Moodle plugins directory: Filtered course list | Moodle.org
Filtered course list
Charles Fulton, 
Andrew ZitoThe Filtered Course List block displays a configurable list of courses. It is intended as a replacement for the My Courses block, although both may be used. It is maintained by the Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP).
An administrator can apply various filters by which to organize a user's course listing in the block. Courses can be sorted by category, shortname matches or completion status. If all of the courses in a given semester have a shortname ending in a semester code, for instance, then the administrator can designate those courses to appear under "Current courses," "Future courses" or any other heading. Regex matching is supported.
Administrators can designate multiple collapsible headings and choose which of those headings, if any, should be expanded by default.
Other options include the ability to hide the block from guests or anonymous visitors, to choose whether an admin sees all courses or her own, and to hide or reveal a link to a more comprehensive course search.
Screenshots
Contributors
I second Helder's suggestion for the ability to filter by course completion. It is a feature much in demand by trainers who have users complete courses but keep them enrolled in them afterwards so they have future access to the content. It is very common.
I see this as a filter just like the "Current" Future" and "Other" branch in the menu in the screenshot: there would be one called "Completed courses" and any courses that for this user that are still 1) available 2) enrolled in, and 3) have course completion marked, then they would automatically go there instead of in "Current".
Customizations by the user such as drag-n-drop ordering or sorting (like in the Dashboard now) would be nice, but not vital.
- Randy
This solves so much problems!
The plugin is amazing! But I have one question, on my moodle I have subcategories, so my structure is like:
Category1
-Subcategory1
--Course1
on the block configuration I'm using as configuration filter the sentence "category | collapsed | 0 | 0". On the block is just showing:
Subcategory1
-Course1
It's very important to me to show the category above the -Subcategory1. Is it possible to do that?
Thank you.
I'm glad you like the plugin, and I'm therefore all the sorrier that you will probably be disappointed by this answer. But maybe not? Here's how it works:
The plugin will descend through a hierarchy of categories, if you wish, and display each category in which the current user has courses, but it does not display the categories as a hierarchical structure. The reason you are not seeing Category1 is very likely that the user you are testing with is not enrolled in any courses immediately in that category. If you enroll that user in a course in Category1 then it should show up, but Category1 and Subcategory1 would look more like siblings than like a parent and child.
So...
Category1
-Course1
-Subcategory1
--Course2
Would display in the block as:
Category1
-Course1
Subcategory1
-Course2
For good or ill the reasons for this are deeply rooted in the way the plugin works.
On the other hand, I can perhaps offer you this workaround: You could make a block for each top-level category that you need and then configure the block titles as the name of the category. Let's say we have this larger structure (with category id's because we'll need them):
Category1 (1)
-Subcategory1 (2)
--Course1
Category2 (3)
-Subcategory2 (4)
--Course2
Then you could configure a block called "Category 1" like this:
category | collapsed | 1 | 0
And a block called "Category2" like this:
category | collapsed | 3 | 0
Clearly it's less good to require multiple blocks, and hard to maintain if your categories are frequently changing, but maybe it will help.
I am new to moodle,
I think i am not getting it how to use it.
I have tried to write many different ways but its not filtering my category anyhow.
I just want to use this plugin as:
Current courses, UpcomingCourses and Ended courses.
Now how can i show it on frontpage?
Please guide me as soon as possible because i am stuck at this point from last 2days
The two basic principles of organization that it can work on are category structure and shortname pattern. Are you going to be putting your courses into categories that correspond to "Current," "Upcoming," and "Completed"? If so, then you can use a category-based strategy. Otherwise, are your course shortnames going to follow a predictable pattern by which you could distinguish the current, upcoming and completed courses? At my institution, for instance, all of the current courses have a shortname that end in "2017F" indicating "Fall 2017." If that is the case then you may prefer to use the shortname matching strategy.
If you want a list of current, upcoming and completed courses based on the start and end dates in the course, then you probably want to use the native Course Overview instead of the Filtered Course List. The Filtered Course List does not respond to course start and end dates.
Assuming you want to use the Filtered Course List: Once you have installed the block, you should be able to add an instance of the block anywhere you can add blocks in your Moodle theme. If you are using the Boost theme on Moodle 3.3, for instance, you should see a "Customise this page" button in the upper right on the Dashboard page. When you click that you will see an "Add a block" button at the bottom of the navigation drawer on the left. (I'm assuming left-to-right direction here, so just flip what I'm saying if you need this for a right-to-left layout.) "Filtered course list" should be showing up in that list. Click on it and the block should appear in the column of blocks on the right.
There are some things to watch out for. If you are logged in but you are not enrolled in any courses, then the block appear. The block shows only the courses a user is enrolled in. If you are looking for a way to let users browse all courses, then you will need a different solution. If you are testing the block as an administrator, make sure that you have enrolled yourself in some courses and that you adjust the block setting for what an admin sees. You need to navigate to Site administration > Plugins > Blocks > Filtered course list. There you can set "Manager view" to "Manager sees own courses."
Given the situation I mentioned above where the 'current' courses all have shortnames that end in '2017F' I would then put a line like this in the box at the top of the settings page:
shortname | expanded | Current courses | 2017F
If my upcoming courses all have shortnames in 2018S then I can add a line like:
shortname | collapsed | Upcoming courses | 2018S
Or if you have categories like "Fall 2017" and "Spring 2018" then you can use a configuration line like this:
category | collapsed | 0 (top level) | 0 (all descendants)
In that case, though, the block will use the category names, so "Fall 2017" rather than "Current courses". You can of course name a category "Current courses" but then you'll have to be renaming categories as they go in and out of currency.
I hope this helps. If you have other questions, please let me know and offer a few more details about what you are doing and just where you are getting stuck.
Cheers,
Kevin