User guide

The TabbedQuickform plugin transforms radically moodle by:

Displaying more compact screens for forms, avoiding scrolls and long forms when deployed.

Allowing cleaning all forms from unused or unexploited options.

For the non admin users

Using this plugin is almost transparent for those users. Users will be proposed the forms in a similar view/controller model as before. Forms are just more compact and have tab switchable panels.

If users are allowed to, users might have an additional “switch” button on top of each form allowing to globally switch between “simplified” or “complete” mode.

For an administrator

Administrators will have more implication in the process as they will drive the simplification effort of Moodle. Administrators can run across the whole platform and choose to mask and setup some relevant defaults for most of the form items. This cleanup should in any case:

Be performed by admins unilaterally before the users come in.

Be performed bilaterally with users representants after users started to use the platform.

Eventually follow a survey that will examine what users really will not use.

Or eventually following a data inquiry to check tracks of disinterest.

Switching on forms configuration mode

Form configuration mode switch button

Form mode switch button

Masking / unmasking fields

Once in form configuration mode, you can mask or unmask fields using the mask icon. This is to be done with precaution. Some fileds may be linked to other features in Moodle and making them unreachable might put the end user in uncomfortable situation.

Usually, it will be preferable to carefully study a feature and check all the parameters and variables that may affect it so we may mask them all. Note that sometime, some parameters may affect other features or settings that are in other components and forms.

Simplifying Moodle should be thus done carefully, and be experimented with a test population to check for side effects.

Switch back to normal mode button

Masking switchs

Do the configuration mode allow setting default values for hidden parameter?

Yes, for most of them. Most of the simplest widgets such as text, checkboxes, radios and select will store the actual value in the masking preferences. This will override system defaults even if the feature implements explicit defaults in settings. Complex widgets such as multiple fields or complex groups or conditional fields may be not correctly preset by defaults.

To store a preset default value while in form configuration mode, just change the current value BEFORE hidding the field. The default will be stored at the moment the mask button is switched on.

How do i know a form can be simplified?

When in administrator mode, you will see the “configure” green button at the right upper corner of the form.

Why can't some forms be simplified?

This plugin only can process QuickForm forms, which is the actual common development standard for building Moodle forms. In spite of this common practices, and due to some restrictions in layout or complexity of implementation, some developers have build hard coded HTML forms that cannot be handled by this technique.

What's up if i see two form configuration buttons on the same page?

this can happen if two or more QuickForm instances are displayed on the same screen. In most cases, all forms may be simplified. In some rare cases, form fields might share the same identifier and a key collision might happen. In that case would both fields be masked at the same time.

Using the config.php file to force a complete site setup

The form filtering system is built as a moodle local plugin. All activated masks are stored as configuration keys of the local_tabbedquickform plugin. Thus the general rules allowing forcing plugin settings values in config.php applies.

All you need to know is how the plugin setting key is build when recording a form mask:

$CFG->forced_plugin_settings = array('local_tabbedquickform' => array('<maskid>' => '<default1>',
'<secondmaskid>' => '<default2>'),

the settings mask key is:

the 'mask_' prefix

the current page ID with some transform (e.g.: site_login_index for page type site-login-index)

a separator '_'

The quickformform element identifier (the accessible ID of the “fitem” in HTML output).

Example:

mask_page_course_edit_id_idnumber

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