Moodle in English: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread [CLOSED]

Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread [CLOSED]

by Chris Kenniburg - Saturday, 2 June 2018, 1:05 AM

Fordson for Moodle 3.5 is a break from previous versions of Fordson and we added a few new features and design changes. This is the official support thread linked from the plugin page.

New Features:

New layout and style choosers allow you to mix and match elements of the page to create over 100 unique style combinations. Choose a Page Layout, Section Style, Course Listing Style, Blocks Location, and a Style Preset.
5 Page Layouts
8 Section Styles
9 Course Listing Layouts (4 tiled and 4 full-width horizontal plus default Boost)
2 Options for Blocks
3 Style Presets
Blocks can be shown 2 ways: Boost default sidebar or new Fordson 3 column. The Fordson 3 column layout is designed as a block panel which can be shown or hidden with the click of a button in the upper right of the course title area.

Standard Features:

Slideshow
Customized Footer with organizational branding
My Courses & This Course Dropdown menus
Custom Images: Fav icon, logo, course header image, background image, login page image
Customized login page with innovative layout and marketing areas
Icon navigation bar directs traffic for users on homepage
6 Marketing spots for homepage
Color Choosers
Customized Activity Chooser allows site admins to control: Activities available, ordering of activities, highlighting most used activities.

(Edited by Gareth J Barnard - marking as [CLOSED] to do topic creep - original submission Friday, 1 June 2018, 6:05 PM)

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Saturday, 2 June 2018, 2:06 AM

Fordson Blocks

Here is how you can add blocks in Fordson.

Animated gif of adding blocks

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Saturday, 2 June 2018, 6:29 AM

Edit: Interesting side feature. If you already have a block in the regular block panel, with this upgrade I've been able to keep it there and add blocks in the new 3 column block drawer.

I have some courses built by a third party that decided to implement a custom navigation scheme that required the use of the blocks so I was thinking I was going to have to disable the new three column feature when we go live, but apparently not

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Saturday, 2 June 2018, 10:13 AM

Yep,

On courses that have no blocks in the sidebar you can go to a block configure page and send it to the right sidebar position from the top area. The sidebar is always there because when you go into a book or quiz we didn't want the navigation blocks for those activities to be hidden in the panel.

So if a teacher really, really needed to put a block on the course page in the sidebar they could. For our purposes we try to discourage it by not making it obvious how to add a block on the sidebar.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Sandra Zerbes - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 11:03 PM

Hi Chris,

like you can see in the video, it is not possible to add blocks in the first column of the block-panel. Do anyone else have this problem and resolved the bug?

Best Regards, Sandra

Block(2).mp4

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 26 October 2018, 12:08 AM

A little higher and a little more to the left and I think you might have gotten it.

I will need to know Moodle Version and Fordson Version as well as what web browser you are using.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Sandra Zerbes - Friday, 26 October 2018, 4:28 AM

Thanks for the advice. As soon as the block is nearly outside the panel, it stick to the first row.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Sara Cenni - Tuesday, 5 June 2018, 7:41 PM

Hi Chris,

I’d like to show a single image in the homepage.

I’m using the slideshow, but even if I use a single image there are the controls (previous and next).

Is it possible to remove them?

Thank you

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 5 June 2018, 7:58 PM

Sara,

I do not think that is possible as the underlying code is expecting at least 2 images. However, I think I might have a work around if you can use the frontpage logo.

Upload your image into the Fordson > Custom Images > Header Logo

Then on the Colors page at the bottom add this to the RAW SCSS box:

.headerlogo img {
    width: 100%;
    padding: 0;
}

This will stretch the image across the top of the frontpage. Unfortunately you lose your frontpage logo but that could easily be placed into the large image you are uploading instead.

Here's what it looks like. I didn't turn off the slideshow so you can see what both options look like.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Crystal Cooper - Wednesday, 6 June 2018, 9:59 PM

Hi Chris,

I've been trying out the new version of Fordson. I've heard a lot of positive feedback, it’s a really great theme.

One question I've had is about the behaviour of the course block panel. As we’ve been using a 2 column layout, all our blocks are in the right hand column. We know that not all our teachers are going to reorganise them straight away. This means that for some modules, once the panel is open then users have to scroll down the page to see all the blocks. When they close the panel, they’re located partway down the page instead of at the top where they started.

I wonder if it’s possible to have the initial page location remembered when the button is closed, like it does when editing is turned on? Or failing that, could it jump to the top of the page when the button is clicked to close?

Thanks,

Crystal

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 6 June 2018, 10:25 PM

Crystal,

Indeed, the latest version we kept the sidebar available when using the 3 column slider to be more compatible with courses that have been using the sidebar. This provides a good deal of compatibility and functionality.

I see what you are saying about collapsing the slider and having it move the entire page up the screen leaving the user in an area they don't expect to be.

I'll be taking a look at this and see what we can do.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 6 June 2018, 11:13 PM

Crystal,

Good news. Just a little bit of javascript and we can make the button return the user to the top of the page when closing the block slider. It will be included in the next update.

-Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Crystal Cooper - Thursday, 7 June 2018, 5:03 PM

Brilliant, I look forward to trying it out! Thanks for the fast response.

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Custom Login Page - Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by David Morrow - Thursday, 7 June 2018, 4:41 AM

Chris,

Awesome stuff - thank you!

I'm still playing with Fordson (v3.5 release 2 - 2018060100) on my local MAMP instance of Moodle 3.5 and have one small question about the custom login page: Is it possible to remove or otherwise fill the space that is below the default login image and above the footer? I am not adding any of the icons, text, or features, and am getting an empty space where those would normally appear (I think). It resizes with window size, and does disappear at certain sizes/ratios, but it would be nice to have it fill/expand vertically at all sizes. I reduced the two screenshots below, but the first (with the space) was larger than the second (without). Not a big deal, but wanted to check. As far as I can tell, the aspect ration of the image does not affect the space.

with space

without space

Thanks!

David

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Re: Custom Login Page - Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 7 June 2018, 5:36 AM

If you aren't using any of the custom login features then you might as well just use the default login which will display that image full screen.

Once things settle down I plan on doing some really cool things with the custom login page. Possibly adding a recent news feature, a totally different marketing area, featured courses, or things like that. We operate several Moodle sites with unique needs and there might be some room for cool eye candy on the front page.

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Re: Custom Login Page - Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by David Morrow - Thursday, 7 June 2018, 7:50 PM

Sorry (and a little embarrassed) - I got so into playing with all the possibilities that that one did not occur to me. Really. Thanks.

I was trying to keep the login page as simple as possible, but will soon start addressing our PD Moodle and will take advantage of the custom loigin page - current and future features.

Thanks for the great theme, Chris.

David

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Re: Custom Login Page - Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 7 June 2018, 9:35 PM

David,

I know what you mean. I built the theme and I love switching up the layouts and styles. It will be hard to settle on just one for the fall!

Good thing we operate several Moodle sites with different purposes. Having Moodle sites with different purposes is why I built the theme to be more versatile. We needed to accommodate different learners with different reasons for using Moodle. Fordson gives us the freedom to mix and match until we get things just right for each of the sites we operate.

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Er: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Iñigo Zendegi Urzelai - Thursday, 7 June 2018, 6:55 PM

Hi there!

We've recently discovered this theme and we like it a lot, thanks a lot for sharing!

I've already opened an issue in the tracker, but I also have some questions about the images:

We've been testing several combination of background images but we are not sure about where applies each one, and a better explanation of each setting maybe be helpful. For example, the "Default Header image" sets the main background image and the default course background image (but not in the header), and we don't know where the "Default page background image" is applied. It's quite confusing.

On the other hand, if we don't select a image for the "Default header image", it always shows a colour pattern on the background. Is there a way to select the colours of that pattern or we have to upload an image if we want to change it?

Thanks in advance!

P.S.: We're using Moodle 3.5 Fordson v3.5 release 2 (2018060100) on Moodle 3.5.0

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Re: Er: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 7 June 2018, 9:30 PM

Inigo,

You can pretty much ignore the background image unless you choose the layout such as Overlapping Header Image or default Boost page layouts. Otherwise the header image gets used for most of the backgrounds because teachers can customize it in course summary files.

On the dashboard, Moodle 3.5 introduced images for course tiles on this page. If there is no course summary image for a course it generates a random pattern. That is part of core and I haven't looked into changing it just yet. Ideally, I will be able to override that renderer to use the Fordson default images. I haven't had a chance to get it done but if someone knows how to do it I would appreciate seeing the code so I can include it in the next update!

Chris

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Er: Re: Er: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Iñigo Zendegi Urzelai - Friday, 8 June 2018, 5:43 PM

Hi Chris and thanks for your answer!

Great, once I've tried the layouts understood each one them.

I didn't explain myself correctly, the pattern I refer to is the one that Fordson puts in the main background (not in the course's background on the dashboard), when there is no image set as a default header image. I've seen now that the pattern is just the image located at fordson/pix/noimg.jpg, so it's just a default image, so forget about that.

But, anyway, what you've said would also be a great improvement. IMHO, the best option would be to be consistent between the dashboard and the homepage (showing the same background in both pages), and be able to choose between showing the default dashboard pattern or showing the Fordson default image. But I'm afraid that to do that we may need changing the default Boost theme, too.

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Re: Er: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Lionel A. Richemond - Monday, 17 September 2018, 11:03 PM

Thank you very much, I was wondering how to put a background for each course tile and the answer was the summary image.

Cheers

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - course tiles on dashboard - random pattern

by Ruthine Burton - Thursday, 6 December 2018, 11:57 PM

Hi Chris,

I wondered if there was any way yet of replacing the random pattern generated in the dashboard course tiles (other than adding a summary image to each individual course - we have hundreds of courses so I want to set a default common image to each tile)? I have been trying to construct the CSS to change it with no luck. I'm on the latest version of Fordson with Moodle 3.5. Thank you for any advice you can give.

Kind regards

Ruthine

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - course tiles on dashboard - random pattern

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 7 December 2018, 10:38 PM

Ruthine,

YES! We discovered a way to take a hammer and make the geometric shapes respect the image settings of Fordson using javascript. It isn't ideal but we could not do this in code with Moodle. So, that feature is part of our Moodle 3.6 release. It isn't ideal but it gets the job done. We spun our wheels for many days trying to come up with a way to do this properly in code but could not get anything to work.

Our other approach that might be long term is to use the geometric shapes as the default image for course headers and try to grab that and use it in the header area. We'd like to stay as close to core on some of this stuff as possible. In this scenario you could set an image for site pages but in a course you would get the geometric shapes until you upload a course photo. I'm just not sure how we'd accomplish this right now. I haven't fully looked into it to see if it's even possible.

Moodle 3.6 introduces some really cool and useful blocks that make the Dashboard very useful for teachers and students. In the past, we ignored the Dashboard in favor of the site home for simplicity and control of the experience. Moodle 3.6 has changed our minds on using the Dashboard and we hope to make this the starting point for our learners once we upgrade to 3.6.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by David Kummerow - Tuesday, 26 June 2018, 8:13 PM

Hi Chris,

I'm now using v3.5 release 3 update 2.

I'm encountering a glitch with the new breadcrumb. I've set a colour in the settings, but this colour isn't displaying in the breadcrumb. When I hover over the breadcrumb, however, a darker shade of the specified colour is displayed.

Is there was quick way of reverting back to the old breadcrumb?

What might you need from me in order to narrow down the issue?

Thanks,

David.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 26 June 2018, 8:39 PM

By default I think it takes the current color and then when you hover over it darkens the color 15%.

Do you have any code in the custom SCSS textboxes on the colors page that might override defaults?

I would also clear browser and Moodle caches. Let me know if that fixes it. Otherwise maybe a screenshot of what is going on or web address I could see.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by David Kummerow - Wednesday, 27 June 2018, 9:15 AM

Hi Chris,

Thanks for writing back.

Here's what I have done. I have double-checked that I have cleared browser and Moodle caches. I have also removed all code in Raw initial SCSS and Raw SCSS. I still have the problem.

'breadcrumbbkg' in Fordson is currently set in the theme to #E8E6E7.

Here is what the breadcrumb looks like when I am not hovering the cursor over it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wloe7z14vpt496o/Breadcrumb.PNG?dl=0

And here is what the breadcrumb looks like when hovering: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fizrg14taekcysb/Breadcrumb-hover.PNG?dl=0

Let me know what else I should look at.

Thanks,
David.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by David Kummerow - Wednesday, 27 June 2018, 3:40 PM

Hi Chris,

I entered the following Raw SCSS so that my breadcrumbs had a color. I have breadcrumbbkg set in the theme, but this isn't being picked in display, only a darker shade of it when I hover over the breadcrumb. So the following is to override the white breadcrumb and white text as in the screenshots in the previous post.

ul.breadcrumb li {background-color: #F0F0F0;}
ul.breadcrumb li::after {background-color: #F0F0F0;}
ul.breadcrumb a {color: #0E54A1;}

Now the breadcrumb looks like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqgvkx4jhn7ga2a/Breadcrumb-override.PNG?dl=0

So I have what I need, but if I can help to provide further information so that this override isn't needed, I'm happy to help.

