Hi,
I've started playing around with Moodle, and my first impressions are very
favorable. I was previously using WebCT, which I found to be rather clunky
and counterintuitive. In particular one such clunkiness issue with WebCT
is that my WebCT home page is cluttered with dozens of courses, since I
helped many of my fellow faculty set up their WebCT courses.
I was wondering about how to deal with this in Moodle. Since we are a
large department in a large university, assuming we were to start using
Moodle for our course pages, our Moodle home page would soon be cluttered
with dozens, eventually hundreds, of courses. I don't want to deal with
this by deleting courses as soon as they are finished. We might want to
reuse materials from previous courses. And disk space is cheap and getting
cheaper.
One obvious work-around is to have many Moodle installations on our server,
e.g. /moodle2003/, /moodle2004/, etc. (This would cost extra $$$$ for WebCT.)
Is there any better solution? I notice that there is a way of grouping
Moodle course by category. Is there any way of displaying courses by
category?
Zig Fiedorowicz
When you create categories the display on the front page changes to an abbreviated form. eg:
http://mole.msuiit.edu.ph/moodle/
Clicking on a category name shows that category in more detail.
Is that what you need?
http://mole.msuiit.edu.ph/moodle/
Clicking on a category name shows that category in more detail.
Is that what you need?
Thanks, I overlooked this. This addresses my immediate concerns.
It would be even nicer if Moodle implemented hierarchical course categories:
e.g. Past Courses --> Autumn 1999.
And if there were a way of controlling how deep in the hiearchy to display.
Zig Fiedorowicz
It would be even nicer if Moodle implemented hierarchical course categories:
e.g. Past Courses --> Autumn 1999.
And if there were a way of controlling how deep in the hiearchy to display.
Zig Fiedorowicz
Martin,
We are looking at implementing Moodle, but your categories option may or may not work for us.
What we need are categories similar to what exists in Moodle, but various sub-elements under each category be automatically assigned to the student.
Is this possible?
I also need subcategories... desperately!! Is there a way we can help doing that development??
TIA,
Pablo
I can't quite visualize this.
Can some or all of you create a mock-up of how your ideal course-listing would look? Just use a HTML editor or even a graphics program and attach the file here.
That would help me estimate how much work this would be to do.
Can some or all of you create a mock-up of how your ideal course-listing would look? Just use a HTML editor or even a graphics program and attach the file here.
That would help me estimate how much work this would be to do.
Your wish is my command! I am attaching a sample of what I am requesting (don´t know if it´s the same than the others). After the first level, you find careers and even further you would find subjects. After that, every subject could have more than one course (supposing we have more than, let´s say, 50 learners).
Hope it helps clarifying,
Pablo
Thanks! The image has one level of sub-categories, but from your text and the others further up I'm guessing arbitrary depth is needed.
Which complicates the display issue .. how should we display these levels in the little side box, but also how should they look on the full display?
Which complicates the display issue .. how should we display these levels in the little side box, but also how should they look on the full display?
I would put just the first two levels in the side box, to avoid confusion. Anyway, that wouldn't add much width, since I'm suggesting just one character displacement to the right for each new level.
In the full display some javascript could help. Just a thought: did you ever saw those categorizing frames like when downloading drivers? Could be one quick way, take a look here: http://www.americas.creative.com/support/
Another possibility is showing the main categories and -after getting a click on the chosen one- reloading the page to expand each subtree.
I'm willing to help coding, count on me for some experimentation.
Pablo
Hello Moodlers,
I don't know if this is what you're looking for but you might be able to use this. If someone figures out how to get this menu into a sideblock great. Check out a sample at:
http://eyrespace.com/menu/moodle.html
If you want to see the supporting pages just go here and view page source, copy into a .js file
then go here and do the same thing. When you have all 3 pages copied upload them into a directory and let the games begin... And good luck!
John
I don't know if this is what you're looking for but you might be able to use this. If someone figures out how to get this menu into a sideblock great. Check out a sample at:
http://eyrespace.com/menu/moodle.html
If you want to see the supporting pages just go here and view page source, copy into a .js file
then go here and do the same thing. When you have all 3 pages copied upload them into a directory and let the games begin... And good luck!
John
My experiences...
