I've created a Moodle 3.3 version of Fordson and it utilizes the new fontawesome icons. I think this is a great move because now we can build in colors for icons within the theme. Great move. I am sharing it on Google drive until we switch from M3.2 to M3.3 on github.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwVGFeDJiDchWDg1MUhpMnBrazQ
Anyways, if you want to try it out and let me know if you find any issues.
-Chris
Starting playing around with your theme. Lots of cool stuff. Couple of things so far...
I am getting the header image twice on the Front Page. I do have the course grid enabled. Not sure if that is affecting it or not. Only seeing it this way on the Main Site page.
Also, I noticed that if the title for the icon display is too long it expands the box but only the specific box with the icon. Switching display to inline-flex seems to resolve this and allows all icons to remain the same size but I am having issues getting the content within each box to center vertically - any suggestions...
It's pretty experimental at this point since Moodle and Boost are a moving target until released.
I do see where the issue is. I was playing with placement of the logo (in the full header function or just dropping the class in the frontpage mustache template) and I left it in both spots.
If you open up classes/output/core_renderer.php and remove line 85 and 86 it will fix the issue:
$html = html_writer::start_div('headerlogo');
$html .= html_writer::end_div();
Also, remove the "." before the = sign here:
$html .= html_writer::start_tag('header', array('id' => 'page-header', 'class' => 'row'));
so that after removing the two lines the 'header' line looks like this:
$html = html_writer::start_tag('header', array('id' => 'page-header', 'class' => 'row'));
Not quite sure about the icon display issue. There is a separate width for the create a course button.
Thanks Chris. I changed the width of the icons which was an alternative fix so my titles stayed on one line. I will play with the renderer.
Not sure if you have thought about it but I have been using a slightly hacked older version of Adaptable where I have the header fixed. I know that you fix the top navbar in Fordson but was wondering if you had thought of either fixing the course header bar (where the "This Course" menu item is) or maybe moving that menu item to the top navbar so that it stays fixed .. also it would be really nice to have a Grades link in that menu or a separate button in the header (or top navbar) to the grade book.
Great feedback with the link to gradebook always present on the screen. We are waiting for the dust to settle with all these rapid changes in Moodle. We won't be officially on Moodle 3.2/3.3 until this summer.
From what I am seeing and the direction I think would make sense is to leave the "This Course" drop down to activities within the course breadcrumbs. I would then move the other special links to the top navigation bar next to My Courses Drop Down.
However, I am very leary of doing this as it will now create several confusing and not straightforward ways to access content. It goes back to "where do I look for navigation".
I am also delaying making any more major changes to navigation because we are discussing a new course format which may address this issue for our teachers by generating a "teacher dashboard" page which would have many of these items laid out on a single page and very organized for our staff utilizing icons, descriptions, and grouping of key items.
It's part of our three items we see as making the most impact for us: Theme, Enrollment, Course Format. The first two are done.
Of course, once I actually added some activities in my course, I did see the Grades link appear in the Boost side navigation but I still think a clear link somewhere in a header would help too.
I love what you are doing - it is refreshing to see a theme with a K12 focus. I have actually considered redoing my whole enrollment strategy following your enrollment plugin! For all those teachers that are obsessed with Edmodo, this seems to be a great move.
I am very interested with your teacher course format - I am currently using my own format which is a mixture of Collapsed Topics with Julian Ridden's course tiles from way back when.
I am not a coder (but a pretty decent - well maybe dangerous! css hacker) but always happy to collaborate on ideas and help test. I have been stuck on 3.1 while I wait for Adaptable to fix the grader report but now think that I should get on board with Boost and just totally redo my site.
Emma,
The first part of the plan was a Boost-based theme with small but significant visual cues for learners. The theme is also the "glue" so-to-speak that holds the other elements together. For instance, with Fordson and our Easy Enrollment plugin we can include special code that allows others to simply turn on Easy Enrollment and the special form instantly appears on the homepage. Easy Enrollment uses mustache and bootstrap elements for the form so it could be used with other Boost-based themes but getting it into others may prove problematic. As such, we are hoping to have Easy Enrollment and Fordson grouped as a package in the repository later this summer.
Our course format is in discussion. The idea is to have a course format that utilized 3 tabs: Communication, Learning, and Teacher Dashboard. The communication tab would be a Blog Format Discussion forum in which the teacher can communicate events and instructions. The learning tab would be a standard topic format. The Teacher Dashboard would clearly layout course management tools with icons, descriptions, and more. It would also contain the course/group enrollment codes and other useful data and information for teachers. Our intent is for the teacher dashboard tab to provide a clear way for teachers to manage their class with grouped links that are laid out in a way that brings everything into view on one page for the teacher. For instance a grouping of links might be Backup, Restore, Import, and Reset. Another grouping might focus on Enrollment, Participants, Grades, and Groups. Reports and all those links can be grouped together, and then badges and questions.
Again, we are just in discussions right now. We hired a brilliant coder. He whipped up the Easy enrollment plugin with the QR code reader in just a couple of days.
If you have any suggestions please send them our way.
