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11/4/2011
Moodle 2 Themes
A look at the default themes that come with Moodle 2 and at a selection of themes which have been contributed to the community.
Please feel free to copy, share and reference this e-book. All we ask is that you acknowledge Gavin Henrick as the source and link to http://www.somerandomthoughts.com when citing the publication. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Moodle 2 Themes
A look at the default themes that come with Moodle 2 and at a selection of themes which have been contributed to the community.
Themes in Moodle are a combination of PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and images files. When you set out to deploy Moodle you will either need to use an existing available theme tweak or customise an existing theme build or source a new theme from scratch (from http://moodle.com/themes/ for example)
When using a theme in Moodle 2, you can select it to work either across the whole site or at different levels throughout the site namely: Site-wide (One theme is used everywhere) Category level (each category can optionally specify a different theme to the default) Course level (each course can optionally specify a different theme to the default) User level (each user can optionally specify a different theme to the default)
This paper evolved from the reviews and Moodle 2 theme review page: http://www.somerandomthoughts.com/blog/moodle-2-themes/. During my reading recently I also came across a number of other presentations and documents about themes, they are referred to in the appendix 2. Many thanks to all who helped review the content of the paper - your time is appreciated and thanks also to those who submitted examples for use in Appendix 3 and 4. For any queries or corrections for paper please contact me gavin@somerandomthoughts.com THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Why read this?................................................................................................................ 3 Themes in Moodle 2 ...................................................................................................... 4 Customising themes ...................................................................................................... 9 Theme gallery ................................................................................................................13 About the Author ........................................................................................................ 49 Creative Commons Copyright .....................................................................................50
Appendix 1 - Community Contributed Themes .................................................................... 51 Appendix 2 - Further Reading ................................................................................................ 52 Appendix 3 - Moodle 2 site Examples .................................................................................... 53 Appendix 4 - Moodle 1.9 site Examples .................................................................................58
2. Themes in Moodle 2
For Moodle 2 the theme system was completely redesigned. There are a number of areas which make themes in Moodle 2 very different to how they were in Moodle 1.9. This section deals with some general theme aspects of Moodle 2 specifically: Layout and positioning Functionality overrides Device detection Customisation of the menu Overall theme settings
The section to add these in is found at the bottom of the page under: Settings -> Site administration -> Appearance -> Themes -> Theme settings
Rendering over-ride
In addition to the new layout files, it is possible with programming to override the renderers which produce the smaller parts of Moodle, so you can change how they display as well. This means it is much easier to change the output of parts of the features, like blocks, activities and so on. This is a huge change. For more information be sure to check out the Moodle docs page http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Themes_2.0_overriding_a_renderer ! One of the areas which you may want to have an override would be the custom menu. You may want to extend it so that it includes a my courses dropdown as well as the normal options from the settings box. You could also decide to add a categories drop down as well using overrides too. Both of these would require development.
Device detection
Moodle 2 now has device detection for themes. What does this mean? Well, it means that you can have a main theme set for your Moodle 2 site which will load when people access from a web browser on their desktop, notebook or laptop, however you can have a different one load when they access it from a mobile, and a different one load when they access it from a tablet. This means you can if you wish, customise the look/feel and structure and layout for each different device. A good example of this is the MyMobile theme which is highlighted later on which provides an optimised experience for smart phones and tablets. It is written using a mobile specific interface (jqueryformobile). However, as you can add device definitions, you can also create a theme for different browsers if you need to. This would enable you to create a version of your theme optimised for a specific browser like IE6 for example. The screen for selecting which themes you are using for which device is found in the Settings block: Settings -> Site administration -> Appearance -> Themes -> Theme selector
Theme Settings
The following are the settings which you may or may not want to alter but need to be aware of: Setting Theme list Default EMPTY Comment You should probably fill this in when you finalise your themes if you want to let course teachers or even all users select their own theme from a selection of themes. Here you specify the only themes you want available to choose from. If you are designing themes or developing code then you probably want to turn this mode on so that you are not served cached versions. If you want to allow a user to change to select a theme for accessibility them this is needed, if not, set no. If you want to allow a teacher to set a specific theme for a course (perhaps in a department, or special 7
No
No
No
course) this is needed, if not, leave at no. Allows category themes No If you want to allow each faculty or department have a unique theme then this is needed, if not, leave at no. If enabled, the theme can be changed by adding theme={themename} to any Moodle URL. If you want to allow users to hide/show block contents throughout the site, you leave this enabled. However if you want to force the contents showing, then set this as No. This is primarily controlled by the theme as it must support the docking concept. If it does, you can still turn it off here if you wish. Add in the menu URLs that are required. (as explained earlier) If you want to allow different themes for different devices leave this enabled. Advanced option for further device detection.
