Revolutionary Fork to the Snap Moodle Theme Will Streamline Your Learning Workflow

#MootUS16 has just completed and we are already seeing some impressive outputs! The Moodlerooms Snap Theme has received a warm welcome since its launch. Its focus on whitespace and decluttering reminded tense students to breathe. Now CASS takes the idea further by decluttering the decision making process itself. CASS Business School’s Leonard Houx showcased a fork on the already versatile Snap Theme.

Check out the short video here on Google Drive.

The video argues that common Moodle themes makes several options compete for your attention. To fight this, the fork suggest many design improvements, some of which we list here:

1. After logging in, the course and the current section are on top with only relevant updates. You can navigate to other sections, but the idea is that it shows a strong indication of what the next step is.
   A coursepageredirect.php allows to place the student right into the course after log in. A module.js extends controls for current module.
2. All remaining elements from the Moodle Dashboard are hidden under a Menu button.
   This is done by making headroom.js optional in config.php.
3. Stronger headers for starting activities. First paragraphs in this section even begins with a drop cap.
   A change in rest.php provides “global awareness” of the specific module and course a student is.
4. Notification for activities completed. After you receive the notification, a “Next Activity” link appears.
   New variables in settings.php, like nextactivityinfooter, nextactivitymodaldialog allow customization of timing for this option.
5. Redesigns and integration of default Moodle sections.
   Addition of core_question_renderer and mod_quiz_renderer to renderers.php

Under the hood:

6. Support for TweenMax.js for advanced JavaScript animations.
7. It fixes a bug from Snap Gruntfile.js in Windows where Moodle cache could not be purged.
8. Lots of adjustments and reorganizations to settings.php, for changes in headers and breadcrumbs.
9. Options like hidequiznavigation and collapsecompletedactivities takes sections out of sight if they are not relevant at the time.
10. Creation of completion.js with functions that allow visualization of progression and completion of activities.
11. Layout changes reflected in course.php, footer.php, header.php and nav.php.
12. Changes to renderers core_question_renderer.php, course_renderer.php, mod_quiz_renderer.php and snap_shared.php

In conclusion, this visual layout has connectedness in mind. With a more guided flow, it keeps students from second guessing themselves. Applied on Moodle it is likely to positively impact your student analytics.

Check the GitHub repo for this fork here.

This Moodle Technology related post is made possible by: Moonami a company that provides a full range of Moodle services that combine the flexibility, scalability, and power of Amazon’s world-leading cloud platform (AWS) with fanatical Moodle support. Click here to learn more.

Give the theme a try! And let us know how did it go in the comment section below!