A Look at Moodle 2 Themes
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Transcript of A Look at Moodle 2 Themes
White Paper 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.
By Gavin Henrick
www.somerandomthoughts.com
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.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.somerandomthoughts.com
Moodle 2 Themes 04/11/2011
© Gavin Henrick – Solutions Consultant – http://www.somerandomthoughts.com 1
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 [email protected]
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.
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2 © Gavin Henrick – Solutions Consultant – http://www.somerandomthoughts.com
1. Why read this? ................................................................................................................ 3
2. Themes in Moodle 2 ...................................................................................................... 4
3. Customising themes ...................................................................................................... 9
4. Theme gallery ................................................................................................................13
5. About the Author ........................................................................................................ 49
6. 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
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1. Why read this?
If are you planning to move from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2 you will need to redevelop your theme. This
document aims to provide some guidance on what’s out there already and some of the issues to think
about.
Or if you are just looking at moving to Moodle 2 and thinking about what you are going to do for your
theme, then this document should provide some assistance in understanding what community contributed
themes are available in addition to the standard themes that come with Moodle 2.
This paper looks at the basic features of themes in general and what aspects to consider when customizing
or selecting a new theme. The paper also looks at what features the specific themes have in layout and the
extra customisation options available through the admin settings.
Appendix 3 and 4 provide some sample sites from the community for Moodle 2 and Moodle 1.9 respectively.
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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
Layout and positioning Moodle 2 doesn’t need to look like Moodle. What do I mean by this? Well any design is now possible.
Where traditionally Moodle themes followed some set layouts with a header/footer and 3 columns (2
columns of blocks on either side of a main content column), this is not the case with Moodle 2, and the new
design is layout based. You could have 1, 2, 3 or more columns if you want to. The traditional design
limitations are now all but removed.
Blocks can now be placed in the header, footer, or at the top / bottom of the content area in addition to the
normal columns. So the whole page can look very different if you put the work in. As blocks can provide a
range of functionality, from content display, to specific features like login boxes and RSS feed displays, if
you think creatively, you can really change the makeup of the Moodle page. All options are on the table
now.
For more information on layouts, check out the Moodle Docs -
http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Themes_2.0#Layouts
Customising the menu One of the new aspects of themes in Moodle 2 is the ability to manage a dropdown menu from the admin
settings.
By adding in rows of the name and URL that you want the option to go to, you can configure the custom
menu easily. You can also create menus can indenting the option using “-“.
So for example this sample has Moodle Community as the first option and below it Moodle Support:
The section to add these in is found at the bottom of the page under:
Settings -> Site administration -> Appearance -> Themes -> Theme settings
Moodle community|http://Moodle.org
-Moodle free support|http://Moodle.org/support
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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
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Theme Settings The following are the settings which you may or may not want to alter but need to be aware of:
Setting Default Comment
Theme list EMPTY 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.
Theme designer mode** No 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.
Allow user themes No If you want to allow a user to change to select a theme for accessibility them this is needed, if not, set no.
Allow course themes No If you want to allow a teacher to set a specific theme for a course (perhaps in a department, or special
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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.
Allow theme changes in the URL
No If enabled, the theme can be changed by adding theme={themename} to any Moodle URL.
Allow users to hide blocks Yes 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.
Allows blocks to use the dock Yes 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.
Custom Menu Items Empty Add in the menu URLs that are required. (as explained earlier)
Enable device detection Yes If you want to allow different themes for different devices leave this enabled.
Device detection regular expressions
Empty Advanced option for further device detection.
** 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).
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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, let’s 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 Description Impact
Blocks, Content, Blocks This is the most typical layout of a Moodle theme, and provides options for blocks on both sides of the course content area.
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.
Content, Blocks, Blocks This is variation of the main type, where both columns are on the right side of the content column.
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.
Blocks, Blocks, Content This is the 3rd variation of the main type, where both columns are on the left side of the content column.
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.
Content, Blocks This only has one block column to the right hand side of the content.
This gives a lot more space to the content area and has limited space for blocks.
Blocks, Content This only has one block column to the left hand side of the content.
This gives a lot more space to the content area and has limited space for blocks.