(but please do your own testing with different browsers)
I implemented Ger Versluis menu system for a web site but unfortunately it didn't take long before people started to complain that it didn't work with their browsers.
I've had fewer complaints with this menu system,
http://www.milonic.co.uk/menu/reqlic.php
Cheers
(but please do your own testing with different browsers)
I implemented Ger Versluis menu system for a web site but unfortunately it didn't take long before people started to complain that it didn't work with their browsers.
I've had fewer complaints with this menu system,
http://www.milonic.co.uk/menu/reqlic.php
Cheers
Gunther, Captain,
Since the javascript menus depend on images, how will this impact accessabilty issues. I would discourage a direction that creates problems for text readers. My 2cents.
Bob
Thanks for the tip Gunther. I checked out that site and I like that menu. If it's more compatible that's a bonus. I'm gonna try it when I get some time. Haven't looked at the script so how is it to setup compared to Gers' HV Menu?
John
John
You can choose which example menu you want to download. My tip is that you only download the one you really intend to implement and use.
Setting it up is quite similiar to how you set up Ger Versluis menus (if I remember correctly).
Robert: I do indeed agree
Avoid pictures in menus. It slows down loading of the page considerably. The Milonic menu is very flexible when it comes to stripping out most of the so called features (and there are tons of them).
BTW: One nice feature which I actually used was that you can have a different color for the most recently chosen menu item.
Setting it up is quite similiar to how you set up Ger Versluis menus (if I remember correctly).
Robert: I do indeed agree
Avoid pictures in menus. It slows down loading of the page considerably. The Milonic menu is very flexible when it comes to stripping out most of the so called features (and there are tons of them).
BTW: One nice feature which I actually used was that you can have a different color for the most recently chosen menu item.
A couple of obvious disadvantages to this style of menu, for me at least, are no opportunity to see the link address in the status bar and, worse yet, no ability to right click and open in a new tab. These along with the added time to load the page makes this a rare choice for me anyway. When available real estate is limited, like on some Moodle pages, I think they could be an option for some users. Curious about this:
>My tip is that you only download the one you really intend to implement and use.
John
>My tip is that you only download the one you really intend to implement and use.
John
Agree!
I would much rather have a menu generated by php and where the values are stored in the database.
This has the drawback of at least one extra database call and thereby adding extra load on a the server. Not sure though whether this is a big problem or not.
I have no idea how many calls Moodle make to the database on average for a page but a fair guess is at least 6 to 10.
At http://www.milonic.co.uk/menu/reqlic.php there is a "Samples menu". The example menu you choose is connected to the "Downloads" menu.
If I remember correctly you can also download all the example menus in one compressed file.
Cheers
I would much rather have a menu generated by php and where the values are stored in the database.
This has the drawback of at least one extra database call and thereby adding extra load on a the server. Not sure though whether this is a big problem or not.
I have no idea how many calls Moodle make to the database on average for a page but a fair guess is at least 6 to 10.
At http://www.milonic.co.uk/menu/reqlic.php there is a "Samples menu". The example menu you choose is connected to the "Downloads" menu.
If I remember correctly you can also download all the example menus in one compressed file.
Cheers
First of all, I want to complain about the way Moodle manages authentication. I had written a long posting and after pushing "Save" the system requested my authentication again. That wouldn't be a problem, but after that the deadly page "Nothing to do" appeared. When I went back to the editor, obviously, the whole message had disappeared. Now, to the thread's topic.
I'd like to say that none of both options let you open the link in a new window. Searching the web I found another option, a folder viewer, which I think would solve our problem. You can see a sample here: http://www.treeview.net/treeviewfiles/demoFrameless.html and the features of the whole solution here: http://www.treeview.net
Regarding the concern about where to get the categories from, I don't think it is a problem getting them form the same place where they are gotten today, the course_categories table. I would add a field to this table meaning "parent", where a value of 0 would mean that it is a root category and another number would point to the parent "folder".
I think that if this is really cross-browser, it could solve the matter.
Pablo
I've seen this, http://www.treeview.net/treeviewfiles/demoFrameless.html, before but I cannot remember why I didn't implement it somewhere.
Generally I have found javascript to be truly cross browser only when they are quite simple but it looks as if it is worth trying.
