With 2.5 now released Julian thought it time to take the opportunity to build a new theme that would push the new theme engine to it's limits a bit. With that in mind he introduced the new "Essential" theme. Now Julian has left us for Canvassian adventures, David and Gareth took over development and maintenance. And now David has left for pastures new, Gareth continues to maintain and make improvements.
The idea of this theme is to make the site look as little like Moodle as possible. In this specific instance, it would be used on sites where Moodle would potentially serve as a company homepage rather than just a course list.
Cool things to know about the theme.
- It attempts to load as many as possible icons from a font
- Most of what you think are "graphics" are actually the Awesome font
- The slider on the front page is completely customisable through theme settings.
- I am really trying to push what Bootstrap Grids can do. As such the theme is fully responsive.
- The footer is all custom Moodle regions. This means blocks can be added.
- The theme can use Google web fonts to give it that extra bit of shazam!
- Social network icons appear at the top of the page dynamically based on theme settings.
- The entire colour scheme can be modified with theme settings.
Gareth J Barnard MSc. BSc(Hons)(Sndw). MBCS. CEng. CITP. PGCE. Moodle profile: moodle.org/user/profile.php?id=442195 Web profile: about.me/gjbarnard
Julian Ridden Moodle profile: moodle.org/user/profile.php?id=39680 Web profile: au.linkedin.com/in/eduridden/
David Bezemer Moodle profile: moodle.org/user/profile.php?id=1416592 Web profile: www.davidbezemer.nl
The Essential theme is 'free' software under the terms of the GNU GPLv3 License, please see 'COPYING.txt'.
It can be obtained for free from: moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_essential and github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential/releases
You have all the rights granted to you by the GPLv3 license. If you are unsure about anything, then the FAQ - www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html - is a good place to look.
If you reuse any of the code then I kindly ask that you make reference to the theme.
If you make improvements or bug fixes then I would appreciate if you would send them back to me by forking from github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential and doing a 'Pull Request' so that the rest of the Moodle community benefits.
As Essential is licensed under the GNU GPLv3 License it comes with NO support. If you would like support from me (Gareth) then I'm happy to provide it for a fee. Please contact me via my 'Moodle profile' in 'Developed and maintained by' above. Otherwise, the 'Themes' forum: moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=46 is an alternative.
This theme is provided to you for free, and if you want to express your gratitude for using this theme, please consider sponsoring by:
PayPal - Please contact me (Gareth) via my 'Moodle profile' in 'Developed and maintained by' above for details.
Sponsorships help to facilitate maintenance and allow me to provide you with more and better features. Without your support the theme cannot be maintained.
Sponsorships gratefully received with thanks from: Mihai Bojonca, TCM International Institute. Guido Hornig, actXcellence http://actxcellence.de Delvon Forrester, Esparanza co uk iZone Anis Jradah Ute Hlasek, https://hlasek-it.de Amigos Library Services
ClassroomRevolution, LLC -- Moodle Partner Daniel Méthot - e-learning-facile.com/formations/ Floyd Saner, Learning Contexts, LLC Gemma Lesterhuis Mihai Bojonca, TCM International Institute
If you are a valued sponsor and have not already told me, please could you state if you would like a credit here and if so what would you like. Please contact via my 'Moodle profile' above.
If you like this theme and would like me to customise it, transpose functionality to another theme, build a new theme from scratch or create a child theme then I offer competitive rates. Please contact me via my 'Moodle profile' in 'Developed and maintained by' above to discuss your requirements.
This version works with Moodle 3.6.1 version 2018120301.00 (Build: 20181205) and above within the 3.6 branch until the next release.
Please ensure that your hardware and software complies with 'Requirements' in 'Installing Moodle' on 'docs.moodle.org/36/en/Installing_Moodle'.
- Ensure you have the version of Moodle as stated above in 'Required version of Moodle'. This is essential as the theme relies on underlying core code that is out of my control.
- Login as an administrator and put Moodle in 'Maintenance Mode' so that there are no users using it bar you as the administrator.
- Copy the extracted 'essential' folder to the '/theme/' folder.
- Go to 'Site administration' -> 'Notifications' and follow standard the 'plugin' update notification.
- Select as the theme for the site.
- Put Moodle out of Maintenance Mode.
