Glad to hear you like Fordson. If you like the theme the best way to show the developer is to make it a favorite in the plugin directory.
I post about our progress and direction of Fordson right here in the forums. Usually in the discussion thread linked from the plugin page.
Chris,
Thanks so much for the ability to hide the items in the Nav Drawer, that solves one of two of the biggest complaints with Boost I have gotten from users.
The other is to put back a direct Course administration link - in the Nav Drawer above Site administration would be perfect, and/or somewhere in the header alongside the This course button or the Turn editing on button you've rescued.
Unfortunately the course admin URL requires the course id parameter, so it's not possible to add it to your cool ability to put custom urls on the Nav Drawer.
Basically every teacher and course designer I work with detests the new course admin layout and all they want is one simple button that will show the entire flat course admin menu with one click.
Thanks
Randy
Randy,
Great idea! What if I put it as a custom option in the This Course drop down menu?
I can probably get it into the nav drawer like you suggested as well. Let me get a link working and I will see about adding it into the various areas.
You are referring to the page that loads when you click More in the edit gear correct?
Chris,
Yes, it's the page that loads when you do Gear > More, the link structure is %wwwroot%/course/admin.php?courseid=#
The goal, as with restoring the Turn editing on button, is to reduce the clicks to one.
Adding it to Nav Drawer is great. But when the drawer is closed then having it somewhere else it is constantly available like the Turn editing on button would be perfect.
The idea is: avoid dropdowns and multi-clicks and restore the same type of direct access as the Admin block -- actually better, because the new flat menu style for Admin menus shows so much more at once and makes many tasks quicker and more direct than the Admin block where submenus had to be opened a lot. But it takes more work to get to the flat menu now.
I've tried showing people the 'This course' menu in the theme but most people react to it with 'That's good but it's yet another place' meaning there are now four places to have to go - Gear, Gear + More, Nav Drawer, This course - and each has different but somewhat over lapping options. It's too confusing.
Having a constant and standard access via the Nav Drawer and one other button to the course admin menu would be clean and simple.
Randy,
This makes sense to me. I will see where it might make most sense to put the link. I have a few projects to get off my plate but will get this as part of the next release.
Chris
This is a really important issue we are facing at our institution too. I'd like to have simple (e.g. one click) access to turn editing on.
Fordson for Moodle 3.4 and 3.5 has the edit button always visible in the top navbar. It also keeps the user on the same part of the page after editing is toggled. We also put course management into a modal window with all the links organized for teachers. This can be accessed at anytime from any page.