I have used Pioneer and Evolve-D in 2.9 for my Moodle Theme. It is the theme that works best for me, and I have always had great success.
On the upgrade to 3.3, Pioneer seems to totally break the site. It will not even load.
I wonder if anyone else has seen this. In any case, I recommend everyone get rid of Pioneer.
I just checked and Pioneer is compatible with 3.1 not with 3.3. Did you also use it for 3.2?
I keep my site upgraded to the latest version of Moodle, but don't check that plugins are still officially rated for the latest version.
I am aware that Pioneer is not rated for 3.3, but I have been using it with earlier builds of 3.3, as well as 3.2 and it has worked.
I guess my assumption was that if a plugin failed, it would not failed catastrophically as happened here. When I upgraded to the latest 3.3, Pioneer caused what appears to be a fatal server error and I had to restore from backup.
In fact I use plugins that are not even rated 3.0, like the qtype freehand drawing, because they seem to work. I guess I will just have to be more careful in the future.
In any case I just wanted to give a heads up if anyone was still using Pioneer to not reinstall it after upgrading.
Have you got a screenshot of the issue that happens? Or any error output?
It's not too unusual for a theme to fully break a site if it isn't supported. Though I don't know of the Pioneer theme and what customisation it has.
I am not looking to fix the problem. The theme catastrophically breaks the site. In Safari it just presents a blank screen, In Chrome an HHTP error 500 is reported.
Some plugins that have not been tested in the very latest version can be very unstable. Lesson learned.Moodle actually removed the plugin, butI reinstalled it.
As I said, this is mostly a heads up for those upgrading and using the theme. Don't use it.
I just discovered that my recent upgrade to 3.3 broke certain aspects of our site. Before finding this discussion I figured out the problem and uninstalled Pioneer though and I unfortunately didn't copy the error message.
A bit of info first:
Moodle 3.3.2 running on an Ubuntu 14.04 server using Php 5.6.31 and Apache 2.4
I was aware that Pioneer wasn't very friendly with 3.2 but most of it was working and it hadn't had an obvious negative impact on other areas of our site. After the upgrade, I found that I could no longer edit user profiles, change theme settings or open a certain course. (That should have been the hint as I knew it was forcing Pioneer, but the user profile thing threw me off.)
Turning on PHP Debugging and Show Errors, I noticed even editing a user profile was requesting an element from Pioneer. Uninstalling it from the Plugins Overview page fixed the errors and now everything seems to be back to normal.
I agree with the recommendation of the OP: Pioneer should be removed. I read somewhere they were going to try to build a similar theme based on the new Boost theme in order to get full functionality, but don't think they've gotten round to it yet.
2 cent opinion ... but ... Moodle's environment check should include checking themes installed on the system with the 'Moodle store'. If a theme isn't listed in Moodle store as having/being compat with the version server OP is checking, a red rating for theme is displayed (must fix before upgrading). Since that's not available yet, have resorted to using moosh (cli only and outside of Moodle) and checking all addon/plugins for versions available *before* upgrading.
Why? Because Moodle theming is in-line ... and as folks have discovered/know, a theme not compat can affect the functioning of the Moodle.
OR, a slightly different approach or addition to theming. A Joomla, for example, actually has the admin side using a different theme (core) for the site. Have seen times with a Joomla where the public front end or user front end was broken, but the admin user could reach that admin interface to fix the issue.
As started/stated ... 2 cent opinion ...
'spirit of sharing', Ken
I wish I would have caught this post sooner, but we stopped development on Pioneer once Boost became the default theme in Moodle 3.2.
Pioneer is only supported up to Moodle 3.1. We are currently focused on our Fordson Theme which is built upon the new default theme Boost.
If you move beyond M3.1 then I would also recommend you pick a new theme that is built off Boost.
Many of the same features developed in Evolve-D and Pioneer made their way into Fordson. I'd encourage you to check it out.
Here is an overview of what we are building in our K-12 school District. Our Fordson theme, Easy Enrollment Plugin, and other integrations...
Fordson gives us the look and feel for Moodle that works well with students from 5 yr old to 18+.
Hey Chris,
Thanks for the reply and video. I really appreciate you guys putting all your work out there for everyone to use. I will definitely take a look at Fordson.
