Moodle in English: Moodle Core: plan for themes

Hi all,

In Moodle 3.2 we introduced theme Boost (based on Bootstrap 4alpha) with the aim of continually progressing the look and feel of Moodle and providing increased consistency across the different platforms (web, desktop, mobile).

In Moodle 3.5 we upgraded Boost to Bootstrap 4 stable allowing us to take advantage of the improvements in the Bootstrap framework.

Currently, we still support the Clean and More theme, which are both based on Bootstrap version 2. Supporting multiple frameworks and themes increases our development and testing efforts as all new features require development and testing across the different themes. In turn this means that less time is available to work on new features, bugs, and other user-facing functionality.

In the long term this is not sustainable and also not beneficial. We would rather focus our efforts on improving the core theme and ultimately serving our users better. Hence, we have established the following plan to phase out support for themes based on Bootstrap 2.

For Moodle 3.6:

Move Clean, More and bootstrapbase to the plugin repository; we will leave sufficient support in Moodle 3.6 core to enable users to download and use Clean and More should they require this (e.g. if they have custom themes based on Clean).
Provide a ‘Classic’ theme, based on Bootstrap 4 that is more in-line with the Clean theme, retaining the 2 and 3 column grid layout, and the classic navigation block.

This provides a solution for those users who prefer the classic style navigation and sufficient time for custom themes to be redeveloped based on Bootstrap 4.

For Moodle 3.7:

Remove the support for Clean and More from the Moodle core distribution.
Going forward all themes to be based on Bootstrap 4 based on the ‘Classic’ theme or Boost.

Moodle 3.5 is an LTS version, with security support being available until May 2021. Hence, the current themes will be supported for that time-frame. We are investigating whether we can release the newly proposed ‘Classic’ theme within the Plugins directory for Moodle 3.5 to help support customers who prefer to upgrade to LTS releases. This would allow development of any new custom themes based on ‘Classic’ at any time between Moodle 3.5 and 3.9.

Sander Bangma

Open Source Development Coordinator

Moodle HQ

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Friday, 27 July 2018, 6:10 PM

This is really bad.

The most popular themes in the Plugin repository with thousands of installs are built on BootstrapBase and you are giving three months notice that BootstrapBase will no longer be core?

We did consider rebasing our theme (Adaptable) off Boost some time back but didnt want to as we worried you would soon thrown Boost in the bin too so were holding out as long as possible to see if a Boost replacement came out before BootstrapBase was depricated.

We had expected a reasonable amount of notice, you could have set this plan out 12 months ago, not just dropped a note in a forum a couple of months before 3.6 is due for release.

The fact there is no sustainable plan for themes in Moodle is a real problem. IMO you should have been itteratively maintining BootstrapBase as you once did for "Base" in Moodle 1.X.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Sunday, 29 July 2018, 7:08 AM

Hi Jez,

I don't recall Base being a 1,X theme, as it made its entrance in Moodle 2.0 and stopped being maintained when Bootstrapbase came on the scene in Moodle 2.5 and was depreciated in 2.6. Base theme was not updated as much as it could have been, while Bootstrapbase was being developed...there are a lot of areas that got missed off because of the timescale they had to work to. Hence the sooner they dump Bootstrapbase the quicker they can work on Bootstrap 4 and keep things neat and tidy. There must be loads of CORE files they could dump too, thus keeping things simple too!

Just my thoughts,

Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Monday, 30 July 2018, 7:47 PM

Yes you're right... its been so long my memory is fading!

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Dan Marsden - Monday, 30 July 2018, 3:30 PM

Thanks Sander - personally I think your proposed timescales make sense.

Jez - When boost was released - it was commonly known that the old themes would be eventually deprecated and that sites should start moving to newer themes. Theme developers have known this for quite a while now, so saying that you are getting 3 months notice isn't really completely correct IMO. As Sander mentions, 3.5 is supported until May 2021, so sites that want to continue using older themes can stay on an older supported Moodle release for quite a significant amount of time.

We have a large number of 3.1 sites that are coming up to be upgraded to 3.5 over the next 6 months and we have already been recommending that clients choose a new theme based on Boost rather than relying on an older existing theme. Some of these clients have decided to stay on an older theme but we had been making it clear that it was likely to be the last LTS release that supports their theme.

Any time spent by HQ staff on maintaining support for old custom themes is likely to decrease the amount of time those same staff are able to dedicate to UX/UI improvements on the core supported themes - If I was in charge of allocating resource I wouldn't be keen to allocate it to maintaining support for older themes - we should release the HQ team to work on improving the UI.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Monday, 30 July 2018, 7:46 PM

HI Dan,

We were expecting this at some point so it is not a bolt from the blue. As mentioned we were holding off re-basing on Boost in case that was also replaced. If HQ had said last year 3.5 would be the last version we would have gone ahead and done that work.

Regards your last comment, I think the issue is that HQ just jump from one theme to another throwing the previous ones in the bin instead of incrementally developing a solid base theme. Maybe they will with Boost but I suspect that will get junked too in the next couple of years.

In fact we were right to hold off on re-basing on Boost as Classic looks like it will be a better option, in which case it would have been better to wait until Classic was in before pulling BootstrapBase.

As it stands now, BootstrapBase is being pulled and the best replacement for it is not finished.

I guess my issue is the of a coherant plan / roadmap.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Dan Marsden - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 5:58 AM

we just assumed 3.5 would be the last LTS that supported the old themes - if it was still supported in the next LTS Moodle would be supporting legacy themes until at least 2023 which is crazy.

Personally I don't have a problem with the way HQ have decided to throw previous core themes in the bin... that needed to happen - I don't think you'll get anyone disagreeing with that. If Boost gets 'junked' in a couple of years because HQ has created a new better core UI with a better UX I don't think I'll be complaining then either. There is a lot of validity in the criticism often levelled at Moodle being ugly out of the box.

I am really glad HQ are dedicating a large amount of resource getting the core UI looking a lot better - this effort has been long overdue. I understand this makes it difficult for organisations with their own custom themes (we support a number of clients like this) - but sites get a full 36 months of support on LTS versions and don't have to upgrade every 6 months. (which is usually pretty hard for large organisations anyway.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Justin Hunt - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 2:44 PM

Dan,

I understand this makes it difficult for organisations with their own custom themes (we support a number of clients like this) - but sites get a full 36 months of support on LTS versions and don't have to upgrade every 6 months. (which is usually pretty hard for large organisations anyway.

