Course contents

Blocks ::: block_course_contents

Maintained by

David Mudrák

Course contents block displays a list of all visible sections (such as topics or weeks) in the course. Clicking at a link scrolls to that section or displays just that particular section, depending on the course layout setting.

Latest release: 3 years

1128 sites

245 downloads

92 fans

Current versions available: 12

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Warning! This plugin is no longer maintained. It may work in recent Moodle versions but there is no support. For details of how you can become the new maintainer, see Plugins adoption programme.

Course contents block is a plugin for Moodle that displays a list of all visible sections (such as topics or weeks) in the course. Clicking at a link scrolls to that section or displays just that particular section, depending on the course layout setting.

If the section name is explicitly defined, it is displayed in the course contents outline. If enabled, the block can eventually extract a suitable section title from the section summary text.

Background

In older Moodle versions, course sections could not be named explicitly. Many teachers used to put headings manually to the course summary text fields. This block did an awesome job that it automagically extracted these headings from the summary fields and generated a nice course contents from them.

This feature is still available but it is less useful in modern Moodle versions where course sections can have explicit section titles defined.

Automatic section title

If the section name is not explicitly defined and the auto title feature is enabled, the block automatically extracts a suitable title for the section from the section summary text.

If the summary starts with a heading (H1, H2, H3, etc), the heading will use such heading text. If the summary starts with a bold text, it will be used as a section title. If the summary consists of several paragraphs, the first one will be used.

Technically speaking, the plain text content of the first non-empty HTML DOM node from the section summary can be used as the summary title.

Tips and features

Section titles can be enumerated.
You can combine the auto title feature with the multi-language filter to generate course contents in the user's language.
The block fits nicely into multipage course layout (introduced in Moodle 2.3).

Useful links

Screenshots

Contributors

David Mudrák (Lead maintainer)

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Dan Marsden: Contributor

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Petr Skoda: Contributor

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Nicolas Dunand: Contributor

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Awards

Automated testing support

Early bird 3.4

Early bird 3.5

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Comments

Ioana Gatzka
Fri, 21 Feb 2014, 12:03 AM
Hi David

love the plugin, need it badly but I just updated my site to a 2.6.1. Do you have a time line for that?

Best regards from sunny Switzerland,
Ioana
David Mudrák
Fri, 21 Feb 2014, 5:44 AM
Hi Ioana. I admit I'm late with updating my add-ons for 2.6. Anyway, I believe that the most recent 2.5.x version of the block should just work fine in Moodle 2.6, too.
Tom Wootton
Wed, 14 May 2014, 2:59 PM
I really love this plug-in. I just updated to moodle version 2.7 and unfortunately the plugin no longer works. Can you please update it?
David Mudrák
Fri, 16 May 2014, 6:54 PM
Hi Tom. I just tested the version v2.6.0 of the block in Moodle 2.7 and it works well for me. What particular troubles did you have?
Can Ülker
Fri, 23 May 2014, 8:57 PM
Hi everyone, while searching for a plugin to let our users navigate easier I found this block. I thought it was going to show me both the sections and activities however unfortunately it only shows course content iin terms of sections under a course. Is there any other simple navigation tool that you can recommend? Our basic aim is to make user navigate easier through activities within a particular course. Any help will ne much appreciated. Cheers!
Ioana Gatzka
Wed, 12 Nov 2014, 10:31 PM
Hey David

do you think there might be a chance that this block could replace the Section link block in the core? For me this one makes more sense for the navigation then just the section numbers.

Cheers,
Ioana
David Mudrák
Thu, 13 Nov 2014, 3:21 AM
Hi Ioana. I don't think it would ever get into core. HQ works hard on developing Moodle as a solid infrastructure/framework for plugins. I am happy you find this block useful. But even I personally prefer having it out of the core.
Just H
Tue, 3 Mar 2015, 9:31 AM
FYI - Just added to a 2.8 Moodle install and from initial tests appears to work as advertised.
David Mudrák
Tue, 3 Mar 2015, 6:26 PM
Thanks! I just released a new version for both 2.7 and 2.8 that also fixes issue #14.
Aarij Siddiqui
Fri, 10 Apr 2015, 12:01 AM
Hi,

I am having a slight problem in the plugin. It does not show the subtopics (quizzes, pages, etc) in the block, it only displays the main sections. Is there a way that I can also display all the sub topics of the section in the block?

Thanks!
David Mudrák
Fri, 10 Apr 2015, 2:41 AM
Hi Aarij. That's a feature, not a bug. The block intentionally displays just the section titles, not their contents. For the full list of section and included activities, you may wish to use the standard Navigation block.
Aarij Siddiqui
Sat, 11 Apr 2015, 3:23 PM
Hi David,

Thanks for the quick reply. Only thing that is preventing me from using the navigation block is the unnecessary options (site pages, badges, etc) it has.

Your plugin is very neat and regularly updated. I would be glad if you can guide me, how to modify it to display sub topics as well.

Thanks!
David Mudrák
Thu, 16 Apr 2015, 8:31 PM
I am sorry but this feature would definitely be out of the intended scope of this block. You may want to check some other plugins here to see if they fit your needs better. Quick googling found for example https://moodle.org/plugins/view/block_simple_nav or https://moodle.org/plugins/view/block_course_menu
Also note, in Moodle 2.9, the navigation block is massively simplified and does not contain many of these links any more.
Aarij Siddiqui
Wed, 29 Apr 2015, 8:32 PM
Thanks David... I found a work around. But the problem with majority of the plugins is that they are not supported in the latest version of moodle! Which is very unfortunate. If you know how to edit plugins to work in the latest moodle version, I would be glad if you can guide me.
David Mudrák
Thu, 30 Apr 2015, 2:52 AM
Well, in many cases, the plugins published here for a version X usually work pretty well in versions X + 1, too. You can try and see.