Up to now this has not been a problem because the volume of courses (and activities/resources) I had to manage was not really huge. As more and more of my colleagues have courses in our Moodle installations I'm finding myself in a situation where I find some tools/functionalities missing in Moodle. I wonder whether people who administer large sites with many courses have similar experiences to mine.
One thing that I don't understand is why the 'move' functionality that you have on the main course page to move around resources and activities is not replicated elsewhere: for instance in the course administration or within the quiz module. When I say I don't understand, you must interpret this literally. It is not an "I don't understand" formulated as a criticism.
So, if you have a long list of courses and you want to organize them within a category, the only option you have is to keep on clicking the up arrow or the down arrow and wait every time for your screen to be refreshed and then do it again until you get your course in the desired position. Same for the quiz module. Once you have selected all the questions you want to include in a quiz and clicked on the 'add to quiz' button, the only option you have to reorder questions is once again with the time consuming arrows.
Don't you think the 'move' function would be useful in all these other places as well? Unless there is a technical reason that makes this inviable, of course.
Josep M.
If you login as admin on the frontpage, you can access the main courses overview screen. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET ACCESS TO THAT SCREEN.
If you turn edit on, you can move every course by selecting the target category in the drop-down boxes on the right. (this also the only place where you can kill obsolete categories.)
.
I share your vision about the quizzes 
Actually, Tim, now that I think of it, the Drag and Drop way perhaps is not such a good idea or at least it is not a good idea to be able to move questions around ONLY via Drag and Drop.
Imagine you have a quiz of over 150 questions like the one N. Hansen talks about in her bug report. Not a very unlikely scenario. Dragging a question from the top of the list to the end of the list could be a real nightmare. Even with just 100 or even 50 it could start being a bit of a nuissance (still better than the current situation, though).
For short lists of questions occupying just one screen, dragging and dropping is ideal. For longer lists, it stops being convenient and the 'move' functionality we have for resources and activities in the main page becomes way more practical.
Josep M.
Imagine you have a quiz of over 150 questions like the one N. Hansen talks about in her bug report. Not a very unlikely scenario. Dragging a question from the top of the list to the end of the list could be a real nightmare. Even with just 100 or even 50 it could start being a bit of a nuissance (still better than the current situation, though).
For short lists of questions occupying just one screen, dragging and dropping is ideal. For longer lists, it stops being convenient and the 'move' functionality we have for resources and activities in the main page becomes way more practical.
Josep M.
Yes!
Move functionality maded for activity in course page is similar to "cut/paste here" metaphora with displaying the clipboard content.
It can be leave in paralel with drag&drop feature. It must be maked both for all movable items!
Note: "Cut/paste here" engine exists also in cource files, but 1) there are "here" is directory-wide and maked as one button at page and 2) there are multiple items cut maked by check boxes and single command like "cut selected" and 3) there are no visible clipboard.
Note2: to cut we can use icon like [
] in item actions button list
Note3: Clipboards (and for cource files, and for activity) must be maked site-wide to provide needed some times ability to move items to other teacher course.
Note4: may be make with that clipboard and Copy ability?
And note 5: clipboard may work incrementally - for i can cut (or copy) there more then one item (to paste all of them to one new place) by series of
-clicks
Move functionality maded for activity in course page is similar to "cut/paste here" metaphora with displaying the clipboard content.
It can be leave in paralel with drag&drop feature. It must be maked both for all movable items!
Note: "Cut/paste here" engine exists also in cource files, but 1) there are "here" is directory-wide and maked as one button at page and 2) there are multiple items cut maked by check boxes and single command like "cut selected" and 3) there are no visible clipboard.
Note2: to cut we can use icon like [
] in item actions button listNote3: Clipboards (and for cource files, and for activity) must be maked site-wide to provide needed some times ability to move items to other teacher course.
Note4: may be make with that clipboard and Copy ability?