No
Yes
Yes
Empty
Yes
Empty
** One important thing to note is that the Theme Designer mode is not designed for use on production servers as it has a significant impact. This should only be used when developing a theme, which ideally should be done on a hosted test server or a local test server on your desktop/laptop (using xampp for example).
3. Customising themes
When thinking about getting a theme made, or setting about customising a theme, there are a number of areas you probably want to consider.
Layout
Although most themes release have the same column outline, it is not the case for all themes and as already outlined in Moodle 2 the layout can be pretty much anything. That said, most themes released so far still follow the layout concepts from Moodle 1.9, but this is changing. Leaving aside whether you add block spaces in the header or footer, lets look at the standard layouts people use. Some themes have all the block columns on left, some on right, or some have the normal of one block column on either side. Now of course you can choose to use or not use blocks, however the inherent design has a lot to do with what decisions you can make. The options are: Option Blocks, Content, Blocks Description This is the most typical layout of a Moodle theme, and provides options for blocks on both sides of the course content area. This is variation of the main type, where both columns are on the right side of the content column. This is the 3rd variation of the main type, where both columns are on the left side of the content column. This only has one block column to the right hand side of the content. Impact In a standard screensize this restricts the content area to about 60% of the width if blocks are used on both sides; however it provides a lot of space for blocks. In a standard screensize this restricts the content area to about 60% of the width if blocks are used on both sides; however it provides a lot of space for blocks. In a standard screensize this restricts the content area to about 60% of the width if blocks are used on both sides; however it provides a lot of space for blocks. This gives a lot more space to the content area and has limited space for blocks. This gives a lot more space to the content area and has limited space for blocks.
Content, Blocks
Blocks, Content
This only has one block column to the left hand side of the content.
Of course these are all changed if you have docking on, as some blocks can now hide off to the side of the screen.
My personal preference is the Content, Blocks format with the navigation and settings blocks docked (so off to the left) As below:
Docking
New in Moodle 2 is the ability to dock a block to the side of the page, thus creating more real-estate on the page for the content and the activities. This feature has a global setting which can be turned on and off, however it is also an aspect of the theme. Not all themes support this docking feature, so if you want to dock you will need to take this into account.
MyHome (MyMoodle)
The new MyMoodle (MyHome) can be focused on and customised more so that it can have extra placements locations (more columns for example) for blocks to turn it into a strong dashboard. Some extra blocks may need coding to take advantage of this, but this needs taking into account from theme and site design phase.
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Navigation
The new navigation block in Moodle provides context aware site-wide navigation options for the user. It can also provide some in-course navigation to resource and activities. However, you may wish to consider one of the specialist in-course navigation blocks called Course Menu Block, or Course Content. So a decision on how you want to work will need to be considered, namely - is the Navigation block going to be used for site-wide and in-course navigation or will a specialist block be used for in-course meaning you need to change the settings for the navigation block.
Front Page
Although this is not necessarily part of a theme install, it should be something that is considered in the site design of which the theme is an integral part of. With the front page settings you can have blocks on the front page, and lists of courses and categories automatically generated, and a news feed too, however one has to ask if you want some, any or all of these on your front page. There is one approach which can provide you a lot of visual control to the front page. With all blocks gone, no news, no category list and no course list you have a big empty space. If you then enable topics for this you can then control the front page through a HTML editor, and build a nice graphical /content front page. Then you can build a graphical or flash panel which shows the different departments, and clicks through to category course lists, or have a table grid of images sort of a dashboard, which go to MyHome, Student Support course and so on. The point is you have a lot of control and can think about this page without constraints if you so wish. You can see a nice selection of front page examples in Appendix 3 (Moodle 2) and Appendix 4 (Moodle 1.9). The front page settings are detailed below: Setting Full site name Short name for the site Front page description Front Page Front page items when logged in Maximum category depth Include a topic section News items to show Comments displayed per page Courses per page Default frontpage role Default Fullname Shortname Summary Dropdowns Dropdowns Unlimited Yes 3 15 20 Authenticated user on frontpage Reason for change This will show on some pages of the Moodle install. This will show in some pages of Moodle. This is not shown unless the block is enabled. Set all to None to enable full control of front page as a webpage. Set all to None to enable full control of front page as a webpage.
Dont alter.
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Blocks
You may wish to change the block look, and some of the things to consider are: Coloured head of block or not Curves around block or not Lines around block or not
The style that you overall want to achieve must have a solution for blocks that is workable.