----
I also was subject to the "time out" and lost everything I wrote. I set the session time in "my" Moodle to two hours which hopefully is enough time to write even a relatively extended post.
Generally I have found javascript to be truly cross browser only when they are quite simple but it looks as if it is worth trying.
----
I also was subject to the "time out" and lost everything I wrote. I set the session time in "my" Moodle to two hours which hopefully is enough time to write even a relatively extended post.
The session time on moodle.org is supposed to be set to three hours, but that isn't the case - it's more like 20 minutes. Still tracking that one down.
I think the session time out is due to the timeout value only being set for requests that initialize Moodle.
Say for example, your site has a /moodle directory and a /foo directory.
User A requests /moodle/, and gets a session timeout of 3 hours.
User B requests /foo/bar.html a few hundred times, and one of those requests triggers PHP's session cleanup.
User B just ended User A's session.
Proposed solution: put the session timeout in httpd.conf, or in a .htaccess file in the docroot of the server, instead of in a moodle config value.
Say for example, your site has a /moodle directory and a /foo directory.
User A requests /moodle/, and gets a session timeout of 3 hours.
User B requests /foo/bar.html a few hundred times, and one of those requests triggers PHP's session cleanup.
User B just ended User A's session.
Proposed solution: put the session timeout in httpd.conf, or in a .htaccess file in the docroot of the server, instead of in a moodle config value.
One thing I should have made more clear: the reason B ends the session for A, is that B is getting the PHP default session time of 20 minutes, which triggers the session cleanup.
I haven't tested to verify the situation as presented, but I'm 99% sure that it is correct.
I haven't tested to verify the situation as presented, but I'm 99% sure that it is correct.
It seems that your findings explains why it works for me as I have but a few users yet.
That sounds plausible. It would mean there is a problem on shared hosting environments, since the effective session time would be the shortest time set for any of the sites on that machine. 
I don't think it will make a difference being set in .htaccess (because that's how I was doing it for moodle.org).
I'll try using a custom session.save_path.
I don't think it will make a difference being set in .htaccess (because that's how I was doing it for moodle.org).
I'll try using a custom session.save_path.
Setting a custom session.save_path seems to be working nicely! I just left a session alone for an hour and it didn't time out.
Hopefully Pablo's experience is a thing of the past.
Hopefully Pablo's experience is a thing of the past.
Oops! Looks like i've lost the thread. What should we do in our running installations to avoid this problem?
Pablo
I'm not quite sure but I think the session time works with my installation of Moodle.
I'll check it out more carefully and report.
I'll check it out more carefully and report.
Martin, Pablo, Gunther, John
Is it possible to have the menu on the front page respond to the user by displaying the users recently visited courses? This would alleviate the need for long menus and unnecessary general information. The down-side of such a customization would be that the user would need to be logged in and have a session in progress (session ID, cookie?) before they could see the page.
I imagine the first page could have just a welcome/we are... and the log-in and the curious visitor could be sent to a separate page that listed all the courses. Moreover, doing it this way, could perhaps lead to developing tools to allow the administrator to customize the page in several friendly ways -- for just that user. Make 'em feel right at home across the virtual miles.
BTW--I notice, that after I log in, there are several items that remember my last login and my name etc. BUT I haven't looked at the code to even have a clue whether this would be impossible, possible but dumb, or just plain dumb! 
Bob
Since the (DHTML) menu system isn't actively connected to Moodle at least I have a hard time to figure out how this would be possible.
Maybe it would be better if Moodle took you to a page where "My courses" are listed after the login (my previous favorite VLE, LearnLoop, had this feature)?
From my point of view this is best answered by Martin.
Maybe it would be better if Moodle took you to a page where "My courses" are listed after the login (my previous favorite VLE, LearnLoop, had this feature)?
From my point of view this is best answered by Martin.
The page for visitors is more or less the course page (eg http://www.sextaisla.com/moodle/course) ... notice once you log in there is special category called "My courses".
There are some plans for expanding this concept into a "My Moodle" page. http://moodle.org/bugs/bug.php?op=show&bugid=87
There are some plans for expanding this concept into a "My Moodle" page. http://moodle.org/bugs/bug.php?op=show&bugid=87
Agree with the My Moodle idea. Answers all the issues discussed above and creates several new possibilities.