Of course these are all changed if you have docking on, as some blocks can now hide off to the side of the
screen.
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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 Default Reason for change
Full site name Fullname This will show on some pages of the Moodle install.
Short name for the site Shortname This will show in some pages of Moodle. Front page description Summary This is not shown unless the block is enabled. Front Page Dropdowns Set all to None to enable full control of front page
as a webpage. Front page items when logged in
Dropdowns Set all to None to enable full control of front page as a webpage.
Maximum category depth Unlimited Include a topic section Yes News items to show 3 Comments displayed per page
15
Courses per page 20 Default frontpage role Authenticated
user on frontpage
Don’t 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.
Width – Fixed or Fluid The Moodle theme can be either a set width or dynamic/fluid width so it reacts to the width of the
window/screen.
Each of the options have their benefits and weaknesses. A fixed width theme can squeeze content
somewhat, but sometimes fluid themes can end up with acres of white space around content. Docking also
takes space, so this needs to be considered here too.
Another point to consider when using fixed width is content scroll bars. When you add content that is
wider than the space available Moodle adds its own scroll bars. This can make it a big cumbersome to deal
with (for example a huge gradebook with horizontal and vertical scrollbars).. Equally this can happen with
content in HTML blocks, which then have scroll bars too. So you need to be sure your content fits when in
confined areas.
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
This screenshot is then followed by a table of data related to that theme.
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Afterburner
Name Afterburner Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Mary Evans Width Fluid
Setting Options
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Anomaly
Name Anomaly Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Moodle HQ Width Fluid
Setting Options
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Arialist
Name Arialist Layout Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Patrick Malley Width Fluid
Setting Options
Change Logo Change Tagline Link Colour Column Width
Custom CSS
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Binarius
Name Binarius Layout Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Patrick Malley Width Fluid
Setting Options
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18 © Gavin Henrick – Solutions Consultant – http://www.somerandomthoughts.com
Boxxie
Name Boxxie Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking No
Maintainer Patrick Malley Width Fluid
Setting Options
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Brick
Name Brick Layout Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author John Stabinger Docking Yes
Maintainer John Stabinger Width Fluid
Setting Options
Logo Link colour Linkhover colour Header main colour
Block title link colour Heading colour
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Formal White
Name Formal White Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author MediaTouch 2000. Docking Yes
Maintainer MediaTouch 2000. Width Fluid
Setting Options
Default Font size 1.9 look Page text or Logo in header
Logo
Header background colour
Blocks content background colour
Right column background colour
Blocks column width
Footnote HTML Custom CSS
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FormFactor
Name FormFactor Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking No
Maintainer Patrick Malley. Width Fluid
Setting Options
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Fusion
Name Fusion Layout Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Patrick Malley Width Fluid
Setting Options
Link colour Tagline Footertext Custom CSS
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Leatherbound
Name Leatherbound Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Patrick Malley Width Fluid
Setting Options
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Magazine
Name Magazine Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author John Stabinger Docking Yes
Maintainer John Stabinger Width Fluid
Setting Options
Background graphic Logo graphic Link colour Linkhover colour
Maincolour Maincolour accent Headingcolour Block colour
forumback
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Nimble
Name Nimble Layout Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Patrick Malley Width Fluid
Setting Options
Tagline Footerline Headerbackground colour
Link colour
Menu hover colour
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Nonzero
Name Nonzero Layout Content, Block, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Patrick Malley Width Fluid
Setting Options
Left col width Right col width Custom CSS
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Overlay
Name Overlay Layout Content, Block, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author John Stabinger Docking Yes
Maintainer John Stabinger Width Fluid
Setting Options
Link Colour Header Colour Footertext Custom CSS
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Serenity
Name Serenity Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Patrick Malley Docking Yes
Maintainer Patrick Malley Width Fluid
Setting Options
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SkyHigh
Name SkyHigh Layout Content, Block, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Julian Ridden Docking Yes
Maintainer John Stabinger Width Fluid
Setting Options
Logo Col Width Footnote Custom CSS
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Splash
Name Splash Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Caroline Kennedy Docking Yes
Maintainer Caroline Kennedy Width Fluid
Setting Options
Logo Tagline Hide Tagline Toggle Footnote
Custom CSS
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Standard
Name Standard Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Default theme Device Standard
Author Moodle HQ Docking Yes
Maintainer Moodle HQ Width Fluid
Setting Options
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Community contributed themes There are an increasing number of themes available that have been created by the community which have
been released for download. Over 15 of these are now available from the new plugins database which is
found at: http://Moodle.org/plugins/
For a good comparison, each of the following pages have a theme screenshot taken on my standard Moodle
feature course, with no blocks docked followed by a table of data related to that theme. The details on
maintainer are as named in the database.
