Moodle plugins directory: Poster | Moodle.org
Poster
Motivation
There are many useful blocks available for Moodle. Typically, they can be only added to the sides of the Moodle pages, or to the user's dashboard page (also known as My home page). Sometimes, you may want to keep your course main page quite clean, not cluttered with blocks on both sides. In such case, you can put useful blocks into a separate Poster page.
The overall concept is somewhat similar to how pages are created in Mahara - but it is typically the teacher in Moodle who creates the Poster for students to view.
Usage
To use the module, you should understand how Moodle sticky blocks work. See Block settings page for more details.
- Add the module instance into the course.
- Keep the editing mode on.
- Add the Moodle blocks you want to display on the poster.
- Click the icon to configure the block. Set the block instance so that it is displayed in the context of the
poster, on page type Poster module main page (
mod-poster-view), inside the regionmod_poster-preormod_poster-post. - Alternatively, use the drag and drop feature to move the block to the regions at the poster content area.
- Note that some blocks must be first added to the course main page first, configured to be displayed at any page and then configured again to be displayed at the poster main page only (this is how block positioning works in Moodle generally).
The poster can be used as for example:
- Course wall/dashboard (contact teachers, detailed outline of the course, latest news, comments, ...).
- Project dashboard (project goals, calendar, comments, people, ...)
- Research report (goals, methods, results, comments, ...)
Implementation
The Poster module uses not so well known feature of the Moodle blocks architecture. In almost all cases, it is the theme that
defines regions where plugins can be added to. However in special cases, such as this one, any Moodle plugin can define its custom
block regions. Within the context of the Poster module instance, when displaying its view.php page, two extra block regions are
defined - mod_poster-pre and mod_poster-post. The Poster module itself is just a tiny wrapper for displaying these two regions
as its content. Simple and clever.
The module natively supports responsive layout in bootstrap based themes (both 2.x and 3.x versions).
Licence
Copyright (C) 2015 David Mudrák
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
Screenshots
Contributors
Ooops - good catch Howard! I used the version number of Moodle 2.7.7 by mistake. It seems that the module partially* works in 2.7.0 too so I just released a new version v3 that has the correct version number declared.
*) While testing the module in Moodle 2.7.0 I realized I am not able to move the blocks into the
mod_poster-preregion. Only the second region was available. In Moodle 2.7.7 (at least) it already works as expected.Yes. Generally it is the theme that should control where the blocks are displayed. Alternatively I think it might be doable via custom course format. But the theme is definitely a cleaner way.
Thanks John. It's not trivial in all its consequences. But please feel free to report a feature request in the plugin's tracker and we can eventually come up with a solution.
Feature request logged in anticipation
It can't be used on the dashboard page as that one does not allow activities/resources to be put on it.
Firstly, great plugin. I think any tools that can 'de-clutter' a course page are very useful, and I like the way this one works.
I have a question though.
How should one manage blocks for non-course pages such as the Gradebook? We have always used just one column for Blocks on the right and I would like to make use of Posters as a 'Course Homepage' but by turning on the Standard Blocks Layout feature it seems to also affect pages such as the Grade Book, now adding Blocks to the left. This may cause a bit of confusion to our students.
Any advice on how to go about managing this, or is it a necessary trade-off?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Dan. Sorry I am a bit confused about the question. What does "Standard Blocks Layout feature" refer to? Am I right it is some custom setting of your site theme?
Well, most themes simply do not display the right/left side column if there is no block placed into that region. Is not that your case, too?
Hi Magnus. Sorry if the description is not clear. That text refers to https://docs.moodle.org/en/Block_settings#Adding_a_block_to_a_page