Thats true if its your site and you are in control of when to upgrade and what version to be on. But if you maintain a popular theme, all the sites using your theme get affected by this. The reality is that a good number of sites won't find out about all this till they try upgrading and most probably have never even heard of bootstrapbase. Some sites will wait for the developer to get the theme rebased, which is a fair amount of pressure. Like it or not, it will cause disruption.

I don't see any need to for the 3 month time frame personally. It could just as easily be a 9 month time frame. And that would be better in my opinion.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Dan Marsden - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 4:36 PM

I don't see any need to for the 3 month time frame personally. It could just as easily be a 9 month time frame. And that would be better in my opinion.

That just comes down to resourcing - HQ will need to dedicate resource to ensure support if it's in core for longer. If it's out of core they can get staff working on other things... IMO dropping it now and letting HQ staff work on improving other stuff is a win. I also wonder how many of the sites that use these older themes provide some form of indirect funding to HQ... I suspect there will be quite a few sites hosted by partners that use these custom themes and therefore provide some level of indirect funding to HQ - but are there enough to justify HQ dedicating resource to it? - I don't know...

I guess we just need to wait and see how HQ decides to dedicate their internal resources after hearing from people in this discussion!

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 7:37 PM

It doesnt come down to resourcing at all, this is entirely down to Moodle HQ's shambolic "planning".

This decision / announcement could have been made 12 months ago on exactly the same timeline it is now with no extra effort.

We maintain a popular theme and a lot of other pluigns, have an MUA subscription, a branded Moodle Mobile app and spend a lot of money hosting with a Moodle Partner. I think we contribute a lot to the community.

The reason the theme we maintain exists is so that we and others could have something flexible and brandable that did not break at every upgrade.

We knew we would have to rebase that but were not sure when to do it or which parent theme to use (not knowing if Boost would be replaced).

Im not suggesting HQ maintain old themes infinitem, just give us a fighting chance to keep support for our themes going.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Justin Hunt - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 7:39 PM

Dan,

It does come to resourcing. But when a decision like this is made, its not just Moodle HQ resources. The 3rd party developer resources do not get enough consideration. It sounds like, "its good for HQ , so its good for Moodle, and its just tough for you lot who have to work in between classes and after work...we might give you a badge or something"

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Richard Oelmann - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 7:54 PM

"I also wonder how many of the sites that use these older themes provide some form of indirect funding to HQ"

Wow!

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Dan Marsden - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 6:08 AM

haha - did I hit a nerve? I did clarify that statement in my post above - HQ will be getting some level of indirect funding from sites running older themes - Only HQ will be able to comment on what sort of level this might be.

It's important to be aware that while many of us in the community (including myself) give our time away for free to maintain plugins/contribute code/contribute in the community forums - Development undertaken by "HQ" is mostly by paid staff* and it must be a massive challenge for HQ to balance where to direct this effort - I really have no understanding on the balance of this $$ but the main revenue streams I can see are MoodleCloud hosting paid plans, Mobile App custom versions, MUA projects, and Moodle Partner related revenue.

If the "community" wants to maintain support for legacy stuff a bit longer then personally I think the "community" should step up and do this rather than asking for HQ to invest $$ in paying for internal staff to maintain legacy code. This has been done a number of times in the past and I can think of some times when legacy code has been moved into the plugins db and HQ staff have also contributed further patches to help maintain them.

(I do also agree with some of the other issues talked about here in the forums - (roadmap/better communication etc.) - but I'll never get any real work done if I start commenting on that stuff!

*I know that some passionate long-term HQ staff spend some of their free (non paid) time on pet projects..

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 7:19 PM

Hi Dan,

The fact Clean, More etc are going in the bin is not the issue, its Bootstrap Base which was a parent to many other themes.

There really needs to be a consistent base theme as illustrated by Gareth below.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 11:01 PM

Jez, I honestly do not know what all the fuss is about, as we have gone through all this when Base theme was dropped. If you can recall the fun we had deciding on Mathew James Taylor's Holy Grail page layout as the new Base theme layout in Moodle 2.0. They chose the fixed layout, whereas I had hoped HQ would have use the percentage version, as that was easier to style for all devices, but no one took any notice...at least tgat is what I thought. When we moved to BootstrapBase you may recall Moodle HQ created a child theme and so Clean theme was born and became the Default theme. The most fascinating thing to happen to Moodle since then, is that not only did Boost theme become the new Base theme, but it also became the first theme in Moodle to be the DEFAULT theme as well! Which at least proves that Moodle is learning by its mistakes! Cheers Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 7:04 PM

There are tens of thousands of sites running themes based on BootstrapBase and we want to provide continuity for those users.

Our largest site has well over 30,000 users who dont even know what a Moodle theme is. All they want is for their Moodle sites to remain consistent, to still work after being upgraded and to not have to re-learn their interface every year.

Moodle HQ make providing that continuity a lot harder than it needs to be.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 7:04 AM

But Jez, you must not forget that although BootstrapBase is being depreciated that does not mean it has to stay obsolete, as it will be parked in HQs GitHub repository where all the other depreciated themes hang out!

So there is nothing stopping you taking on the recponcibility of maintaining it so that it's compatible with Adaptable!

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Richard Oelmann - Friday, 27 July 2018, 10:36 PM

While I agree this is entirely necessary, I do agree with Jez about the timescales.

I would suggest at least leaving BoostrapBase in core for 3.6, I believe Base and possibly standard were left in core when all the other pre-bootstrap themes were initially moved to the plugins database?

Personally, I'd prefer to see a bit longer period with Clean and More in the plugins database, and BootstrapBase maintained in core - maybe 3.8 perhaps.

There are huge numbers of sites using Adaptable, Essential and other popular themes.

My suggestion would be to move Clean and More to the plugins repository, signalling the future deprecation (3.6) but to leave BootstrapBase in place

BootstrapBase to be removed to the plugin repository (I'd prefer 3.8 but can understand 3.7) but ensure it is still functional.

Next LTS is 3.9, which seems to me to be an ideal time to finally drop support.

