How does the Topics Course Format remember the last state per user? Moodle Community to the rescue.

And how do you cause it to "forget" the last state? Here's how! Read on.

An expert and authority on Course Formats, Gareth J Barnard, replied.

Here's the hack code that does the job of stopping persistance in all Topics courses:

Edit 'format.php' in the  '/course/format/topics' folder and change the code from:

if ($topic != -1) {
   $displaysection = course_set_display($course->id, $topic);
} else {
   $displaysection = course_get_display($course->id);
}

to

if ($topic != -1) {
    $displaysection = $topic;
} else {
    $displaysection = 0;
}

And once again, thanks to the unsung heroes and kind Moodle Community, another stuck programmer is rescued and a teething programming problem is solved. Don't you just LOVE the Moodle Community?

Happy Moodling
Frankie Kam

Three ways to disable the "Show only one topic / Show all topics" icon in Moodle 1.9

Ever had this need?

In a topics-format course, the "Show only topic N" and "Show all topics" icons present a usability issue. Students who inadvertently click on them become confused when they lose sight of the the other blocks. It would be good if we could disable these icons, either at System or Course level, or perhaps through a new capability.
(John Isner from this Moodle tracker).

In this post I want to present FOUR ways of disabling the "Show only week N" icon

and its sibling, the "Show all weeks" icon.