Regards,
David.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 27 June 2018, 7:59 PM

David,

We just put out a new version. Try that and make sure you do not have any color set for the background in the color choosers. The way I set it up is:

background color = $primary

Background hover color = $primary darkened 15%

Arrow color = $card-bg

text color = new variable $breadcrumb-text-color with a default of white.

Worse case scenario you can delete this from your server by editing the styles.scss file for fordson: https://github.com/dbnschools/moodle-theme_fordson/blob/master/scss/styles.scss#L990-L1063

Remove this from the very bottom of the file and it should revert back to normal. Always clear cache on Moodle after your changes.

I'm leaving for vacation in 2 hours. Will be back July 9th and will take a look at what is going on.

If you have any custom CSS or SCSS please look at that too so that it doesn't interfere.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by David Kummerow - Thursday, 28 June 2018, 2:48 PM

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply.

I installed your latest update, but I still have the issue as described above.

I did a bit more testing, and can now reproduce the error on a test site. Under 'Layout Settings' we have the 'Layout Chooser' selections. If this is left as default 'Centered Content / Full Screen Header Image', then I have a coloured breadcrumb. However, if I select 'Default Boost Layout / Header Image in Course Title Box', then the colour isn't picked up and I get the breadcrumb coloured white only.

Hopefully you'll be able to reproduce the issue.

Since we're on this topic of breadcrumb look, would you be able to implement a selection to choose between the new look or to display the 'normal' look? Thanks for considering!

Also, have a great break!!

Regards,
David.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Wednesday, 27 June 2018, 6:09 AM

Chris, I was wondering if I could request a change to the course renderers for the section summary activities.

What I'd like to do is be able to flex the progress bar / modules list into a row for wide screens and the current column layout for narrow screens. To do this, however I need to add a div around the activity-count spans and move the section-go-link out of the section-summary-activities div.

This is what I'm currently doing (changes in bold):

<div class="section-go-link">
  <a href="...">View Section Modules</a>
</div>
<div class="section-summary-activities">
  <div class="progress">
    <div class="progress-bar progress-bar-info" role="progressbar" aria-valuenow="55" aria-valuemin="0" aria-valuemax="100" style="width: 55%;">55%</div>
  </div>
  <div class="section-summary-activitydetails">
	<span class="activity-count">Modules:</span>
	<span class="activity-count">Books: 5</span>
	<span class="activity-count">Forum: 1</span>
	<span class="activity-count">Quiz: 1</span>
	<span class="activity-count">Assignments: 3</span>
	<br>
	<span class="activity-count">Progress: 5 / 9</span>
  </div>
</div>

I can obviously do this myself, but I was wondering if you're OK with the idea of doing this in the theme itself? Others might find this change useful so they can target and style the progress bar / activity summaries independently.

Cheers!

Bob

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 27 June 2018, 8:00 PM

Bob,

Yes. We can do that. I'll be back from vacation July 9th but we have a Moodle training for 2 days. WIll take a look the week of July 9th.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Monday, 9 July 2018, 11:44 AM

Hey Chris, I hope you're enjoying your break

I thought you might be interested in the end result of what we did to maul your excellent theme. My users are usually asking to reduce the amount of space on the screen ( I think they're allergic to scrollbars, lol ), so I went even further than just putting the div elements in as requested, by merging the progress indicator with the completed activities count and changing the activities label to be the hyperlink to the section.

The end result is a topic that looks as follows.

If you think this would be useful, I can flick you the changed code.

Regards, Bob.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 9:19 AM

Bob,

I'd love to see your code. I just got back from 10 days camping and we hit the ground running with a little 2 day Mini Moodle Moot we put on each summer. So I'll be catching up with work and emails after wednesday but I'm always interested in seeing improvements! Send me your changes and I will take a look.

Thanks!

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Thursday, 28 June 2018, 5:54 PM

Chris, hope you are enjoying your break and you will not be reading this until you get back

My question is: how can I get the 'long' breadcrumb back? It used to show the categories, now it only seems to show the course. I need the category in there for quick navigation...

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Elton LaClare - Monday, 2 July 2018, 4:58 PM

Chris,

I noticed something a little strange that I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on...

I am using Moodle 3.5 with the latest version of the Fordson theme. I added an image to the Summary of Site on the Moodle Frontpage which I didn't want to appear for mobile users. I used the Restrict access function and indicated that the summary should not appear to users who access the site via a mobile device. After doing this, however, the image still appears but the Fordson slideshow does not (only when using a mobile browser, on a desktop everything displays as expected).

I like the slideshow and decided to remove the restriction in order to bring it back. However, no matter what I do, I cannot seem to get the slideshow back.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Monday, 9 July 2018, 11:59 AM

Before I go off on the wrong tangent, are you asking about how a course displays:

instead of :

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Monday, 9 July 2018, 4:26 PM

Yes! Can I set this somewhere?

I can't grasp the Moodle breadcrumb menu. Sometimes it seems to show the entire path, sometimes just dashboard/coursename

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Monday, 9 July 2018, 8:03 PM

It's not a fordson feature. If you're a teacher or student on a course, you'll get the shortened version. The nav drawer is supposed to take care of it, but you're right, losing the category the course sits in is irritating for a manager or a teacher with lots of courses.

The only way to avoid it without re-writing the breadcrumb renderers is to not have one of those roles on a course.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 9:25 AM

We got tired of the breadcrumbs with no links so they got removed. If it doesn't generate a link it gets excluded from the breadcrumbs. Our users asked why they even appear if they do not take you anywhere when clicked.

I can understand the argument for context but maybe that can be handled with naming conventions or other methods. If a series of words is in the breadcrumbs it ought to take you back to where you were. Just appearing doesn't seem very useful is what we are thinking.

It's possible to add them back and in a future version we could maybe add a toggle since it is just removing a few lines from the breadcrumb template file.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 12:14 PM

I went hunting around today to see if I could fix this agian and I found a setting to fix the links to always show categories. Hooray!

https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=356398#p1504272

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 6:32 PM

Chris: 'We got tired of the breadcrumbs with no links so they got removed.'

Ouch! this seems to be a Moodle option which you can enable or disable (the links in the breadcrumbs)... so it wasn't really necessary to remove. I had useful links there... which are now removed. I have them reinstalled though.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 8:37 PM

I added back in the code that will put the blank breadcrumbs back into the page. It will be in the next release.

Can you point me to the setting that eliminates any breadcrumb that is not a link?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 9:49 PM

Yes, it was posted above:

https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=356398#p1504272

Search in the admin panel for navshowmycoursecategories

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Monday, 9 July 2018, 7:20 PM

New request:

Is it possible to add a link to the grade book in either 'this course' or 'course administration'?

When the left drawer is disabled, there's no direct link to the grade book anymore. There is a link to 'grade book setup' in the course administration block.

Perhaps add it above or below the 'grade book setup' link?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 9:30 AM

I can take a look and see about this. I'd guess right above the gradebook setup is as good of a spot as any.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 12:58 PM

Richard, this is not an exact solution to your problem, but there is (or you can add) a grades link to the user profile drop down. The link takes the student to their grades overview and from there they can enter the gradebook for a specific course.

If it's not there, you can add it via Site Admin > Appearance > Themes > Theme Settings > User menu items.

It's one of the default options, so you cna copy from the information directly below the setting.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 6:32 PM

Thanks Bob, but it's the teachers requesting a link tot the overal view of the gradebook... not the students

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Garth Brady - Thursday, 13 September 2018, 8:21 AM

Hey Richard,

I know this is late, but we've found the same challenge. It was really handy to have the Grades link in the Admin menu. Again, this is for teachers, not students.

We've found the Grades link in the Navigation block, but this is extremely cluttered in our opinion and tricky to find because of everything in there. From a teachers' persepective, our best solution is in the 'Marking Manager' block.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 13 September 2018, 8:00 PM

Maybe what I should do is add the Gradebook Setup link under course management and the actual gradebook in the user links.

To circle back on this maybe we could identify 3 to 5 major areas for teachers and then I can make a very large icon and link above the lists in the upper right.

Off the top of my head I am guessing:

Grades, Participants, Groups

These would appear like the large icons for Student dashboard in the upper right of the modal popup.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Garth Brady - Friday, 14 September 2018, 8:45 AM

The Grader Report is certainly key - I presume most teachers use this constantly so moving it to a quick-access location seems prudent.

I appreciate that you continue to poll the community for input with regard to theme dev. My two cents would be that fewer clicks is always preferable. Having an icon for Grades next to the Bell ('Notifications') would be ideal. This way, users don't have to access the pop-up for something they likely use every day (or at least very often). Again, one click as opposed to two clicks and this location seems safe and uncluttered to me.

I think once a course is rolling, participants & Groups become less important very quickly so perhaps these are unnecessary (note that no one's asked for these yet, but Grades has been a community hot topic since it's removal from the Administration block (https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-57581). There's even a plugin to re-add it to the Admin menu.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 14 September 2018, 8:11 PM

With all of this the goal is to define a single way to access something.

We really do not like multiple ways to access something. What we want to do is build repetition so that when a teacher or student is trying to complete a task it becomes familiar. This decreases the anxiety of menus being contextual and disappearing at seemingly random times to new users.

When we rush to make things easier we often replicate what is already existing. This creates multiple ways to do the same thing. Having grades in the top bar is no better than having it in the nav drawer.

What is critical is that we define a pathway that is clear and consistent.

As a theme developer for a project that is diverse as Moodle it is impossible to define what the "best" pathway is to every user. Even within our own staff this is impossible because we all have our own ideas on how the tool should operate and where things should be placed.

The great thing about Moodle is you can hire someone to make it do what you want it to do. But even then you will have disagreements amongst your own staff as to what the ideal or best layout is.

That's a peek into what criteria we measure any request to "fix" a button or make something "easier".

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Garth Brady - Tuesday, 18 September 2018, 4:49 AM

I hear you, Chris, and yes, I agree, changes like this need to happen within the system itself, not the themes. Like the thread I reference above, many users are concerned with the current 'access process' to grades and this is a core moodle issue, I believe. I certainly respect your work (Fordson, in my view, is the best Moodle theme running) and feel that one of these reasons is because the theme itself makes Moodle easier to use (arrangement of items, quick access to items, ability to hide them in the curtain, etc.). If you choose not to locate a quick-link for grades in the theme, I understand, though I do feel it would be beneficial to a number of us. At this point, it's 3 clicks to a class grade report (Course Management -> Gradebook -> Gradebook Setup -> Grader Report) and this just seems a bit much to me for something we might reference constantly.

Thanks again so much for a brilliant theme!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Friday, 14 September 2018, 9:35 PM

Hi Chris,

I think these are good idea's, but right now people will be used to Fordson and where the buttons are. Changing them will probably not be welcomed.

I would still opt for just adding a 'Grades' button for teachers and students.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 6:26 PM

I found a small but annoying bug in the course layout (within categories or course-search) ...

The following is happening (and I totally understand this getting past you, had to check a couple of times myself )

When you have a global glossary with explaining words, and auto-linking enabled, you can not start the course name with one of those words. if you do.. your course will become inaccessible.

The word 'MINOR' links to a global glossary entry. This generates the HTML code that you see above. Basically, the link to the course is still there but there's nothing between the <A> /<A> tags. So the link to the course becomes unclickable.

I checked this in the standard 'BOOST' and there it seems to work fine: the word 'MINOR' is being linked to the glossary, but the rest of the course name is still being linked to the actual course.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 9:42 PM

I think this might be due to recent changes that someone requested to make the course titles compatible with the multilanguage plugin.

I am not so sure I want to keep these changes as it didn't cause problems before other that the multilanguage plugin wouldn't work on course titles.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 10:01 PM

Hi Chris,

Good to have you back

If you are going to change the layout, there's something else I'm really missing.

Boost:

Fordson:

There's information missing. For example: in which category is the above course found? I can't see it in Fordson, but I can see it in Boost. Also.. in Boost I can see guest access (with key) is enabled for this course. In Fordson I can't see that.

The last thing is not that important for me, but searching and finding out where a course is hiding is almost impossible in Fordson. The breadcrumb is shortened and does no longer show which category the course is in. Searching does not reveil it as well...

Our Moodle site has many courses and categories and right now it's forcing me to use Boost (or phpmyadmin) every now and then to find the right course category

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 10:43 PM

Richard,

I'll have the normal breadcrumbs back in the next release. I'll just remove it for our install since we see no point in blank breadcrumbs with no links.

Our philosophy on finding courses is less and less category/location based. While a user can search, we rely more and more on our Easy Enrollment plugin to get students enrolled. There is no searching. There is no navigating. They just type in the code or scan the QR code and bam... they are in the proper place. Once enrolled the courses are listed on our site home using the "Enrolled Courses" option for the homepage. We are really relying on the enroll codes as a means to get students right into the courses with no guesswork of where a course might be hiding. Especially since we leave it up to teachers as to where they put their courses inside categories.

I'll take a look at the category and lock stuff but it may not happen anytime soon. We are launching a new district website and many other projects this summer and so my time in development is limited. We also have a secure lockdown app coming out for Chromebooks that makes Moodle a secure and safe lockdown environment for testing in K-12 schools.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Friday, 20 July 2018, 7:10 PM

Hi Chris,

Couldn't agree more with what you're saying here. I'm in the process of connecting our SIS to Moodle, creating courses in Moodle from the SIS and enrol both students and teachers bases on SIS information. All is done by using webservices and it works instantly.