I realise that's a year longer than proposed, but given the huge number of sites using such themes, and the fact its only in 3.5 that Boost stepped up to Bootstrap4stable with the consequent significant changes in Boost itself, it doesn't seem unreasonable.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Saturday, 28 July 2018, 12:53 AM

Interesting Sander,

A few questions please:

When will 'Classic' be completed so that there is time for 'Bootstrapbase' child themes to have time to upgrade before M3.6 is released?
Why is 'Classic' not being put into M3.5 directly? I know there are 'rules' but they can be 'bent' in specific circumstances.
When will the SCSS PHP compiler be fixed to support the full set of SCSS syntax such that BS4 elements like the carousel can operate correctly without a patch to the CSS? Or has it already? As a lot of working Bootstrapbase themes have carousels.
What exactly will go into 'Classic'? As Clean adds a bit on top of Bootstrapbase and therefore BS2.3.2 child themes don't have to remove 'Clean' functionality because they inherit from Bootstrapbase.
As the BS2.3.2 version of Bootstrapbase is being removed, then why is it not being updated to BS4 and then having Boost and Classic as child themes of it? Then that 'design pattern' (Loose 'Gang of four' reference) would be maintained as its an effective one. Therefore existing child themes of Bootstrapbase just have to update to BS4 and not worry about new added baggage.
In the long terms are there plans to alter the architecture to be presentation framework independent? Therefore having a separation of styles - thus more encapsulated CSS that styles elements without framework specific references. Thus Framework styles + Moodle styles = output, but where the two are completely different sets without any intersection. Then any framework could be implemented.
Are there plans to update FontAwesome from version 4 to 5 free? If so, when, if not, then why not?
BS4 is now (as of the date of this post) at version 4.1.3, is the Moodle core version being updated in line with this?

Gareth

P.S. I can see that you work for Moodle HQ but there is the site policy of 'Signatures in forum posts will also be deleted as they cause clutter and distract from the information and help provided.' therefore everyone needs to be aware that signatures are not normally allowed.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Monday, 30 July 2018, 3:13 AM

Hi Gareth, As far as I can gather, reading what Sander was saying, is that Classic is going to be a new Moodle theme based on Bootstrap 4. In which case It will be a new child theme of Boost but with a different layouts and certainly nothing to do with Bootstrapbase. Cheers Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Bas Brands - Monday, 30 July 2018, 4:59 PM

Hi Gareth,

I can't answer all of your questions yet since some things still need discussion. I am working on the classic theme and there is an alpha version available here:

https://github.com/bmbrands/moodle-theme_classic

It supports

Bootstrap 4 Sass and JavaScript.
The 1, 2 and 3 column grid.
The settings and navigation blocks.
Allow the use of Moodle presets.
Adding a background image.
Set a light or dark navbar.
Set the site brand color.
Use the global settings for a small and large logo.
Adding custom Sass (pre and post).

It does not support

docking
css written in less

As the BS2.3.2 version of Bootstrapbase is being removed, then why is it not being updated to BS4?

Updating bootstrapbase to use Bootstrap 4 would result in something like boost without the nav drawer an settings dropdowns. All child themes would need a complete rewrite. I don't see any benefit of trying this.

When will the SCSS PHP compiler be fixed?

The issue with bootstrap carousels is caused by a bug in the Php css prefixer Sabberworm, not the scss parser. It is related to using @supports see https://github.com/sabberworm/PHP-CSS-Parser/issues/127. The fix for this MDL-61515 is waiting for peer review.

In the long terms are there plans to alter the architecture to be presentation framework independent?

The web version of Moodle will continue to rely on the Bootstrap framework and there will be no support for other frameworks. That said the Moodle architecture does support using another frontend like the Moodle mobile app through the addition of external / web services.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Monday, 30 July 2018, 9:13 PM

Ok, what is wrong with this (OO class diagram looking) architecture:

Actual and proposed Moodle theme architecture

Seems to make sense to me as a good software architecture / design solution to the problem, that would be robust and future proof. If everything is a child theme of Boost, then you still get the 'Boost baggage'.

So it is a 'separation of concerns' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns) between the framework and the specific style pertaining to a given theme that implements that framework.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 1:30 AM

P.S. To add:

Before 'Bootstrapbase' there was the 'Base' theme and that had the same architecture. So why the change now?

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 11:19 PM

Just a pointer to say 1. More is a child of Clean theme so is grandchild of Bootstrapbase. 2. you cannot use a theme that has the same name of the default theme. Hence the need to change the name of the new base theme! M

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 12:38 AM

We are both wrong - multiple inheritance - More is a child of both Clean and Bootstrapbase -> '$THEME->parents = array('clean', 'bootstrapbase');'.

I don't understand what you mean by '2'? If you mean that I've used 'Bootstrapbase' twice but with different versions of the Bootstrap framework then that is fine as it's pure configuration management version control whereby a later version of the same thing gets upgraded - and as BS V2.3.2 won't be supported then no problem with conflicts. Otherwise, logically then Moodle would need to be named differently for each release, like:

M3.4 - MoodleMcMootface

M3.5 - ManicMongoose

etc.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 4:47 AM

Sorry for the layout of the text it's the fault of my Safari browser that appears not to display the Text editor so I added the numbers it looked OK when sent but lost the layout when published. More is classed as a grandchild of Bootstrapbase as Clean theme is the Parent. That is how we write it ... It's like the Moodle 2.0+ themes that used Canvas + Base. I thought you knew all this? As for the No.2 which was infact The second point I was alluding to was to do with the 00 diagram as you had guessed.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 5:19 AM

Fair enough. I'm only human, so here is version two:

Actual and proposed Moodle theme architecture version two

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 6:43 AM

I think what you shoukd do is create a New theme and call it Essential - Classic and totally restructure it thus allowing access to BOOTSTRAP 4 via the Classic theme as the parent theme. Go on... Break the Mold and live dangerously for once! M

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 7:43 AM

There is breaking the mold and there is also bad design.

I do live dangerously by maintaining Essential and innovating in Shoelace.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 6:19 PM

That's a YES then ? LOL

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 7:02 PM

I'd rather update Essential as per my second version of the diagram and do things properly.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 6:54 AM

Further to my last comment about 'Breaking the Mold' it would seem that Boost IS the Catalist in this specific System. Since CLASSIC is a child of BOOST therefore what is stopping you making Essential a child of CLASSIC thus a grandchild of BOOST?

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Wednesday, 1 August 2018, 7:00 AM

Apparently TinyMCE was the problem.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Thursday, 9 August 2018, 5:08 PM

Hi Bas,

Thanks for the link to your Classic theme. I’m currently working on a theme for Moodle 3.6 but I have run into some problems which appear to be in Moodle master. Such as the Navbar dark setting in the Classic settings seems to have stopped working.

That said, I’m not really sure whether it’s Classic, Boost or Moodle Core? On the other hand, as I’m on a steep learning curve, it could be me creating problems although I have not made any real changes yet...and sertainly none to the Classic’s setting page.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Bas Brands - Friday, 10 August 2018, 7:20 PM

Hi Mary,

I am not sure why the setting doesn't work for you. But maybe this helps:

In bootstrap 4 the navbar is styled using the bootstrap classes .navbar-light and .navbar-dark and the colours used depend on a number of sass variables like:

$navbar-light-active-color or $navbar-dark-active-color

In Boost the navbar-light class has been hardcoded in the mustache template. In Classic I added the .navbar-bootswatch class so themers can decide which class to use adding some sass to a preset:

.navbar-bootswatch {
    @extend .navbar-light;
    background-color: $white;
}

Hope this helps!