Have you seen Notebowl? It uses a Facebook style layout and then tabs for Assignments etc. It really has a neat layout to it but I miss the linear options that Moodle has. Especially for K12 students, they often need to visualize a straightforward "first this, then this" in the course layout. I liked the social wall format but it was somewhat clunky. Notebowl uses a lot of Ajax, I believe and the UI is incredibly smooth and intuitive. I have been playing with a demo course if you want to take a look. It is the first LMS I have seen that has really got my interest, just on the UI side - it is very limited in what it can actually do.
As you design the teacher layout page, it would be really nice to give us options on what links we wanted included. That way, for those of us that want to keep teachers out of certain areas or at least not make them too obvious, we could just disable those links from that page and not clutter up the page so much.
I watched a video on Notebowl. It looks a lot like Edmodo, GCLassroom, and the other social platforms. There are so many of these sprouting up that its hard to keep pace. The issue with all technology but specifically LMS's is that there is always a new product, a new idea, and new and easier way to engage and present learning material. Is a social format the way to go? Is a structured format the way to go? I am not sure.
My other idea that is way more practical than developing a new course format is building the "Teacher Dashboard" into my theme using a slide-toggle much like I did in Pioneer theme to show student grades inside a course. By clicking this toggle button a dashboard would appear and I could layout and guide a teacher in the management of their course. It could have some customization in the theme kinda like what I did for the "This Course" drop down where a user could select which buttons and links appear by a simple checkbox. Then you could also display a custom textbox, etc. for the teachers along with their enrollment codes from our Easy Enrollment Plugin.
In fact, I think the teacher dashboard being a part of the theme is even better as it could be utilized by other course formats. My initial thought is to put the button/toggle right above the upper right Editing Cog/Gear and have it appear as a tab. The teacher dashboard would slide down from the very top and move the course content down the page.
I think I might start trying to develop this tomorrow as it could operate independently of the course format hopefully and it would also quickly display enrollment codes for teachers for our upcoming Easy Enrollment plugin.
I think you just helped me move this idea forward. Thanks!
Glad to have helped. Love your proposed solution. With the user tours as well, I think Moodle is getting so much more teacher friendly!
Oh, why not have it replace the cog icon - after all, everything in that dropdown is going to be part of your teacher dashboard anyway. Probably need a different name so as not to confuse with the actual Dashboard. Teacher Tools maybe...
I am thinking of calling the button "Course Management". I whipped up a working and functional example this morning...
This is only a couple of hours of work but I think you can see where I am going with it. It's not as pretty as I'd like but I have to get the "bones" in place so that we can make it more intuitive.
Please look it over and offer any suggestions.
This is awesome! I was thinking pretty icons but actually, the fact that it matches the navigation drawer is not bad at all as is. I especially like that it is always there even when they select an item from the list, so there is no need to go back to course main page to access it and that there is no additional action needed (drop down list/accordion/tab) - they just click to where they need to go right from this screen. I think a Grade menu is definitely needed as part of this. Maybe a participants messaging link under the User Links. Could always add some font awesome at the beginning of each link for pretty visual effects. It also might be good to have an option to Display Always? Some teachers might like to just lock it open...
Nice work! Now we just need 3.3 to release. Are you thinking of making this part of the Fordson theme or a separate plugin? I would vote for the latter if possible.
Thank you for the feedback. The first implementation of this is in Fordson V1.4.2. I plan to jazz it up a bit with some icons. Just working on the details.
For future releases I will work on:
I chose to make it part of the theme in order to ensure it's placement and styling. From the Fordson admin you can turn it on and off with a checkbox. It also has logic built in so that it only shows up if you have the capability to enroll students (teacher). Students will never see the panel.
You can download it now from the repository and github version 1.4.2.
Excellent - thanks. I would add a link to the grader report as well as the setup page. I like the idea of a favorites menu - nice if the teachers could edit that...probably a little more than your bolding idea..
I will keep playing. Just got my course tiles formatted so they are working well in 3.3. Now I will concentrate on setting up Fordson as theme so I am all ready for upgrade this summer!
Oh, tried to install new version but got this error:
Warning: require_once(/Users/emma/Sites/moodle3.3/blocks/course_overview/locallib.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /Users/emma/Sites/moodle3.3/theme/fordson/classes/output/core_renderer.php on line 42
Ahh, figured it out - you have that line commented out in working version!
Remember, I haven't published the Moodle 3.3 version yet. This is still all 3.2.
I plan to do something with a color chooser and being able to change icons colors with the 3.3 font-awesome integration.
The 3.2 version is not compatible with 3.3 at this point.
Also, I already noticed some links I left out, added logic to show/hide the default Cog for a cleaner experience, added in a custom textbox for the Course Management Panel and more!
These and some more stuff will be coming out in the next release next week or later this week.
Should be on github tomorrow.
We are updating to Moodle 3.3 in June so I am frantically trying to get everything lined up and ready to go. I think our teacher are going to love this latest improvement!
I am out most of June and July so the more I can get ready now the better. I will keep updating as you go just to make sure my changes are still working! I probably won't actually upgrade my live site until the beginning of August so as to let it get to 3.3.1 at least and work out any bugs but the more I can get done now, the better.
