File or website link

Name

A short name of the resource. This will be displayed on the course's homepage.

Summary

You may type the summary of the resource here. This will be displayed on the resources index page. The summary is also displayed below the Moodle navigation controls in the top frame, if the window settings are set to open the linked resource in frames.

Location

Type in the url of the file or web page here. You may use the two buttons below to help you.

• Choose or upload a file... - If you click on this button, a popup window will appear with the course files. You will be able to browse the files and choose the one which you want to make available as a resource. If the file is not there you can upload it first.
• Search for web page... - If you click on this button, a popup window will appear with the Google search engine. You can use Google to search the web for a webpage which you want to make available as a resource.

Window

These settings can be hidden/shown by clicking the button labeled Hide settings or Show settings.

Usually, resources are displayed in a normal framed window with the Moodle navigation controls in the top frame. If you choose, you can remove this frame and have the resource fill the window like a normal web page. Determine the size window you wish to open.
Many people still use an average screen resolution of 800x600. In most cases it's best if you initially size your window a little smaller than that, like 600 high and 480 wide.
If you leave these fields blank then the new popup window will be exactly the same size as the window they clicked on to get the popup.

Parameters

Note: parameters are quite an advanced feature. Some knowledge of how web forms pass information to web pages is required.

The parameter settings are completely optional, and are only useful when you need to pass some Moodle information to the resource file or web site. If you define any parameters they will be passed to the resource as part of the URL (using the GET method). The left column allows you to choose information to send, and the right column allows you to give it a name. Note that the user information will be from the user who is looking at this resource, and the course information is from the course that this resource is part of.

An example is to send users to the URL http://www.google.com/search. This is the page that returns search results for your Google searches but, if you go there directly, without specifying what you wish to search for, you just get the standard Google search screen. Google expects a parameter called q that tells it what to look for. If you select a parameter, any will do but in this example we'll use Surname, and give it the name q then every user will see a page of search results based upon the Surname stored in their profile.

A slightly more useful example can be seen on the front page of Moodle.org. The Documentation link (second from the top on the left-hand side) uses paramaters to add the language specified in the user's profile to the link. Try changing your language before clicking on the link and see where you end up. (Bear in mind that if no MoodleDocs exists for a language, you will be redirected to the English documentation).

In general this feature provides a powerful way to connect Moodle to external web resources that are logically divided up by Geographic Region, Course or User details etc. For example you may already have all your past course papers available ordered by course code. This allows a standard course template to be created that points to different places when the course code is changed. If the external source cannot accept connections in the standard format that Moodle provides, and you have access and control over the external source, then a server add-on called mod_rewrite could be used to make them interoperate.

Visible to students

You can hide the resource from students by selecting "Hide" here. It is useful if you wouldn't like to make the activity available immediately.

See also

• PowerPoint
• Overwriting resource files forum discussion