Home page for app

Home page for app

by David Morrow -
Number of replies: 5

Greetings!

Is there a setting that determines the "home page" for the app?

(Moodle 3.1.1+ with latest Moodle Mobile Additional Features plug in installed and enabled, using the More theme for the site home page)

We have simplified our regular site front page to just three hyperlinked icons in the topic section (with some descriptive text and mouse-over help):


It shows up pretty nicely in the app:



But the links don’t work as expected in the app:

  • Dashboard - opens the site homepage in the device's browser
  • All Courses and Categories opens My Courses in the app
  • Help and Resources also opens My Courses in the app

Is there a way to have the mobile app always go straight to the user’s My Courses page when the app is launched - without forcing that behavior in the regular site with the “Default home page for users” setting?

Or is there a way to amend my links so that they work as expected in both the app and the regular site?

All of my trials have been on iOS devices (no Android easily available).

Thanks in advance for any help!

David

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In reply to David Morrow

Re: Home page for app

by Dani Palou -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Hello David,

right now the only way to change the first page of the app is with the "Default home page for users" setting.

Regarding your links:

  • "Dashboard" - It isn't working in the app because the app doesn't have a Dashboard yet.
  • "All Courses and Categories" - This one will probably stay as it is for maximum compatibility since it can depend on some Moodle settings that the app doesn't know. Using My Courses will work in all the Moodle sites and it shows a similar behaviour.
  • "Help and Resources" - I opened this issue to fix this one. The main problem is that it requires a Web Service that was introduced in Moodle 3.2 and it isn't backported in Moodle Mobile Additional Features plugin. We'll check if the WebService can be backported.

Kind regards,

Dani

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In reply to Dani Palou

Re: Home page for app

by Dani Palou -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi again,

we've been discussing this and we finally decided that:

  • Dashboard - Will show My Courses until Dashboard is implemented.
  • All Courses and Categories - Will show list of "Available Courses" if we have the WebServices to show it (the one that might be backported to local_mobile). If WS aren't available in the site, will show My Courses.
  • Help and Resources - Will show the list of courses in that category if we have the WebServices to show it (the one that might be backported to local_mobile). If WS aren't available in the site, will show My Courses.

Cheers,

Dani

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In reply to Dani Palou

Re: Home page for app

by David Morrow -

Daniel - hello

And thank you for the rapid response!

This sounds great - I've already voted for the issue in the tracker. If I understand correctly, upgrading to Moodle 3.2 would take care of things immediately. Otherwise, if the web service can be backported to the Additional Features plugin, then updating the plugin at that time should also work. Right?

We should be updating to 3.3 in the Summer.

In the meantime - no matter which solution - we will encourage users to use the "hamburger" icon to go straight to "My Courses".

Thanks again!

David

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In reply to David Morrow

Re: Home page for app

by Dani Palou -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Hello David,

yes, that's right, updating your Moodle or the plugin will be enough to make it work if the students use the latest version of the app. Juan decided to backport the WebService, so you should be able to make it work before summer, once the new version is released.

Also, we decided to include this issue in the current sprint, so it should be available in the next release of the app (end of this month).

Thank you for reporting this, seeing real use cases helps us make the app better!

Kind regards,

Dani

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In reply to Dani Palou

Re: Home page for app

by David Morrow -

Dani,

Great news all around! Thanks again for the rapid response - and responsiveness to user needs.

I've had a couple of workshops this week with high-school teachers, with emphasis on the app. It has been very well received.

Thanks!

David

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