Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Rick Jerz -
Number of replies: 10
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Hi Gareth, 

I hope that you are doing well. Thanks for your continued support for a great “Collapsed Topics” plugin. I continue to use it and think it is one of the best ways to format courses.

I have discovered a “feature” of Collapsed Topics after I upgraded my Moodle 3.10 to 3.11. In 3.11, the developers added a big “Mark as Done” button to Activity Completion under every activity, more space, and a line. Apparently, someone decided that a big “Mark as Done” button is better than the smaller right-side activity-completion checkboxes. I am not sure about the extra space and line, maybe for accessibility purposes. (See my graphic – 3.11 Activities.) 

I don’t like this “Mark as Done” button and preferred the smaller checkboxes. The “Mark as Done” button expands each topic and contributes to “the scroll of death.” I have seen others on Moodle.org who shared my dislike. Mary Cooch said she didn’t know how to retain the checkboxes in Moodle 3.11.

To fix the spacing and line, I added some CSS (see below.)

When I discovered that others on Moodle.org couldn’t get rid of the “Mark as Done” button and revert to the smaller checkboxes, I decided to explore and see why my Moodle still had checkboxes. (See graphic.)

I discovered that the Collapsed Topics plugin provided the small checkboxes.  Wow, another great feature of Collapsed Topics!  I have Moodle 3.11 (Build: 20210517), and Collapsed Topics is 3.10.1.1 (2020110905), which is currently the latest version of Collapsed Topics.

I guess you might be working on a newer version of Collapsed Topics for 3.11, so I am writing you with some suggestions. I am not sure if you are aware of this problem, and I hope you don’t switch to the “Mark as Done” button approach.  I vote that you don’t change to the “Mark as Done” approach.[i]

I think Moodle should support both the “Mark as Done” button and the smaller checkboxes and provide an administrative switch. But it might take a while for the Moodle developers to realize this, and they may never realize this need. Perhaps Collapsed Topics should have a switch that allows selecting either the “Mark as Done” button or the checkbox approach?

Incidentally, when one turns on “edit course,” the “Mark as Done” buttons show, but this is not a problem for me.

So, what are your thoughts?  Should I create a feature request in Tracker for Moodle to support both choices? Do you think you can either ignore the “Mark as Done” button or add a switch in future versions of Collapsed Topics?

Maybe other folks here on Moodle.org will add their thoughts to this topic.


Here is my CSS Code that fixed the spacing and extra line. 

/* Moodle 3.11 changes 

Each activity had more space and a line under it. Perhaps something involving new accessibility? */

.section li.activity.hasinfo {

    border-bottom: 0px;

    padding-top: 0rem;

Attachment Moodle311-default.jpg
Attachment Moodle311-with Collapsed Topics.jpg
Average of ratings: Useful (5)
In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Justin Fowler -

I'm working on a demo Moodle page today and I was also surprised when I saw the changes in 3.11 to the "mark as done" interface. I agree with your concerns; the checkboxes are preferable. Your post helped me find a temporary solution by installing the latest version of the collapsed topics plugin, so thank you for investigating and explaining all of this!

I would also voice my preference for the checkbox format in this theme, and I would support a feature request to offer both formats. At the very least, the buttons in the new "mark as done" format could politely move themselves to the right-hand side of the page instead of contributing to the "scroll of death." Placing them directly below the activity link and adding lots of buttons to the page feels clunky.

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In reply to Justin Fowler

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Michael Milette -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
The new button in 3.11 below the activity is less than ideal (i.e. messy, ugly). I agree that a good visual improvement would be to put it where the checkbox used to be.

However, from an accessibility point of view, having the checkbox or button so far to the right is a real problem for users of screen magnifiers who can only see a tiny portion of the screen at a time. They never know if there is anything way over at the far right and can easily loose track of which activity they are looking at. I think the button below was possibly an attempt to address this issue.

