Themes

I guess I am at a loss for how to use the new templating.  I don't really understand how a variable goes from the theme admin page into the theme.  

Is there an example of how a image or text string can be returned and displayed in the theme?  It would be nice if Boost shipped with the ability to upload a background image and then set the repeat etc, like you could in More.  That theme helped me figure a bunch of stuff out using PHP to make things happen.  

So in Boost settings.php I added this:

// Frontpage Textbox.

    $name = 'theme_boost/fptextbox';

    $title = get_string('fptextbox', 'theme_boost');

    $description = get_string('fptextboxdesc', 'theme_boost');

    $default = '';

    $setting = new admin_setting_confightmleditor($name, $title, $description, $default);

    $setting->set_updatedcallback('theme_reset_all_caches');

    $page->add($setting);

In lib.php I added this:

function theme_boost_fptextbox(renderer_base $output, moodle_page $page) {

    global $CFG;

    $return = new stdClass;

    $return->heading = $output->page_heading();

    $return->fptextbox = '';

    if (!empty($page->theme->settings->fptextbox)) {

        $return->fptextbox = '<div class="fptextbox">'.format_text($page->theme->settings->fptextbox).'</div>';

    }

    return $return;

    }

Now how do I get it to appear on the page with this new templating ??  I am pretty lost and could use some practical guidance.  

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Previously you could just drop this in and it would display:

echo $PAGE->theme->settings->fptextbox;

Chris,

Sorry for my delay in responding.

Just from observation and some discussion in workshops, three things that we love about Pioneer are:

• The course teacher can customize the banner image. If that were the only thing Pioneer did, it would still be awesome. That ownership and control might not matter so much in higher ed and business - especially if the organization is going for consistency across the site, but for K-12 it is very valuable. I try to frame Moodle as the online component of your classroom. Each physical classroom is different, and it is nice to be able to carry that on into the online environment. Teachers add images that reflect the subject, the seasons, etc. Elementary teachers can use a class picture from a field trip - so many possibilities.
• The way the sections are separated and sort of float on the page is both appealing and visually useful.
• The Edit button sticks at the top of the page as you scroll down! This is hugely convenient and appreciated by our teachers who use your theme.

We aren't using Pioneer as the site theme, although I'm playing around with it our test server for that purpose. It is available for teachers to select for existing courses, and I've been selecting it for all new courses I set up over the last few months.

There are lot of settings! That's good, though, right? Lots of settings, lots of options - but lots of decisions to make and test. A new theme with the features above - and fewer decisions on admin settings would be great! Looking forward to trying it out. We are on 3.1 and probably won't update until the summer -  and will probably jump to 3.3 then.

Thanks - again - for all of the work you and others do! Please keep it up!

David