Oh, I am noticing some double arrows by the cog icons - see attached screenshot. Sure that is just part of the 3.2/3.3 stuff.
Oh and thanks for all your work on this!!
Once m3.3 is released I plan to switch all future development to that version as it uses fontawesome and the new course over block which breaks some things.
You are correct in the double arrow being a 3.3 issue with Fordson.
Oh a question - how are you creating the links for the teacher part? Manually or are they being created from the existing menu? The reason I ask is that I use the autogroup plugin which inserts an autogroup link in the course admin groups menu. I need to be able to access that plugin somehow at the course level...and I am sure I am not the only one that has links being added from various plugins...and it is not showing now...
The links are manually added because I changed the grouping and display. Someone on YouTube asked the same question.
Hmm... Maybe someone with better skills than mine could help?
I could try and put the edit cog in the panel as a backup.
Do you think that would work? Then you'd have the default menu the corner in case of injected links and still maintain compatibility with other plugins.
Chris
I think that would work with an option in the settings page to add our own links. Actually, perhaps you could add an option to hide that icon as well. That way, we could add the links that we needed and then hide the icon.
So I came in this morning and it was quite easy to move the default editing cog to our new Course Management panel. As you can see in the screenshot we can keep the default edit cog in the panel and that way we don't miss any links or things not displayed in the panel. I also added in a custom textbox in which you can provide instructions to teachers.
However, it is very simple to add new items to the panel once you see the pattern and know where to look.
That looks great. And now I just discovered that the Course Administration link does the trick too so maybe we don't need the cog icon after all. Guess I should have looked more closely...
So I am coming across some accessibility issues. Primarily that the buttons and icons do not have unique ids.
Marketing spots - the buttons for each marketing spots needs a unique id.
Icons on front page - the buttons here also need unique ids.
Is that fixable? Currently id is button for every one. Can you make button1,button2 etc...? I imagine you also are going to have the accessibility police breathing down your neck soon too!
Emma,
Good catch. I removed the ID="button" from each of them. I am not even sure why that was in the template. Latest version 1.4.3 will be on github for M3.2. Several changes to optimize page layout and places to look for navigation.
We are beginning to implement a menu structure just above the main heading to the right of the page which should allow for additional features.
Are you sick of me yet?!!
So the header image is acting weird in the mobile view. It seems to move down the page in the mobile view. I have created a header that sits above the content area in the web view but when I shrink my screen down so simulate a mobile view, the image drops down the page and then hides behind the content area. Apparently the mobile view does not need the 50px top-margin.
I just noticed also that the site logo is coming out of the content header area. Though a max-width:100% setting seems to fix that.
Try the latest version on github and see if it fixes things for you. I am thinking you might have been tinkering with the styles and maybe that is causing an issue.
https://github.com/kennibc/moodle-theme_fordson
This is for moodle 3.2.
Still seeing the same. Have not messed with any layout - only colors...the logo I have been able to fix but as soon as I start to shrink the browser width, you can see the Fordson header image start dropping down the page. I suspect that the responsiveness is somehow increasing the top margin as the screen shrinks..
Ohhh.... You put the logo in the header background image. Those will stretch and shrink. Get just the logo and go to the Fordson Custom images tab. There is a new logo upload right there and that is placed in the top of the homepage. 125px height.
But then I will be stuck with that blue image as the background - guess I could comment that out in the css.
You can upload your own image to use as a background or as you said you can comment it out in the css files. The background images are set to size:cover which will fill the area and expand or shrink with the screen size.
The idea behind the background image is to just provide a visual cue of a new course or different area of the site for the student. It is not meant to display words, logos, or images in which it is important to see something. It is more or less to just allow a "mood" for the coursepage and allow the teacher some form of customization.
Yes, I like the idea but have had trouble finding images that I liked when you only really get the outside edges...so I just designed my logo to sit in that area. I wonder if putting a teacher image in the content header might work better..?
Oh, another thought - would it make more sense to put the This Course links in the Course Management tab? Then if you had a student one, as someone else suggested, it would clean up page a little as you wouldn't need the This Course dropdown.
I am one step ahead of you. For the next update the "This Course" drop down is moved to course management area as well. It frees up space for the breadcrumbs.
I tried to do the Editing button but it gets weird when in a forum and it switches to the search form. That is something I wish would get fixed.
Haha - great minds!!
I think the editing button is ok on its own as it references the course page and adding activities etc, not the course overall management...it actually would create an extra step to get to the editing version of the page so I would leave it alone.
Great things coming out next week. Look for the 1.4.3 version tomorrow. I made the changes we discussed but I also put a bit of style on the Course Management panel. Prepping things for some upcoming news.
After this release I plan to focus just on Moodle 3.3. This version has all the current features we want to make the jump and upgrade from M3.1. With M3.3 coming out soon I can work with the actual release and make sure Fordson works with it.
So the next release will be the final for the M3.2 branch as the M3.3 and font-awesome integration is not really compatible from what I saw early on. We develop on what we are or plan to use.
So to sum it up, once M3.3 is released I will get a version of Fordson which is compatible with it. Then we will also look at the complete package and include our Easy Enrollment integration and move forward with both.