Browsing through categories is something only an admin should do. Nevertheless, I have found out that many of my teachers still use 'search' to find courses. They are used to that. They sometimes even search for courses they can find on their dashboard of 'my courses'.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 12 July 2018, 9:41 PM

Richard,

A bit more on this... I found and will be implementing the enrollment icons which indicate whether it is locked or an open course.

Looking for a way to include the course category within the course listing pages. I just haven't found the code that generates this.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 12 July 2018, 11:29 PM

I now have course categories and the enrollment icons working on course listing pages such as the homepage and course directory.

So now when you see course boxes they will provide some enrollment cues as well as the category context.

Should do so on search pages as well.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 11:25 PM

Hello,

I'm new to Fordson, and trying to fit it into our newly re-built university Moodle. What you mention about the categories showing on the tiles is precisely the reason I', stocking to the Boost default in this respect. So - a queston - which setting(s) and tile type should I use to get these categories to show on the tiles?

Thanks for this grand theme !

Kind regards,

Przemek

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 11:04 PM

Hello Przemek,

If you use my Fordson theme we have I think 8 different ways to display courses in categories. From tiles to horizontal there are options. These are all set on the Main Fordson Administration page in site admin.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Friday, 3 August 2018, 5:09 PM

Dear Chris,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I have updated to the very latest version of Fordson and can see the categories now - thanks !

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Er: Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Iñigo Zendegi Urzelai - Thursday, 12 July 2018, 4:21 PM

Hi,

That change makes all the Moodle filters [1] work there, not only the multilanguage filter.

The issue may be the "apply to" filter setting: the filter can be configured to be applied only to the content or both content and headings [2]. This field (the course name) should be considered a heading (and therefore only filters configured to be applied on content and headings should be applied), and I guess it's not.

I've been reading the output functions docs and I'm not sure but it seems like format_string() should be used instead of format_text() here?

fordson/classes/output/core/course_renderer.php (line 92):

$trimtitle = format_text(theme_fordson_course_trim_char($course->fullname, $trimtitlevalue));

$trimtitle = format_string(theme_fordson_course_trim_char($course->fullname, $trimtitlevalue));

[1]: https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Filters

[2]: https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Managing_filters

[3]: https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Output_functions

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Re: Er: Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 12 July 2018, 7:19 PM

Thanks for helping on this. I sent Richard a message asking him to change the course_renderer.php file with instructions. Hopefully this will solve the issue.

Should we use format string with the course summary too?

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Er: Re: Er: Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Iñigo Zendegi Urzelai - Thursday, 12 July 2018, 8:16 PM

Uhmm... not sure about that.

I haven't found any information about what is supposed to be a heading and what content, but AFAIK only course and category names are headings, but I really don't know if summaries should be headings too.

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Re: Er: Re: Er: Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 12 July 2018, 8:54 PM

Thanks.

I am waiting to hear back from Richard and I will include this in the next release if it solves the issue.

I also discovered a few issues with eLearning and breadcrumbs and the course block button. Those are fixed and ready to go. I also made a slight change in the block panel button where it remains stationary and the blocks slide down. This prevents having to scroll to the bottom of the block panel just to close it back up.

As soon as we get this solved I will push out the next update to Fordson.

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Re: Er: Re: Er: Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Friday, 20 July 2018, 7:16 PM

Thanks again Chris!

Your PM-code change does the trick.

One more thing: I would really like to use the course-block slider but I'm kinda stuck with the Default Boost Layout / Header Image in Course Title Box

It's probably not possible to use this layout AND have the course block slider is it?

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Re: Er: Re: Er: Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 20 July 2018, 8:42 PM

Probably not at this point. I'm launching a new district website and juggling many other projects outside of Moodle right now.

I'll be publishing the new update for Fordson soon.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Rebecca Barrington - Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 10:47 PM

We have just upgraded our test site to Moodle and Fordson 3.5 in prep for live upgrade next week. Wow! So many new features in this release of Fordson to play with - thank you! However, I am trying to make the site look as similar as possible for a user post upgrade. Two things I can't seem to amend is the site title background colour and the location of the 'course management' tab on a course.

In our Moodle 3.3 / Fordson 1.6.6 site the course management tab sits in the top right of the course but in 3.5 Moodle and Fordson, it appears in the top nav bar as a smaller icon. In the documentation the screenshots show the full 'course management' tab but I can't see to make it happen on my site. Can this be done in the latest version. You can see the versions in the image below.

Also, as you can see in the image below, the site title 'button' on the top nav bar (next to the nav draw icon), the link is shown as text rather than a button (still hyperlinks). In 3.3.6 / 1.6.6 it shows as a button. I can't figure out the colours to set this! I can't find any custom CSS on our 3.3 site either and I can't figure out what the CSS might be to customise.

Fordson 1.6.6 vs 3.5

Any help on achieving either of these, or even letting me know if it isn't possible, would be appreciated!

Thank you

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 8:30 PM

Rebecca,

Unfortunately, we are not using the sliding drawer for course management anymore. Having the button always accessible from anywhere in the course was a big user improvement for our users and we will not be going back.

As for the site title appearing as a button you could style it to appear as a button. Try adding this to the bottom SCSS box on the colors page of fordson:

span.site-name.d-none.d-md-inline {
    padding: .5rem;
    background-color: #ccc;
}

Change #ccc to whatever color you want.

Hope that helps.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Rebecca Barrington - Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 10:10 PM

Fab thank you! The CSS works a treat and does exactly what I need. That was the main thing I wanted to address (we refer to the 'blue button' when trying to get users back to the homepage when they are all confused!)

I can just update the user tour to explain the new location - it is a sensible update!

Thanks ever so much for your help.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Crystal Cooper - Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 4:41 PM

Hi Chris,

Hope you enjoyed your break. We’ve launched our new site to staff and had lots of positive feedback. A few small issues have come up though.

We’re using the “this course” drop down menu. One of our teachers noticed that it also lists hidden sections in the course. I checked with a test account and nothing happens when the student clicks on them. Is there a way to stop these from appearing? They don’t show up in the nav drawer.

Also, is it possible to have the “customise this page” button and “reset dashboard for all users” added back on the dashboard? We add blocks to the dashboard to advertise events during the year, and we need a way to push those out to all users.

Thanks,

Crystal

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Crystal Cooper - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 5:10 PM

Just for anyone who sees this who is wondering how to restore the button to customise the dashboard. I poked around the code a bit and discovered it can be brought back by adding this into the raw SCSS:

#page-my-index #page-header .d-flex {z-index: 0;}

I haven’t found a solution for the hidden items still appearing in the This Course though. Chris, is this possible to fix?

Best wishes,

Crystal

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 11:07 PM

I wouldn't recommend using This Course. It was developed for a time when we were thinking of abandoning the navdrawer. To fix it you'd need to look at the renderer file and add in logic to look for visibility. This Course drop down doesn't play nicely on phones and our feedback from teachers caused us to abandon pursuing this feature.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 11:37 PM

Hello again,

Based on my recent tests under Moodle 3.5.1 I'd like to suggest two improvements:

1) The Boost Campus theme has one feature which is really helpful for the teacher - an alert displaying across / above the general topic if the viewed course is hidden from the students. Could a feature like this be added to Fordson also?

2) If global simple search is enabled, the search icon and form are open in the top nav bar - indicriminately, which is wrong if you are merely a guest. The search is useless then.. - it will not even retrieve the available course names... I know this is a deeper Moodle issue, but there is no tracker for that as far as I have been able to establish. And I was was wondering if this bevahiour of global search could not be stopped at the theme level. I have just read this discussion from 2016v on GitHub for the Essential theme, which suggested a possible solution : https://github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential/issues/781 . Any thoughts?

All best wishes,

Przemek

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NEW! Course Completion shows in My Courses Frontpage listings

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 3 August 2018, 2:19 AM

Several of the course tiles and horizontal styles have been updated to include Course Completion statuses. What this will do is detect if course completion is turned on for the course and then it will display the radial completion status in the course tile. Fordson provides over 8 different course tiles and horizontal layouts for viewing course details inside categories or on the Moodle homepage.

We using the Moodle Site Home you can edit the page to include "Enrolled Courses". When viewing enrolled courses it will now show the user on the homepage how much they have left to complete. See the image below.

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Re: NEW! Course Completion shows in My Courses Frontpage listings

by Dennie Walker - Monday, 6 August 2018, 6:50 AM

Hello Chris

Again hats off to you and the team for another exciting update.

I have an issue with the Breadcrumb when using the "Default Boost Layout/Header Image in Subject Title box". The Breadcrumb text is is white on a white background so it doesn't show up.
The Breadcrumb shows up just fine when using the other layouts, however I prefer this layout because the full screen image can be very distracting for students while navigating course pages when using the other layouts.
I would really appreciate a temporary fix until an update can fix same.
Thanks

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Re: NEW! Course Completion shows in My Courses Frontpage listings

by David Kummerow - Monday, 6 August 2018, 8:41 AM

Hi Dennie,

I've discovered the same issue and reported here: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=371544#p1502354.

Chris had some holidays and may not have had time to correct this yet I think.

Until then, this is the workaround I'm using: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=371544#p1502183

Regards,
David.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: NEW! Course Completion shows in My Courses Frontpage listings

by Chris Kenniburg - Monday, 6 August 2018, 11:22 AM

I'll take a look at this tomorrow. We will have a new release tomorrow as well. I discovered a couple bugs plus we added a few new features I need to just tidy them up.

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Re: NEW! Course Completion shows in My Courses Frontpage listings

by Chris Kenniburg - Monday, 6 August 2018, 7:45 PM

Update: The breadcrumbs issue when using the default Boost layout has been fixed.

If you want to fix your site before the next Fordson update do this:

Delete these lines from the layout5.scss file

https://github.com/dbnschools/moodle-theme_fordson/blob/master/scss/pagelayout/layout5.scss#L27-L3

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Re: NEW! Course Completion shows in My Courses Frontpage listings

by Dennie Walker - Thursday, 9 August 2018, 12:27 AM

Thank you so much for the new release. That fixed the problem no more worries.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Friday, 3 August 2018, 5:57 PM

Dear Chris,

I'm facing problems with the multilang setting on the icon navigation captions.

The special icons behave OK, but the custom icons resist the code.

Here's what I have entered into the link text box for the Calendar:

CalendarKalendarz

Also tried

CalendarKalendarz

But it breaks either way.

Here's what I have entered into the link text box for the Course creator button, which works OK:

Create a CourseUtwórz nowy kurs

Special slide with this also works:

Find!Wyszukaj!

See the screenshot below with the result. Purging the caches did not help.

I may have noticed this problem first after upgrading to the very latest Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 4 (2018071600), but I'm not sure.

Another thing I spotted was that the tooltips on these icon were showing the URL paths. Is this how it should be? I have checked on two different Moodle instances. Here's one example:

By comparison, the Special slider button has no tooltip at all:

The top menu button show correct styled tooltips, just checked the admin one:

For the moment I'm doing without the navigation icons, but perhaps you'll find some time to confirm if my problems can be replicated and perhaps addressed.

Regards,

Przemek

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 3 August 2018, 7:17 PM

I'll look into the icon button using the URL instead of text for roll overs and try to get those fixed.

Thanks for finding this issue. Please update to the latest release which was just published yesterday and let me know if the language filter issue is still there.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 3 August 2018, 7:39 PM

I fixed the icon tooltip text. It was a typo. I also found some other issues with the buttons and addressed those as well. It will be in a new release out shortly.

I'll post it to github later today.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Friday, 3 August 2018, 6:39 PM

Dear Chris,

This one more today and I'll stop, but I I thought I'd share my thoughts on the course tiles. I'm trying to get ones that would give me max text and align the course images well. I'm sure we can make adjustments using CSS even, but here below are my observations - speciafically about Tile type 1 that comes without summaries, though maybe the default type including the summaries is also affected. Essentially what I mean is that the bottom padding on the tiles does not do a good job when increasing the tile height (which I tried because our courses often have long names and the course images files are often rather sqquare in shape - which is what Moodle'a default course lists prefer.)

"compared with the top" is what I meant there, of course .

Maybe you'll find this feedback useful.

Cheers,

Przemek

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 3 August 2018, 7:19 PM

The images are set to cover and they are not meant to be something like a logo or have text you'd expect someone to read. They are meant for visual cues and customization of a teacher's homepage.

You can adjust the CSS to meet your needs.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Friday, 3 August 2018, 10:22 PM

Sure. I didn't mean for the images to be readable or anything anyway. Thanks.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Friday, 3 August 2018, 10:35 PM

Hi Chris,

Just noticed also that the student course dashboard appears not to respect the hide-my-email-from -unprilvileged-users setting in teachers' (general) profiles. Maybe not a major concern, but some teachers prefer to be messaged than emailed and change that personal setting in their profiles.

I thought I would just turn off the student panel, but I can't achieve that without also disabling the teacher's course management panel.

Regards,

Przemek

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 3 August 2018, 11:32 PM

In order to achieve this we are reading directly from the database. It's not checking anything for email.

