Moodle plugins directory: LearnR | Moodle.org
LearnR
Important Notice:
Currently LearnR is a fork/copy of Boost Union with added features. This was not ideal. The CTL-Version 1 release of LearnR will require Boost Union be installed because LearnR will be an add-on to Boost Union as a true child theme. This means most of your configurations and settings will be inherited from Boost Union.
Do not upgrade unless you uninstall LearnR, install Boost Union, and then re-install LearnR CTL-version 1 (2024021300). Discussion on this is in the Theme Forum here.
Introducing LearnR
LearnR is almost entirely based on the core foundation of the Boost Union Theme. If you have not seen the Boost Union theme you are missing out! We like to think of LearnR as an enhanced version of Boost Union that is very focused on styling, integrations with other plugins, and we have carried over some of the most popular features from all of our previous themes like Fordson and Evolve-D.
Recommended Plugins:
- User bulk enrolment https://moodle.org/plugins/local_bulkenrol
- Easy Enrollment https://moodle.org/plugins/enrol_easy
- MISTAR Gradebook (Proprietary Michigan K12 SIS Integration)
LearnR adds the following features to Boost Union:
- Teacher Course Management Dashboard
- Section Style Chooser
- Course Progress Bar
- Latest Course Drop Down
- Icon Navigation Menu System for Home, MyCourses, and Dashboard pages
- Course Activity List Drop Down
- Default Image on My Courses Page
- Additional Color Choosers
- Hide Login Form (If using SSO like Google login)
- Tweaks to default installation settings to enhance styling out of the box
- Move Secondary Menu above or below the course header image
Features Core to Boost Union:
- Page Width Settings
- Logo Uploads
- Fav Icon
- Background, Course Header, and other Image Uploads
- Variety of Core Color Choosers
- Course Header Images with customizations
- Custom Fonts
- Font Awesome Updates
- Hide Primary Nav Menu Items
- Back To Top button
- Scroll Spy
- Activity Navigation
- Huge Selection of Additional Block Layouts
- Custom Pages
- Custom Alerts and Info Banners
- Custom Advertisement Tiles
- Course Related Hints for Teachers Check out the Boost Union theme: https://moodle.org/plugins/theme_boost_union
All of these features can be toggled on or off and mixed and matched for a more personalized user experience. The choice is up to you to define what is best for your learners.
Special Thanks
Elements and certain functionality of LearnR would not be possible without the following users and plugins:
- Richard Oelmann -Header Images - https://moodle.org/plugins/theme_waxed
- Gareth J Barnard - Theme Essential feature display courses by last access - https://moodle.org/plugins/theme_essential
Requirements
This theme requires Moodle 4.0+ and Boost Union be installed.
Installation
Install the theme like any other theme to folder /theme/learnr
See http://docs.moodle.org/en/Installing_plugins for details on installing Moodle plugins
Update/Conversion
If you have previously installed LearnR please do the following:
- Install Boost Union
- Transfer your LearnR settings to Boost Union. Things like adverts, notices, etc should have corresponding settings in Boost Union. Transfer or copy these things over PRIOR to the next step of uninstalling LearnR.
- Uninstall LearnR
- Install LearnR - version =2024021300 which is currently the latest release 2/14/24
- Choose the LearnR theme in Site Admin theme chooser.
First of all, congratulations for this great and good work, the functions you have added to boost union are surprising.
As a user I would love for you to collaborate on the father theme boost union, your contributions would be a good push for new features and functions.
I have seen that your latest version is derived from 4.3r1 and in the boost union they are going for 4.3r5, so we opted for the stability of boost union.
We understand that keeping up with a work team of several people can be complicated being a single developer and releasing a child theme every time bost union releases new version is impossible, hence our decision to go for the father theme and encourage you to continue this great work!!
Moving forward this is the way we will go. If you ever decide you don't want to use LearnR you can simply change back to Boost Union in the theme Chooser and then many of your settings and configurations will be preserved because LearnR will inherit and utilize the setting pages within Boost Union. I guess you could look at this as a sort of powerpack or Boost Union enhancement pack with added benefits and features.
We can't wait it!
Thanks a lot for your work!!
A question before I upgrade our production server: when you say, "Do not upgrade unless you uninstall LearnR, install Boost Union, and then re-install LearnR CTL-version 1 (2024021300). " do you mean uninstall LearnR from the Moodle Plugins page - and if so, will I lose all the modified settings and content such as static pages and advertisement tiles? Or will they survive uninstallation and reinstallation? Or would just rm -rf theme/learnr be sufficient uninstallation, with the database being untouched.
Looking forward to this upgrade - especially if it frees up your time and energy for new features, Chris!
If you use adverts and other content settings you will want to copy those settings or do screen shots prior to upgrading and port them over to Boost Union. Prior to upgrading LearnR you could install Boost Union and just copy it over to the new parent theme.
However, the update for the template that has now been released refers to the path [dirroot]/theme/boost_union/
This update damages the installation in such a way that a login is no longer possible, because the line "require_once($CFG->dirroot. ' /theme/boost_union/config.php');" in the config file creates a php error!! Very unpleasant, the whole thing (((
In this latest release we now require the Boost Union theme. Instead of forking Boost Union, LearnR is now a child theme of Boost Union which means it must be installed with it. I am wondering why it allowed you to install it when there is a required dependency that Boost Union be installed. In the upload I also checked the box that it should not be upgraded from the previous versions.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to upload pictures here.
In my moodle/themes folder there are the following subfolders:
/boost
/Classics
/Learner
Far and wide there is no folder BoostUnion to be seen
My Learnr plugin has version v4.3-R1 from 2023/10/2000 in my plugin overview and next to "theme_boost" it says:
"Necessary for: theme_classic, theme_learnr"
Again, nothing from BoostUnion