Emma,
I now have two published versions of Fordson. One for 3.2 and one for 3.3 in the repository.
https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversions.php?plugin=theme_fordson
These are both Fordson version 1.4.3.
I also updated our Moodle sandbox to Moodle 3.3Beta and I am running the latest version of Fordson and Easy Enrollment plugin: http://moodlesandbox.dearbornschools.org/
Chris,
Any chance of adding Grades and Participants to the This Course dropdown for students?
Are you trying to eliminate the Nav Drawer? Those two links are in the nav drawer. I don't know that having the links in two spots would be beneficial as it now creates two places to look for the same link. We are trying to eliminate that. If you wanted to maintain a hack to Fordson I could send you code to put in a file and it would just make those links show up in the menu.
PS. Thanks for helping me stumble into the new Course Management folding menu! It is a hit.
Ok, you are right. I had closed the nav drawer and totally forgot about it!! The course management menu is awesome - glad to have helped (not sure what I actually did - think it was all you really!!)
Students love to have everything in one place. Adding Grades and Participants to "This course" would accomplish this. I can't imagine that this will confuse students. They are used to redundancy in a learning platform. After some time they probably leave the navigation drawer closed. The icon of the navigation drawer in the top navigation bar doesn't hurt.
I don't see any reason to justify or eliminate the navigation drawer but a good reason for adding Grades and Participants to "This course" because it will provide a better user experience.
If I can find a way to eliminate these links from the nav drawer I'd take another look at the putting them in This Course.
We are very focused on trying to make sure we don't have multiple ways to get to the same place.
Another option is to put the links to the sections/weeks into a scrollable dropdown next to This Course and eliminate the nav drawer entirely.
We are considering options, however, we kinda like the nav drawer. I am waiting in feedback this summer and next fall to see if we need to make drastic changes. The nice thing of the drawer is you can leave it visible whereas the drop down hides itself.
Hi Chris
I like your "Course Management" button! Anything that helps the Teacher organise her call-to-action thoughts and helps to declutter Moodle, gets a thumbs up from me.
Perhaps it can be customised so that when a student user lcicks the button, a different set of links appears. Like Assignments due, read unread messages, check badges, check course grade details. If that can be done then it's something like "What's good for the goose is good for the gander". Harhar.
Easy for me to say since I'm not the one programming it.
Cheers
Frankie Kam
We are always looking to improve or display things more efficiently or in a way that is easier to comprehend. That was the idea behind the course management panel. We took the course settings cog and organized and displayed them in a way we think is easier for teachers to understand. Then we removed that edit cog so that there are not two places to look.
In Moodle 3.3 the new course overview block will do much of what you described for students and upcoming assignments and course statuses.
Chris, thank you for your awesome work on this theme!
We use the LDAP script plugin to create cohorts from our AD, and this broke in Moodle 3.3, but is supposedly fixed in 3.3.1.
As 3.3.1 was released yesterday I've tried upgrading to it immediately but got an error that Fordson is not compatible with Moodle 3.3.1.
Has anyone else seen or reported this issue?
I have not upgraded our production site yet. Just got back from a 2 week vacation and getting into the swing of things.
On my dev site I upgraded and no issues to report.
What is the error you are getting?
Content remove....as not being relevant to this theme topic.
I'm wondering if it didn't install properly. That seems like every theme setting is undefined.
If it was not installed correctly then I would not have been able to use the theme.
It is Moodle 3.3Dev isn't it and not Moodle 3.2?
I'm using Moodle master branch and updating directly from the Moodle github.
Cheers
Mary
The github version is for 3.2. The 3.3 one was a download from google drive and experimental.
It is the download that I am using. I installed it as a zip file via the Install plugins option.
However I do run Moodle 3.3 Beta on my server as a clone from the Moodle github as it is easier to update that way.
I am not sure why you are getting the notices. I don't see that on my dev site for Moodle 3.3. I am kinda holding off until the final is released and then will focus more intently on that version.
Our drop date for M3.2 or M3.3 upgrade is June 19th. So that is our target date to have everything for Fordson and the Easy Enrollment plugin working in tip-top shape.
Well I don't have the time to check it out so I have dropped Fordson from my server as it is slower than Boost theme. I am not sure why you have duplicated all of the class renderers that are already in Boost theme, especially since Boost is the parent of Fordson? These are inherited, so why copy them word for word? Yes I can appreciate that you need theme if you want to make changes, but if you don't then none of it makes sense.
I do know that if I start deleting functions out of Core Renderer and some of the other files then things start to break. Some of these duplicates are required by other functions in the page.
For instance, try deleting "public function context_header_settings_menu() " and the site will break. Same for " public function region_main_settings_menu() ".
Any idea on why they wouldn't be inherited? I'd be glad to remove them but I think they are required.
Again, I wouldn't recommend the 3.3 version as I haven't spent much time on it besides getting it to work with the core Font-Awesome. Slowness could be caused by uploading large images. I'm not sure.