The URLs to the download pages are included in Appendix 1.
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Aardvark 2.1
Name Aardvark 2.1 Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author Shaun Daubney, Mary Evans Docking No
Maintainer Shaun Daubney, Mary Evans Width Fixed
Setting Options
Background Image Logo Menu Hover Colour Email URL
Footnote
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
Name Aardvark 2.1 - PostIt Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author Shaun Daubney, Mary Evans Docking No
Maintainer Shaun Daubney, Mary Evans Width Fixed
Setting Options
Background Image Logo Menu Hover Colour Email URL
Footnote Profile bar background
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
Name AllContent Layout Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author NewSchool Learning. Docking Yes
Maintainer NewSchool Learning. Width Fluid
Setting Options
Logo Link Colour Link Hover Colour
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Darkb
Name Darkb Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author John ST Docking Yes
Maintainer John ST Width Fluid
Setting Options
Logo Link Maincolour
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Decaf
Name Decaf Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author Lei Zhang Docking Yes
Maintainer Lei Zhang Width Fluid
Setting Options
Background Colour Footnote Custom CSS Hide Settings Block
Hide Navigation Block Show user picture Add custom menu to Awesome bar
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
Name Discuss Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author Danny Wahl Docking Yes
Maintainer Danny Wahl Width Fluid
Setting Options
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Education Book
Name Education Book Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author 99Template.com Docking No
Maintainer 99Template.com Width Fluid
Setting Options
Logo Site Link Colour Header Background Colour
Top Menu Background Colour
Block header Background colour
Block content background colour
Footer background colour
Footer note
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Flexi ii
Name Flexi II Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author Richard Oelmann Docking No
Maintainer Richard Oelmann Width Fluid
Setting Options
Custom CSS Footnote 27 Dock settings 17 Block settings
6 Menu Bar Settings 26 General Page settings 6 Breadcrumb bar Settings
12 Header section settings
6 Dropdown settings 6 menu hover 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
Name Krystle 2 Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author Richard Oelmann Docking Yes
Maintainer Richard Oelmann Width Fluid
Setting Options
Hide Settings Block Hide Navigation Block
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 Lagomorph Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard, tablet, Mobile
Author Richard Oelmann Docking No
Maintainer Richard Oelmann Width Fluid
Setting Options
URL for settings file URL for menu text file Choose Menu Layout Page Image
Background colour 1 Background colour 2 Off-black colour Off-white colour
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
Name Mandarin Layout Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author 3rd
Wave Media Docking No
Maintainer 3rd Wave Media Width Fixed
Setting Options
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MultiStyled
Name MultiStyled Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author Richard Oelmann Docking No
Maintainer Richard Oelmann Width Fluid
Setting Options
Site-wide layout Page body width Site logo Headings background colour
Sidebar Background Colour
Main Content background
Main Text Colour Heading Text Colour
Custom CSS
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MyMobile
Name MyMobile Layout Custom
Status Default theme Device Mobile, Tablet, All
Author John ST Docking No
Maintainer John ST Width Fluid
Setting Options
Mobile Theme color switcher
Mobile Intro Text Show site topic Show full images on site index and course pages
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
Name Newsie Layout Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author JohnST Docking Yes
Maintainer JohnST Width Fluid
Setting Options
Logo Link Colour Link Hover Colour
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Simplespace
Name Simplespace Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author johnSt Docking Yes
Maintainer johnSt Width Fluid
Setting Options
Background image Logo image Link colour Linkhover colour
Maincolour Maincolour accent Heading colour Block colour
Forumback Forum colour
Special Feature
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Zebra
Name Zebra Layout Block, Content, Block
Status Theme Plugin Device Standard
Author Danny Wahl + others Docking Yes
Maintainer Danny Wahl Width Fluid
Setting Options
Logo Logo height Logo Alt Text Background image
Background colour First colour Second colour Third colour
Fourth colour Fifth colour Sixth Colour Seventh colour
Colour Scheme Menu Colour Scheme One Col max width Two Col min Width
Two col max width Three Col min width Three Col max width Enable page zoom
Custom CSS Hide footer logo
Special Feature Offers 1, 2, 3 column layouts, with dynamic colour dark/light settings.