~~Do you know what the config variable is for hide-my-email? Maybe I can build in a check.~~

I figured out how to check for showmyemail .... 'hasemail' => $staff->maildisplay

This will also be included in the next update. Thanks for pointing out these areas of improvement.

Updates will be on github in a few hours. Working on something really cool for Site Homepage. A new course tile display option that will be very clean for sites doing corporate training.

Attachment completion tracking training courses.png

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Saturday, 4 August 2018, 12:54 AM

A question: While I quite like the activity icons provided, I wonder if it's possible to use the Moodle default icon set with the Fordson theme?

Thanks

Przemek

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Saturday, 4 August 2018, 1:06 AM

Yes. Just delete the pix folder that has the module icons in it.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Saturday, 4 August 2018, 2:09 AM

Hmm, did you not mean pix_core and pix_plugins? The pix folder itself only has a few pictures there like the uploaded favicons and the default course tile background.

PS. Yes removed those two + cleared theme caches. Seems to work OK on first first test site

I imagine putting these folders back and purging cache again should reinstate your icons.

Just done that, and removed them again. The process seems easily reversible .

Thanks.

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Brand New Style Preset Released - Spectrum Achromatic

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 8 August 2018, 1:39 AM

We just released a new style preset that is modern, refined, and sleek looking: Spectrum Achromatic. The Spectrum preset has muted colors except where needed to draw students and teachers into the page. We utilize color to focus eyes on the page in a very modern and appealing look.

Take a look and download the latest release!

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Re: Brand New Style Preset Released - Spectrum Achromatic

by R. Johnson - Saturday, 11 August 2018, 11:07 PM

I really like the new Spectrum theme preset, Chris. There's just one minor issue I'd like to report, though, with the use of the Bold Notecard section style. The section's edit button disappears when editing a course. A section's edit button is there with the other section style choices in the Spectrum preset.

E-Learner preset with Bold Notecard sections:

Spectrum preset with Bold Notecard sections:

Just a heads-up.

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Re: Brand New Style Preset Released - Spectrum Achromatic

by Chris Kenniburg - Sunday, 12 August 2018, 8:00 AM

Thanks. I'll look into it Monday. They must be the same color and therefore hidden.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Tuesday, 14 August 2018, 6:44 PM

Hi Chris!

I've just installed the latest Fordson update in my test environment.

Both my headers and my footers are messed up after the update:

My headers with Moodle 3.5 Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 3 (2018062600)

My headers with Moodle 3.5 Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 6 (2018081000)

Couple of things obviously break:

breadcrumb now has white on white
header: Location of course-title has moved up
header: Course image fades
footer: background also fades

Is there a way that I can prevent my layout from braking during updates? I need the updates for bugfixes, for example with the categories. I want to follow the Fordson updates but at the same time I want my layout to stay the same and not need to fix it after updates.

If you have tips on how to handle that, please share those with me.

I don understand that we have an extra Stylesheet to make up the site... maybe that needs to go... but I'd rather keep it to have the look & feel that our other websites also have.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Tuesday, 14 August 2018, 6:52 PM

I probably found what causes the header to fade:

.withimage, .default, .customimage {

background-color: rgba(255,255,255,.3);

background-blend-mode: luminosity;

-webkit-mask: linear-gradient(black,transparent 100%,black);

filter: blur(2px) opacity(70%);

}

Is it possible to perhaps unable or disable these stylesheet changes in a layout form or something? Of course I can override these CSS changes myself, but it would be easier if somehow these would not happen with updates?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Tuesday, 14 August 2018, 7:30 PM

I also find this code in the latest version, which was not there in the earlier versions:

#page-header .pt-3, #page-header .py-3 {

padding-top: 0!important;

}

Due to the !important tag it makes it more difficult to intercept in own stylesheets...

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 15 August 2018, 9:30 AM

Hey Richard,

We made some significant changes to layout Boost default with Header Image. That might be where your getting some issues. These were made because we are now using that layout as default and we gave Fordson a brand new look/preset on install to maximize the real estate on the page for content.

I'm actually at our local Moodle moot Tuesday and Wednesday. I will take a look at moving the code into the preset if possible to get it out of the layout scss file. If I recall correctly we put it there for a reason but I could be wrong.

You're doing some very significant changes with your additional preset and styling beyond what probably 95% of users would do. This is most likely the issue. I will try to keep you plight in mind as we move forward with the theme to try and minimize disruption.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Wednesday, 15 August 2018, 8:26 PM

Hi Chris,

Have fun at the Moodlemoot

Yesterday I spend quite some time trying to undo the changes you've made, but it's quite the search. I didn't get Moodle to look the way it did before the update, so if you could move the code into a new preset and also keep the 'original' one, that would help me a lot!

We have made the switch to Fordson right before the summer. Of course everyone is a bit uncomfortable when Moodle look changes, so I promised them no more new look&feel changes for 2018.

This makes I will be sticking to update 3 of Fordson 3.5 until I'm sure that a new update doesn't change the look and feel again.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 16 August 2018, 8:47 PM

Richard,

So Fordson allows you to mix and match Style Presets, Page Layouts, Section/Topic Styles, and even Course Tile Displays. The issue that arises is that certain style presets might not look good with either the default Moodle CSS or it may need to change the styling. Sometimes it is very easy to do right in the style preset if it applies to each and every layout or section style.

However, what if a certain page layout is the only one you need to adjust with CSS? If you put the new styling in the layout css then it applies for every preset. Likewise if you put it in the style preset then it applies to every layout.

So... this morning I think I have a solution! In the main style preset I can put a new SCSS variable like this:

$spectrumpreset: 1;

Then in the layout5 SCSS file I can do an "if" statement to check if the SCSS variable is present.

@if $spectrumpreset == 1 {
    #page-header .pt-3, #page-header .py-3 {
        padding-top: 0!important;
    }
}

This will allow me to only have that #page-header .pt-3, #page-header .py-3 styling only appear when the $spectrumpreset variable is set to "1" which happens when the spectrum preset is activated.

In similar fashion, I can use this same method for all the other presets if needed.

So, I guess the answer to all of this is that if there needs to be a change of style for a specific layout, section, or tile that cannot be added to the main Style Preset then I can use this method which will only use the CSS code if the proper preset is being used.

Moving forward I am going to use this method to help minimize styling disruptions.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Thursday, 16 August 2018, 9:38 PM

That sounds like a genius solution!

I must admit that I skipped the update 4 and 5, so I don't know exactly in which update you changed the headers & footers of Fordson.

But if you can implement the above, I can at least keep up with the most recent updates of Fordson!

Thanks again,

Richard

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 16 August 2018, 11:12 PM

Richard,

This new solution I have discovered will open up a whole new potential for theming!!!

What this means is that each section style or page layout style can have new styles injected based on what the main preset is set to. The styles can be targeted to the layout or section style being loaded into the page and only activated when the proper preset is used.

It just opened up a whole new world of customization I need to explore. It will also mean less and less global changes to achieve a desired look and feel for the Fordson theme.

Thanks Richard. You didn't realize it, but you helped me discover a way to be more effective in styling and it will open up new possibilities moving forward to better control the look and feel of pages.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Friday, 17 August 2018, 3:47 PM

That is good to hear Chris!

If I can do anything to help, let me know. Perhaps you want my stylesheet... just for ideas?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Wednesday, 22 August 2018, 5:02 AM

Hi Chris,

I seem to have to have run into an issue with highlighting of sections (whether topics or weeks) (li.current) under the following configuration:

Theme preset: Modern Moodle
Layout Chooser: Default Boost Layout
Section Style Chooser: Boose default (but i have also tested the default Highlighted Setion title with the same effect)
Block display: Single column Boost default

I have tried on two different installations - online and local - and got the same effect. I wonder if you can confirm this issue. I am almost sure I did not see the problem before the latest update (I think I had used update 5 and then upgraded to update 7).

Would be grateful for your feedback. Perhaps other users can verify as well.

Regards,

Przemek

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 22 August 2018, 9:32 PM

Przemek,

This is indeed a bug that crept in. I have a fix and it will be out later today or before the end of the week.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Thursday, 23 August 2018, 1:58 AM

Great. Looking forward to that, thanks a lot

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 23 August 2018, 8:26 PM

The latest release is now on the github: Update 8.

It'll have the section highlight fix and progress bar fix as well amongst other styling fixes.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Przemek Kaszubski - Monday, 27 August 2018, 3:13 AM

Thanks a lot, Chris. I have just updated the theme from the official repo .

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Ruthine Burton - Friday, 7 December 2018, 1:04 AM

Hi Chris,

I'd first like to thank you for the work you are doing on Fordson - and for this support page.

I'm currently testing the theme on our test site (Moodle 3.5 and Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 16). I have been unable to create sections using collapsed topics on the course pages that span the width of the page / content area. Instead, the sections appear to be responsive to the width of the title for the section. Have I missed a setting somewhere? I would be grateful if you could point me in the right direction for how to set the sections so that they span the width of the page (content area) as before. Thank you.

Ruthine

Here is what sections look like currently using the Fordson theme:

Here is how I want the sections the span the content area in the course page:

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Gareth J Barnard - Friday, 7 December 2018, 11:38 PM

Dear Ruthine,

Have you set the number of columns to one for the collapsed topics settings? If so then I wonder why Fordson is making them inline?

Gareth - Developer of Collapsed Topics.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Ruthine Burton - Saturday, 8 December 2018, 9:06 PM

Hi Gareth,

Thank you so much for getting back so quickly. I did have the collapsed topics set to one but was still getting that result. However your reply made me play around a bit with the settings and I changed the 'column orientation' setting from horizontal to vertical. This has sorted it. However, all of the modules (hundreds) appear set to horizontal by default. Do you know if there is a way to set the default for all sections - site wide - to vertical so that I don't have to manually change each individual module page? The site admin > modules > module default settings does not include this option. Thanks for any help you can give.

Ruthine

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Gareth J Barnard - Sunday, 9 December 2018, 12:10 AM

Dear Ruthine,

As an administrator, go to any CT course and edit the course settings. There you will find a 'Reset all' option under the 'Collapsed Topics reset options', there is a tick box for 'Layouts' which means 'Resets the layout element, structure, columns, icon position, one section and shown section summary to the default values for all courses so it will be the same as a course the first time it is in the 'Collapsed Topics 'format.' - thus ensure your defaults (Site Administration -> plugins -> Collapsed Topics) are as desired for all of the ones listed. Tick the box and then do 'Save and display' - all CT courses will then have those values set.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Ruthine Burton - Monday, 10 December 2018, 7:24 PM

Dear Gareth,

Thank you so much for your response. I will give that a go.

Kind regards

Ruthine

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Ruthine Burton - Saturday, 15 December 2018, 6:03 PM

Dear Gareth,

I have tried a few times now to reset all collapsed topics site wide by using the 'reset all' option and I get this error message:

This page isn’t working gsm-test2.moodle.webanywhere.co.uk is currently unable to handle this request.

HTTP ERROR 500

We don't host our Moodle so I have contacted our hosting partner (WebAnywhere) to see if they can do anything about it. However I wondered if you might be able to shed any light on this? Thank you for any help you can give.

Ruthine

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Gareth J Barnard - Saturday, 15 December 2018, 6:48 PM

If its a 500 error then there is an issue with the PHP somewhere. Look in the 'php.log' file. I've checked Collapsed Topics and the functionality works.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Ruthine Burton - Saturday, 15 December 2018, 8:14 PM

Hi Gareth,

Thank you for the info and for getting back so rapidly. Have a great day.

Ruthine

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 18 December 2018, 2:38 AM

There could be a couple of possible issues. Since you mentioned that there were potentially hundreds of courses that needed to be reset you might want to consider: Increasing the max execution time or increasing the PHP memory limit.

It could be running out of resources or time to reset every course.

Just a thought going on a hunch.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - sections

by Ruthine Burton - Tuesday, 18 December 2018, 6:20 AM

Hi chris,

Thank you. You are right on the money. It turns out increasing the PHP memory limit was needed.

Thanks again.

Ruthine

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Denis Glagolev - Wednesday, 22 August 2018, 3:30 PM

Dear Chris, This is awaysome, what did you do - "Fordson" theme is very greate to enchance Moodle Boost. However, could you please answer for my questions:

1) How could I export/import all the Fordson settings to reinstall or upgraide Moodle, or transfer it to another server?

2) If there some features in Fordson/Moodle to create Landing pages for couses with possibility to show (by pressing , for example, "enroll" button ) new little window with registration margins for the user (that is not logged in): Name, Surname, email, choose course, date... And after sendind this information - Course Manager would be recieve this info on email:

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 22 August 2018, 10:43 PM

Denis,

Settings do not import/export.

An enrollment form isn't typically how Moodle operates. This would be something you would hire a developer to make. There are many, many plugins to handle enrollment. You might want to check out what others have developed. There are plugins that work on a request/teacher approval workflow. Check them out here:https://moodle.org/plugins/?q=type:enrol

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard Oelmann - Thursday, 23 August 2018, 3:08 PM

For the transfer of settings, there used to be a plugin that would enable that https://moodle.org/plugins/local_flavours But it hasn't been updated since 3.0.

