Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

by Philippe Roth -
Number of replies: 7
Dear all,

It seems there is an issue with the Fordson theme when using the Collapsed topics plugin.

In this discussion https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=369485, I have described the problem I encounter, and received some explanations from the plugin developper. Finally, the issue dissapears when using other themes than Fordson.

My question is: Is there any settings I can apply to the Fordson theme to keep the topics' colours when using the plugin and the Fordson theme? For example, in the Fordson theme settings, there is a "Colours" tab, and at the bottom, a Raw SCSS field where I could put some code. What code could I put in that field to modify the colours of the Topics' titles? Maybe that could resolve my issue...

Many thanks in advance,
Philippe


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In reply to Philippe Roth

Re: Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

by Mary Evans -
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if you find the exact path to tge course titles and the CSS which changes the colour in Firdson all you need to add to it after changing the colour is as follows:

exact path to course title  { color: #abc !important; }

Hope this helps?

Mary

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In reply to Mary Evans

Re: Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

by Philippe Roth -

Hello Mary,

Thanks for your reply, but sorry, I do not understand...

  • How do I get the exact path to the title?
  • I could try finding the CSS which changes the colours, but cannot modify anything on the server, I don't have accesses. That's why I thought I could do it in the bottom area of the Colours tab, in the theme settings.
  • And finaly, in the instruction you gave me, what means !important;, should I put like this?

Many thanks, and sorry for my low level...

Cheers,
Phil

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In reply to Philippe Roth

Re: Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

by Chris Kenniburg -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers 
//Collapsed Topic Course Format override colors for topic headings. This creates theme consistency despite what teachers might select in course settings.

.course-content ul.ctopics li.section .content .toggle, .course-content ul.ctopics li.section .content.sectionhidden {
    background-color: $sectionbkg !important;
}

.course-content ul.ctopics li.section .content div.toggle:hover {
    background-color: darken($sectionbkg, 10%) !important;
}

body.format-topcoll .course-content ul.ctopics li.section .summary {
    margin-left: 25px;
}

The code above is in each of the presets for Fordson.  It overrides the color choosers for the course format so that the courses look consistent with the theme and gives control to the site admin to create an overall look and feel for the site.  


The theme should ultimately control the look of the site and course.  Not every teacher will pick ideal colors and the defaults for the collapsed topic format were not looking good with the rest of our site. So I put this in the style sheets so that a teacher doesn't have to be a graphic designer and picking all kinds of colors and settings.  Most teachers just roll with the defaults anyways and we wanted to account for this within the theme.  


If you want to allow teachers to pick their own colors then you can simply remove the code from the preset you are using.  

Or you can change the color using this in the top SCSS textbox on the color page:

$sectionbkg: #00000;

Where #00000 is the hex color you want to use.  


Hope this helps.  You can also try using the preset I have attached which removes the Fordson collapse topic overrides.  Just download the preset and use the Fordson upload preset box and select this preset.

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In reply to Chris Kenniburg

Re: Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

by Mary Evans -
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Chris the HEX color code has 6 digits....you only added 5

for example:

#123456

#000000

Mary

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In reply to Chris Kenniburg

Re: Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

by Gareth J Barnard -
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Hi Chris,

Please could you add a setting in Fordson to turn on / off this override as it's clearly causing confusion.  Having been a teacher I take the view that the layout of the course etc. is down to the teacher to arrange as they see fit to suit the subject material.  That's why as a developer I added the functionality in CT to provide differences between different CT courses as visual clues to the educated and move towards more personalised learning than the 'corporate image'.

Gareth

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

by Chris Kenniburg -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Gareth,

I'm not sure how I can set the css override to appear or not appear based on a theme checkbox with all the style presets. 

Let me rethink this approach.  Maybe it might make sense to not override the color settings.  It would be easy enough to take out and more work to try and include this as setting.


It's been our experience in K-12 that when the CT course format is installed that the site admin isn't concerned or isn't knowledgeable enough to know what and how to setup the CT course defaults so in 95% of the setups they just use whatever settings you put in it when you set the default options.  Many times the Moodle admin is just the one teacher who wanted to use Moodle the most and they have no formal training or experience to properly setup and maintain all the things that a proper Moodle admin would do.    

With that in mind we designed Fordson so that it could be installed with very little configuration beyond the defaults and get great results that made teachers decide to take another look at using Moodle in the school districts in my area.  We have a formula of some pretty basic services that have districts in Michigan beginning to take another look at Moodle as a LMS.  For a K-12 teacher, the use of a LMS is usually optional so we wrap some basic services and a great user experience via Fordson and Easy Enrollment with Moodle and it is gaining usage in our area.

I'm really debating what is the best approach as I can clearly see the site admin can change the default options for teachers in the plugin settings.  Our issue is that often times they do not and then the course format looks poorly because of the default colors and this takes away from the overall user experience.  

I included this small change so that our districts could begin using CT as an option for our learning platform and still get a seamless and unified look and feel throughout the site regardless of which course format you choose.

I guess it is open for discussion.

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In reply to Philippe Roth

Re: Fordson Theme and Collapsed Topics Plugin

by Mary Evans -
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Sorry my explanation was not helpful at all. 

If you follow Chris's instructions I am sure you will be able to achieve the look you want

Mary

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