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Saturday, 11 August 2018, 7:01 AM

I saw the preset sass and did wander if that was causing the problem, of the primary color not showing up as I had expected, it being a setting.

The Morecandy theme I made had a unique variable added, and that worked well in that theme.

So I may do something similar in my new Moodle 3.6 theme.

There are lots of other things not working now as I progress and I may end up trashing the layout you have in Classic them.

To be honest I am getting the feeling that Moodle themes are becomming overly complicated.

I think I may rend up using a simple layout from the BS Examples in their documentation.r and stick to the simplistic ways of doing things...

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Bas Brands - Monday, 13 August 2018, 4:20 PM

If you find any issues on the Classic theme please report them here or on Github! I would be interested to see how you would like to change the layout.

Yes Moodle themes are very complicated, hopefully in future we can make Moodle presets more powerful for styling Moodle. They are the preferred way of changing fonts, rounded borders, colours and more and are a lot easier to upgrade.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Tuesday, 14 August 2018, 12:43 AM

hi Bas,

As it turned out it was my fault that things were not working as they should.

Read https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=374533

The only thing that appears to be not working correctly is the Usermenu colour its white on white!

Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Sunday, 29 July 2018, 6:48 AM

Thank you Sander for letting us know the state of Moodle 3.6,

This is excellent news and well worth hearing about. I must admit it has been on the cards a while now so it's good to hear that it will take place when we move to Moodle 3.6.

Having been through changes since Moodle 1.9 through to 3.5, and recall feeling very sad at loosing 2.0 themes, but I do appreciate that times are changing, and we need to move forward, or else we shall loose the plot completely.

The Classic theme looks like it may be the answer to a lot of Theme developers who need a theme to work in Moodle and have the 'Holy Grail' three column layout again! Yes!!! I love it already!

Cheers,

Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Monday, 30 July 2018, 7:54 PM

Times are certainly changing, the University that lead the way on many UI improvements recently dumped Moodle for Canvas and more Colleges / Universiteis are set to follow.

Moodle is ugly out of the box and Schools / Colleges / Universities tire of themes breaking every year. Im not saying themes are the only reason Moodle is getting dumped but its definitely part of it.

Whilst as a theme maintainer you may consider this excellent news for a lot of colleges / Universiiteis without their own theme developers its a nightmare.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Chris Kenniburg - Monday, 30 July 2018, 7:57 PM

Bad news short term, Good news long term for Moodle.

I think Moodle is hitting a growth spurt and might have to shake things loose to achieve the desired results. If you keep looking back you can't see where you are going.

When we were looking at what direction to go with Moodle 3.2 and the introduction of Boost it was obvious to us which way Moodle was headed.

In the future, it might be nice to give the more popular themes a head's up way in advance of these changes. While not official "partners" of Moodle we are all invested. Many of your partners rely on the good will of the community to offer themes with a look and extra functionality that help entice new customers. An email to devs back when Boost was first introduced might have gone a long way in helping the transition. Many saw the writing on the wall, but some were operating on what was being communicated at the time which was "we will support the older themes".

I would not blame the devs for being upset. Overall though, I think this is the best move for Moodle. You guys are hiring a great team, you are building momentum on catching up with usability, and the layout and Boost core just keeps getting better. Full steam ahead. Moodle needs to modernize in a drastic way.

Break free the chains and make Moodle what it can be to fully realize the vision of the world's best learning platform.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Monday, 30 July 2018, 8:22 PM

The best move for Moodle would be a roadmap that clearly set out the direction of travel and timelines.

With a bit more planning BootstrapBase could have remained supported until Classic was stable and enough notice given for developers to rebase their themes.

As it is, we will probably want to rebase off Classic but that will not be ready in time to do this before BootstrapBase is pulled.

It was not obvious which way Moodle was headed beyond the fact BootstrapBase had reached end of life. For example I was not aware of the work being done on Classic prior to this post, nor was I aware that 3.5 would be the last version to support BootstrapBase. I have no idea how long it will be before its "all change" again and another theme replaces Boost as the default and we are all sat around second guessing how long we have and which theme we should re-base off next time around.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Tyler Bannister - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 12:57 AM

I second that Roadmap comment. I went to look at the Moodle Roadmap document and I found out all about the fabulous plans that Moodle HQ has for the initial release of Moodle 3.5. That's not a roadmap any more, it's a rear-view mirror.

Moodle HQ should be publishing a 2 year (at least) plan which shows all the major changes they want to make up to and including the next Long Term Stable (LTS) release (Immediately before/after the LTS the new 2 year plan should go up). The goal isn't to guarantee what HQ will deliver but to make sure the community knows that HQ has a plan and what the basic outline of that plan is.

I spent more than a little time looking around to find out what is going on with Moodle development and there was virtually nothing about the future of Moodle. Even looking directly in Tracker doesn't help much, there are 133 unresolved Epics. Looking at the Kanban board, it looks like one of the issues on the board has been "In Progress" since 2017. The Dashboard don't seem to help much either, none of the dashboards look much like "plans for the future".

So from an outside perspective, it looks like Moodle is drifting with no plan and no future. If anyone think that's wrong, then great. Convince someone at Moodle HQ to tell the rest of us what the plan is, and then we will think that it's wrong too.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by David Bogner - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 12:41 AM

Dear all,

thank you Sander for inviting me to participate in this discussion. My thoughts on Moodle Themes are the following.

Supporting 2 different frameworks generates a lot of problems. So best would be to provide a single framework, and move the older technology to the plugins repo as soon as possible. It is a pain for the really excellent themes based on BS2.3.2, but change is the only constant needed to have an excellent learning management system. I understand that theme developers might be angry about that, but moving on is necessary.
New standard/classic theme: Great idea, but I fear it will be as ugly (sorry for this harsh statement, but that is all about the theme designing: make it more beautiful) as all other standard themes have been. Most people I work with do not like Moodle because it is so ugly. The standard themes were driven by technical aspects coming from developers and accessibility needs (which is excellent). But there must also be an aesthetic approach. If I install a new Moodle, then people must say: Wow, that looks great! If you have that in mind for the classic theme, then yeah! Maybe there could be a contest and a poll concerning the look of the new theme or at least someone involved who loves beautiful things. (By the way, making Moodle beautiful is a great way to motivate learners )
Any technical approaches, that support easier creation of custom/child themes would be great. Maybe collecting ideas for that would be good.
Another vague idea: Create the possibility of customizing parts of Moodle with "presets". Or something like a built in Mustache-Customizer, Or Mustache-Preset-Editor in order to minimize the need of child-themes. That would be a great feature of a classic theme.
Also maybe provide more kind of global-mustache templates, kind of a mustache-library. I do not think every button or form needs its own mustache template....
Users generate so much ugly content in Moodle. If there is a possibility to make it easier for users to create appealing content, then that would be a real great asset.