HI,
Today I was testing the Moodle 3.3 - > official version taken from download page
The Fordson Moodle 3.3 Fordson v1.4.5
I think there is some issue somewhere as in the moment i use Fordson theme, any administration tasks, become really slow. So here is my testing steps and outcome
a) Use clean theme and do all administration tasks - all good
b) Use Fordson and do administration tasks except any change the Fordson theme settings - all good
c) Clean theme - but do fordson theme settings it is better than b)
d) Clean theme - try purgecache - all good
e) Fordson theme - purgecache - takes lot of time
Where as Moodle 3.2 and Fordson Moodle 32 v1.4.5 - this is all good including administration tasks and theme setting changes..
Then I tried lot of things like increasing memory, max_execution time etc in php.ini, still not much change
Then while checking the network - > in browser -> i found the style which usually gets loaded as 'all' - > is taking nearly 3.5-4 minutes... while we do some change in Fordson theme settings.
Note - this is a scratch moodle, with no course only two user in my localhost. I did the same testing in amazon aws as well.. still the same result.
Looks like some issue with scss in either Moodle3.3 or Fordson3.3 version.
Could you please help
Thanks again!
I've noticed this too but don't know what is the issue.
Could it be related to font part that you did in 3.3 ?
another thing i was checking, you have import all scss from boost in your moodle.scss .. do we really need it...
being a child , will those be required
thanks!
If you open up the fordson/scss/moodle.scss file and comment out
// Import font awesome.
@import "../../boost/scss/fontawesome/moodle-path";
@import "../../boost/scss/fontawesome/font-awesome";
It seems to make the purge cache about 10 seconds which was similar to what you got in Moodle 3.2 prior to Fontawesome being integrated in core.
I am not quite sure what the deal is. Maybe someone from Moodle could assist in the best solution moving forward. I noticed that even with Boost when you purge cache it takes a long time to refresh the page. I suspect this is related to SCSS.
okay.. i can confirm, that same issue present in BOOST theme as well for Moodle3.3 released on 15-May 2017.
So, looks like this is a bigger issue
Hi Chris
ON another note - not related to above issue
Just one suggestion - i think you should change a bit in scss_lib, to include the default.scsc from boost (look at other child theme like moove or photos), rather than importing in moodle.scss.
because tomorrow, if there is one more scss gets added in boost, your theme may create issue unless you update the moodle.scss
Nevertheless, this is a great theme.. so thanks for all your great work!
Are you referring to this line in scss_lib:
$scss .= file_get_contents($CFG->dirroot . '/theme/fordson/scss/preset/default.scss');
Please explain. I'd like to keep fordson as efficient as possible.
Mihir,
moodle.scss and default.scss are different files with different purposes.
moodle.scss is a file which calls the bootstrap ones, default.scss is a preset that actually provides the look and feel (in boost it is fairly plain, but in fordson it started out as the flatly bootswatch and in waxed for example, it started out as the Cerulean bootswatch)
// Import everything.
@import "moodle";
@import "../../boost/scss/moodle";as a single file call instead of each of the individual sections - but that moodle.scss file itself is required in each child theme or the standard presets wont work.
// Import core scss from Boost.Hope that helps,
@import "../../boost/scss/moodle";
// Import Waxed theme specific styles (not preset).
@import "styles";
I posted in the developer forum and it seems this is due to SASS compiling on the fly and then storing CSS in cache. Server takes a hit while compiling but then is fine. Is true of all Boost based themes.
Thanks for great explanation Richard and Chris.
I was thinking little different, I mean, we can simply include
$scss .= file_get_contents($CFG->dirroot . '/theme/boost/scss/preset/default.scss'); and then concatenate the extra css which is part of fordson.
If you include the boost default.scss, you need not bring in anything else as that in turn brings everything you want from Boost.
May be I am missing something. Thanks again!
Mihir
You could, but I dont see any benefit doing it that way and lots of complications and additional processing of effectively calling two complete preset files, just for the sake of calling boost's moodle.scss.
Presets are not just the 'extra' styling for a theme, they are a transferable block of styling which can be applied to any boost based theme and therefore need to be complete. So concatenating boost's default.scss with any other theme preset would duplicate and require processing of 2 preset files, with the accompanying processing time of duplicate variables, rules, complications of what overrides what when designing/developing.
Thank you, Chris, for providing an outstanding theme for Moodle 3.3. The two overviews, one for teachers and a different one for students give all users a great experience. Finally, there is no guessing where all users will find the essentials of a course. I am very excited about this development.
In a test site with Moodle 3.3 (Build: 20170515) installed, I downloaded Fordson v1.4.6 (2017051600) for Moodle 3.3 and logged in as a student. If I go to a course, header, body, and footer are empty.
When I click on "This Course," I can see the Course Description, Course Teacher, and Activities in one column (not side by side). To the right, I see My Progress and My Grades. Scrolling down I can see the complete header and course body but the footer is still empty.
One more observation. If badges are disabled for the entire site is it possible to hide badges in the overview of teachers as well?
With kind regards and many, many thanks,
Hartmut
Hello Hartmut,
I will take a look when I get to work. It seems like maybe there is a missing closing div or possibly an extra closing div. Did you put css into the custom textbox? Try deleting it if you did.