You could try it out on a test server first and see if it works?

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Denis Glagolev - Saturday, 25 August 2018, 2:41 AM

Thank you, There is another actual plugin - Blocks: Admin presets.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Emma Richardson - Thursday, 23 August 2018, 7:49 PM

https://moodle.org/plugins/block_admin_presets

Not sure how well it works with custom themes...but it is a life saver for duplicating sites...

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Greg Reed - Sunday, 26 August 2018, 8:15 AM

Hi, Chris.

This seems like a straight-forward enough question, but I can't seem to find a clear answer in the forums....

I'm running the Fordson theme plugin on Moodle v3.4. In the "My courses" section of the front page (not the dashboard, nor the My courses drop-down on the top nav bar), our users would like to have a means by which to order the appearance of their courses.

For now, all I have available to them is that the most recently visited course appears first.

Is there a means by which to customize the order of course tiles listed in users' My Courses section of the front page?

Thanks,

Greg

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Monday, 27 August 2018, 7:31 PM

Greg,

Anything is possible but we do not have that functionality.

If you'd like to fund it, I'd be happy to work with someone you hire to build it.

Keep me in the loop if you would like that functionality included in our theme and hire someone to build it.

Thanks,

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Greg Reed - Monday, 27 August 2018, 8:24 PM

Thank you, Chris.

This is the information I needed.

Regarding funding...anything is possible ;)

However, I think we are not currently ready to prioritize this admittedly desirable feature.

Thanks for all your work and support.

Greg

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Monday, 27 August 2018, 8:37 PM

It's a great idea but a bit more involved than you'd think to make that all happen. I just don't have the hours in the day. Moodle is only a portion of my job duties. Summer is when we have the time and today is our first day back in K-12 with students. It's gonna be a whirlwind until Thanksgiving.

I'd imagine you could get it built for around $1000 which is cheap all things considered.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard Oelmann - Tuesday, 28 August 2018, 6:18 PM

As the front page courses list is part of core, you may want to propose this change in the Moodle User Association, or the tracker, as it would be of benefit to users of other themes that way.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Tuesday, 28 August 2018, 4:37 PM

Chris, my Forum mailings and maintenance jobs task is no longer running. Do you think Fordson can have something to do with that? These are the errors I'm getting and it seems theme-related:

Forum mailings and maintenance jobs

Execute scheduled task: Forum mailings and maintenance jobs (mod_forum\task\cron_task)

... started 10:34:17. Current memory use 18.5MB.

Coding problem: $PAGE->context was not set. You may have forgotten to call require_login() or $PAGE->set_context(). The page may not display correctly as a result

line 493 of /lib/pagelib.php: call to debugging()

line 1544 of /lib/pagelib.php: call to moodle_page->magic_get_context()

line 677 of /lib/pagelib.php: call to moodle_page->initialise_theme_and_output()

line 864 of /lib/pagelib.php: call to moodle_page->magic_get_theme()

line 466 of /mod/forum/lib.php: call to moodle_page->get_renderer()

line 45 of /mod/forum/classes/task/cron_task.php: call to forum_cron()

line 105 of /lib/cronlib.php: call to mod_forum\task\cron_task->execute()

line 297 of /lib/cronlib.php: call to cron_run_inner_scheduled_task()

line 91 of /admin/tool/task/schedule_task.php: call to cron_run_single_task()

... used 5 dbqueries

... used 0.016763925552368 seconds

Scheduled task failed: Forum mailings and maintenance jobs (mod_forum\task\cron_task),Coding error detected, it must be fixed by a programmer: Function cron_setup_user() cannot be used in normal requests!

Backtrace:

* line 918 of /mod/forum/lib.php: call to cron_setup_user()

* line 45 of /mod/forum/classes/task/cron_task.php: call to forum_cron()

* line 105 of /lib/cronlib.php: call to mod_forum\task\cron_task->execute()

* line 297 of /lib/cronlib.php: call to cron_run_inner_scheduled_task()

* line 91 of /admin/tool/task/schedule_task.php: call to cron_run_single_task()

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 28 August 2018, 7:52 PM

I'm not thinking this is directly related to Fordson. What other plugins are you using?

We use Fordson on many websites and haven't encountered this issue yet.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Tuesday, 28 August 2018, 9:06 PM

Sorry Chris, this is just a bug: MDL-60514

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Rebecca Barrington - Tuesday, 4 September 2018, 7:32 PM

We have an issue of videos embedded via the Moodle Media option (in the toolbar) not presenting properly on the course page. It seems to lose all formating and overlays the videos on top of the text on the page.

It only happens on the course page (eg: when in a topic title summary or label). It presents fine in a page etc. It only happens on the Fordson theme (it is fine on Boost and Adaptable). It is OK if we use the embed code rather than than the plugin tool but many of ours have been added previously via the plugin so it would be a lot to change them all!

It has happened since we upgraded to Moodle 3.5 Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 8 (2018082300). Images of how it looks in the two themes is below.

Fordson Media

Is anyone else having this issue? Anyone know of some CSS that might help me?

Thank you

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 4 September 2018, 8:22 PM

Rebecca,

Can you describe how you add the videos to the course page? Is it a label? Is it part of an activity description?

I will also need to know which presets you are using for Fordson.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Rebecca Barrington - Tuesday, 11 September 2018, 3:30 PM

These are added by:

Adding a label (or editing the section heading)
In the HTML toolbar we click on the 'insert or edit an audio / video file' icon
We choose 'YouTube' on the left hand side and paste in the YouTube addess and save it.

The presets we use for Fordson are Modern Moodle |Centred Content |Univesity Learner| Single Column Boost default.

Fordson Presets

This videos present OK on the other themes and used to work OK the previous version of Fordson.

Thank you!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Michelle Moore - Tuesday, 9 October 2018, 5:47 AM

Hi Rebecca and Chris -

I'm having issues with embedded videos as well. Like Rebecca, the embedded videos work well in other themes, but behave differently in the Fordson theme. I have confirmed the issue with Moodle 3.5.2+ (10052018) and Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 12 (2018100100). I have confirmed the issue with all of the default Fordson theme settings for this version.

I am also embedding videos on the course page; I am adding mine to the topic summary field. In all cases, I have used the insert an audio or video file button on the Atto toolbar. I have used both .mov and .mp4 files. I have uploaded files directly into Moodle through the Upload a file interface and through a Dropbox repository; all result in the same behavior. In other themes, the embedded videos appear centered on the page; in the Fordson theme, the video is aligned the left as in the images below.

Video in Boost

Video in Fordson

The placement itself isn't a huge problem, but interestingly, when I click on the full screen button on the player in the Fordson theme, the video only fills a very small portion of the full screen - the rest of the playing area is black. Note, this screenshot was taken on a large screen, so the size of the video is not in proportion to the size of the black area around it. This same video, on the same site, in the same place, will play in full screen correctly if I switch to the Boost theme.

Full screen video - Fordson

Also, in case it helps you track down the issue, Moodle 3.5.2 with Fordson release 3 update 5 works just like other themes. And, if I embed a video from YouTube in the latest release of the Fordson theme, it plays properly in full-screen mode.

If there is any other information I can provide to assist with troubleshooting, please let me know.

Thanks!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 9 October 2018, 9:07 AM

Hello Michelle,

I hope all is well! What video filters are you using? Can you post a screenshot of your site filter page for media. I need to see the ordering so I can try and replicate this.

Will you be at the usmoot?

Thanks,

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Michelle Moore - Wednesday, 17 October 2018, 5:30 AM

Hi Chris,

It looks like you may no longer need this information, but I thought I'd go ahead and provide it in case it's useful to you or someone else in the future. I do believe we are using the default media filters on this site and I know I would have used the default filters in testing the issue at least once.

And, yep, I'll be at the moot. You?

Media filters

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 9 October 2018, 9:25 PM

Michelle,

If you open up the fordson/scss/styles.scss file and go to the very bottom and replace the "Media Plugin Styling" with the following:

/**
* Media Plugin Styling
**/
.path-course-view .video-js.vjs-audio {
    width: 400px;
}
.path-course-view .mod-indent-outer .mediaplugin {
    display: contents;
}
.path-course-view .mediaplugin_videojs>div {
    margin: initial;
}
audio.mediaplugin_html5audio {
    width: 400px;
    height: 54px;
    position: initial;
}

Let me know if that fixes things.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Michelle Moore - Wednesday, 17 October 2018, 5:34 AM

Thank you Chris for working this out. We did make this change to the css file you referenced and it did resolve the issue with the video going to full screen so thank you very much!

I will note the video still aligns to the left which may still cause issues for some, but it's not a problem in our case.

If I can help with any further testing, let me know.

Thanks!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 17 October 2018, 10:50 PM

Hello Michelle,

The fix I provided you is now included in the most recent update to Fordson which is version 13.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 3:25 AM

I am adding a new feature that will allow you to change the styling of the marketing box in similar fashion to how pagelayout, sectionstyles, and other elements work in Fordson. You can pick from a drop-down various styles and instantly change the look of the site.

The next update9 to fordson will include this change and come with a few initial offerings for marketing tile styles.

Another bonus is that you can now add up to 9 marketing tiles. That's 3 more than what is currently available.

I'm working on a few different css stylings for the marketing blocks and I suspect we will make them even better long term.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 4:32 AM

Hi Chris,

Does this mean that I can also update without losing my current layout?

If not, can I somehow get the fix for categories back in the course layout? I'm still stuck with only course names when I do a search for courses. I can't see the categories where the courses reside. Not in the breadcrumb and not by searching for courses.

I need to browse through all the categories if I want to know where a course resides. Or I look in the database for the categoryID. Not the best options

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 9:33 PM

I added in course categories and other options for the My Courses and Course Category displays.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 10:14 PM

Yes, I know... but I can't update yet so I hoped you could point me in the direction of where you changed the code

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Garth Brady - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 8:24 AM

We love this theme!

When we recently updated, we found that the header image for courses has an automatic blur applied. We have several courses where this is less than ideal (graphic design courses, for example, where the teachers want the original artwork displayed as is). We couldn't find a toggle for this setting, but it would be greatly appreciated if one could be added in a future update or if it already exists, if we could be pointed in the right direction See attached for a snapshot of what we're talking about.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 2:13 PM

Hi Garth,

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 9:39 PM

Drop the following code in the custom SCSS box at the bottom of the Fordson Colours page.

.withimage, .default, .customimage {
    background-color: rgba(255,255,255,.3);
    background-blend-mode: initial;
    -webkit-mask-image: none;
    mask-image: none;
    filter: blur(0) opacity(100%);
}

This code should remove the photo fade and other effects applied to the header image.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Garth Brady - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 9:48 PM

Thanks, Chris. Really appreciate it! It'd be sweet if this was a toggle in settings.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 10:17 PM

It's part of the overall look and feel of the Spectrum Preset. If you change the preset to Modern Moodle the fade goes away.

I'm no mathematician, but Fordson has several hundred unique display combinations:

4 Style presets X 5 Page Layouts X 8 Section Styles X 10 Course Listing Displays X 4 Marketing Tiles = A lot of customization.

To understand how Fordson works it's a modular approach to style and customization. The style preset sets the overall color and look for the theme. The page layouts create unique positioning of page elements. The Section styles customize the look of the learning content. Course listings help users find courses and the marketing tiles help promote content and information.

You can mix and match until you get just the right look and feel for your organization.

The Presets tab of the Fordson theme is where you start off and make all your general customizations to the look and feel of your site. The Preset Adjustment page has a few customizations that further enhance Page Layout and might be needed by the Page layout such as controlling the size and spacing of the header image or padding on the sides of the main content of the page.

After you get the look and feel set you can activate or deactivate all the various other features that Fordson provides on the remaining tabs of the Fordson Admin settings.

Hope that helps.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Keith Powell - Friday, 7 September 2018, 7:14 PM

Hi Chris,

I love this theme, so clean and user-friendly.

However, I am having a similar issue.

I like how the fade looks with the Spectrum preset, but it fades the logo on the home page.

I have tried Modern Moodle but the site logo disappears.

I don't want to use the header logo as it lowers the page.

Any ideas on how I can use either Spectrum, which I would prefer, or Modern Moodle, but not have a faded logo.

Spectrum;

Modern Moodle;

Hope you can help,

Keith

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 7 September 2018, 7:42 PM

Keith,

Is the logo part of the actual background image?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Friday, 7 September 2018, 8:17 PM

That was exactly my question... but I can hardly imagine.

Keith, is it like Chris says or did you just move down your logo from the top using CSS?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Keith Powell - Friday, 7 September 2018, 8:57 PM

No,

it is inserted through >site administration/appearance/logos

when I switch to Modern Moodle from Spectrum, the logo disappears.

Keith

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Keith Powell - Monday, 10 September 2018, 2:11 PM

Hi,

No it is an image that was uploaded via the main logo part of the theme.

Regards

Keith

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Keith Powell - Wednesday, 12 September 2018, 11:05 PM

Hi guys,

Any luck sorting out the logo issue?

