Enable the Lightbox effect for an image hyperlink in a Label resource on your Moodle site

Photo credit: Lightbox-1 via photopin (license)

Lightbox is a JavaScript library that displays images and videos by filling the screen, and dimming out the rest of the web page. The original JavaScript library was written by Lokesh Dhakar. The term Lightbox may also refer to other similar JavaScript libraries. Text is from: Lightbox (JavaScript) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In this post, I will show you how you can enable Lightbox for an image hyperlink in a Label resource on your Moodle site. The genesis of this post was the Blog Learning Rocks. Dan Roddy has written an average of one blog post a year for the last two years, and seven posts a year for the last six years. Which is not much, but this 2010 post of his has become my inspiration for today's post. In fact, thanks to Dan's post, I've also managed to enable the Lightbox effect on image files inside a Moodle folder resource! More on that later in another post on Moodurian.

Well, let's get started shall we?
Step 1: Surf to Dynamic Drive's Lightbox image viewer page.
Step 2: Download the file lightbox.zip
Step 3: Extract the contents of the lightbox.zip to your hard drive. You will see the folder named "lightbox" and its contents below:

Figure 1. Contents of lightbox.zip

• lightbox.js - the main script.
• lightbox.css - basic style and tricky PNG support.
• overlay.png - 80% opacity, black tile used to create shadow.
• loading.gif - mock status bar used in examples above.
• close.gif - 'X' graphic placed in top-right corner.

A minimalist design approach to the Restricted Access resource as displayed on a Moodle course page.

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Taiwanese_Monk_at_the_Salar_of_Uyuni,_Bolivia.jpg
Note the clean whitespace around the monk? Very minimalistic, Zen-like and serene if you ask me.

Below is a file resource that has its Restrict Access settings set. It is grayed-out so that the user knows it is a conditional resource, and the critieria for its access is clear to all.

The displayed text "Not available unless: Your category is hq" means that the user cannot access (read) the resource unless his Custom Profile has been set to "hq". It serves a vital purpose and is useful when a student needs to be informed that a criteria needs to be met or score needs to be attained before he or she is allowed to access that resource.

In my humble opinion, I find the conditional text as intrusive to design of the course page. It does stick out and the eye cannot avoid it. I also think that sometimes the conditional text is redundant and would be better if it were not visible. For example, in the business context, some files may be made inaccessible to a user because the user is unconfirmed. He or she is still on probation. Hence, the Moodle administrator may want the staff to not click and access the resource, but only see the resource as being there on the course page.

The purpose of this post is to show you how to remove the conditional text. At the end of this post, your home will look like this:

Looks like that famous photo of Steve Jobs in his home with minimalistic furniture.
Photo by Benjamin Stockwell. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kingbenny/5186217964/
License is Creative Commons Attribution, non-commercial use.

Okay, now seriously,  At the end of this post, your screens will looks like this:

How would you like to view a Moodle Quiz's Summary Of Attempt table in multiple column format instead of one long list

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls

This post is seventeen (17!) months in the making. Back then I was using Moodle 2.5. It took so long to do because back in November 2013, I was faced with the challenge of redesigning the Summary of Attempt table, but was easily defeated by the complexity of the quiz's renderer.php code.  Ah! Such is the agony of defeat. I found it too difficult to solve, so I left it by the wayside - only to re-attempt the problem in April 2015. You might say that the idea was gestating all this time. By the time I had the solution, which was on 29th April 2015, Moodle had evolved into Moodle 2.8.5. The feeling of the thrill of success is indescribable. Something to be savoured.

At the end of this post, you will be able to have your Moodle quiz display the "Summary of Attempt" in a whole new way, without the usual "scroll of death".

By default, the Summary Of Attempt table in a Moodle Quiz will display as a single column. So a quiz of 50 quiz questions will result in table that extends for most of the screen's height. Here's what my summary looks like with a quiz of 20 questions.

In the example above, I have to scroll all the way down to access and to click the "Submit all and Finish' or 'Return to attempt' buttons. Here's what the table looks like with 49 quiz questions!

Yikes! A long list is generated and I had to scroll all the way down the screen in order to click the "Submit all and finish" button. Now what happens when you have a quiz that consists of 60, 70, 80 or even 100 questions? Think about it.

Hmm.....now then...

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d9/Thinking.jpg

...WHAT IF the table could be redesigned like the one below?

Firstly, the table is now divided into 3 separate columns. The questions snake up-down-and-left-to-right in fashion.  The question numbers are automatically and dynamically generated in their respective columns . In addition, the status of all unanswered questions are shown as red text so that the user has a instant visual cue.

How to selectively hide individual files that are contained inside a Moodle folder resource

Pixabay. License: CC0 Public Domain.
Free for commercial use / No attribution required

Does the structure below look familiar to you? Have you ever used a Folder resource in Moodle? If you have then you will know that you can hide an entire folder by restricting access. However, you cannot selectively hide and show different files within the folder.

Can you hide just the file named GA01 Ver1.0 Service Tracking Form.pdf from the tree? I think not!

In Moodle 2.7.2 until Moodle 2.8.5, you are not able to hide from view, an individual file that is put inside a Moodle folder resource. However, I needed to to this. Desperately. Thus I sought to find the answers on Moodle.org. Alas, no one had come up with an answer. Only questions.  I threw myself into the work with gusto. After four days, I had cracked the problem. I am sharing my solution in this post. 

The Learning Outcome of this post is you will know how to hide from a user, individual files inside a Moodle folder.