As for the badges and other elements in the course management panel I plan to add permission checks for each major grouping. So if a user cannot add badges that would not show. Same for questions etc..
I hope to have a better version released soon.
Hartmut,
You might want to try and clear your cache. I am not sure what would be causing the page display issues.
Also, for the permissions I added in a little bit of logic to make sure the user has permissions before seeing a set of links. Here is what I added and let me know if you think there is a better permission to target:
//permissionchecks for teacher access
$hasquestionpermission = has_capability('moodle/question:add', $context);
$hasbadgepermission = has_capability('moodle/badges:awardbadge', $context);
$hascoursepermission = has_capability('moodle/backup:backupcourse', $context);
$hasuserpermission = has_capability('moodle/course:viewhiddenactivities', $context);
So if you do not use badges you would simply edit the role for teachers or non-editing teachers and remove that capability for them and it will hide the badge links. Same for questions and course management, and user management links. Non-editing teachers do not see question bank links or course management links since their role doesn't meet the criteria.
This will be in the next release but I am holding off to see if others have the same issue as you described logged in as a student.
Chris
Chris,
I did further testing and used a new course with a forum and an assignment - and it worked. Logged in as a student, I could see the entire page and when I clicked on "This course" I could see the categories listed in columns. In my previous test, I used a course with collapsible tabs in the description of activities many times. I need to do more testing later this day.
Regarding badges, I think whether it's possible to use the logic of the nav-drawer. Badges are not listed in the nav-drawer if the site admin disables badges. Just a thought. Your suggestion is also okay as we only upgrade two or three times per year. So changing roles for the entire site is not a big deal.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Hi Chris,
I did more testing with good results. The error when logged in as a student didn't occur again.
(FYI) In my first test, I had backed up the course (with all users) in a life Moodle 3.2.2 site and restored it in the test site with Moodle 3.3. So I thought maybe there is something wrong with backing up and restoring from Moodle 3.2.2 to 3.3.
Then, I created a test course with a teacher and one student and one assignment with a collapsible tab in the description of the assignment. All went well. Course format was topics.
Then, I thought it may be the collapsed topics course format that I liked to use in my first test course. So I backed up the same course but with topics course format selected and restored the course to the test site. The error occurred again i.e., the body of the page was not visible for students. In conclusion: choosing topics format in M3.2.2 (instead of collapsed topics) didn't make any difference. The course format is not the culprit.
One of my questions is: what hinders the body tag to show up in the course main page of Fordson when students are logged in but "This course" is closed? What triggers the body tag when students open the overview "This course" and can see the entire course main page?
The following screenshot shows the elements when a student is logged in but has not opened "This course."
The next screenshot shows you the element after a student has pressed "This course." I hope it makes sense what you see.
Let me know if I can do more tests to find out why students may be unable to see the main class page of some (not all) restored older Moodle courses.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Hartmut,
Did this go away with Fordson 1.4.7? I did see on another course that a student would have trouble and it seemed to stem from HTML in the course summary.
If you remove the course summary or just make sure any special "div" or other html elements all have closing tags does the problem go away?
Chris,
Cleaning the course summary did the trick. Now students can see the main class page properly.
I used the course summary to link to a syllabus so that students could see what to expect before they enrol in that course. But this is not that important. Teachers should know what happens when they add links in the course summary box that these links will be converted to plain text.
Chris,
Is it possible to disable the custom login form on the front page? If I use display: none I still have an empty area on the left side.
Good suggestion as not everyone will want a login form. I will build in a checkbox toggle in site admin to turn it off and just leave the textbox.
Maybe today or next week as we are about to have our Memorial holiday weekend.
This new feature to show/hide the custom login form is on github. Will be included in the 1.4.9 release.
i am pretty new to moodle and trying to use this theme. i have the latest version in use but try as i might i just cannot get the new enhanced menu/panle options for teachers and students to appear.
i have set the default home to the home page ( i think) using moodle instructions - but still no luck. The site is i-cademy.online/moodle.
Can anyone suggest where i might start to fix this?
Kim
Hi Kim,
What is your Moodle version? If you are not using Moodle 3.3, the highest version of Fordson is 1.4.6. The latest version of Fordson works properly with Moodle 3.3, but not with Moodle 3.2 or lower.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
hi Harmut
i had upgraded to moodle 3.3.1 and used the moodle download page to get the 3.3 version of the theme.
i am not sure how to check the theme version - assuming thats possible.
This is the realy wierd problem.
i have changed the setting so the site is the default home page appearance/navigation - changed to site
the new front end options for teacher and student panels dont appear
in the navdrawer both the home and dashboard links both appear. the dashboard link goes to moodle/my
if i change the theme in the menu options to change the dashboard there is not an option to remove the dashboard link. BUT - there is an option to remove the home link.
if i check to the remove home link option link from the navdrawer what actuality goes away is the dashboard link and still the new student/teacher panels do not appear.
i am not sure if thats suppose to happen.
i am happy to create a log in for you if you want to have a look
alternatively i did wonder about reinstalling the theme but wasnt too sure about how to do that.
Kim
For the next release of Fordson (1.5.5) I will be implementing the ability to pick from 3 different styles for course tiles.
