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The beginners guide – How to install a Moodle Plugin

Jaswinder Singh
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26
The beginners guide – How to install a Moodle Plugin

Moodle Plugins enable you to add additional features and functionality to Moodle, such as new activities, new quiz question types, new reports, new blocks, integrations with other systems and many more features. The easiest and most maintainable way to add new functionality to Moodle is by installing a new Moodle plugin

Moodle supports more than 50 types of plugin to extend the functionality. As of writing of this post, Moodle Plugins directory includes more than 1967 plugins contributed by 1080+ Moodle community developers.

There are three ways how the plugin code can be installed in Moodle.

  • From the Moodle plugins directory
  • via uploaded ZIP file
  • Manually at the server

Installing from the Moodle plugins directory:

  • Login as an admin and go to Site administration > Plugins > Install plugins. (If you can’t find this location, then plugin installation is prevented on your site.)

Moodle Plugin Installation

  • Click the button ‘Install plugins from Moodle plugins directory’.
  • Search for a plugin with an Install button, click the Install button then click Continue.
  • Confirm the installation request
  • Check the plugin validation report.

Moodle Plugin Installation

Installing via uploaded ZIP file

  • Go to the Moodle plugins directory, select your current Moodle version, then choose a plugin with a Download button and download the ZIP file.
  • Login to your Moodle site as an admin and go to Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Install plugins.
  • Upload the ZIP file. You should only be prompted to add extra details (in the Show more section) if your plugin is not automatically detected.
  • If your target directory is not writeable, you will see a warning message.
  • Check the plugin validation report

Installing manually at the server

If you can’t deploy the plugin code via the administration web interface, you have to copy it to the server file system manually (e.g. if the web server process does not have write access to the Moodle installation tree to do this for you).

You need to establish the correct path in the Moodle code tree. For beginners, I would like to bring attention to the plugin nomenclature for better understanding the Moodle code tree.

If you carefully observe the plugin name then you will observe that it is starting to look similar to block_sharing_cart, theme_essential or editor_marklar etc. This means that the first word includes the type of plugin and the second word includes the name. You need to extract the file contents in the appropriate directory on your server. Some Common locations are:

  • /path/to/moodle/theme/ – themes
  • /path/to/moodle/mod/ – activity modules and resources
  • /path/to/moodle/blocks/ – blocks
  • /path/to/moodle/question/type/ – question types
  • /path/to/moodle/course/format/ – course formats
  • /path/to/moodle/admin/report/ – admin reports

Caution before installing Moodle plugins

Definitely Moodle plugins help to add new features and add additional functionality but you need to consider the following points before installing a new plugin:

  • Do you really need the plugin? There are many workarounds of doing things in Moodle and achieve similar results. So please make sure to explore all core options before looking for any plugin.
  • Is the plugin well maintained and supported for supported Moodle version.
  • How you will keep your Moodle updated in future in case the Plugin is not supported or not updated anymore by the developer.
  • Is the plugin update frequency is aligned with your overall Moodle site upgrade frequency.

Moodle 4.0 available now for download

Jaswinder Singh
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2
Moodle 4.0 available now for download

Finally the Moodle 4.0 version is available now for download. The new major version of Moodle is packed with a lot of exciting new features. The new version of Moodle provides a fresh look and makes it easier ever for teachers as well as students.

The Moodle 4.0 version is dedicated to Moodle community members who have contributed to Moodle in last 20 years. You can download the copy of Moodle 4.0 from https://download.moodle.org/

The major features packed in Moodle 4.0 includes:

  • Improved Dashboard & Course Page
  • Simplified Navigation
  • Collapsible & Expandable course index
  • BigBlueButton integration as standard activity in the Moodle core
  • Improvised Question bank
  • Customer Report Builder for Admins
  • Admin Preset plugin in Moodle core which will allow administrators can save the configuration of their Moodle site, so that they can share it with other Moodle sites or other Moodle users.

Moodle 4.0 passed 100% Quality Assurance tests, ready for release

Jaswinder Singh
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1
Moodle 4.0 passed 100% Quality Assurance tests, ready for release

In a good news for all Moodle fans, the upcoming Moodle 4.0 version has passed the 100% of tests. The next major version of Moodle i.e. Moodle 4.0 is now all cleared to be released on Tuesday 19th April 2022.

In a recent post on Moodle Forums, Sander Bangma from Moodle HQ announced the news. The developers who have helped in the QA testing with atleast 3 tests, will be receiving the “Moodle Tester’s badge“. The badge is awarded to everyone who help with Moodle QA testing. Apart from the badge, the name of the participants are also listed in Testing Credits directory.

What’s involved in Moodle QA testing?

Moodle QA testing involves testing the new features coming in the next Moodle version and ensure that it is working without any problems in different environments. It is mainly carried out to test Moodle’s functionality from a user point of view.

Real users test out the new functionality on different pages of Moodle. It is not mandatory that you are a developer to test it out. It can be done from any Moodle user who can check if the new feature is working without breaking any other thing.

Moodle 4.0 is the next major version of Moodle which is scheduled to be released on 19th April 2022. It includes many exciting new features which you can check here.

Moodle™ 4.0 – Check out the new features coming in the next major version

Jaswinder Singh
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31
Moodle™ 4.0 – Check out the new features coming in the next major version

Moodle™ – world’s most popular Open Source Learning Management System (LMS) will get a brand new version released in April 2022. The Moodle  4.0 will be the next major release of the LMS which will be covering many new & exciting features.

For every major version release, Moodle HQ team focus on improving the architecture and user experience. Similarly, before the release of Moodle 4.0, the team has focused mainly on improving the user experience for teachers as well as for learners.

In this post we will cover the features in the upcoming Moodle 4.0 version.

Improved Navigation, Search & Menus

With this major feature upgrade, it will become more easier and user friendly for teachers to navigate through  course resources in a better way. The update will be to bring more accessibility to both Primary & Secondary navigation menus.

This new improved navigation feature will bring a context based secondary navigation menu which will allow a quicker access to frequently used items. This improved navigation will provide  a consistent look and feel between desktop sized viewports & mobile sized viewports. In the secondary menu, Navigation items will now appear as tabs within the context header.

Easier Course Management

Another major update in the UX for Moodle 4.0 is to have easier course management. The main objective of this new feature is to improve the user experience of creating & editing the courses. It is mainly targets for course creators & instructional designers.

Better Student workflow in the course

This another new feature will help students navigate easier through the course contents. It will be easier for the students to understand what is the next thing coming for them and what do they need to do to complete the course.

Question Bank Improvements

This new project is coming from Moodle community which will make it easier to manage the question bank. There are many small features coming inside this Question bank improvements like question version numbering, improved questions backup & restore and many more.

The question bank will be now made up of plugins which will make it easier for administrators as well as teachers to manage the questions in the question bank.

Admin Presets Plugin in Core

Moodle plugin – admin present will be now a part of the Moodle core. This plugin allows administrators to export the site settings to .xml presets, import and load other sites presets. It is quite handy plugin especially only for administrators as they can easily export Moodle site settings and configuration to other Moodle site.

BigBlueButton Integration

BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system designed for online learning. This new feature will provide an open source video conferencing solution that ships ‘out-of-the-box’ with Moodle.

LTI Tool/Provider Integration

This new feature will help Moodle to support the 1.3 specification – the only currently recommended standard for LTI. Moodle can already provide courses and modules as LTI tools.

So, these are some cool new features coming soon in Moodle 4.0. Please share with us in the comments below.

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