Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Frank Black -
Number of replies: 11

On the frontpage, you can add activities and set them up, but you cannot move/order them once you've added them.

I'm trying to set-up activities intended for the frontpage, but I have no idea what the final result will look like (which activities or which order), so I need the freedom to move them around while I'm designing it.

I was thinking of doing this in a normal course, then backing-up the activities when they're finalised and set-up, and finally trying to restore them into the frontpage (the frontpage does not have the import option, only restore).

However, I'm scared this is going to break my frontpage, and haven't the nerve to finish the restore to see what happens. For instance, even though I'm using the merge option, the restore dialogue is asking for a course name, shortname and start date, none of which the frontpage normally has.

I can't try it on Mount Orange because the manager does not have permission to do anything to the frontpage.

Has anyone ever tried to restore course activities to the frontpage?

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

If you want to practise on the front page, use the sandbox site demo.moodle.net where you have admin access - I am not sure what you mean when you say you cant move them  up or down - you should be able to do that. Also if you are going to add activities to the front page, make sure the learners have permissions to particpate in activities on the front page.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Frank Black -

> If you want to practise on the front page, use the sandbox site demo.moodle.net where you have admin access

Thanks for that - I thought Mount Orange was the only demo.


> I am not sure what you mean when you say you cant move them  up or down - you should be able to do that.

The activities are not in a 'section', so the drag and drop is disabled. I'm using moodle v32 default install with the Boost theme.

I just checked in the sandbox (which I guess is running 3.3.x), and it's the same: The move handle is displayed, but you can't grab it.

I also checked the 'More' theme, and the same thing.


Do you think this is a bug then?

Thanks for your input.

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Frank Black -

As an aside, does no-one else think it would be a great idea to be able to have topic sections on the frontpage anyway?

I don't understand the ability to add frontpage activities, without the ability to position or organise them into sections.

Not only would this solve the problem of being able to develop the activities in situ on the frontpage, it would also be absolutely awesome to use the trick where you put activities in a section which is then 'hidden' by choosing to display less sections than you have. Then using a beautiful graphic menu in the summary area or html block to link to the activities in the 'hidden' section.

I know that unauthenticated users are limited in how they participate in activities, but there is still a lot of read-only, one-way information you give to these users via some of the activity modules. It seems a waste not to be able to utilise the full potential of the course structure by handicapping the frontpage for no obvious reason.

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

It depends on your view of the (Moodle) world.... I have always seen Moodle as a bunch of course-based "containers" to which we can restrict access in one way or another. 

I can't remember the last time I looked at my front page wink

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Frank Black -


Even if most people wouldn't use sections on the frontpage, does it seem like a bug to you, that you cannot reorder the activities?

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Weird - I had never considered this - but actually - you CAN move them, but not by drag and drop. 

  1. Click on the crosshairs icon and hold it down for a bit:


2. Boxes will appear - click into one where you want to move to:


3. It will move:


This is the older, pre-drag and drop way.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Frank Black -


Moving activities on the frontpage
Ah, you've found a hidden 'easter egg' (I believe the gamers call them).
That's really useful to know. Thanks for taking the time to post the instructions so beautifully.
For others trying this... it is difficult to find the exact spot to click on; some perseverance is required.

Restore course back-up to frontpage
On the sandbox demo, I had a go at restoring a back-up of the activities from a course into the frontpage.
It didn't work - I just got the error message that you can only restore frontpage backups into the frontpage.
That's a bit of a hinderance, not being able to copy course activities to/from the frontpage.

Invisible section trick
The other thing I just noticed in the sandbox is that the 'invisible section' trick no longer works (whereby you put some activities into section five, and then set the amount of sections in the course to four. Section five becomes 'invisible', but since it isn't actually hidden, you can still link to and view all the activities).
So now you can't hide the activity's little icons and text links, and instead have a beautiful graphical menu in your course. There were hundreds of sites which used that trick - weren't there any complaints when that was changed?


Anyway, thank you both for your answers today. It's been helpful in deciding whether to:
a) try to use the frontpage to give parents some information without having to log-in OR
b) put this information in a normal course and force the parents to login using their child's credentials.

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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Ok - thinking about (a) have you thought about the Main menu block where you can add resources to the front page? (Sorry if we have already had this conversation; I can't remember) Or (c) make a course with guest access where you have the freedom of a course but the parents don't need to log in? I don't know what kind of information you want to show.

Invisible section trick - that has been superceded now by Stealth activities (docs link)

See this video:


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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Frank Black -

> have you thought about the Main menu block where you can add resources to the front page?

Nice idea. Certainly nice to know about. However, it can't be placed in the main content area, which isn't ideal.
I guess though, that I could have a graphical menu in the summary area, which links to the actual activity in the menu block.
That wouldn't look bad at all. Hmmm... nice to have an additional option.


> Invisible section trick - that has been superceded now by Stealth activities (docs link)

I'm stuck on v3.2 for the next two or three years (technician not able/willing to update server), so no 'orphaned activity' trick available and no 'stealthed activities' either. No luck!


> make a course with guest access where you have the freedom of a course but the parents don't need to log in?

I can't really use the inbuilt guest account. I'm just writing a question about a workaround right now, to be posted soon.


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In reply to Frank Black

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

If you are on 3.2 then you can still use the "orphaned activities" trick - where is your difficulty with this?

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Restore course activities from a 'normal' course into the frontpage

by Frank Black -


There is no option in the course settings page to set the 'number of sections'.

In the course itself, there is an 'add section' text-link, but the old minus button has been replaced by a proper 'delete' function which warns you that you are about to lose everything in that section.

EDIT: I just checked this again, and you are correct. There are 'increase sections' and 'decrease sections' buttons at the bottom. Earlier I swear there was just a text link to add a section, and no decrease option. Maybe the page hadn't loaded properly or something.

It even lists 'orphaned activities' now, which I don't think it did in v25.

Thanks so much. You're on fire today!

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