When viewing course categories you can pick from 3 different styles to determine how courses are displayed. There is also a setting to control the height of the course tile boxes.
I also made it so the same style is used for Frontpage Available Courses for consistency between the homepage and course categories.
The new feature will be found on the Content Area tab of Fordson Admin.
Coding aside I just had the strangest voice in my head while reading your last comment about new styles for the Fordson theme, and heard the words as though spoken by Donald T. (El Presedente)!!!
The new course style feature is bigly. It's the bigliest feature of the next release.
Here is a video of the new feature and the three different styles for displaying course tiles.
Thanks for this feature. Good one.
I have one query - I see that footers are only appearing in frontpage not in other pages. When I see the mustache , i can see the difference.
Just wanted to understand is it intentional or by mistake
thank you again!
Mihir
It is intentional. Once inside a course we wanted to eliminate as much clutter as possible.
Thanks Chris.
Regards
I need to redirect the target URL in the theme header small logo to point to our college's main campus site when clicked, rather than back to the is the moodle installation of our online college site which is the default current target:
I am having trouble finding how to do that. Will I need to add code to the Raw SCSS (theme_fordson | scss) to accomplish this?
Unfortunately this is not something generated in Fordson. Rather it is part of the header.mustache file located in Boost.
If you wanted to change it you would need to alter that file.
Go to moodle root/ theme / boost / templates / and open file header.mustache
Around line 28 you will see:
<a href="{{{ config.wwwroot }}}" class="navbar-brand {{# output.should_display_navbar_logo }}has-logo{{/ output.should_display_navbar_logo }}
Remove: {{{ config.wwwroot }}} and type in your own URL to the university.
This is hacking a core file. You will need to make this change each and every time you upgrade Moodle.
Alternatively, you can make a copy of Header.mustache and make the changes and drop it in the moodle root / theme / fordson / templates / folder. This would keep core files intact but you would have to make this new header template each time you update Fordson as it is not included with Fordson.
Chris
Thanks for your reply Chris. I spent so much time looking at CSS options. I thought it would be as simple as adding a redirect code into the SCSS file. I am glad I made this post and for your quick response.
Glad to help. If you enjoy using Fordson, please give it a like in the repository and add it to your favorites.
Best of luck.
Hi Chris,
I want to thank you for your hard work on they Fordson theme. I've started using it exclusively for my courses and my institution is looking at switching to it as our preferred theme.
It does seem you've inherited a bunch of bugs from Boost which I'm compiling to put them on the tracker and potentially fix as able, but I did notice one specifically in Fordson I though you should be made aware of.
The competency icons are enormous.
This is in Moodle 3.3.1, Fordson 1.5.6
I've put a temporary CSS hack in to fix, however I'm sure you've got a better solution.
#page-admin-tool-lp-coursecompetencies div[data-region="coursecompetencyactivities"] img { width: 20px; height: 20px; }
I'll take a look in a week. On vacation starting today. Won't be back until next week.
Hi Chris,
I hope you enjoyed your vacation. Today we upgraded from Moodle 3.2.1 to 3.3.1. It was one of the smoothest upgrades I experienced so far. Thanks again for the excellent theme Fordson that you provide.
There is a minor issue in the student's view of "This Course" as they see a link to an empty Course administration. I would like to remove this link in "This Course."
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Hi Hartmut,
Is the course that is depicted in the screenshot a test course?
If so have you tried a fully functional course that is running smoothly where lots of students are enrolled and teachers are managing it?
I only ask as the function of the Course Admin link is necessary for students, otherwise what is it there for?
Mary
Hi Mary,
Thanks for responding to my post. Yes, it is a Moodle features course, but the course administration with the edit gear shows up in all courses for students. When I click on the edit gear, I see an empty page. I did this in two intensive courses that I taught this summer. I don't think this link is needed in Fordson as "This Course" (for students) already shows everything that other themes like Clean have in the Administration block for students (e.g., grades). In the screenshot that Chris provided in the plugins page, there is no course administration with edit gear in the student's view.
I have another question that relates to font awesome icons in the edit settings (e.g. of activities). In the Atto text editor, I see font awesome icons but I don't see them after I have clicked on the edit gear. Under the blue highlighted text of the inspector it says:
<i class= "icon fa fa-fw fa-fw " aria-hidden="true" title aria-label> </i>
I am not in a hurry as the Fordson theme functions properly.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Hi,
I'll check the Course Administration link out later.
As for the fa-fw fa-fw in that editing page, looks like a typo on the authors part, so either Moodle Dev or Chris???
I'll check that too if I can find it!
Cheers
Mary
HI Harmut
I too find the admin cog for students a bit frustrating. however I have discovered that if students have the power to unenrol themselves from a course then the "unenrol me" link is on the page when the click the course admin cog.
i dont know what else might appear instead of a blank page - i guess it depends on course settings and what is considered "admin" in a student role
i think that having the nav draw and the icons and the student tab is a bit over the top and idealy would like to be able to have the teacher tab without the student tab.
Kim
Harmut,
The course management button for students is there so they can unenroll. Otherwise Fordson had no way for them to do so.