Still I want to say, that it is great to have all these possibilities to customize Moodle already. Sometimes there are real difficult challenges (customizing the look of the forum posting sent via mail was one of them, I think Gareth can agree with that

). Thank you for reaching out to the community and to the great efforts you are doing everyday to improve Moodle.

Kind regards,

David

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Tyler Bannister - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 1:26 AM

I wonder if Moodle should work a little better with the community to resolve the "Moodle is ugly" problem.

Why not leverage the Moodle User Association (MUA) to make Moodle pretty, for example?

A fairly simple approach would be to start a contest to determine what the default theme will be in the next LTS cycle of Moodle (3.7-3.10). The rules are fairly simple: any member of the MUA can submit their own theme to the contest (submitter must agree to allow the submitted theme to be used in Moodle). At a specified date, submissions will close and the MUA community will be allowed 2 weeks (or however long is necessary) to discuss the merits of the submitted themes. Then voting opens and MUA members can vote on which theme would best serve as the default Moodle theme for the next LTS cycle.

In addition to having the prestige of winning the theme contest and having Moodle announce the winner (and a select set of runner ups). There would also be a "demo mode" setting to the new default theme that adds a text box which announces that the default theme won the Moodle theme contest and the name of the winner (with a link to their design business site, if they have one) that would show up on newly installed Moodle sites. There should probably also be a short description of why the theme won.

Then when 3.7 is out, start a new contest for Moodle 3.11-3.15 (or Moodle 4.1-4.5, depending on how they decide to do the numbering). This way Moodle gets a refreshed theme every other year, gets more community engagement, more theme options, and it should end up with a better default theme, while simultaneously helping Moodle's best theme developers get exposure.

Moodle HQ could even put some minor restrictions on themes that can compete (must be a child of Boost or Classic, for example).

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Rick Jerz - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 3:20 AM

These have been interesting comments about Moodle being "ugly" out of the box. I tried to do my best to show how Moodle, D2L (branded by my university, and no longer used), Canvas, Blackboard 9, and Blackboard Ultra look when I first start them. Quite honestly, I really cannot say that one looks better than the other "out of the box." It is not until one starts adding content, maybe CSS, and more settings that any of these products start looking "pretty."

A few of my students have commented that my Moodle site doesn't look a pretty as their Facebook, but we are talking about two different functions.

So I am not sure if I accept the comments that Moodle is "ugly" out of the boxes. (Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, it is said.)

In my own case, I am using Moodle 3.5, Boost, and some CSS to color my moodle. I don't run custom themes because they would take up too my of my time making my moodle "pretty," and I am more concerned about using my time on educational components that help my students learn.

Having said this, I can appreciate those who do want to make their moodles "pretty." At least with moodle, one has some flexibility to do this. This might be why there are so many custom themes being developed that one can add, but then you rely on the theme developer to keep a theme current and bug-free. Some theme developers are really good at this, and some maybe not so good. Yep, I have seen some really attractive moodle sites that make my moodle look a little blah, but my courses receive some of the best student reviews, so I must be doing something that is okay.

My attachment shows some screen captures of these various other LMSs (out of the box.)

LMSs Out of the Box.zip

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Michael Milette - Friday, 24 August 2018, 1:03 AM

I like the idea of getting more community engagement for theme development. The contest is also a pretty good idea. I would add the following criteria:

1. The theme should be as close as possible to being WCAG 2.0 level AA compliant (accessibility guidelines). In fact, someone should take a look at Boost and focus on making it compliant in the first place.

2. In order to make it worthwhile for developers to invest, there needs to be more than just prestige of claiming that their theme is part of Moodle core. I think developers want to see their name or their company's name in the listed somewhere in the theme behind the scenes like in the info box that appears after you first activate the theme. Either that or Moodle needs to make a big deal of who created the theme.

It takes many many hours of labour to create a theme and either Moodle HQ shells out the cash or they offer some kind of worthwhile reward.

An alternative to this approach might be to have designs submitted instead of themes. It takes a lot less investment of effort to design a good theme than it does to actually code it. The designer/developer would submit the design as well as the cost to create it. The winner of the design contest would be awarded a contract to develop the theme.

I also agree that every LTS release should include a new core (not necessarily base) theme to keep UI and UX things current so that Moodle doesn't end up lagging in the area of design again down the road. It might also motivate people to upgrade to the next LTS release if they like what they see.

Best regards,

Michael

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Saturday, 25 August 2018, 6:40 AM

Well I’ve just updated my site and made it look pretty...might not be everyone’s taste but it works for me.

http://visible-expression.co.uk/vle

Cheers

Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by AL Rachels - Sunday, 26 August 2018, 12:00 AM

Hi Mary,

Looks really nice. I especially like the responsive curved banner.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Rick Jerz - Sunday, 26 August 2018, 1:34 AM

Looks nice and pretty to me.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 6:27 PM

Hi David,

No one disputes the need to progress and keep with the times but I am not sure leaving one base theme to rot then bringing in another, then another is the best approach.

I think Gareths comment / diagram referring to a properly maintained abstract theme would be a better approach. Had that been done it may have been easier to transition from BS2 > BS3 > BS4 > BS5.

I remember not long after BS2 was implemented there were people pushing for BS3. Martin quashed that saying "we have done enough for now" or something to that effect putting BS Base out to pasture very soon after it became stable.

Boost will also be left to rot which is the reason we have not already rebased our theme. I kind of hoped that BS Base may live long enough for us to skip a rewrite and go straight to the Boost replacement.

You are right about Moodle being ugly out of the box. I saw a Moodle partner pitching against Canvas recently. They gave demo.moodle.net as the reference site. I am 99% sure they will lose that tender. One of Moodles biggest strengths over Canvas is the ability to properly theme / brand it.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Rick Jerz - Thursday, 2 August 2018, 9:05 PM

If you look at my examples of LMSs out of the box, I would not be able to say that Canvas looks any better than any other product. I don't use Canvas at my university because its functionality is lagging far behind Moodle. But my Course Designers seem to claim that one can drag and drop pictures into Canvas faster than other LMSs, thereby making it "prettier" faster. Canvas is still not "responsive," which puts it at least two years behind Moodle. My students claim that the only effective way to use Canvas with their smartphones is by using the Canvas mobile app, whereas my students claim that Moodle can be used from their smartphone's browsers.

