Change default response format for Essay question to plain text?

Change default response format for Essay question to plain text?

by Glenn Pillsbury -
Number of replies: 4

Using Moodle 3.5.1.

I want to change the default choice in the Response format menu when creating an essay question.  Currently, it's set to "HTML editor".  I would like to make the default "Plain text".  Which file do I modify to change that menu?

Why? Because most essay questions at our institution don't require any of the formatting tools of the Atto editor.  And, when instructors use the essay question type many times (or exclusively) in an exam, that's a lot of repeated, unnecessary loading that causes the page layout to jump as all of the individual editors load. It's especially problematic when all the essay questions are on a single page.

Thank you!

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In reply to Glenn Pillsbury

Re: Change default response format for Essay question to plain text?

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

It would be a good idea to let admins control the defaults for most of the options for most question types. So far, I think that has only been implemented for multiple-choice questions (which was done in MDL-50011). Also some third-party questions types do it (e.g. STACK).

This could easily be done for all the other standard question types. It is just requires someone with the time and inclination to write the code.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Change default response format for Essay question to plain text?

by Glenn Pillsbury -

Thanks for replying, Tim.  In the meantime, until a project for admin control is implemented, could you point me in the direction of the source file I need to hack in order to try out the idea now?  It's a really basic HTML setting; I just don't know where to look to implement it.

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In reply to Glenn Pillsbury

Re: Change default response format for Essay question to plain text?

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

The line to hack is https://github.com/moodle/moodle/blob/master/question/type/essay/edit_essay_form.php#L46.

The possible choices you can use in place of 'editor' are here https://github.com/moodle/moodle/blob/master/question/type/essay/questiontype.php#L110. I guess you want 'plain'.

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