moodle-block_people
===================
Moodle block which displays all teachers of a course with contact quicklinks, as well as a quicklink to the participants list


Requirements
============
This plugin requires Moodle 2.5+


Changes
=======
2013-07-30 - Transfer Github repository from github.com/abias/... to github.com/moodleuulm/...; Please update your Git paths if necessary
2013-07-30 - Check compatibility for Moodle 2.5, no functionality change
2013-04-23 - Add required capability for placing block on MyMoodle page
2013-03-18 - Fix php strict standards bug, fix small performance issue, Code cleanup according to moodle codechecker
2013-02-18 - Check compatibility for Moodle 2.4
2012-12-17 - New Feature: Block supports role names which have been renamed in course context
2012-11-30 - Bugfix: Block couldn't be added to frontpage, therefore it couldn't be used as sticky block
2012-11-27 - Small code cleanup
2012-10-10 - German language has been integrated into AMOS and was removed from this plugin. Please update your language packs with http://YOURMOODLEURL/admin/tool/langimport/index.php after installing this plugin version
2012-06-25 - Update version.php for Moodle 2.3
2012-06-01 - Initial version


Installation
============
Install the plugin like any other plugin to folder
/blocks/people

See http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Installing_plugins for details on installing Moodle plugins


Placement
=========
block_people is used ideally as sticky block and appears on all of your course pages at the same position

See http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Block_settings#Making_a_block_sticky_throughout_the_whole_site for details about sticky blocks


Usage
=====
The block_people plugin displays a list of the course's teachers grouped by roles. The block shows the teacher's avatar, a quicklink to his/her profile and a quicklink to send him/her a message with the moodle message system. Furthermore, there is a quicklink to the participants list of the course.


Themes
======
block_people should work with all themes from moodle core.


Settings
========
block_people has neither a settings page nor settings in config.php. Nevertheless, there are some Moodle settings it responds to:

1. List of teachers
-------------------
block_people gets the list of teacher roles from $CFG->coursecontact. With this Moodle core setting, you can define which roles are displayed in block_people's list of teachers.

2. Quicklink for teachers
-------------------------
block_people only shows a quicklink to the teacher's profile if the user has the capability moodle/user:viewdetails
See http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Capabilities/moodle/user:viewdetails for details on this capability

block_people only shows a quicklink to the message system if the user has the capability moodle/site:sendmessage and if the Moodle message system is turnes on ($CFG->messaging)
See http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Capabilities/moodle/site:sendmessage for details on this capability and http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Messaging for details on the messaging system

3. Participants List
--------------------
block_people only shows the link to the participants list if the user has the capability moodle/course:viewparticipants.
See http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Capabilities/moodle/course:viewparticipants for details on this capability

4. Roles sort order
-------------------
block_people shows teacher role groups in the order defined in /admin/roles/manage.php. Please visit this settings page if you want to modify the sort order


Further information
===================
block_people is found in the Moodle Plugins repository: http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=block_people

Report a bug or suggest an improvement: https://github.com/moodleuulm/moodle-block_people/issues


Moodle release support
======================
Due to limited ressources, block_people is only maintained for the most recent major release of Moodle. However, previous versions of this plugin which work in legacy major releases of Moodle are still available as-is without any further updates in the Moodle Plugins repository.

There may be several weeks after a new major release of Moodle has been published until I can do a compatibility check and fix problems if necessary. If you encounter problems with a new major release of Moodle - or can confirm that block_people still works with a new major relase - please let me know on https://github.com/moodleuulm/moodle-block_people/issues


Right-to-left support
=====================
This plugin has not been tested with Moodle's support for right-to-left (RTL) languages.
If you want to use this plugin with a RTL language and it doesn't work as-is, you are free to send me a pull request on
github with modifications.


Copyright
=========
Alexander Bias, University of Ulm