In my situation, as a professor, I really can't do anything about the Canvas "theme." Since I run my own Moodle, I am free to do whatever I want.

(Sorry that this is a little off-topic from where this topic started. But when I see statements that compare Moodle against other products, and I believe that the statements might be incorrect, I just like to add my 2 cents (or euros).)

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Thursday, 9 August 2018, 5:52 PM

In all respect I think Martin is to blame for that as he has always maintained that the default theme should be a basic theme in the colour white with just a Moodle logo and nothing else, as he expects Theame Designers to make some fantastic themes.

Hovever, HQ devs are not Theme designers, they are experienced coders, who know Moodle and so they are more likely to complicate things for Theme designers by creating a theme that is, in itself, a mammoth programme and not an HTML document with style sheets.

In my simple mind a theme should be the icing on the cake, and NOT the cake itself, meaning Moodle should have all the various options that themes have developed over the years and make them part of the overall structure of Moodle itself.

Also, and I have said this many times before, it is time Moodle created its own CSS system and not have to be waiting for other branded products to be updated.

And if you think this is a silly suggestion, then you can say what you like, as I am now in my dotage having just turned Seventy last week! I also share my birthday with Andy Fairweather Lowe a musician of the 1960’s of Wideeyed & Legless fame.

Yeah!!!

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Randy Thornton - Friday, 10 August 2018, 9:13 AM

+100

"In my simple mind a theme should be the icing on the cake, and NOT the cake itself, meaning Moodle should have all the various options that themes have developed over the years and make them part of the overall structure of Moodle itself."

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Tuesday, 7 August 2018, 9:18 PM

Dear Sander,

So... is this all set in stone or will the situation change in light of the comments made in this post?

Cheers,

Gareth

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Sander Bangma - Wednesday, 15 August 2018, 8:54 AM

Hi All,

Firstly, thank you all for this great discussion - it is obvious we have many passionate community members and themes is a hot topic!

It's been really great to read everyone's thoughts on this and we've certainly taken all the feedback into account in our internal discussions.

I appreciate the challenges with moving bootstrapbase (and child themes) out of core for the 3.6 release. In light of that we've decided to:

Retain bootstrapbase (and child themes) in core for Moodle 3.6
Remove bootstrapbase (and child themes) from core for Moodle 3.7
We will make an early version of the bootstrap 4 based classic theme available in the plugin database to allow themers to commence work on rebasing their themes early

This means themers and sites using custom themes based on a bootstrapbase (or child) theme have an extra 6 months to rework their themes.

We do not plan to maintain bootstrapbase (and child themes) in the plugin database once they are removed from core as we do not have the resources to maintain this range of themes. If there is a desire for this it will have to be the community that steps in to maintain this.

I hope this strategy resolves some of the concerns raised in this discussion.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Wednesday, 15 August 2018, 6:18 PM

Thank you Sander.

This is really helpful as Essential is very complicated.

Will there be a change to the architecture to be a more OO one? As conceptually the framework (Bootstrap) is an abstract base class from a class diagram point of view.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Bas Brands - Thursday, 16 August 2018, 4:43 PM

Hi Gareth,

The Boost will change, we are focussing on improving its accessibility, UX and reducing the amount of Moodle css and using Bootstrap utilities and components.

I am not sure how to answer the question if the architecture will change since themes can be split up in many different types of functionality and are part of Moodle as a whole.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Friday, 17 August 2018, 12:45 AM

Hi Gareth,

If Moodle, by definition, is a “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment”; what kind of Object Oriented elements are missing from your point of view, as that may be considerably different from other person’s point of view, as OO can vary depending on the problem or problems that one is trying to simplify.

Curiously,

Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Friday, 17 August 2018, 1:49 AM

Boost contains both the Moodle theme attribute and the Bootstrap Framework attribute combined into one conceptual object that in effect is doing two things. The Moodle theme attribute and Framework attribute in my opinion should be separate as they are different things. Think of Boost currently as a car towing a caravan that you can't unhitch. Where the car is the Bootstrap framework and the caravan the Moodle theme attribute.

If you wish to change the look of the caravan then currently you have to add another caravan / trailer to the end. It would be better to be able to just change the caravan. Then with this concept you could keep the same caravan and change the car.... thus another framework.

Boost is a heavy lumbering object that needs to be divided. Just like in the past there was the 'base' abstract theme that was then built upon with a child theme.

I'm not proposing something new but rather to go back to the past where the architecture was correct.

Again it is a separation of concern - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns. The framework is one concern and the Moodle visual element the other. If you create an architecture whereby the framework is separate then you are providing future flexibility and designing in robust mechanisms to facilitate the replacement of that framework if required for any reason. I can't predict the future (or win the lottery) but I can plan for it by putting in place mechanisms that can cope with potential change. Call it designing in failsafe / backup mechanisms for when something unpredictably changes that is outside of your control. The framework is outside of your control, therefore isolate it in its own entity and don't couple / stitch it in all over the place so that it is hard to unpick when the time comes.

In reality I do agree with an earlier statement of yours Mary where I believe that you stated that Moodle should have its own CSS framework like Wordpress. Always rely on what you can control.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Friday, 17 August 2018, 3:09 AM

In that case Gareth lets build a Caravan and call it Moodle960 and sell it to Moodle!

Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Saturday, 18 August 2018, 12:44 AM

Ok, purely from a 'software engineering architectural design' point of view, please 'peer review' (in the scientific context) the attached. Thus reasoned arguments based upon software engineering experience and knowledge only please.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Saturday, 18 August 2018, 5:31 AM

Hi Gareth,

Although I partially agree with the structure of your interpretation of what you think Moodle 3.6 will look like, I think you will find that CLASSIC is a child of BOOST, and so you will need to adjust your diagram accordingly.

Or are you suggesting that you feel CLASSIC should be a new theme in it's own right?

Which makes a lot of sense.

Hope this helps?

Cheers

Mary

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Saturday, 18 August 2018, 6:06 AM

Hi Mary,

In my diagram for how it currently stands, Classic IS a child theme of Boost. But I don't think it should be, it should be a child theme of the abstract framework only Bootstrapfoundation theme (or any other name to represent such an entity as Bootstrapbase is now).

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Mary Evans - Saturday, 18 August 2018, 8:37 AM

I agree it kind of makes sense as it could

be the start of a more practical layout.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Thursday, 23 August 2018, 9:11 PM

Well we used to have that kind of layout with bootstrap base and all usable themes like clean, essential etc were child themes of that.

