Moodle in English: Forum Group Icons in M3.8

In Moodle 3.8 if a teacher belongs to a group(s) a large icon for that group is shown in all their threads with a link back to the participants screen. The URL implies that screen should be filtered by group (group=1 in example below):

https://qa.moodledemo.net/user/index.php?id=2&group=1

However the participants list does not actually filter on group.

I am not sure whether this is a part finished feature HQ are aware of or whether a tracker needs raising for this? I have not been able to find an existing tracker but cannot see how this can have been missed during QA?

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Re: Forum Group Icons in M3.8

by Mary Cooch - Tuesday, 10 December 2019, 8:02 PM

I think it does if the course is set to Groups, either visible or separate.

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Re: Forum Group Icons in M3.8

by Jez H - Tuesday, 10 December 2019, 8:41 PM

Hi Mary,

Thanks for that, you are right, the groups link works if the course itself is set to groups mode, however:

1) These icons look dreadful in terms of their large size / position
2) The links don't work if the course is not set in group mode, in which case should they even be there?
3) IMO there should really be a setting to disable this as it seems quite niche in terms of its usefulness

I would be interested to hear your views on the above points, do you like the way it looks / find it a useful feature?

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Re: Forum Group Icons in M3.8

by Mary Cooch - Tuesday, 10 December 2019, 8:52 PM

I like the way the icons display in a horizontal line here on Moodle.org but my understanding is that is it some custom coding. I don't have strong feelings except I find them useful in forums - assuming the icons are obvious - to identify what groups people are in (for example I see you are a PHM and a developer!) while I rarely click on them to see who else is in the group.
But it will be interesting to see what other people think... hoping the discussion continues.

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Re: Forum Group Icons in M3.8

by Jez H - Tuesday, 10 December 2019, 8:55 PM

I can see the idea behind this having switched to the new "nested view" in preferences which looks a lot better (screen shot below).
I guess the issue is this feature was designed to work with nested view which still seems to be experimental / not the default and would rely on users making the change in their profile.

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Re: Forum Group Icons in M3.8

by Rick Jerz - Wednesday, 11 December 2019, 6:52 AM

I too noticed the appearance of these default group icons in the forums. In my own case, I didn't see any need for these icons, so I went to users, groups, edit group settings, and switched the "hide" dropdown (see below.)

Sure, I can see that sometimes it might be good to have group icons, so this by itself didn't bother me. Yes, I agree that the icons should all be on the top line, right justified. Of course, it is possible for a student to belong to 50 groups, and icon management can get a little wild, but if the icons were on the top line (as in moodle.org), sure, this would be better. I will vote on a feature request if someone cares to start one.

There are two things that have caught my attention and are bothersome.

1) This setting to Hide icons only occurs after the group is created. Sometimes I create 5 to 10 groups "automatically." If I want to hide the icon, I then have to edit 10 groups. I would recommend that this "Hide" feature be available on the Auto-create Groups web setup page. Comments, please.

2) Even when I turn the icons to off, they appear strangely when selecting a Forum. In my attached picture, I am hiding icons for each group, but look at how a "no" icon shows. Isn't this strange? Comments, please.

And I still would like to see a group designation show somewhere when I am actually into a discussion. This is my own MDL-58043.