ... what was the problem with the jump menu?
Also some courses have 52 sections or more so it could get cramped up there!
I currently can't see much added value in this over the existing jump menu on the course page ... what was the problem with the jump menu?
Also some courses have 52 sections or more so it could get cramped up there!
The main problem with the jump menu is that it is at the bottom of the page. Thus it does not avoid the scrolling. Secondly the jump menu requires two clicks, one to open the menu and a second one to choose the week. Thirdly the jump menu does not highlight the current week, although that could of course easily be changed. Finally the jump menu only shows up when only one week or one topic is visible. The link bar shows up in the opposite case when all weeks or topics are visible.
The main reason for the new link bar is the added convenience. Also it is quite intuitive, everyone who sees it knows immediately what it is for.
I agree that if the course home page had more than 24 sections then it would become very crowded. However then also the scrolling that is currently required would become very tedious as well. If you think that there are many courses with so many sections then I could improve the link bar to only show a link to every n-th page where n is chosen depending on the number of sections.
What about if the jump menu was moved up there where your links are? On a zoomed-in course view it could switch views, on a full view it could just jump you down ...
Martin, I think your solution would address all of Gustav's concerns except the one about it taking two clicks rather than one, which is minimal. Perhaps the jump menu would then be a better option. 
However I think either of these measures would be a great improvement to moodle and would like to see one of them incorporated into the main code.
Just my 10 cents worth, 
Tim.
Moving the jump menu up would be a solution.
I still prefer the single click solution that I am proposing. If you are a student or teacher with several courses all using Moodle and all having many more sections than fit on the page you will be using the jump menu quite a lot because unfortunately each time you go back to the course home page you are returned to the top rather than where you were previously (and this is necessary because all the links in the left and right side boxes are only available at the top of the page). Being able to go back to your topic in one click is then much more convenient than a drop-down list.
Different people are different, some may prefer the drop-down menu with its dates and longer descriptions. I think it would be a good idea to cater to all. The addition of the jump bar does not complicate Moodle and helps some people.
Hmm .. I still don't really understand why you say there is a lot of scrolling ... if you're "zoomed" in on the current week then it stays that way near the top of the page - you only really need to change the zoom once a week or whatever.
Are your top sections large? Do we just need to make the top section (0) zoomable too?
Are your top sections large? Do we just need to make the top section (0) zoomable too?
From my perspective, the problem is twofold:
- Sometimes the zoom function is too restrictive. Although a user would like to make the course homepage shorter, viewing only one week feels myopic. Often assignments last 2 or 3 weeks with different stages, and it is better to view them at once. However, the whole page is often too long. The two current options are all or nothing. What about being able to input which numbered sections to view - so that a user could choose to display sections/weeks 4, 5 and 6, for instance?
- When there is a need to view the whole page, presently there is no jump menu. Then scrolling is a real headache. In contrast, when navigating resources not on the course homepage, users can use the jump menu which is right at the top. This functionality is needed on the course homepage also.
- Another option is to include in the main code Gustav's "jump to current week" link hack that he posted earlier, which I think is also a great improvement. This could be combined with periodic "jump to top" links, so that people can quickly go back to the top where the important overview box is.
Any other ideas or comments anyone? 
Tim.
I agree with Gustav and Tim - I have a course with 12 topics, and two 'non-teaching' blocks which still require work to be done, hence 14 topics on the page - and the scrolling is indeed a real headache. I would like to see Gustav's alternative hack, ie the one showing all weeks but highlighting current in bold, but could cope with the Jump Menu so long as it was at the top and bottom of the screen - but it would have to be visible in both 'view current week' and 'view all weeks'.
I like Gustav's idea of being able to input which numbered sections to view so that the user could choose.
By the way, I use the 'current week' to highlight one particular non-teaching block because it's the only way I can force the colour to change. Another very useful mod would be to allow the teacher to choose a default or custom colour for individual weeks/topics ... is this possible Martin??
I like Gustav's idea of being able to input which numbered sections to view so that the user could choose.
By the way, I use the 'current week' to highlight one particular non-teaching block because it's the only way I can force the colour to change. Another very useful mod would be to allow the teacher to choose a default or custom colour for individual weeks/topics ... is this possible Martin??
Hi Martin,
I do not find the focusing onto the current week very convenient because our students and lecturers often need to refer to activities or resources from the previous or following week. If they remove the focus to reach those resources they are returned to the top of the page and the scrolling starts again.
It would be an improvement if after removing the focusing one was still returned to the same section. That is easy to implement.
I still don't see the disadvantage of having the jump links at the top of the page. I have therefore attached to this post a modified version of the latest cvs:/moodle/course/format/weeks/format.php which implements both.
.... and here is the jump bar and focusing improvement for the topics courses, to replace cvs:/moodle/course/format/topics/format.php.
Gustav - is this replacing the most recent format.php file? And how successful were you with asking Martin to 'mainstream' it?
Also, does anyone know how I can get the 'Jump to...' box in the header area of the main course page? It appears on every page but the first page - it would be very helpful (to me at least) if it could appear on every page in a course.
Also, does anyone know how I can get the 'Jump to...' box in the header area of the main course page? It appears on every page but the first page - it would be very helpful (to me at least) if it could appear on every page in a course.
I think "jump to this week" or "jump to this week theme (=bulbe)" is very handy
(and natural) if you have many sections:
If you need to scroll to the week before or the week after this week, then just jump to this week and then scroll a little up or down.
"Jump to this week" works fine in IE under Windows (so does my clone "calendar jump")
BUT NOT under Mozilla 1.5 and Firebird 07: then it jumps not far enough 
I now work only with one layout of escalendar 3.1, the one that fits my own theme (a clone of white) So I removed a lot of IF conditions from the original escalendar And moved the box-layout into the escalandar file. And with Gustav's files in place I now only have to say
"include calendar" (or not)
I think that this is a very good idea Gustav it's something that i've been thinking about because it would come in very handy for use in schools which is what I am working on. 