Now Boost is itself a theme (not only abstract as Gareth puts it) but a grandparent.

Whilst I am glad we have been given more time to work on this I think we grandchildren (if we base off Classic which is a child of Boost) are going to be in for a rough ride trying to maintain themes going forward.

It doesnt make any sense to me, aside from the fact it allowed HQ to get Boost into core more easily.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Randy Thornton - Tuesday, 28 August 2018, 3:42 AM

I agree strongly with Jez and also the proposed architecture in Gareth's diagram and his critique of the fraemwork problem.

If HQ is going to make "Classic" a child of Boost, then I say stop right now and throw it away as that is a waste of time.

Testing out at the alpha, what I saw was the Navigation block had the Boost NavDraw stuff hanging off it: so it combines one of the most disappointing functional elements of Moodle 2, the Navigtion block (with its limited settings that we have had to work around with css tricks for years), with the single worst "feature" of Boost, a completely unadjustable NavDrawer with no settings and no ability to work around in css. Um, no thank you. I want my classic straight.

Why not just take Clean / More and update it for BS4? Is there no HQ plan at all to create a basic theme based straight off BS4?

If Boost will be the only core theme just say that. Don't confuse things with "pseudo-Classic" which looks rather like a stop-gap to palliate those who have found Boost not usable. Make a BS4 base or don't bother.

Instead make room for theme designers to make a couple good, simple themes straight off of BS4 for the multitude of sites that have found Clean/More perfectly servicable for years.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Nick Phillips - Thursday, 13 December 2018, 9:40 AM

I'd agree; I've been thinking about this a fair bit with all the confusion caused by multiple versions of bootstrap being available, and it seems to me that UI frameworks are special enough that they should be handled differently. I haven't got all the nuts and bolts worked out, but I'm thinking that really they should be plugins of their own, which could be required by any theme (or other plugin?) that needed them. Their associated JS should be served up separately to any main bundle (which with HTTP2 out now should also go away soon?), and only when required by the current page.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Michael Milette - Friday, 24 August 2018, 12:25 AM

Separating the framework for Moodle and the Theme horseshoe (top, side, bottom of a page) would REALLY simplify my theme development as I need to integrate an existing Bootstrap 3 corporate theme with the current Moodle "Boost" base theme which uses Bootstrap 4. Either that or create my own base Moodle theme and then maintain that too.

When I did this for the same client about 5 years ago, it was much simpler using Moodle's "base" theme, layering the client's theme over it and then resolving a few CSS glitches. I didn't end up with all the conflicts I have to resolve today - not to mention maintaining the mess.

With that in mind, I do understand the desire to leverage frameworks like Bootstrap to minimize code and take advantage of extensive global testing of the framework.

How much code would we be looking at for a base Moodle framework?

Best regards,

Michael

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Jez H - Thursday, 23 August 2018, 9:12 PM

Hi Sander,

Thats very helpful, thanks!

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Sander Bangma - Wednesday, 6 March 2019, 11:36 AM

Hi All,

This is a reminder that we are moving forward with the theme changes for Moodle 3.7 as described above.

What is the change?

Themes based on Bootstrap version 2 (including bootstrapbase, Clean and More) will be deprecated and removed from core.
A new ‘Classic’ theme, based on Bootstrap 4, will be added to core, which retains the classic navigation block and three column layout.

What should I do next?

If your site uses a custom theme based on bootstrapbase (or any of its child themes), it is highly recommended that you start the process of moving to the default Boost or Classic theme, or build another customised theme based on Bootstrap 4.

To assist you with making a new custom theme or updating your existing theme please see the Moodle developer Themes documentation page, and specifically:

Important timelines

Moodle 3.7 release is scheduled for May 2019.
Moodle 3.6 is the last release with support for themes based on Bootstrap 2. Security support for Moodle 3.6 ends in May 2020.
Moodle 3.5 is the last LTS release with support for themes based on Bootstrap 2. Security support for Moodle 3.5 ends in May 2021.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Joost Elshoff - Wednesday, 6 March 2019, 8:27 PM

Is the Classic theme already viewable? Would be interested to see how it has evolved from Clean. It is not yet active as such in the QA site, I saw.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Ray Hinton - Wednesday, 6 March 2019, 11:54 PM

I see that it is on the Moodle.org theme repository, but not in the latest 3.7 dev build. Looking forward to seeing an early release of this baked into core, so we can start plotting our path forward.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Bas Brands - Thursday, 7 March 2019, 6:05 PM

Hi Joost,

It would be best to wait a week or two untill This issue https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-64505 is completed on the Moodle Tracker. As soon as it is the repository https://github.com/bmbrands/moodle-theme_classic will be updated with the latest changes.

The classic has not really evolved from clean, it is a new theme providing a similar user interface and design.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Rick Jerz - Thursday, 7 March 2019, 9:47 PM

Hi Bas, I too was curious about the new "Classic" theme, and yes, I discovered yesterday by downloading and looking at the latest 3.7 development Moodle (20190301) that "Classic" is not in it yet. So, the head-up is great, but if the move to all of these changes is to occur in May, we really are not being provided much time to prepare. So see what you can do to move availability to "Classic" along.

If we are currently using Boost in 3.6, are we "good to go" when 3.7 is released? From what I read, 3.7 will provide both Boost and Classic as the two internally supported themes. Right? Will there be any significant changes to the current Boost theme in 3.7?

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Friday, 8 March 2019, 1:10 AM

Hi Sander,

Is there also a plan to have faster updates to the Bootstrap framework? As the current version available (getbootstrap.com) is 4.3.1 and yet Moodle has 4.0.0 in M3.6?

Also is there plans to update FontAwesome from the ageing 4.7.0? To 5.7.2 free (current version on fontawesome.com).

In the long term is there plans to support other frameworks other than Bootstrap?

Cheers,

Gareth

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Alexander Bias - Saturday, 9 March 2019, 12:22 AM

Gareth,

> Also is there plans to update FontAwesome from the ageing 4.7.0? To 5.7.2 free (current version on fontawesome.com).

You should be able to track the progress for FontAwesome on https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-64853.

I am not aware that a similar tracker issue exists for Bootstrap.

Cheers,
Alex

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Saturday, 9 March 2019, 12:29 AM

Thanks Alex,

Just have and voted for it too.

Gareth

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Don Schwartz - Wednesday, 13 March 2019, 10:49 PM

A simple request for the non tech moodlers among us. I’m a tech and know what I’m using but..

Is there a test, url query or other method which admins can use to determine if their theme is Bootstrap based? Yes, view source is obvious to us.

