Flexible sections format

Course formats ::: format_flexsections
Maintained by Marina Glancy
Organises course content in any number of sections that can be nested. Each section can be displayed on the same page or on a separate page
Latest release:
3329 sites
1k downloads
133 fans
Current versions available: 9

This course format looks very similar to Topics format except:

  • sections can be added inside other sections
  • each section (regardless of its nesting level) can be shown either on the same page as parent or on a separate page. Teacher can change it in edit mode.
  • If section is displayed on a separate page, it's name is displayed as a link and on this  page the link "Back to ... " is displayed

If teacher hides a section all nested sections and activities become hidden as well.

Please note that if section has both activities and subsections activities are displayed first.

On the attached screenshots the section "Quizzes" has tree subsections - "Science" and "Mathematics are displayed on the same page and "Other Uses" on a separate page. Note how course navigation looks like in this case.

Screenshots

Screenshot #0
Screenshot #1
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Screenshot #4
Screenshot #5

Contributors

Marina Glancy (Lead maintainer)
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Comments

  • Marina Glancy
    Fri, 27 Oct 2017, 1:25 PM
    Hello,
    new version 3.2.2 is released with smaller whitespaces, more friendly for mobile devices. I also marked compatibility with 3.4, nothing really changed in the API

    If you notice any issues with the course format please report on https://github.com/marinaglancy/moodle-format_flexsections/issues
    Thanks
  • Srdjan Maksimovic
    Fri, 9 Feb 2018, 7:42 PM
    Hello, I have a problem, when trying to add subsection, it adds section instead, and when I try to move it, I get white screen with message in the corner: Error in sections hierarchy. Can someone please help?
  • Rafael Aschoff
    Thu, 15 Feb 2018, 11:08 PM
    I would like to use the flexible format together with the Adaptable theme. While it works, the visual (css) does not look as good as the topic format (or the flexible format over boost theme).
    Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what should I modify to have "the same effect"?
    The biggest issue is that sections and subsections are not been displayed separetedly, with bound boxes, white spaces or any enclosures.
  • David Brown
    Tue, 12 June 2018, 7:46 PM
    We are in the process of upgrading our Moodle to version 3.5 and we were wondering when the Flexible Sections plugin will be compatible with 3.5+? Plug-in is working very well for us on our current version of 3.2. Thank you.
  • Neil Stapleton
    Tue, 12 June 2018, 10:19 PM
    Hi Marina, We are using Flex sections very successfully in our current 3.1 site, so thank for maintaining it. Like David, I'm interested in when a 3.5+ version will be released. I've also got some ideas/request from users to do with navigation. I'm not a developer so wont be making any pull requests so was wondering what the best way to move this forward would be? I note that when others have raised things via an issue in Git they've been directed to make a pull request, so thought I'd ask here first.

    The Navigation changes our users would like are as follows:

    1. Add the option to have the '? Back to' link at the bottom of a sub-section, as well as at the top, as this is where most users would end up prior to wanting to return to whence they came.

    2. Add the option to add previous and next navigation links either instead of or in addition to the Back to these woudl be a lot like the links that appear in the Topics format when 'Show one section per page' is used. '? {Pervious section name}' '{Pervious section name} ?'

    I work with a Moodle partner and might be able to ask them to contribute the code, but I'd want an idea of how likely it would be to be accepted as a feature first if possible.

    Thanks in advance for your consideration of my comments. Would also value any other's opinions on this matter, has anyone already implemented something similar with flex section?

    Best wishes
    Neil
  • Steve Radford
    Thu, 12 July 2018, 4:20 PM
    Is it compatible with Moodle mobile?
  • Steve Radford
    Thu, 19 July 2018, 7:49 PM
    Hi, any news on a Moodle V3.5 update?
  • Ammar Elhassan ElMerhbi
    Tue, 31 July 2018, 4:24 AM
    We've been using this format for a long time since our English course has many subjects that are nested, and it has worked so great at our school. Does version 3.4 work on 3.5?
  • Stephanie Morssinkhof
    Tue, 23 Oct 2018, 5:53 PM
    Does anyone know if it is possible to create collapsable items in the navdrawer with the flexible section format? Now you can only see the section names, but I would like to add the subsections to the navdrawer since otherwise it is hard navigating through a 2 year program with several courses, modules and dates.
    I know it is possible to add activities and sources to the navdraw which you can collapse but this does not show the structure of the program (again: courses-modules-dates). We are updating from 3.2 towards 3.5 (test site is already running on 3.5).
  • Gina Wilson
    Tue, 13 Nov 2018, 3:50 AM
    This plugin is my number one request from my instructors when setting up their courses. Now that we've moved to 3.5 (3.6 will be out soon) I was hoping by now that this module would be ready for at least 3.5. Is this module still being actively worked on? Is there a co-maintainer or someone that might be interested in being a co-maintainer (I'm not a programmer)? It's been over a year now since the maintainer was active in this discussion. Thank you for an excellent course format.
  • Neil Stapleton
    Tue, 13 Nov 2018, 3:04 PM
    Hi Gina, My organisation is also a major user of Flexible section, for it's ability to provide multi-level sections. We are also about to upgrade to 3.6 soon after release for our development systems and during next summer for our Production site. We only use 2 levels of nesting in flex-sections typically and are currrently look at whether we can do without the course format and find/develop an alternative. I've recently starting looking at the the older 'sub-pages' module that was developed by the OU, there's a branch on Github that works ok-ish with 3.5/6. To my mind this approach is slightly more attractive that the flex section, but still far from an ideal solution. Topics with the 'display one section' option is the next fall-back position that almost achieves a second level of nesting, but this too has it's challenges for navigation in relation to the nature of our content.

    We are also looking at Accessibility and Mobile seriously at the moment and my feeling is that Flex also presents significant challenges here too.

    No solutions I afraid, just in the spirit of sharing. I like you I feel that as Flex is still so widely used, it could do we some more dialogue around it's future and exactly what it sets out to achieve in the Moodle 3.5 onward world.

    My current thinking is step away form flex sections and try and do what we can we Core course formats, until something better comes along. Which I hope would be some form of multi-level nested sections functionality in core. Something highly accessible, usable and mobile app friendly.

  • Joseph McDonald
    Thu, 10 Jan 2019, 1:07 PM
    This is a great plugin which works with 3.6.1 on fordson theme, I've customised it a bit and added Icons on the side of the bars and also the side nav, the only issue is that the side nav won't show sub parent sections, only the parent shows but the plugin still works without that feature which is great, lack the updates which might cause issues in later versions of Moodle
  • Joseph McDonald
    Thu, 10 Jan 2019, 1:11 PM
    Flex slider working on 3.6.1
  • Thomas Maisons
    Thu, 10 Jan 2019, 9:53 PM
    Hi,
    On Moodle 3.4, when I turn on flexible section in a course, the title of section-0 disappear...
    Any idea?
    Thx
  • Rafael Aschoff
    Wed, 3 Apr 2019, 4:17 AM
    By following the comments, and checking the last time the flexible plugin was update, we end up concluding that support has been dropped. Does anyone knows if there is something similar being supported for the new versions of Moodle? By the way, given the popularity of this plugin, it would not be too much of a stretch to think it could be included as a core course format.
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