And note 5: clipboard may work incrementally - for i can cut (or copy) there more then one item (to paste all of them to one new place) by series of
-clicks
Joseph, good point. Drag and drop is indeed not the best approach for long quizzes. However even the cut and paste method that Moodle uses on its course page may not be the best solution because it still takes a click - scroll - click sequence for each moved question. I would propose an interface where next to each question there is a box for a sequence number. If I want to reorder the questions I simple change the sequence numbers and click on a "Save changes" button. The sequence numbers I enter don't have to be integers. For example if I want to move a bunch of question to lie between the current second and third question then I would give these questions the sequence numbers 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and so on. A very quick way of getting the questions into the order I want without constant re-loading of the page.
Set any float order numbers - good additional way to reorder too. With button to renumber any entered numbers to natural 10,20,30,40,.. Like lines on old BASIC languages
May be separate "number reordering mode" - with order number editor, to not fill screen by this editors in other modes
May be separate "number reordering mode" - with order number editor, to not fill screen by this editors in other modes
I was frustrated by the constant <UP ARROW>, <DOWN ARROW> clicks to move courses and categories around (as well as some other things). I think Eloy pointed me to a feature (of my browser -- Firefox, at least):
(Until we get the type of funtionality extension you've mentioned)
- If you have something you need to move a decent distance, click the arrowthat corresponds to the direction it needs to move. This will move it one position.
- Hit the <F5> key for each subsequent move needed. You can actually hit the <F5> key many times, not waiting for the screen to refresh and find that it still works.
(Until we get the type of funtionality extension you've mentioned)
Thanks Bob. It sounded like a good idea but it doesn't seem to work for me. I also use Firefox and when I click <F5> what it does is to move back and forth. That is, if I move an item downwards by clicking on the downwards arrow, when I hit <F5>, it moves back to its previous position. If I hit it again, it moves downwards again. And so on.
Josep M.
Josep M.
Hi Josep,
This "move" topic has been around for a long time. Back in August '05 I created a bug requesting the same functionality. In September I suggested " i think it would help the developers to focus on this issue if you all vote for this via "bug #4001" ."
You can review some of the previous conversations here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=35299#163679
This "move" topic has been around for a long time. Back in August '05 I created a bug requesting the same functionality. In September I suggested " i think it would help the developers to focus on this issue if you all vote for this via "bug #4001" ."
You can review some of the previous conversations here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=35299#163679
Oh I had missed that thread. I was wondering why nobody else bitched about this 
. I'll certainly add my vote to bug #4001. Although now the solution seems close with the intervention of the OU people.
Josep M.
Mmm. Funny. I went to vote in bug #4001 and it tells me that I have voted already
. Could my memory be so bad?
Josep M.
. I'll certainly add my vote to bug #4001. Although now the solution seems close with the intervention of the OU people.Josep M.
Mmm. Funny. I went to vote in bug #4001 and it tells me that I have voted already
. Could my memory be so bad?Josep M.
Josep-You need to login first, then you can vote. I agree, I don't particularly want drag and drop, as for a long quiz it would require dragging while scrolling-too much of a chance one would drop the item in the wrong place. I am happy with the moving mechanism available for resources and activities and would like to see that duplicated in the quiz module.
> Josep-You need to login first, then you can vote.
Duh! I went to the bug tracker directly by clicking on your link and I didn't notice that I had to login. The message you get is very misleading, though. It could tell you at least that you need to login to vote instead of telling you that you have already voted.
Although now I don't know whether I need to vote any more since Gustav has already provided us with a solution to the problem. And one that looks even better than the one I had thought about at that.
Josep M.
Duh! I went to the bug tracker directly by clicking on your link and I didn't notice that I had to login. The message you get is very misleading, though. It could tell you at least that you need to login to vote instead of telling you that you have already voted.
Although now I don't know whether I need to vote any more since Gustav has already provided us with a solution to the problem. And one that looks even better than the one I had thought about at that.
Josep M.