My bosses are pestering me to get the site up and running for the new intake and i may have to go to another theme to satisfy them

Regards

Keith

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 13 September 2018, 1:25 AM

Use the logo upload located in the Fordson Theme > Custom Images and NOT the default Appearance settings.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 13 September 2018, 1:40 AM

Try this by adding it to the bottom of the Fordson > Colors > Custom SCSS box at the bottom of the page:

#page-header .card .card-body { z-index: 0; }

That will fix the logo being behind the fade of the background image.

I was able to recreate this and it is an issue when using the Fordson defaults. It will be included in the next update.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Keith Powell - Friday, 14 September 2018, 10:00 PM

Thanks Chris,

That code works great.

All sorted, many thanks

Keith

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 10:11 PM

Thanks Chris!

Do you have any more of these CSS codes to undo what happened?

The header-image has moved up a lot and the footer also fades... If I can fix this I'm able to follow the new releases again.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Dennie Walker - Wednesday, 5 September 2018, 11:09 PM

Perfect just what I needed also.
I don't like the blur effect on the images neither.

Thank you Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 6 September 2018, 8:31 PM

Fordson will now offer personalization for the Marketing Tiles areas. Initially 4 style presets are available and will be refined over time. These can be changed in the Fordson Admin area by a simple drop down on the preset tab of the latest Fordson release update 9.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by G J - Tuesday, 11 September 2018, 10:51 PM

Is there a way to remove the graduation hats in the course boxes when enabled on the front page. This is when I select "combo list" on the front page

Attachment Screen Shot 2018-09-11 at 9.51.39 AM.png

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 12 September 2018, 3:23 AM

It's part of the course completion like what is seen on the Dashboard.

We are extremely busy now but when it slows down I can take a look at adding a checkbox for some of the course tile features so you can turn them on and off.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by G J - Wednesday, 12 September 2018, 10:46 PM

ok Thanks!

Whenever you get free time could you answer the following questions:

• With the dashboard once logged in, is there a way to not show the sliders on the dashboard page?

• How can you change the height of the transparency to show more of the picture for the combo list ?

• How can I change the button and the category text without changing the primary brand color when hovering over the transparency box? (see attachment)

Thanks

no rush!

Attachment Screen Shot 2018-09-12 at 9.38.24 AM.png

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 13 September 2018, 1:31 AM

• With the dashboard once logged in, is there a way to not show the sliders on the dashboard page?

Turn off "Enhanced Dashboard" which will remove the features normally used on the Site Home. Also, just turn off the slideshow on the Slideshow tab in the theme settings.

• How can you change the height of the transparency to show more of the picture for the combo list ?

Fordson Preset Adjustment page you can select the height of the course tiles from a drop down.

• How can I change the button and the category text without changing the primary brand color when hovering over the transparency box? (see attachment)

Using CSS, identify the button and surrounding div selector and style accordingly. Drop that new CSS style on the colors page in the very bottom Custom SCSS box. Same for the text. While I try to catch all scenarios it is a tough job since there are now infinitely complex styling options. I can try and take a look for the next update to see if I can replicate this issue.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by G J - Thursday, 13 September 2018, 11:33 PM

Thanks That work! The only thing, I think I'm doing the wrong div selector for button. Its changing all the primary colors for others as well. Can you help me identify the div selector for the button

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 14 September 2018, 1:33 AM

Use

.market-tile .btn .btn-primary { }

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by G J - Saturday, 15 September 2018, 6:19 AM

Also the category text to are changing all the primary colors to the color I want. See screenshot. You can't see the category text for Categories its black

Attachment Screen Shot 2018-09-14 at 5.17.49 PM.png

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by G J - Saturday, 15 September 2018, 9:10 AM

I found a work around:

#category-course-list > div > div:nth-child(3) > div > div:nth-child(1) > div > figure > div > div > figcaption > div > div > a
{
color: #009edd;
}
#category-course-list > div > div:nth-child(3) > div > div:nth-child(2) > div > figure > div > div > figcaption > div > div > a
{
color: #009edd;
}

repeat however many courses showing on the front page. this is for "List of courses" showing on "Front Page"

I basically kept changing the div:nth-child

You might have a better way but this worked. Thanks

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by G J - Saturday, 15 September 2018, 9:36 AM

I use this for "List of Course" on the front page to change the button. Thanks

button.btn.btn-primary.btn-sm.coursestyle2btn

{
color: #009edd;

}

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Ryan Hazen - Saturday, 3 August 2019, 12:10 AM

Hi all,

I hid the completion tile completely by pasting this piece of code into the administration > appearance > additional HTML > "when BODY is opened" field:

That way you can use completion inside of a course without displaying the status on the course tile on the front page.

Thanks again for everything Chris!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Lionel A. Richemond - Thursday, 27 September 2018, 11:32 PM

Hi Chris, excuse my english

Would like to ask you:

which approach would you use if you have to insert some sort of sepparator (maybe an <h1>),

just before the Marketing Tiles in order to sepparate them from the COURSE's Tiles?
I'm not sure because maybe if I touch the code when I update the moodle maybe my changes will vanish, and I'm not so good with the code.

I'm using the last fordson version with moodle 3.5

thank you for the custom personalisation for the Marketing Tile Areas. Fordson is by far the best Theme of all Moodle universe.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 28 September 2018, 9:58 PM

Hello Lionel,

Try adding this to the Raw SCSS box at the very bottom of the colours page:

.markettiles {

margin-bottom: 2rem;

}

Adjust the "2rem" to create more or less spacing.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Lionel A. Richemond - Monday, 1 October 2018, 8:42 PM

Thx very much!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Wednesday, 19 September 2018, 10:19 PM

Hi Chris,

I'm also ready to upgrade to the latest Fordson version... and while combing through all the CSS differences between earlier releases, I found this curious newcomer:

What you seem to be doing is targeting the active section with a big padding on top and compensating this with a negative margin. This completely messed up some custom topic formats that we use, so I scratched this change.

But just wondering: why were you doing this? It just seemed like a strange combo for padding and margin

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 20 September 2018, 8:40 PM

Richard,

I don't think this is coming from Fordson. Remember we inherit changes from Boost.

from Boost:

moodle.css line 12492

/* Anchor link offset fix. This makes hash links scroll 60px down to account for the fixed header. */

:target {

padding-top: 80px !important;

/* stylelint-disable declaration-no-important */

margin-top: -50px !important;

/* negative fixed header height */ }

drawer.scss line 9

:target {

padding-top: ($fixed-header-y + 30px) !important; /* stylelint-disable declaration-no-important */

margin-top: -$fixed-header-y !important; /* negative fixed header height */

}

Anything you find in the fordson/scss/ folder would be style changes I've made. Some of it is inherited from Boost.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Thursday, 20 September 2018, 8:46 PM

Thanks Chris for the answer!

And I have another thing for you though..

When I add one element to Fordson SCSS, it seems to be read twice:

I only once added the .hz element to Fordson SCSS. When I look in the Chrome inspector window, I always see every element twice. Could be a Chrome thing though...

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 20 September 2018, 10:15 PM

I've seen that too but don't know why.

It might be related to this at the bottom of scss_lib.php

/**
 * Inject additional SCSS.
 *
 * @param theme_config $theme The theme config object.
 * @return string
 */
function theme_fordson_get_extra_scss($theme) {
    // Adapted from Boost to allow other changes or settings if required.
    
    if (!empty($theme->settings->scss)) {
        $extrascss .= $theme->settings->scss;
    } else {
        $extrascss = '';
    }
    
    return $extrascss;
}

I think that is where it might get repeated. If I remove it from the file the SCSS only shows up once. I just don't know if removing it would break things.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Sara Cenni - Monday, 24 September 2018, 5:45 PM

Hi Chris,

thanks again for this amazing theme! We are using it but some students reported us that they couldn't found how to unenrol from a course. In clean theme (which we previously used in our Moodle) there was a block with the link "Unenrol me from the course".

Now they need to click on the “Course dashboard” and then click on “Course administration”. I think it would be very useful adding a button in the “Course dashboard” or maybe there is a setting that I missed?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Monday, 24 September 2018, 7:45 PM

I am not sure because it isn't just a simple link to unenroll. The code would have to know how the student is enrolled and then generate the link based on how the student was enrolled. It's something we want to look into but we rely on teachers using course reset to unenroll students when needed.

It's on a list of "nice to haves" but initially seems a bit much right now.

Chris

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Latest update change My Course list on front page

by Debbie Unterseher - Friday, 28 September 2018, 2:45 AM

FYI: The latest update changed the My course list on the front page. Somehow it automatically changed the Course Tile Display from Default Moodle to Corporate Training.

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Re: Latest update change My Course list on front page

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 28 September 2018, 10:13 PM

Hello Debbie,

I am not sure I can reproduce this issue. The default setting for me was Tile Style One. It might be possible that it was changed inadvertently?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Simpson - Tuesday, 2 October 2018, 9:16 AM

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your great work on this. I have just started to use this theme and I move the site dir before making it live. The issue I have come up with is the rest of the internal links are fine, yet the 5 icons on the dashboard still point to the original site path and not the new one.

Can you please suggest a fix?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 2 October 2018, 7:34 PM

Go to the Fordson theme in Site Admin and change the links on the icon navigation tab.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by David Kummerow - Wednesday, 3 October 2018, 9:09 AM

You can make it use a relative link as well so that you don't have to adjust the links each time.

Rather than supplying a full address like https://mysite.com/mod/page/view.php?id=10 just fill it in as /mod/page/view.php?id=10

Regards,
David.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Denis Glagolev - Wednesday, 3 October 2018, 10:04 PM

Hallo, Chris, Tell me please, how can I change FONTS for Modern Moodle Fordson theme ?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 3 October 2018, 11:03 PM

Hello Denis,

We don't have any built in way to change fonts currently. At one point we tried to implement it but got mixed results so we removed that functionality.

I may try to take another look at this in the future but we are focused on much more than the theme:

Fordson Theme - integrate new features and make things look good
Easy Enrollment Plugin - get kids into courses quickly from the homepage using enrollment codes like Google classroom
iLearn Secure Browser App - A one-of-a-kind chromebook app that allows teachers to secure a quiz and provide a secure testing environment within Moodle. The app runs on Google for Education managed chromebooks making it easy to deploy on thousands of chromebooks in minutes.

So with this we are focused on extending Moodle functionality by changing the page layouts/views/ and functionality with Fordson theme. We are providing an integrated course enrollment process using 6 digit codes that allows a student to enter the code in a form right on the homepage and instantly be enrolled into the associated course or group based on the code. The iLearn Secure Browser App is designed for K-12 users where we might have thousands of managed chromebooks. This is the only secure browser app that we know of that combines a Moodle Restriction plugin with a highly specialized Chromebook App to eliminate cheating for Moodle quizzes and we have built in integration with the Fordson theme on this plugin as well.

We are holding our breath waiting to see what unfolds for Moodle 3.7 which is where I have seen Moodle HQ wants to make big changes to Boost. This can cause issues for Boost child themes like Fordson and so we are hesitant to get too entrenched in non-essential enhancements to the styling.

That's kinda where we are with our Moodle development. We are currently focused on the iLearn Secure Browser App and piloting that with our teachers. The results are looking really good! Simple and easy to use. Can be setup and deployed in minutes and training for teachers is as simple as opening up Quiz settings and changing a drop down menu to force students to use the iLearn App when taking the quiz.

Our goal is to provide a simple and easy method to make Moodle function and look better for our users, provide an easy and versatile enrollment method to get students into courses more efficiently, and to make sure we eliminate teacher concerns about cheating on tests.

Sorry to be long winded, but these are our priorities.

Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Thursday, 4 October 2018, 12:50 AM

And you're doing great work Chris, for me you have provided us with a great theme and I do not regret switching to it for a second.

Moodle is looking so much better than before (old bootstrap). Love what you did and are doing!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Thursday, 4 October 2018, 12:51 AM

Privet Denis,

With some basic CSS knowledge you can still alter the fonts. Try to learn a bit CSS, it's easy to use and can help you with design!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by AL Rachels - Thursday, 4 October 2018, 2:05 AM

Hi Denis,

If you can add plugins, then you can use the Atto editor to change backgrounds, fonts, font size, and font colors in many places. Just about anywhere you can use the editor.

https://moodle.org/plugins/atto_fontfamily

https://moodle.org/plugins/atto_fontsize

https://moodle.org/plugins/atto_morefontcolors

https://moodle.org/plugins/atto_morebackcolors

If you also add the Generico filter, you can also make changes with it in some of the places where you normally only have a plain text box, without the editor. And of course, if you do have the Generico filter installed, it can also do MUCH more as can be seen in the Generico showcase https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=324771

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Denis Glagolev - Thursday, 4 October 2018, 3:08 PM

Hallo Al! Thank you very much. All plugs are working well (Moodle 3.5). I do not know anything about Generico, but when I have more time I'll learn more about it. Cheers

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by AL Rachels - Thursday, 4 October 2018, 11:10 PM

Thanks for the feedback. I think that when you get a chance to try the Generico filter, you will find a LOT of good things to do with it. One of the simplest, but most useful to me, is the various name filters that let me "personalize" my site, assignments, lessons, quizzes, quiz feedback, etc., by use of the students first, last, or full name, as appropriate.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Friday, 12 October 2018, 4:30 PM

Hi CHris,

I'm managing a new site from my previous one. Moodle 3.5, most recent version of Fordson.

