Querying the removal of 'Back to top'

Querying the removal of 'Back to top'

von Bob Gilmore -
Anzahl Antworten: 6

I noticed the back to top button was missing from the most recent dev builds, but I hadn't parsed exactly what that meant. As I've started to use 4.0 more getting a feel for what I will need to do switching across, its become apparent that this was a problem for us.

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-72454 https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_4.0_developer_update#Removal_of_back_to_top_link

The developer update says it was replaced by the course index, but I don't believe that to be true.

Example one: A long course:

This is a long course and I use tile/grid formats to make it work in 3.x. Each section is a single screen-full and that works great for grid/tile. However, as you can see with 4.0 un-modded, at the bottom of this course, I'm both a long way down both the main viewport and the course index and have no quick way to get back to the settings. I know I can just press the home key on my keyboard, but if Im scrolling using the mouse, I'd like a mouse based means of return.

Example two: Course settings

Back to top wasn't only useful for course pages, but also for other resources on the course pages itself. Here, the same course settings page and there is no quick way to return to the top. The Index feels almost entirely pointless on this screen, with the only use I can see is jumping back to one of the course sections.

Example three: A long course resource

Here I have a long page resource (ignore the generico filter stuff, I haven't installed generico, or any other plugin, on my 4.0dev to keep things simple). Once again, this long resource would benefit from a back to top. At least here, the course index is useful.

Conclusion

The back top top removal only really makes sense on the course index page and not always even there. There are too many other places it remains useful (another example is the site settings page).

I do wonder, however, if this is actually a symptom of a a different problem: As we scroll down, we lose access to the relevant navigation. What if instead, the relevant navigation was stickied to the screen as we scrolled down:


Mittelwert: Useful (3)
Als Antwort auf Bob Gilmore

Re: Querying the removal of 'Back to top'

von Przemek Kaszubski -
"I do wonder, however, if this is actually a symptom of a a different problem: As we scroll down, we lose access to the relevant navigation. What if instead, the relevant navigation was stickied to the screen as we scrolled down:"

This is the key statement - for me.
Cf. this tracker issue I have recently added : https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-73940 (" Participants and Grades pages too difficult to reach in (longer) Moodle 4 courses ").
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Als Antwort auf Bob Gilmore

Re: Querying the removal of 'Back to top'

von Bob Gilmore -

I should add that a basic implementation is easy to achieve in CSS. For example using 

.secondary-navigation { position: sticky; top: 0; background: white; z-index: 999; }
Results in the following:


I'm not sure I could achieve much else (e.g. drop shadow effect, size / position change, etc)  without using javascript, something I might play with, but certainly food for thought. Haven't done a full browser compatibility test. I know this doesnt work in IE, but support for that has been dropped in Moodle 4.0 in any case.
Mittelwert: Useful (7)
Als Antwort auf Bob Gilmore

Re: Querying the removal of 'Back to top'

von Przemek Kaszubski -
Fabulous stuff - I'll be sure to give it a shot !
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Als Antwort auf Bob Gilmore

Re: Querying the removal of 'Back to top'

von Chris Kenniburg -
Be sure to add an @media tag to the css so that it only sticks on capable screen sizes. You do not want that sticky on a cell phone.
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Als Antwort auf Chris Kenniburg

Re: Querying the removal of 'Back to top'

von Bob Gilmore -
Funnily enough, its on a mobile its really useful. I tweaked it to do a peek when scrolling up, but then I see thats exactly what the tracker Przemek linked above is doing, so Im waiting to see what the official solution is before doing more.
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