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5. About the Author
Gavin Henrick is a solutions consultant based in Dublin, Ireland who works with assisting organisations to
implement a range of open source learning technologies including Moodle and Mahara. He facilitates
project consultancy and training workshops on e-learning project rollouts and upgrade strategies.
Gavin has worked with technology in business, learning and development for over 10 years. He has been
working with Moodle, Mahara, DSpace and other open-source applications for the last 4 years.
Gavin currently focuses on supporting organisations with e-learning projects including Moodle 2 rollouts
and upgrade strategies through project consultancy and training workshops.
Gavin recently co-authored the book for Moodle 2.0 for Business Beginner's Guide with Jason Cole and
Jeanne Cole. This was published by Packt Publishing in May 2011.
Gavin blogs at (http://www.somerandomthoughts.com) where he regularly provides information on
Moodle including reviews of community created plugins and themes.
He is a regular speaker at a number of Moodlemoots and conferences on the use of Moodle focusing on
practical examples of usage.
For more information:
Email – [email protected]
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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6. Creative Commons Copyright
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.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.somerandomthoughts.com
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/
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Appendix 1 - Community Contributed Themes
Aardvark 2.1 http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_aardvark
Aardvark 2.1 - Postit http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_aardvark_postit
AllContent http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_allc
Darkb http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_darkb
Decaf http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_decaf
Discuss https://github.com/downloads/thedannywahl/Discuss_4_Moodle_2/discuss-v0.1.zip
Education Book http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_educationbook
Flexi_ii http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_flexi_ii
Krystle2 http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_krystle2
Lagomorph http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_lagomorph
Mandarin http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_mandarin
MultiStyled http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_multistyled
MyMobile http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_mymobile
Newsie http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_newsie
Simplespace http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_simplespace
Zebra http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_zebra
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Appendix 2 - Further Reading
Some other useful Links
http://moodle.com/themes/
http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Site_appearance
http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Installing_a_new_theme
Blog entries
http://stawebteam.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/developing-a-new-theme-for-moodle-2-0/
http://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/elearningteam/2011/01/24/things-we-love-about-moodle2-pt2-experimenting-
with-themes/
Through checking the referring URLs to my blog, I recently came across some other interesting
presentations embedded from Slideshare which are also of interest:
Original Blog: http://cem.factorsim.info/ (Spanish)
http://www.slideshare.net/tumbukta/101012-mootes2010
http://www.slideshare.net/pvdhyden/moodle-20-themes
http://www.slideshare.net/moodleman/theme-gurus-moodle-2-edition
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Appendix 3 - Moodle 2 site Examples
Figure 1 – Moodle Community site http://Moodle.org
Figure 2 –iMoot Conference http://2011.imoot.org
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Figure 3 – South Devon College http://moodle.southdevon.ac.uk
Figure 4 - Developed by www.synergy-learning.com
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Figure 5 – Developed by http://www.remote-learner.co.uk for client
Figure 6 -Leeds City College http://moodle.leedscitycollege.ac.uk/
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Figure 7 - Developed by BrightAlley http://www.brightalley.nl/ for Ricoh Europe
Figure 8 - Developed by BrightAlley http://www.brightalley.nl/ for client SWETS
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Figure 9 - Royal Conservatoire of Scotland http://moodle.rcs.ac.uk/
Figure 10 - Developed by www.synergy-learning.com
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Appendix 4 - Moodle 1.9 site Examples
Figure 11 - Southampton Solent University http://mycourse.solent.ac.uk
Figure 12 - Southampton Solent University http://learn.solent.ac.uk
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Figure 13 - Barking & Dagenham College http://vle.barkingcollege.ac.uk/ecampus/
Figure 14 – University of Canberra - http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au