On the course tiles, I'm seeing the category listed. This did not appear on my previous site (admittedly running a slightly older version of Fordson, still M3.5). Any idea where this is coming from? I can't seem to find a setting to turn it off.

Cheers!

Bob

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Friday, 12 October 2018, 5:18 PM

I'm afraid that's coming from me. For us it was essential to have this information available, specially in the 'search for courses' result. Else courses would pop up and there was no way of finding out where they actually reside within Moodle.

You can turn this off with CSS:

.coursecat {visibility: hidden;}

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Saturday, 13 October 2018, 1:26 AM

Richard,

I put this course category code in there for you.

I guess one man's feature is another man's issue! lol.

Thanks for jumping in to help on this.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Bob Gilmore - Saturday, 13 October 2018, 2:00 AM

Haha, thanks. You're not wrong about the way features work for some and not others.

I'd found the CSS fix, but actually thought it was a Moodle feature! There's so many in sometimes odd locations. Can totally see it's use in search results, so I've modified my css fix to only work on category pages.

Cheers folks!

Bob

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Derek Chaplin - Thursday, 18 October 2018, 12:58 AM

Chris,

Would it be possible to have an option to show 4 course tiles across instead of the current 3. Some of my users have asked the question so they don't have to scroll down so much to see all the courses.

Thanks

Derek

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 18 October 2018, 3:47 AM

There is but you'd have to update your own code every time I put out a new release. We currently prefer the 3 per line.

Is that something you are interested in doing?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Derek Chaplin - Thursday, 18 October 2018, 6:05 AM

Sure. I’m not a PHP coder but I’d love to start mucking about in themes.

If you send me the code necessary to implement a 4 column layout I’d be glad to try it out.

Thanks for offering!!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 18 October 2018, 7:43 PM

This is kinda complex if you don't know what you are doing. Be sure to make a backup.

On the following lines we are going to make some changes:

https://github.com/dbnschools/moodle-theme_fordson/blob/master/classes/output/core/course_renderer.php#L69

https://github.com/dbnschools/moodle-theme_fordson/blob/master/classes/output/core/course_renderer.php#L530

$acourseids = array_chunk($rcourseids, 3);

Change to:

$acourseids = array_chunk($rcourseids, 4);

and then throughout the remainder of the page you will want to find and replace where it makes sense to do so

https://github.com/dbnschools/moodle-theme_fordson/blob/master/classes/output/core/course_renderer.php#L142

<div class="col-md-4">  change to  <div class="col-md-3">

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Derek Chaplin - Friday, 19 October 2018, 1:18 AM

Thanks Chris. I’ll give it a try.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Simpson - Saturday, 20 October 2018, 10:37 AM

Hi Chris,

Great theme thanks for your work.

Is there a possibility of adding an option to include the course description when they display in the boxes on the course category page?

Thanks in advance, Chris

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 7:51 AM

Yes, there are several styles to choose from. I think style 4 has the course description. So do some of the horizontal options. Change the course display style in the Fordson admin page.

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Difficult to navigate between Question bank areas using Boost theme

by Debbie Unterseher - Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 12:47 AM

I have faculty that aren't happy that they can't go from editing a quiz to preview the quiz like you could in the past. I have posted here about it https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=373573 and apparently, it is part of the Boost theme. The issue has also been addressed in the following,

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-58120

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-57510

but it does not seem like a solution will come quickly for Moodle 3.5

https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=341576#p1383849

Is this something that your team would be interested in implementing somehow? Thanks!

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Re: Difficult to navigate between Question bank areas using Boost theme

by Debbie Unterseher - Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 12:50 AM

This was a fix https://github.com/jrchamp/moodle/compare/6153be68508...MDL-58120

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Re: Difficult to navigate between Question bank areas using Boost theme

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 7:54 AM

Some of this is addressed in the teacher/course admin menu of the Fordson theme. On the quiz page you can access the preview and other links as well.

Are the using the edit cog menu? I swear it's there.

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Re: Difficult to navigate between Question bank areas using Boost theme

by Debbie Unterseher - Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 11:27 AM

This is the quiz menu (see below) that we would see before the boost theme change, no matter which option you choose. So I could go from editng the quiz, to user overrides, to previewing the quiz without having to back out each time. I don't see the options under the cog (see below), although maybe I'm not looking in the right place!

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Re: Difficult to navigate between Question bank areas using Boost theme

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 8:03 PM

Sorry Debbie,

The images are not displaying.

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Re: Difficult to navigate between Question bank areas using Boost theme

by Debbie Unterseher - Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 9:39 PM

Here are the options that I'm hoping we could see no matter where we are in the quiz menu.

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Re: Difficult to navigate between Question bank areas using Boost theme

by Debbie Unterseher - Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 9:40 PM

This is what I see when I'm in one of the quiz options and click on the cog. I don't get any of the options such as "preview quiz" etc.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Siddhant Rao - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 12:27 AM

Hi,

I am currently using Moodle 3.5 Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 12

I am encountering a problem with displaying "bubblespeak" css in fordson. Attached below are screenshots of the bubblespeak in the clean theme and the fordson theme.

How do i go about solving this issue? Do I have to edit any css files? If I do, how and where do I go about it?

Thanks in Advance

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 1:06 AM

Do not compare Fordson with the Clean Theme.

They are completely different. Fordson is a child theme of Boost and should only be compared with Boost. I suspect if you switch to Boost the results would be the same as seen with Fordson.

Do you know what CSS is needed for the chat bubbles? It could be added into the custom SCSS box in the Fordson Admin Settings.

Here's a neat little CSS bubble speak generator: http://ilikepixels.co.uk/drop/bubbler/

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Siddhant Rao - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 2:21 AM

Thanks for the immediate reply!

Sorry for the trouble!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Siddhant Rao - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 2:30 AM

Also can the graduation cap on the course listing be removed?

Sorry for the inconvenience!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 3:05 AM

#page-site-indexThis is a simple CSS fix which will hide the course progress radial. Add this to the Fordson Colours Page at the very bottom Custom SCSS textbox.

This indicates the course is using course completion but there is no progress. if the user has completed items it will show their progress %.

To hide course completion radial displays completely - whether blank or having progress - use this code:

#page-site-index .progress-chart-container {
    display: none;
}

If you just want to hide the graduation cap but still show course completion progress then use this:

#page-site-index .progress-chart-container .no-progress {
    display: none;
}

That should fix it for you.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Siddhant Rao - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 3:37 AM

Thank you!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Darren Hall - Saturday, 20 July 2019, 6:49 AM

Hi Chris,
Really love the Fordson theme. I tried out this CSS snippet, but it didn't have the desired effect. Didn't have any effect that I could tell. Using M3.5, Fordson 3.5r3u16, Spectrum-Achromatic preset. Any ideas what else I could try?

Thanks,
Darren

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Hansjörg Sattler - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 9:02 PM

Hello Chris,

after changing the URL (like https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Administration_FAQ#How_can_I_change_the_domain_name_or_URL_of_the_Moodle_site.3F) auf my Moodle (Test-)System Fordson doesn't work properly. I cannot enter the settings of Fordson any more. Do you have an idea what could be the problem? System: Moodle 3.5.1 I have deleted the cache and the design-cache, uninstalled Fordson and reinstalled it, but still doesn't work.

Thank you very much.

Hansjörg

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Emma Richardson - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 9:47 PM

When you try to get to the settings page, what happens? Error message? Is the url correct? Have you turned debugging on?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Hansjörg Sattler - Friday, 26 October 2018, 2:52 PM

Hello Emma,

when I try to get to the settings page, after a long time waiting i get a "Server 500 Internal Error" Message. I turned the debugging on, but when i try to get to the settings there are no messages.

When i get the other pages there are message like in the file i attach to this message.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Luis de Vasconcelos - Thursday, 1 November 2018, 2:56 PM

Same problem here on my Moodle Windows Server 2012 R2 site (which runs on IIS 8.5, SQL Server 2016 and the $CFG->dbtype = 'sqlsrv' driver):

Fordson theme:
$version = 2018051702.00;
$release = '3.5.2 (Build: 20180910)';

Moodle:

$plugin->version = 2018101700;
$plugin->release = 'Moodle 3.5 Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 13';

When I have the Moodle Debugging level set to DEVELOPER errors like these are everywhere and the Moodle display is totally 'broken':

[01-Nov-2018 08:33:40 Etc/GMT-2] PHP Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$enhancedmydashboard in D:\Moodle\theme\fordson\config.php on line 80

[01-Nov-2018 08:33:40 Etc/GMT-2] PHP Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$blockdisplay in D:\Moodle\theme\fordson\config.php on line 88
[01-Nov-2018 08:33:40 Etc/GMT-2] PHP Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$blockdisplay in D:\Moodle\theme\fordson\config.php on line 101
[01-Nov-2018 08:33:40 Etc/GMT-2] PHP Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$blockdisplay in D:\Moodle\theme\fordson\config.php on line 125
[01-Nov-2018 08:33:40 Etc/GMT-2] PHP Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$blockdisplay in D:\Moodle\theme\fordson\config.php on line 131

Other Moodle Themes display correctly on that server.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Luis de Vasconcelos - Thursday, 1 November 2018, 3:33 PM

https://github.com/dbnschools/moodle-theme_fordson/issues/43

Any the above version numbers should be:

Moodle:
$version = 2018051702.00;
$release = '3.5.2 (Build: 20180910)';

Fordson theme:

$plugin->version = 2018101700;
$plugin->release = 'Moodle 3.5 Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 13';

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 25 October 2018, 9:50 PM

Can you access other areas of site admin? If so what happens when you go to appearance and access Fordson settings via that page?

I suspect you might have used the Admin Bookmark block and it is using the old URL since you changed it.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Hansjörg Sattler - Friday, 26 October 2018, 3:03 PM

Hello Chris,

i can access the other admin sites. I don't use the admin bookmark block. I access Fordson settings with admin - appearance - Fordson and then i get a Server 500 internal error.

In general after changing the url with fordson the system is much slower than before. With boost the performance is still good.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - Solved

by Hansjörg Sattler - Wednesday, 7 November 2018, 8:23 PM

Hi,

fortunately my problem is now solved. After uninstalling Fordson, deleting all caches and files with "Fordson" in the dataroot and reinstall Fordson now it works.

Best wishes.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - Solved

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 7 November 2018, 10:22 PM

Glad you were able to figure it out. Sometimes errors and issues get reported and I cannot reproduce the issue. A good re-install usually fixes most of the quirky stuff.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread - Solved

by Denis Glagolev - Thursday, 15 November 2018, 3:29 PM

Reinstall previous theme_fordson_moodle35_2018100100. Now it works ok.

Export/import settings by

Blocks: Admin presets

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Luis de Vasconcelos - Thursday, 1 November 2018, 3:22 PM

Chris,

What do you mean by "it is using the old URL"?

I do use the Admin Bookmark block on my site. Is there something I'm supposed to do with it to make the Fordson theme work?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 1 November 2018, 7:54 PM

Luis,

Completely uninstall the Fordson theme so that it removes the database entries. Then re-install it. I am not sure why you are getting these errors. I cannot reproduce any of this. So I think it would be best to uninstall and then re-install.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Gareth J Barnard - Thursday, 1 November 2018, 8:29 PM

Hi Chris,

Due to how Moodle works and processes theme config.php files with populating the settings of the theme in $THEME as initiated in 'find_theme_config' in outputlib.php then it can be temperamental to rely on the settings being there for your theme and not another. So could happen (in theory) if you were using a child theme of Fordson, so $THEME->settings would be populated with the theme settings of the child and not the parent theme (Fordson) when Fordson's config.php file was read - I think there is a core issue here with '$parentconfig = theme_config::find_theme_config($parent, $settings, false);' that the parent configs get the settings of the child and not their own - anyway, separate issue.

In your config.php file you're better off storing an instance of the theme_config class for Fordson and using that instead. So:

static $fordsonconfig = null;
if (empty($fordsonconfig)) {
    $fordsonconfig = theme_config::load('fordson);
}

then should have the settings in $fordsonconfig->settings. But this is still not brilliant due to the nature of caching with the theme settings. Better off being dynamic at the layout file hook point.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Gareth J Barnard - Thursday, 1 November 2018, 8:36 PM

P.S. Also if in outputlib.php you look at the 'load' method then there is the code:

        // load theme settings from db
        try {
            $settings = get_config('theme_'.$themename);
        } catch (dml_exception $e) {
            // most probably moodle tables not created yet
            $settings = new stdClass();
        }

thus during the install of the theme when the settings have not been set in the database yet, then they are empty so the issue will happen. Try a clean install test system to try and replicate when you install the theme the first time.

Therefore as a follow up to my previous post, making setting decisions in the config.php file is not brilliant unless you examine each setting to be 'empty' and apply a hard coded default until the setting is there and has a value.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Alex N - Friday, 16 November 2018, 3:54 AM

Is there a way of removing the activities list in the student dashboard? Or if not the whole activities list altogether, can individual activities be removed from the list?