In a future release I could add a class to the html so that you can use CSS to not show it.
Possibly even make it an option in the theme settings if I have time.
-Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your reply regarding the Course Administration and edit gear in the student's view. If you can add a class in a future release that's enough. Then I can hide Course administration for students with CSS.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
is visible for a few seconds while the page is still loading but disappears when the text "Drag & drop files onto course sections . . ." appears at the top center. I don't know if this coincidence.
Where does this drag and drop handle appear and what does it belong to?
Hi Chris,
This happens on the main course page of a course where you can move activities or resources. It's in our life site. Here is a screenshot of a main course page in edit mode. Without the drag and drop handle, I cannot move activities or resources up and down.
I tested this in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox with the same result. Boost and Clean theme are okay, i.e., I can see the drag & drop handle and can move activities in Boost and Clean theme.
Then I added a new course with topics course format selected. The drag & drop handle appeared for a few moments but disappeared as soon as the message "Drag and drop files . . ." slid in at the top center.
Then I uninstalled the block Sharing Cart and purged all caches. Same result, i.e., the drag and drop handle disappeared before the page is loaded completely.
Now I may have found something. I logged out and logged in again in the life site, inspected the first activity on the main course page and looked at the console tab (edit mode is off), which reported 6 server errors.
When edit mode is turned on, I see the following in the console.
Then I uninstalled configurable reports, purged all caches and checked the activities on the main course page again. This time I had no messages in console in edit mode on and edit mode off, but the drag & drop handle is still not visible. Probably the server has to restart which I cannot trigger as we are on a shared server. Is there anything else I can do to get the drag & drop handle back? Sorry for the long post.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
These all seem related to other 3rd party plugins. I thought I saw elsewhere issues with sharing cart and Moodle 32 and 33.
The issue I suspect is a javascript conflict. The first image looked like collapsible topics format which also isn't core but might also have a Java conflict stemming from another plugin.
I can tell you drag and drop works fine on our site and many others. It has to be one of the other plugins causing a javascript conflict which fails to load the drag and drop. I bet one isn't fully supported for your Moodle version maybe?
Sharing cart may be the culprit. See some of the issues in the comments on their page: https://moodle.org/plugins/block_sharing_cart
Chris
Sometimes Java gets cached in the browser. Try accessing the site in a new incognito window or purge all caches in the browser as well as Moodle.
I suspect it's a have conflict from multiple plugins but mainly sharing cart.
Hi Chris,
Thank you for your responses. My test site (local machine) mirrors the life site with the same plugins. The test site shows the drag and drop handle in edit mode, but the life site even without the sharing cart plugin (I completely uninstalled it and purged caches) does not show the drag and drop handle. Collapsed topics is still installed in both sites. Now Sharing cart is only installed in the test site but the drag & drop handle shows in the test site.
It's good to know that your life site is working properly with the latest Fordson release. I wish I could disable the slider at the top telling users that they can now drag and drop files because initially, the drag and drop handle appears in front of an activity. In the test site, while loading the main course page, the drag & drop handle disappears for a second or two but appears again after this time so that I can move activities or resources around. In the life site, the drag & drop disappears when the slider is showing up, but never comes back again.
I suspect that this problem is server related, because that's the only difference between the test site and the life site. Before I uninstalled Sharing Cart and Configurable Reports, the number and version of the plugins were exactly the same.
Is there any tool that is able to show this kind of conflict in the main course page between the drag & drop handle in front of activities or resources and the text that slides in at the top center at the end of a page load? The Google inspector doesn't show anything in console and debug doesn't give me a message. I still hope to find a solution to this problem.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Hi Chris,
I did more tests. This time I went to all users, selected a teacher and logged in under his name. In Google inspector I selected the console tab. In the main class page of the teacher, I turned editing on. This is what I got:
I don't know if this screenshot is helpful at all.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
Which Course Format are you using as I don't have a problem in the Course page. I can see the move icons:
Mainly Collapsed Topics, but the problem occurs in other course formats as well. The SSL certificate that Chris mentioned in his post today gave me an idea. I just asked our web host company whether the SSL certificate is applied properly to our website.
Check it yourself to see if the Certificate is valid.
Here are two links:
This one is straight forward report: https://www.geocerts.com/ssl_checker
This one is more complex report: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html
As soon as the following message appears at the top center of any course main page while turning edit mode on, the drag and drop handle disappears in front of activities and resources in our life site, not in our test site.
How can I disable the message "Drag and drop files onto course sections to upload them"?
You might want to repost this issue on it's own as a javascript conflict and possibly someone else might be able to walk you through finding the issue.
Do you use SSL on the live site and not the dev site?
Yes, I use SSL on the live site. The host server company required this. In which forum could I post this question about a javascript conflict?
Hi Chris,
Thank you for looking into my problem so fast and for logging in to our website. When I deleted
#page-mod-feedback-view a:first-of-type>.icon, span:first-of-type>.icon {
display: none;
}
the drag & drop handle appeared. I am very glad that you found this out. Problem solved.
With kind regards,
Hartmut
I am sure that's a Moodle thing...not the theme....but I may be wrong.
But then I am partially sighted so I don't always notice it.