Thanks for all the good ideas in this thread. The quiz module in Moodle 1.6 now has a reordering tool that makes it very quick to reorder a large number of questions without constant clicking and reloading of the page. It is based on the old idea of BASIC line numbers (Don't worry if you are not old enough to know what I am talking about).
Here is the help file:
This tool certainly is not as flashy as some of the ideas presented in this thread but I think that after using it a while you will find it most practical, especially if you have large numbers of questions to reorder.
Please test this if you can. I'll post about it in the quiz module forum as well so that you can post your comments there.
Here is the help file:
The question reordering tool
The reordering tool displays line number fields at the front of the question list. These line numbers increase in steps of 10 to leave room for you to insert questions in between. You can then reorder the questions by changing the line numbers and clicking "Save changes". The questions will be reordered according to the line numbers you specified.
Line numbers do not have to be integers, you can also use numbers with a decimal point if you find that convenient
Page breaks are given line numbers as well, to allow you to move them around in the same manner. If you have unticked the "Show page breaks" box then you will not see the page breaks and the corresponding line numbers are not displayed, explaining the gaps in the line number sequence that you may observe.
If for example in the example in the screenshot I want to have the three short answer questions to be at the top then I could for example put an 11 in front of short answer question 2 and a 12 in front of short answer question 3 and click "Save changes".This tool certainly is not as flashy as some of the ideas presented in this thread but I think that after using it a while you will find it most practical, especially if you have large numbers of questions to reorder.
Please test this if you can. I'll post about it in the quiz module forum as well so that you can post your comments there.
Hi all -
Today I needed to insert a new topic in a topic-oriented course. I had a few "spare" topics (hidden) at the bottom of the course; so the requirement was to move one of these up to where I wanted it (and then configure it, unhide it, etc.). I could do this by repeatedly clicking the relevant up-arrow icon; but it's rather slow/cumbersome for a big move. (The firefox F5 trick mentioned earlier didn't work for me; but anyway, that would still have required quite a lot of iterations.)
Hopefully this will be improved in a future release, with something nice like the quiz re-ordering tool ... but in the meantime, I used this workaround. Instead of clicking on the up-arrow icon, copy the link (e.g., in firefox, right-click and "copy link location"). Paste this into the URL bar. It might look something like this:
http://mymoodle.com/course/view.php?id=22646§ion=40&move=-1&sesskey=hZTVxQuQr4#5
Now manually edit the move=-1 to be whatever relative shift you
want (e.g., to move 10 up, use move=-10 etc.). Then hit enter
and that one transaction with moodle should jump the topic all
the way to where you want. Obviously, just omit the minus sign
if you want to move down rather than up...
As always, no guarantees, and your mileage may vary, but it may be worth a go.
(As an aside, I really don't know why the sesskey field is
stuck on the URL; this normally only happens when one does not
have cookies enabled, but I do, and it doesn't turn up in other
links. [shrug])
Best - Barry.
Still seems scary to me, as GETs are not supposed to have side-effects:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec9.html#sec9.1.1
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Axioms.html#state
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/whenToUseGet.html#checklist
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec9.html#sec9.1.1
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Axioms.html#state
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/whenToUseGet.html#checklist
Generally that's the case, true, and Moodle does do that in general, but the rationale in this situation was:
And there is the sesskey.
- It reloads the same page (for speed) so you don't want to constantly keep getting those "do you want to resend the post data" dialogs when navigating away and back to the course page.
- The little buttons would have to be FORMs which would have added a lot of HTML to the page overall.
And there is the sesskey.
I'll let you off this time
I raised the issue because an almost identical hack, also protected by a session key, bit me in the bum some years ago. If I remember correctly, a misconfigured and over eager proxy server outside the user's control was causing items to jump up and down in the CMS engine I'd written for them.
I raised the issue because an almost identical hack, also protected by a session key, bit me in the bum some years ago. If I remember correctly, a misconfigured and over eager proxy server outside the user's control was causing items to jump up and down in the CMS engine I'd written for them.