URL resource settings

Adding a URL resource to your course

External URL field

1. Turn editing on
2. Click 'Add an activity or resource' and select URL in the activity chooser
3. The "Adding a new URL" screen will ask for a link name and a description (which may be required or optional according to the admin settings)
4. Either enter the URL in the external URL field or click the "Choose a link" button to open the file picker and choose a URL YouTube, Picasa etc (depending on which repositories are enabled for the site

Alternatively, if an administrator has enabled the experimental feature drag and drop upload of text/links in Settings > Site administration > Development > Experimental > Experimental settings, a link can be dragged into a section of the course and given a name, as shown in the images below.

Adding a URL using drag and drop

Course administration settings

Display options

• Automatic - Make the best guess at what should happen (probably what is wanted 99% of the time).
• Embed - Show the Moodle page with heading, blocks and footer. Show the title/description of the item and display the file directly in the page as well
• Open - No Moodle heading, blocks, footer or description - just show the file in the web browser (e.g. shows image, PDF, flash animation, taking up the whole browser window)
• In pop-up - Same as 'Open', but opens a new browser window to show this file (without the Moodle heading, blocks, etc) - this browser window also does not have all the menus and address bar in it.

There above options are the default display options. Additional display options (see below) may be enabled by an administrator in Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > URL.

Advanced Settings

Parameters

The parameters section allows you to pass internal information as part of the URL.

This is useful if the URL is actually an interactive web page that takes parameters, and you want to pass something like the name of the current user, for example.

Other settings

There are the usual Common module settings and the Restrict access settings Conditional activities. There is also an option to display the URL description on the course page below the link to the URL.

URL module capabilities

• View URL resource
• Add a new URL resource

Site administration settings

The URL module has additional settings which may be changed by an administrator in Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > URL.

Frame height

Here you can specify the height of the top frame (containing the navigation) if you choose the "in frame" display option. Note:If your theme has a large header then the height should be increased to prevent horizontal and vertical scrollbars.

Require activity description

This setting allows you to turn off the requirement for users to type something into the description box.

Password

Here you can add a password that will connect your users to a secure site. See this forum post for more details.

Available display options

This setting allows you to add different ways the resource may be displayed on the course page. There are a number of defaults but you can add or change them here. Other display options are;

• In frame - show the Moodle heading and the file description, with the file displayed in a resizable area below
• New window - very much like 'in pop-up', but the new window is a full browser window, with menus and address bar, etc.

Default values for activity settings

Here you can set the defaults for this resource. You can also choose which setting(s) to class as "Advanced". These settings will only then appear if the user clicks "Show advanced" in the settings.