Creating a Seamless Cross-Site Look-and-Feel?

Creating a Seamless Cross-Site Look-and-Feel?

by Marcus Ludl -
Number of replies: 4

Hi all,

as discussed in another thread, I would like to create an additional commerce site that will accompany my main Moodle installation. That external site will handle ordering and payment for courses and will be based on Drupal or WordPress (or whatever).

I am now wondering how to keep the design efforts manageable. Ideally, I would like to create a (more or less) seamless look-and-feel regarding the overall design, without having to work on two completely different codes. I have a lot of experience developing themes for Drupal, but have only recently started to look into Moodle. Can anybody offer any hints as to how to proceed?

E.g., there's a base theme for Drupal that's based on Bootstrap... and Moodle's Boost theme (as well as the Adaptable theme, which I'm currently using) are based on Bootstrap, as well. Does anybody happen to know, if the HTML/CSS structures are similar enough, so that, say, a Bootstrap setup can be simply copied from one page to another?

Any help will be much appreciated.

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In reply to Marcus Ludl

Re: Creating a Seamless Cross-Site Look-and-Feel?

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Ok, what version of Moodle please?

What version of Bootstrap does the the Drupal base theme use?

What Moodle theme developer documentation (https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Themes) have you read?

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Creating a Seamless Cross-Site Look-and-Feel?

by Marcus Ludl -

Thanks for the quick reply. Currently, I'm using Moodle 3.3 with the most recent Adaptable theme installed. I did quite a few modifications in the code, after having read the documentation about overriding the renderers. So far, that worked pretty well.

I have to say, I feel more confident editing Drupal templates than Moodle code. I am willing, of course, to dig myself into this, but have been hoping that there would be a way for... dunno, creating a Bootstrap configuration in Drupal and then copying it over to Moodle, while doing only minimal adjustments. Not sure, if that is even possible.

The Drupal base theme I was talking about is based on Bootstrap 3, but there might be other possibilities. I would really like to use Drupal, as I feel most confident there, but have not made a final decision. Also, I'd be willing to switch from Adaptable to, say, Boost, if that would simplify matters.

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In reply to Marcus Ludl

Re: Creating a Seamless Cross-Site Look-and-Feel?

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Ok,

Adaptable is Bootstrap 2.3.2 based (as well as many others like Clean and the ones I maintain: Essential, Campus and Shoelace).

Boost is based upon Moodle's alpha port of the BS 4 version of the framework.

Bootstrapbase (theme and parent of Clean) has its origin from the contributed Bootstrap theme (https://moodle.org/plugins/theme_bootstrap) which is now BS 3 and along with my Shoehorn (https://moodle.org/plugins/theme_shoehorn) appears to be no longer maintained.

Classes wise, BS4 is similar to BS3 but uses SASS instead of LESS.  BS2.3.2 uses an older grid system.  However as BS 4 progresses I'm not sure how aligned the versions are between the BS 4 distribution and the one in Moodle core.

So, really a matter of what you want to change and what you feel comfortable with.

In reality I think it is understanding Moodle Themes that will be harder than applying the specifics of a given framework version API.  And that just requires time and effort.  The framework is not the solution it is just the tool used in the solution.

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In reply to Marcus Ludl

Re: Creating a Seamless Cross-Site Look-and-Feel?

by Fernando Acedo -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

If you want to add a shopping cart to moodle you have several options:

- Add Paypal as enrollment method and use moodle itself to sell the courses

- Use Joomla as a shopping through Joomdle

- Use Wordpress as a shopping cart using Edwiser bridge

 

Drupal had a bridge but now is totally outdated for both, Drupal and Moodle. All the solutions above are able to sell the course (or bundle of courses) and enroll the user automatically.

 

 

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