I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by J P -
Number of replies: 19

basically I need to create:

-contact page

-about us

-and some other relevent links.

So I want to create some "static" pages that are still incorporated into the moodle theme, and keep cookies alive, etc.

I'm using moodle 1.9

any idea where i could find the code to set up a blank template page basically, that i can fill in HTML on top of?

thanks!

Average of ratings: -
In reply to J P

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Valery Fremaux -
I tried the CMS module that allows having a small hierarchical static content section. Needs patching some stuff in Moodle code (light changes) and needs some style work to have a nice page output, but seems being working. 
Average of ratings: -
In reply to J P

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Michael Penney -

We did this with the flexpage home page formatsmile.

http://ciscobeta.mrooms.net/index.php?page=1610

Be talking about it at the SF MoodleMoot in Junesmile.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Michael Penney

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Charlie Owen -
Noooo! So long to wait! wink

(it looks fabby).
Average of ratings: -
In reply to J P

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Cristiano Leoni -
Hello,
we have the same need.

One trivial solution we have found so far is to add a "web page" activity to a course and then place the static text in it... finally building a hierarchical menu with our custom menu block.

Page are themed and the menu looks fine.

The only problem now is that these static pages are visible and accessible as resources that I see in their container course. If I could hide the course (but leave resources open for all) or if I could hide the resources themselves (but leave them accessible and open to all by their url) this solution would suffice.

Any hints?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Cristiano Leoni

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Hi there. A couple of workarounds: you can hide the topic section the webpages are in by closing the eye but leave the actual webpages visible. I'm led to believe this will make them available but not visible in their container course. The other option is to put them in an extra topic section at the bottom of the course, say topic 10 and then in course admin set your topic numbers to 9. Then they are not visible in the course but they are still available and can be used.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by sam marshall -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Those are good workarounds.

Just to mention, it's not much help to anyone else right now as we aren't in a position to put the code in easy patchable form, but OU moodle includes a 'stealth mode' option for activities. When you enable stealth mode, the activity is only visible [and shows with a little 'stealth: not visible to students' note] with editing on (or else for users with viewhiddenactivities capability, I forget which) but is accessible to everyone.

If there was agreement in including this feature in core Moodle (2.0 or 2.1 for instance) then we would probably be willing to implement it so as to reduce the difference in our version. So if other people can convince Moodle HQ it's a really good idea, it might happen... smile

The advantage of this over the workarounds is that you don't need to make your course longer (meanwhile hoping that no students are looking at it right now) if you ever need to actually see the 'hidden' activities.

--sam


Average of ratings: -
In reply to sam marshall

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Michael Penney -
I'd be a bit worried about the course page getting even busier with editing on.

What we did with flexpage, the course is designed as series of pages, each page can have any blocks/modules in the course on it & there is a separate interface for managing the pages. Activities are created on a separate page - that is not visible to non-editing roles (actually there is a set of capabilities to manage access to this) Of course, some folks have problems with that, alsosmile.

Might not be the best solution for all, however it does seem to me the root cause of wanting stealth, etc. activities is the desire for more flexibility in the course formats? Mark (the lead developer on Flexpage) has a proposal in for 2.0 that would give course format authors more flexibility: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=95882
& ideally make things like stealth activities, CMS formats, etc. easier to build and maintain.


Attachment managepages.png
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Michael Penney

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by sam marshall -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Agreed, the 'stealth mode' stuff can look a little busy - especially when some... er, let me find a better word for public consumption... some course teams want to create a complex nested structure of resources. (Sometimes there is actually a good reason for this, to be fair.) Then you end up with like 3 screens of stealthed resources appearing at the top when you turn editing on. Ugh. But, not really unmanageable ugh, and it does only appear to course team while editing the site, i.e. in normal use it's out of the way.

We probably wouldn't want multiple course pages here, and certainly not for students (when that's needed our approach is to support text content with lots of pages, tree navigation etc that is entered via a single activity representing one 'document' on the front page) as we are trying to keep a single actual 'course' page so that you can easily see what your activities are for the current week and whatever. (Except when certain courses refuse to organise things by week and instead use [our version of] topics format. Why! These courses already have an actual schedule! They're only making students do extra work to figure out what task is next and find the page! Argh! *eats desk*)

But it definitely looks like that could be useful extension for many sites.

--sam

Average of ratings: -
In reply to sam marshall

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Robert Brenstein -
See MDL-4782

Core team thought to put it into Moodle 2.0 but then has some doubts. May be the work already done by OU can be incorporated to accelerate the implementation.
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to J P

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Cristiano Leoni -
I'm back on the topic because I have tried out the tips others have kindly provided.

I have seen that I can make "webpage" activities and add them to a course and hide them to the users' eye rather simply.