Secondly. I feel that with major changes like this, Moodle Pty Ltd owes the community a list of affected themes in the approved plugins directory. The onus should not be on users who may not see problems until their site breaks.

Also: https://builtwith.com helps on open sites

Thanks

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Thursday, 14 March 2019, 12:55 AM

Most Moodle themes are Bootstrap based, just depends on which version of Bootstrap.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Emma Richardson - Wednesday, 29 August 2018, 9:19 PM

This has been a really interesting discussion. I will add an administrator's view as I am not a coder.

It is really easy to see what people want from a moodle theme. Just look at the theme forum over the past several years and see which themes got the most posts - this is not due necessarily to problem themes but due to the mass usage of the themes in question.

From my viewpoint, things started getting interesting in the theme world with Rocket - one of the first non-moodly themes! Then came Elegance and Essential. When Julian left, and Gareth took over Essential, it came out on top and was the subject of the forum for a long time. People liked the customizability and the many options that are all available from the GUI without the need for hacking. From Essential, we moved to BCU which then became Adaptable. This also came with the features that we all want - marketing blocks, tickers, all kinds of features built in and easy to setup and it led the forum posts for a long time. Since Boost, Fordson has now risen to the top - again, lots of front page set up options, plus teacher tools that are easy to access and all customizable from the GUI.

If you look at the theme history, you can quickly see that we want to be able to have a host of options and settings - why is this not what HQ is looking into for a builtin theme? While we have been able to overcome the built in theme with the help of some great plugins (thanks Julian, Gareth, Chris, Bas, etc..), it would be far more useful to have a fully functional and customizable theme as part of core where we do not need to worry that we are going to lose the theme we love due to a developer moving away from moodle...

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Ralf Hilgenstock - Thursday, 30 August 2018, 6:23 PM

Hello Emma

thanks for remembering the history of the theme development. Let me add some aspects:

These themes concentrate on a few features mostly:

Highly configurable start site
Customization for course catalogue
Custom settings for background, colors, borders etc.

Lets concentrate on the use cases and the purposes:

The start site can be used for marketing purposes if there is no web site or no intranet. This needs continously content creation and changes. But mostly this is static content.

The course catalogue is used only when users are self enrolling to courses. If users are enrolled by external systems the dashboard is much more releveant.

If users should self select courses they need information about the course and not only a title, three lines of text and a picture. The new themes reduce the information to a minimum and the users needs a sperate step to see more information.

What is the didactical pro of these themes? Did user learn with more fun or more successfull if the start site and the course catalogue looks nicer?

Visual design is driven by he idea 'what is stylish'. This is an effect for the moment. In website design 'one pager' are stylish since a few years. What will be the next? Most one pager website only contain a mimimum of content (title, teaser text (but no details), pictures). Their purpose is creating interest and emotionalism. Is this what we need in online courses? What happens with the user how sees smooth and nicely looking start site but boring courses when the teacher can't follow up with the same style.

My critic about these themes is:

they concentrate a lot on visual effects
the purpose and processes are not thought to an end. Did we really want to replace CMS systems (web site builder) or intranets?
there is not as much creativity how we design the main learning area: the course and the learning content. That is the place where the users are most of the time. This will need rethinking course formats and their design.
how can we support the teacher to create better content in an easy way within Moodle. H5P is an example how to do it, modernized courses formats will also be an option.

Only a few thoughts

Ralf

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Emma Richardson - Thursday, 30 August 2018, 11:51 PM

I totally agree with you but also disagree...you say that these themes concentrate on visual effects but we need to focus on course area. I think these themes have helped to start in that direction and do not see it as a negative that there is a lot of focus on the front page. The front page is where the student/customer/visitor starts and is extremely important because Moodle is used for many more things that just a student LMS.

However, I agree that course content and course pages need to be addressed - but I also think that that is the combined responsibility of Moodle and the teacher/teacher trainer. You can make the course page as pretty and easy to navigate as can be but if teachers are not taught about how to create relationship with their students in an online course, it does little good. But that is another discussion altogether!!

Elegance was the last theme to address the course page some with the activity tiles. I still try and replicate these on some of my sites but also have moved more towards using labels with "hidden" or as they used be called "orphaned" activities. It would be great if that was easier to do that for teachers in some way.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Friday, 31 August 2018, 4:25 AM

I think that there is actually two things going on here:

The operation, capability and visual representation of the underlying functionality that drives Moodle as an eLearning entity that acts as an aid to the learning process. Thus the modules, blocks, course formats etc.
The theme that adds a unique wrapper to the first but can additionally not only change the style but functionality too. It provides the consistent look and feel to a Moodle installation and thus provides individuality to each Moodle instance. Within Moodle it also can facilitate a personal learning experience whilst at the same time not detaching from the collective group.

There is a bit of a grey area between the two with not a clear boundary, and as Moodle is open source, then the power to define that boundary comes with the decisions (whomever makes them) that affect the code itself.

Therefore it is a matter of making the right decision of where to fix an issue when that issue arises. Thus decisions need to be made by those empowered to make them to fix the problems that need fixing.

So in summary, if the problem is functional at a course level then attempt to resolve it first in the course format (contributed or otherwise) / core MDL tracker issue before resorting theme modifications. For example, Collapsed Topics (CT) implements columns / rows of sections, these are organised by using the Bootstrap V2.3.2 and V4 grid CSS classes, there are methods that the theme can override in CT's renderer to use different CSS classes if desired to fit a different grid system.

Additionally I think there are comments above that pertain more to shortcomings in Moodle itself rather than the themes ability to overcome those issues.

Rightly or wrongly, decisions, architecture and designs need to be made in order to make progress.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Gareth J Barnard - Monday, 17 September 2018, 1:27 AM

In the same light as this thread I have written a post on eLearningWorld (run by HRDNZ, a Moodle Partner) entitled 'To Boost or not to Boost, that is the question' -> https://www.elearningworld.org/to-boost-or-not-to-boost-that-is-the-question/ - please do read and comment.

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Re: Moodle Core: plan for themes

by Séverin Terrier - Thursday, 30 August 2018, 7:49 PM

Hi Emma,

Yes, interesting discussion. I'm also a Moodle administrator, nor developper, nor theme designer. So the following is only my perception of things.

In fact, what lot of people are looking about, and is provided by the themes you talk about, are ability to easily adapt the look and feel (choose colors, add logo), but also new features (marketing blocks...).

In my opinion, these features should be provided by Moodle, and used (or not) if the administrator want to.

Themes should really focus on placing different elements and determine how they look.

We could even imagine that some of these features could be used on standard courses (if teachers have permissions for that, and/or the administrator allows this).

Séverin

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