Accessibility
How are you going to address accessibility with the Moodle theme? There are a number of approaches that you can consider: Build your whole theme completely accessible Provide widgets in the theme which can control font, font size and colours Provide an alternate theme or themes for different font/layouts or high contrast Provide education around the accessibility options available in modern web browsers
You may of course choose to do multiple of these, however it is something to consider when looking and thinking about customizing a theme.
Login Box
Where should login box / link on main site? Do you want it to be a prominent feature on the front page or perhaps in a block? Maybe you want it just to prompt for login when the user tries to access content which needs authentication? Or perhaps you will force login for all people accessing the site. This decision has impact on the site design, especially the front page.
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4. Theme gallery
Default themes
There are a good number of themes that are distributed with Moodle 2. Not only do these provide some good examples of how Moodle 2 may look, but they mostly offer simple customisation options through settings in the theme itself. For a good comparison, each of the following settings have been adopted for the comparisons pages have a theme screenshot taken on my standard Moodle feature course no blocks are docked A standard set of custom menus are added in
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Afterburner
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Anomaly
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Arialist
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Change Logo Custom CSS
Change Tagline
Link Colour
Column Width
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Binarius
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Boxxie
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Brick
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Logo Block title link colour
Linkhover colour
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Formal White
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Default Font size Header background colour Footnote HTML
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FormFactor
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Fusion
Tagline
Footertext
Custom CSS
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Leatherbound
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Magazine
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Background graphic Maincolour forumback
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Nimble
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Tagline Menu hover colour
Footerline
Headerbackground colour
Link colour
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Nonzero
Custom CSS
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Overlay
Header Colour
Footertext
Custom CSS
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Serenity
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SkyHigh
Col Width
Footnote
Custom CSS
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Splash
Tagline
Footnote
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Standard
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Aardvark 2.1
Aardvark 2.1 Theme Plugin Shaun Daubney, Mary Evans Shaun Daubney, Mary Evans
Logo
Email URL
Special Feature Includes a special expandable area in header for logged in users called Profile Bar (grey area in screenshot), can be toggled on/off.
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Aardvark 2.1 - PostIt Theme Plugin Shaun Daubney, Mary Evans Shaun Daubney, Mary Evans
Email URL
Special Feature Includes a special expandable area in header for logged in users called Profile Bar (grey area in screenshot), can be toggled on/off.
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All Content
Link Colour
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Darkb
Link
Maincolour
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Decaf
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Background Colour Hide Navigation Block
Special Feature For all users it shifts the setting blocks to top of the page, creating the so called "Moodle awesome bar".
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Discuss
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Education Book
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Logo Block header Background colour
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Flexi ii
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Custom CSS 6 Menu Bar Settings 6 Dropdown settings
Special Feature This theme has exposed a huge amount of settings through the admin page to allow a significant amount of customisation once it is installed. However you need to have your Hex colours already worked out.
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Krystle2
Special Feature This theme has the Awesome Bar which moves the settings and navigation blocks to drop down menus at the top of the page.
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Lagomorph
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options URL for settings file Background colour 1
Special Feature Designed for dynamic column display of 3, 2 or 1 column depending on screensize. There are no dropdowns and some new block locations are defined above the content area.
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Mandarin
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MultiStyled
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Site-wide layout Sidebar Background Colour Custom CSS
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MyMobile
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Mobile Theme color switcher
Special Feature This theme provides a ui-enhanced mobile-ready version of your Moodle 2. This theme is customised and optimised for smart phones using jquerymobile ( http://jquerymobile.com ). It has been tested most on IOS, 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad and IOS 4+ is recommended. It has also been tested on Android 2.1+. It works with the latest browsers as well (Chrome 10+, Safari, FF 4+ and IE9)
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Newsie
Link Colour
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Simplespace
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Background image Maincolour Forumback Special Feature
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Zebra
Name Status Author Maintainer Setting Options Logo Background colour Fourth colour Colour Scheme Two col max width Custom CSS
Logo height First colour Fifth colour Menu Colour Scheme Three Col min width Hide footer logo
Logo Alt Text Second colour Sixth Colour One Col max width Three Col max width
Background image Third colour Seventh colour Two Col min Width Enable page zoom
Special Feature Offers 1, 2, 3 column layouts, with dynamic colour dark/light settings.
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For more information: Email gavin@somerandomthoughts.com Blog http://www.somerandomthoughts.com Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ghenrick LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/gavinhenrick Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/ghenrick Book - http://www.Moodleforbusinessbook.com/
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