David Scotson

I believe N Hanson filed a bug about this a while ago.

I can't see that bug, but there's also bug 2002.

Found it, bug 3278. But it doesn't seem like there's been any progress.

The way that Google site search is integrated with the Moodle.org is quite nice, as a way of remaining within Moodle environment without having to pop up a new window. Is something similar possible with this block?

Example results for 'google' on Moodle.org sitesearch

In fact, I notice that changing the end of that URL to docs.moodle.org or docs.moodle.org/en narrows the results nicely. Maybe that could be added as a third search option along with 'Web' and 'Moodle.org'

Does anyone know who administers bug tracker?

I really think an accessibility componentent would be useful in the bug tracker, so can I echo Nick's question, so that I can make sure this request gets seen by the right person?

Yahoo's Graded Browser Support article is, in my opinion, the most reasonable modern approach to serving content to various browsers.

abstract

In the first 10 years of professional web development, back in the early 90s, browser support was binary: Do you or dont you support a given browser? When the answer was No, user access to the site was often actively prevented. In the years following IE5s release in 1998, professional web designers and developers have become accustomed to asking at the outset of any new undertaking, Do I have to support Netscape 4.x browsers for this project?

By contrast, in modern web development we must support all browsers. Choosing to exclude a segment of users is inappropriate, and, with a Graded Browser Support strategy, unnecessary.

The short version (though I encourage you to read it all):

• A grade - identified and tested standard browsers (e.g. IE6, 5.5, Firefox 1.0, 1.5, Safari)
• X grade - rarer browsers that should work (various Mozilla Gecko variants, modern phone browsers)
• C grade - incapable (e.g. Lynx) or older browsers (Netscape 4 etc.)

So 'A' browsers are an explicity identified list and the code is made to work with them and tested on them. 'C' browsers are again known and intentionally sent just the HTML which again is ensured to work, but in this case may not look too pretty. C browsers support is tested via Lynx, if it works there it should work anywhere.

X grade browsers either become so popular that they move into the A category, or are so broken that they get moved into the C category. The rest of the time it's the users lookout to see if they work properly or not.

As Julian notes, there's plenty of good free browsers out there, people should be upgrading for security reasons alone, never mind Moodle compatability. But even if you're trying to look out for users in libraries, web cafe's etc. at the end of the day it comes down to usage statistics (which Yahoo's article looks into) and cost benefit ratios.

My research mainly took me to CLEO's own site: http://www.cleo.net.uk/

Bearing in mind I'm in a different sector of UK education it appears to me that 'learning platforms' in this latest government push are generally being driven, chosen and hosted at a regional level. It seems this region has chosen Moodle, so schools in the region will either move to Moodle, or pay their own way. This may not meet the full definition of 'forced' but seems more than a strong hint as to what they should do, and may or may not have done without adequate consultation.

I'm in two minds about this because I generally feel that the centralisation and standardization of software purchasing is a trend encouraged by proprietary software vendors who want to woo the fewest number of decision makers with their PowerPoint presentations, and increasingly out-of-date. (I liked a recent question asked of a tech audience by the Sun CEO: "Who here uses Google?" Everyone. Followed by "Who had that software chosen for them by their organisation's IT department?" No-one.) But on the other hand I'm very pro-Moodle.

Luckily, for me at least, in this case being pro-Moodle and wanting end-users to be involved in decision making seem to be the same thing. It's hard to tell from the story, but it appears that all that is needed is some more outreach by CLEO and anyone else who wants to see Moodle more widely used in the region/sector.