I have often thought that having the checkboxes to the left of the activity title would have been a good idea. It would look good and would easily be found by users of screen magnifiers as they scroll down the page. Thoughts?

Best regards,

Michael
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Michael Milette

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Justin Fowler -

That's a great suggestion Michael. I have had this concern about the checkbox placement too, especially on wide-screen displays. Having the checkboxes appear to the left of the activity title would be a great idea that would resolve all of these concerns. I fully support that suggestion!

I'm also open to acknowledging the possibility that the "mark as done" button might be better for students using screen readers, but visually the checkboxes are just much easier to look at. It's easy for Moodle pages to become too visually cluttered on the course homepage which I think is bad for the general user experience.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Justin Fowler

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Rick Jerz -
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I have created a Moodle Tracker Improvement request for this feature. Consider voting for it.

  1. MDL-71856 Support pre-311 method of showing activity completion checkboxes within topics.

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
Dear Rick et al,

To answer some questions and my thoughts:

  • I tend to only keep a real eye on the Course and course formats and Themes forums, especially as I'm a mod there, so if you need to catch my attention, they are the best places.
  • Everything in life happens for a reason, so the 'Mark is done' must have been so.  Thus I'm reluctant to change it to a box, and indeed that is more complex than you think because it is activity completion with more than two states with underlying AJAX.
  • Activity completion is just that, 'activity'.  A course format is only responsible for the layout of the sections in a course, not really the actual activities and resources.  They are handled by the core course renderer, which is best overridden in the theme.  Ok, course formats can override that renderer, and indeed CT does for a few methods, but it can get messy, especially if the theme does as well and overrides the same method.  Also, multiple inheritance (I don't think) exists in PHP, and even then, very messy, even in a supported language such as C++, thus you then have to get the Theme to know that the Course format extends the core course renderer and then do a 'special case' so that its course renderer then extends the course format's version which then extends the core one, and hope there is no breakage!
  • Accessibility wise, are there any experts out there that can come up with a better design?

G
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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Rick Jerz -
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Yes, Gareth, I can appreciate that this gets a little complex.

Yesterday I did more experimenting, and I am seeing the complexity a bit better, and the complexity that it brings to Collapsed Topics. I plan to continue experimenting, and I think I can see my way to a better overall user-interface solution that might satisfy all. This experimenting might take me a few days.

Thanks for your thoughts.
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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Gareth (and others,) I added a few more thoughts to my Tracker feature request, MDL-71856 , having explored the various Activity Completion feature in Moodle 3.11.  Gareth, from what I can tell, Collapsed Topics does not provide the ability to show the Activity Complete "text" in Moodle 3.11.  This might be all that you need to add.

I would like to see the Activity Completion checkboxes reinstated.  You will see in my additional comments in MDL-71856, I show how Collapsed Topics currently has the ability to show both checkboxes and text, so it seems doable for Moodle 3.11 to do this.
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In reply to Michael Milette

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
I too was thinking that this might be a bit of an accessibility issue instead of a new functional issue.

Someone else might beat me to creating a Feature Request in Tracker for this. I need to find time to experiment with the variety of changes to "completion tracking" that became available in Moodle 3.11, before I create a feature request. I like to be as thorough as possible when I create a feature request.

I do like Justin's suggestion to put the "box" to the left. I do recall this being talked about before.

I am confident that Gareth is watching these comments, and that he is thinking about what he might provide in his great Collapsed Topics plugin. But Gareth is a pretty busy guy, and a volunteer. This is a case where I wish that there was a convenient way to "donate" to plugin developers somewhere on their plugin web page.
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Collapsed Topics Plug-in, Problem with Moodle 3.11

by Eddie Neumann -

Hi Rick. I appreciate you advocating for the option of returning the checkboxes, that do improve the user interface and make the experience better. 

My question is how do you get the checkboxes in the Collapsed topics Plug in? I have the 3.11 version and have looked through all of it and can not find it or see how its possible to do?


Eddie 

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