I use some quizzes as assignments so I don't want students to be confused when they click on quizzes and see non-quiz activities there.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 16 November 2018, 4:21 AM

Alex,

This would be a manual process. You can do 1 of 2 things: Just remove that column altogether or Replace it with your own text. Either way you will need to hack a file in the theme: /fordson/templates/teacherdash.mustache

Look to line 205ish where you see:

<div class="col-md-3 activitylinks">
  <div class="dashtitle">
     <h3><i class="fa fa-check-square-o dashicon"></i>{{{activitylinkstitle}}}</h3>     
  </div>
  <div class="list-group">
      {{{courseactivities}}}
   </div>
</div>

Removing {{{courseactivities}}} should remove the listing that you want. You can also delete everything between the <h3> tags as that is just the title. You could put text instead and put school or district contact information in that box. For this you will need to use HTML code for bulleted items and/or links etc. Put your new title inbetween the H3 tags and then your text below the <div class="list-group"> area.

You will need to make this change each time you update Fordson.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Ricardo Caiado - Friday, 16 November 2018, 11:28 PM

Hi,

When updating to "Moodle 3.5 Fordson v3.5 release 3 update 16 (2018111500)" I got this:

"...
<- https://moodle.org/plugins/download.php/18248/theme_fordson_moodle34_2018111500.zip
..."

"moodle34" ???

Then the site goes :

"Fatal error: Class 'theme_boost\output\core\admin_renderer' not found in /XXX/XXX/XXX/theme/fordson/classes/output/core/admin_renderer.php on line 39"

Ricardo

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Saturday, 17 November 2018, 12:22 AM

Please download the v1.7.1 for Moodle 3.4. I think you installed the Moodle 3.5 version which has certain things just for Moodle 3.5 and is not backwards compatible.

Find and use the 1.7.1 version for Moodle 3.4.

https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversions.php?plugin=theme_fordson

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Ricardo Caiado - Saturday, 17 November 2018, 1:08 AM

The site is runing M3.5.3+

Attachment Screenshot_2018-11-16-14-58-03.png

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Saturday, 17 November 2018, 1:14 AM

In that case please download the version for Moodle 3.5.

https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversions.php?plugin=theme_fordson

I thought you were using Moodle 3.4.

Manually delete the fordson folder and manually drop in the new downloaded files.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Ricardo Caiado - Saturday, 17 November 2018, 3:12 AM

It is M35

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Saturday, 17 November 2018, 4:31 AM

Ricardo,

I think something went wrong with the repository. Please refresh this display by checking for new plugins. That button is on the Site Admin > Plugins > plugin overview page. Click the button so it goes out and tries to find the latest files.

It seems to want to download the Moodle 3.4 version for your site.

Hopefully finding the new files will fix this.

Otherwise if you have access to your server go and manually download and unzip the Moodle 3.5 version of Fordson. Then move those files up to your server by deleting and replacing the server files with the new files.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Franky Vallori - Thursday, 22 November 2018, 8:10 PM

Hi,

I'm moodle 3.5.3 and theme version is 3.5up12.

What are the differences between "Raw initial SCSS" and "Raw SCSS"?

If I want to use my own CSS file, in which directory should I put it and where do I include it?

Thanks,

Franky

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Thursday, 22 November 2018, 10:50 PM

Franky,

If you want to use your own CSS file the best way is to copy/paste the code into the bottom box on the Fordson Color page. This would be ideal for a few changes here and there.

The other option you can take is to build a Preset file which can easily be uploaded and then selected. This would give you more control over the styling of the site. The preset is an actual file you can upload on the main Fordson admin page and then transform the look of the site in more detail than just a few style changes. The preset can transform the entire look of the site and be more consistent in how it does so.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Brandon Jimenez - Friday, 30 November 2018, 3:59 AM

Hello Chris:

I'm using this setup that you mentioned: Fordson and a custom preset, which is really nice to avoid adding additional files in the theme itself. However, i was wondering if there's an equivalent for Javascript, that is to say, an area where i could upload little snippets and or js files.

Thanks

Brandon

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 30 November 2018, 5:32 PM

In the Moodle theme area you can include custom header and footer code to do that. It is a Moodle core feature in appearance.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Gareth J Barnard - Friday, 30 November 2018, 7:35 PM

Dear Franky,

From the Boost parent language strings for the settings:

Raw initial SCSS is "In this field you can provide initialising SCSS code, it will be injected before everything else. Most of the time you will use this setting to define variables."
Raw SCSS is "Use this field to provide SCSS or CSS code which will be injected at the end of the style sheet."

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Dale Cooper - Thursday, 29 November 2018, 5:20 AM

Has anyone ever requested being able to select a theme preset from the course level? For example if someone is teaching two courses they may wish to have an easy visual indicator of the course by use of preset. For example Course A would be setup to use Fordson with preset "Modern Moodle" and Course B would be setup to use Fordson with preset "e-Learner".

The only two ways I see it working currently is either by making a copy of the theme, x amount of times for each preset or along the same lines making a child theme.

Edit: For example the only theme I've ever seen to do anything similar was https://moodle.org/plugins/theme_splash

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Derek Chaplin - Thursday, 29 November 2018, 6:11 AM

Why not just use a different header image?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Mary Evans - Thursday, 29 November 2018, 5:56 PM

Hi Derek,

Just curious to know why is the date for this post is June when viewed from the list of poster? Yet when one has clicked on the post it shows the correct date and time of the post...which is November.

How very odd!

Mary

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Richard van Iwaarden - Thursday, 29 November 2018, 6:39 PM

Yes, this is weird! I noticed that too.

Is it because Canada has severely changed their time zone to 'forever summer'

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Derek Chaplin - Thursday, 29 November 2018, 7:48 PM

Hi Mary,

Never noticed that and have no idea how that could have happened. I could be that it has been so unseasonably cold up here in the Great White North lately that our time server has not only slowed down but has started going backward in time to find warmer weather! .

I did notice the time on my PC was rest to GMT at one point after a M$ Windows update but that was a week or so ago. Wouldn't the time stamp be set by the Moodle server that hosts the forum? Could it have happened when Moodle HQ went offline last week or 2 weeks ago?

Curiouser and curiouser ....

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Friday, 30 November 2018, 12:41 AM

I wish it was June! Another summer of camping and fishing would be awesome right now.

It's cold and snow is falling here in Michigan. Quite depressing until we get a full snow storm and can enjoy sledding and winter stuff.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Gareth J Barnard - Friday, 30 November 2018, 7:32 PM

Hi Mary,

Please see MDL-63892.

Gareth

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Greg Reed - Wednesday, 5 December 2018, 2:06 AM

Thanks for your work, Chris!

I need to upgrade to the latest Fordson version, per our Moodle host.

In working with our dev site, using Course Display Style= Tile Style One, I see "Category:..." listed where I'd expect to see "Teacher:..." (See pic).

Is there a setting I'm missing that is causing this?

Also, is there a means by which to remove the completion radials from course tiles, regardless of the course Completion settings?

Thank you!

Greg

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 5 December 2018, 2:37 AM

Greg,

Good news bad news: Teacher names are added in Moodle 3.6 version of Fordson. Radial support ended in Moodle 3.6 in Boost so I removed the course completion radials from Fordson.

A much better approach would be to begin using the Dashboard in Moodle 3.6. With the new course widgets it is much, much more useful than anything we could have created on site home for Fordson.

Moving forward we are going to be transitioning to using the Dashboard more as a homepage in our district.

Fordson has a setting which displays the site home features such as icon navigation and easy enrollment right on the Dashboard. This will be useful moving forward.

Chris

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Greg Reed - Wednesday, 5 December 2018, 3:37 AM

Many thanks, Chris.

Am I mistaken in understanding Teacher names, rather than Categories, were previously displayed in course tiles with Fordson?

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Wednesday, 5 December 2018, 8:54 PM

I've looked at it for so long like this that I am not even sure. You are probably right. I am not sure how that might have gotten removed.

I gotta tell you, we never liked the Dashboard much for the reasons already expressed in various posts. But Moodle got it right in version 3.6. The new Dashboard blocks are very impressive, functional, and will help students and teachers with the customizations they need to better find and interact with learning material.

I love it!

More development with block positions on the Dashboard will be happening with Fordson. I want to take a look and see if we can improve upon how and where you might be able to display these blocks on the dashboard page.

Also, the messaging interface is completely redesigned and it is awesome!

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Greg Reed - Thursday, 6 December 2018, 10:50 PM

This is very helpful, Chris.

Another question....We applied a site logo (core_admin | logo) that is beautiful on the desktop view, but overruns the browser view on smartphones, requiring a swipe to see the entire logo [723 × 75 pixels (Natural: 1099 × 114 pixels)].

Is there a way to make the logo mobile responsive? I could simply use a narrower log, but...it's just so darned pretty!

Thanks,

Greg

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Swinney - Sunday, 13 January 2019, 11:24 AM

Hi Chris,

I am having an issue selecting a colour for the heading are of the main Dashboard page, behind where the logo is seen. Our logo is a white transparent PNG that would sit on a dark blue/black background. I have tried Colourising the logo itself just looks silly as there is padding and of course the width of the screen resolution could vary.

In addition, I want to try to keep the "Top Navigation Navbar" the "Side Drawer" and the "Footer" all one colour, which is again the blue/black. Setting the "Side Drawer" and the "Footer" too fine (the text seems to update nicely), but setting the Top Nav Bar a dark color causes problems. Most of the icons then disappear (as they too are Black) as well as the site title, and the "My Courses" an "User" menu text.

I'm assuming this could be dealt with using additional CSS, but haven't figured that out as yet.

On last thought. Is it possible to enable multiple image files to be use for the Course. Ideally, one file to act as a header of the main course page, and another the could act as an icon for the course on the tiles.

I lied, one other thing, On the course tiles, I seem to have the Category listed on them, which takes up space an is irrelevant (given we are in that category). I'm guessing it a setting I have tweaked and forgotten about, but I'll be damned it I can figure out how to switch it off.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 15 January 2019, 3:10 AM

Do you have a screenshot you can share with the areas circled as to what you'd like to change.

Headings like H1,H2 etc and similar areas are done by changing the primary color.

No for any additional images.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Swinney - Tuesday, 15 January 2019, 10:21 AM

Here's a couple of quick ones.

Area behind the logo on the Dashboard page is white. Just for the moment I have loaded up a black image, but this area would need to be dark and a white logo loaded. I have actually had to remove the logo for the time being completely.

area behind the logo is white

Top Nav bar, if it is a dark colour, the black areas highlighted cannot be seen.

Top Nav Bar cannot be dark

Logo on custom login page is not centered.

logo not centered

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Swinney - Tuesday, 15 January 2019, 10:18 PM

Here's what I meant about the Section header and nav bar button colours (currently light blue). I could not see a colour picker in the custom colour section to change this. Also the hover over activity colour is yellow, again I could see no colour picker for this.

I guess both both these are just a simpler CSS override:

Section and activity colours

And here's what I meant WRT the course categories within the course tile. Given you are browsing the category, this seem a little redundant.I have changed the view to a full width view which doesn't look so bad, but including a description within a tile that is 1/3 of the page width, it become quite noticeable:

Course category irrelevant in course tile

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 15 January 2019, 11:06 PM

Category Info is in there and you'd have to hack the code to remove.

To change the activity rollover hover you change this SCSS variable in custom SCSS:

$activityhover: #fff6ae;

This variable below will change all the elements that are light blue in color.

$spectrum-base: #3fcbda;

You can instantly change many of the design elements and colors by becoming familiar with the various variables that are found in the styles folder of Fordson. Opening up the Spectrum-achromatic.scss file will show you a whole bunch of stuff. At the top of the page is a long list of variables that begin like the lines I shared above.

What you will want to do is set that variable on the Fordson Colours page in the top SCSS box. Just change the color to what you want it to be. Save and then view your courses.

This will change the color everywhere it is used instead of trying to pinpoint the CSS code of each element.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Kenniburg - Tuesday, 15 January 2019, 11:14 PM

This is just the way we styled it. If you'd like different then add the CSS to do so or hire someone to make all the small tweaks you desire. Right click and inspect will help with finding and altering the position.

I'm here to assist where I can but when you have so many changes it becomes overwhelming because you are asking for someone to design your site and it is time consuming and is also a job for someone.

This is how to change the color of the header area.

Add to bottom SCSS Box on the Colours page of Fordson:

.headerlogo {
    background-color: #000;
}

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Chris Swinney - Wednesday, 16 January 2019, 12:08 AM

I do apologise Chris for the question. In general, everything is really nice, and hopefully the small tweaks and suggestion will help out others as well.

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Re: Moodle 3.5 and Fordson 3.5 Support Thread

by Gareth J Barnard - Wednesday, 16 January 2019, 12:28 AM

Ok, with 262 replies (mine being 263), I think it is time to call a halt to this thread and start a new one please Chris. As it has gotten quite big and I consider it is suffering from topic creep -> docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle.org_forums_help#Topic_creep_-_recognize_when_you_are_asking_a_new_question.

PLEASE DO NOT ADD FURTHER TO THIS POST, BUT INSTEAD USE THE NEW POST / THREAD THAT CHRIS WILL CREATE. ANY ADDITIONAL REPLIES WILL MOST LIKELY BE SPLIT AND PLACED IN A NEW POST.

Gareth

Moderator.

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