- Ensure you have the version of Moodle as stated above in 'Required version of Moodle'. This is essential as the theme relies on underlying core code that is out of my control.
- Login as an administrator and put Moodle in 'Maintenance Mode' so that there are no users using it bar you as the administrator.
- Make a backup of your old 'essential' folder in '/theme/' and then delete the folder.
- Copy the replacement extracted 'essential' folder to the '/theme/' folder.
- Go to 'Site administration' -> 'Notifications' and follow standard the 'plugin' update notification.
- If automatic 'Purge all caches' appears not to work by lack of display etc. then perform a manual 'Purge all caches' under 'Home -> Site administration -> Development -> Purge all caches'.
- Put Moodle out of Maintenance Mode.
- Put Moodle in 'Maintenance Mode' so that there are no users using it bar you as the administrator.
- Change the theme to another theme of your choice.
- In '/theme/' remove the folder 'essential'.
- Put Moodle out of Maintenance Mode.
If for any reason you wish to downgrade to a previous version of the theme (unsupported) then this procedure will inform you of how to do so:
- Ensure that you have a copy of the existing and older replacement theme files.
- Put Moodle into 'Maintenance mode' under 'Home -> Administration -> Site administration -> Server -> Maintenance mode', so that there are no users using it bar you as the administrator.
- Switch to a core theme, 'Clean' for example, under 'Home -> Administration -> Site administration -> Appearance -> Themes -> Theme selector -> Default'.
- In '/theme/' remove the folder 'essential' i.e. ALL of the contents - this is VITAL.
- Put in the replacement 'essential' folder into '/theme/'.
- In the database, remove the row with the 'plugin' of 'theme_essential' and 'name' of 'version' in the 'config_plugins' table, then in the 'config' table find the 'name' with the value 'allversionhash' and clear its 'value' field. Perform a 'Purge all caches' under 'Home -> Site administration -> Development -> Purge all caches'.
- Go back in as an administrator and follow standard the 'plugin' update notification. If needed, go to 'Site administration' -> 'Notifications' if this does not happen.
- Switch the theme back to 'Essential' under 'Home -> Administration -> Site administration -> Appearance -> Themes -> Theme selector -> Default'.
- Put Moodle out of 'Maintenance mode' under 'Home -> Administration -> Site administration -> Server -> Maintenance mode'.
The original version of Essential used 'CSlider' - tympanus.net/codrops/2012/03/15/parallax-content-slider-with-css3-and-jquery/.
It has been removed because of licencing issues: github.com//issues/61
Please do not request that it be put back. The licence that CSlider has is incompatible with GPLv3 and therefore cannot be a part of or redistributed with the theme.
Essential uses FitVids.js - fitvidsjs.com - to make embedded videos responsive. If you do not want this feature for a particular video, then please add the class 'fitvidsignore' to the video element.
If you wish to override the category course title image in a course when this is enabled, then edit the course summary in the course settings and add an image. Then edit in HTML mode, remove the surrounding 'p' tags and 'br' tag, then remove the 'style', 'width' and 'height' attributes and any 'classes' added by the text editor on the 'img' tag. Then add the class 'categorycti'. To specifiy the height (px) and the contained title text colour, background colour and opacity, use the following attributes: 'ctih', 'ctit', 'ctib' and ctio respectively, for example:
This image will not be shown in the summary itself when viewing the list of courses.
Before reporting an issue, please ensure that you are running the latest version for your release of Moodle. It is essential that you are operating the required version of Moodle as stated at the top - this is because the theme relies on core functionality that is out of its control.
When reporting an issue you can post in the theme's forum on Moodle.org (currently 'moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=46') or check the issue list github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential/issues and if the problem does not exist, create an issue.
It is essential that you provide as much information as possible, the critical information being the contents of the theme's 'version.php' file. Other version information such as specific Moodle version, theme name and version also helps. A screen shot can be really useful in visualising the issue along with any files you consider to be relevant.
Please look in CHANGES.txt.
A video showing many of the core features is available for viewing at www.youtube.com/watch?v=grhmR5PmWtA
As always, documentation is a work in progress. Available documentation is available at docs.moodle.org/36/en/Essential_theme If you have questions you can post them in the issue tracker at github.com/gjb2048/moodle-theme_essential/issues