Now the real problem seems that these pages are included in a course - and here comes the real point.

The pages I would make are the standard, typical pages you have in a web site: disclaimer, copyright, about us, privacy policy, how to contact the helpdesk, etc.

They need to be visible by everyone also from the homepage, without any authentication and rendering them as course activities doesn't work for me because this requires authentication.

I have found an interesting article about anonymous read-only browse access to a course here http://www1.umn.edu/moodle/instructor/guides/read_only.html by University of Minnesota, but it opens security hazards in all courses.

The only working option seems to explore the FlexPage solution (doing it right now) but it sounds strange to me that Moodle doesn't allow a way to add static content for anonymous browsing for placing the ordinary stuff into.

I'll post again if I find some working solution!
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Cristiano Leoni

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by sam marshall -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
If you add the pages to the 'site' course (front page) instead of to a specific course, they should be visible to everyone.

--sam
Average of ratings: -
In reply to sam marshall

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Cristiano Leoni -
It worked, thanks.

It still seems there's a limitation.
Consider this sample moodle install:

http://celab.ei.unibo.it/

The expandable menu (top left) has got 3 links.

The first two (Faculties and Policies) point to point to public, html-page resources the way Sam suggested: it works fine also for non-logged in users. the only drawback is that it seems I cannot hide these pages from the central area (if you click home, the two links get always displayed at the top-center- which I would like to avoid).

If I make another static page ("Support" - third link in the menu) and try hiding its link from the central area by using the eyeball icon, it disappears BUT when you access it via the 3rd link in the menu, Moodle asks you for password.

In conclusion, it seems then that:
  • you can create a public static page but in this case there's no way to prevent it from appearing in the central area of the home page
  • you can create hidden pages, but this means that they will be accessible only to authenticated users--> visibility relates to access control, it is not only an aestetical feature
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Cristiano Leoni

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by sam marshall -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
(I think this was covered in some other replies, or was that a separate thread? eh whatever...)

Yes, hiding resources also makes them not accessible for students.

There is a nasty hack workaround: don't actually hide the resources. Instead, go into course settings and change the number of weeks/topics to something big (say 50). Then move the resources you want to hide into week 50. Now go back into course settings and change the number back to what it really should be (eg 10).

The resources will disappear because their week is not shown, but they aren't 'hidden' with the eye thing, so are still accessible.

Note this is a horrible hack, but I don't think there's a non-hack way to do it in standard Moodle with the standard course formats (there is in the Open University version of moodle, and in some plugin course formats).

--sam
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Cristiano Leoni

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Cristiano Leoni -
Thanks Sam,
I think I have found a better recipe that works *perfectly* now.

My recipe for including static pages with hierarchical menu in Moodle (visible for all users)
here we go:

1. Go to the top-level (site course) and Turn editing on.
2. Get a block on the left or right column (I used the Main Menu block) to be used as a container for static pages - Add a "web page" resource there. Each new static web page should have the side columns visible (advanced options). repeat this step as desired. Note: annotate the pages' IDs
3. Make the container block invisible by clicking the eyeball icon.
4. (optional) Add a block for the collapsable menu - I used my collapsable menu block - and create the outline structure, finally attach links you have noted down in step 2.

The recipe is illustrated by the attached image, and at present you can see the result in this demo installation, here:
http://celab.ei.unibo.it/

You can click on menu items and see pages, and you are still an anonymous user. wink

Thanks to all for help and tips!
Attachment criss_static_content_recipe.gif
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Cristiano Leoni

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by pradeep n -
Thanks, for the info..i did it
Average of ratings: -
In reply to pradeep n

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by S A -
Hi,
is it possible to set roles for these static pages added in 'Main menu'?
(i.e., resource 1 is for students only and 2 for teachers....)
Thanks in advance.
SA


Average of ratings: -
In reply to S A

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Balram Pandey -

I have an question is that, If i go to www.moodle.org site and I click on community tab moodle.org it display in URL something like this "http://moodle.org/community/" , "http://moodle.org/forums/". I mean to say my domain name and that tab name like community,forum etc, and it displays separate page and in that page I want to give some more stuff. Is this possible to do that in for my website? exactly same like moodle.org . You can check http://www.freetestbusters.com/, I want to make something like this which moodle.org has this feature. community|http://moodle.org/community -Forums|http://moodle.org/forums for my website Contactus|http://freetestbusters.com/contact (in url http://freetestbusters.com/community/) -Aboutus|http://freetestbusters.com/Aboutus (here it display separate page on that page I want to give my stuff.) Thanks. Balram

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Cristiano Leoni

Re: I need to create a series of static pages in moodle

by Pascal Dasilva -

Thank you for this Cristiano, that works fine!

Average of ratings: -