Theme development workshop part 1

IRELAND & UK
MOODLEMOOT
2012

Bas Brands
web developer
Sonsbeekmedia

IRELAND & UK MOODLEMOOT 2012

BAS BRANDS

I am Bas, theme and plugin developer for Sonsbeekmedia
and BrightAlley.

I have been working with Moodle since 2009. I started at
the Dutch Moodle partner and have moved on to work at
BrightAlley and I recently started my own business that I
call Sonsbeekmedia.

This presentation deals with the steps you need to take
creating a Moodle theme. After attending the workshop at
the MoodleMoot you should be able to create your own
theme


MOODLE 2 THEMING PART1

This presentation contains:

1 THEME EXAMPLES. 10 min

2 DECISIONS BEFOR YOU START. 10 min

3 DESIGN YOUR THEME


THEME EXAMPLES


THEME EXAMPLES

These next slides show some theme examples for Moodle
2. They all use the new theme systems.
Some of the new theme features from the users / admin
perspective are:

Docking of blocks
Minimizing block
Configurable dropdown menu
Separate themes for Default, Mobile, Tablet, and old
browsers.


THEME EXAMPLES

4 Basic themes that work on all Moodle content

Binarius, Boxxie, Arialist, Leatherbound


THEME EXAMPLES

4 Downloadable themes from Moodle.org

1. Decaf
2. Rocket
3. Newsie
4. AllContent


CUSTOM THEMES

1. Leeds City College, bright colors
2. UCL, animated news, sliding help, extra regions
3. Roche, minimal just for 1 learning module
4. Moodlemoot, simple uses CSS3


CUSTOM MOODLE THEMES

4 Advanced custom themes


DECISIONS.. DECISIONS



Based on Gavin Henricks Theming whitepaper

http://www.somerandomthoughts.com/blog/moodle-2-themes-whitepaper/moodle-
2-themes-whitepaper-customised-themes/



Layout:

How would you like to position the block regions and the
content region.
You could have
• Block, content, block
• Or content, block, block
• Or just content, block

And so on



Docking

Do you want to support docking in your theme? Then
make sure you base your theme on a theme that supports
docking.



My home

You can customize the my home as an admin using
Site administration -> Appearance -> Default my Moodle
page
This page allows you to move blocks into the content
page.
Users entering the my page will get the layout you defined
in de default my Moodle page providing you users a
dashboard for easy access of content.



Navigation

The new navigation block provides side wide context aware
navigation. Does this block suit your needs or do you need
a specialized in course navigation block such as the
“Course Menu block” or the “Course Content block”.



Front-page

When configuring the front page you can add course lists,
configure blocks and add a topics section that allow you to
add resources or activities to the front page.
When adding a Label resource to the font page you can
add some nice graphical content that welcome users to
your site.
I you want more control you could leave the front page
empty and add your custom html / flash using the
FrontPage layout file.



Blocks

When styling the blocks make sure standard content fits
into it. I use a minimum content width of 210 px.

Consider styling of the block header, content its borders
and spacing



Accessibility

Add JavaScript widget to control font sizes
Make sure color is not of importance for usability
Use easy to read fonts
When using images provide a good image title.
Provide an alternative theme with good contrast and
bigger font sizes



Login box

You can add a login box to the FrontPage and a login info
block that displays profile fields when the user is logged in.

Logging in can be the most important action required from
you users on the front page. You could even force users to
login before entering Moodle using the force login setting
in Site administration -> Security -> Site policies

Once you know what to do, make it look nice..


DESIGNING YOUR THEME

Before you start coding you should take some steps to get
a clear idea of what you want to achieve

Ask yourself some questions:
Who are your users, what websites do they use?
What content will you be delivering?
Is there any design you could re-use?

Then:
Create a mockup using your favorite image editor



Custom menus

Another new feature in Moodle 2 is the custom menu.

You can configure it in
Site administration -> Appearance -> themes

Once you have added it you can style it. The custom menu
uses some css that are loaded from JavaScript which you
cannot easily override. Use a custom menu renderer if you
encounter problems


DESIGNING YOUR THEME

Choose a nice example theme

Use a image editor to create a layout

Select elements of themes you like

Use examples on:

http://theming.sonsbeekmedia.nl


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