Managing blocks: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:15, 14 July 2012

Manage blocks

An administrator can manage Moodle's blocks for the site in Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Blocks > Manage blocks, including any contributed blocks that have been added.

Instances

The blocks page lists the number of instance for each block. Clicking on a number results in the list of courses containing that block being displayed. See Block settings for configuration settings that might be of interest to a site administrator or someone with Front Page editing permissions.

Version

Against each block is the version number of it (in the format 2012061700) This is helpful to for ensuring you have the latest versions of each block.

Hiding a block

The hide/show column allows selected blocks to be hidden i.e. they do not appear in any course "Add a block" dropdown menu and cannot be used in any course. To hide a block, click the eye icon so that it changes to a closed eye.

To reduce the length of course "Add a block" dropdown menus, you should hide blocks which will not be used, such as mentees (unless you have added a mentor role) and network servers (unless you are using Moodle Network|Moodle Networking).

Protecting blocks from deletion

By clicking the padlock against a block in this column, you are preventing it from being deleted on the site. The Settings block and Navigation block are already padlocked, as major difficulties arise if these blocks are deleted. Only unlock them if you are absolutely sure you understand the consequences and have alternative settings and navigation features in place.

Block deletion

Blocks can be deleted using the link in the delete column (but see comments about the Settings block and Navigation block in the previous section) There is usually no reason for standard blocks to be deleted (they are usually hidden) However, non-standard blocks may need to be deleted before upgrading.

Note: To delete a block completely, in addition to deleting it on the blocks page, you also need to remove/delete the actual block folder from the moodle/blocks folder, otherwise Moodle will reinstall it next time you access the site administration.

Block settings

Certain blocks have additional settings, which can be accessed via the links in the settings column.

Block capabilities

Contributed blocks

In addition to using the blocks included in the standard download, other Moodlers have developed their own blocks which they share with the Moodle community. You can download these contributed blocks from the Moodle.org Moodle Plugins directory. See Installing plugins for details of how to install a block.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 An administrator can manage Moodle's blocks for the site in ''Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Blocks > Manage blocks'', including any contributed blocks that have been added.
+===Instances===
+The blocks page  lists the number of instance for each block. Clicking on a number results in the list of courses containing that block being displayed.  See [[Block settings]] for configuration settings that might be of interest to a site administrator or someone with Front Page editing permissions.
+===Version===
+Against each block is the version number of it (in the format 2012061700) This is helpful to for ensuring you have the latest versions of each block.
 ===Hiding a block===
@@ Line 8: / Line 14: @@
 The hide/show column allows selected blocks to be hidden i.e. they do not appear in any course "Add a block" dropdown menu and cannot be used in any course. To hide a block, click the eye icon so that it changes to a closed eye.
-To reduce the length of course "Add a block" dropdown menus, you should hide blocks which will not be used, such as global search (unless you have enabled the global search feature in ''Administration > Miscellaneous > Experimental''), mentees (unless you have added a [[Parent role|mentor role]]) and network servers (unless you are using [[MNet|Moodle Network|Moodle Networking]]).
+To reduce the length of course "Add a block" dropdown menus, you should hide blocks which will not be used, such as mentees (unless you have added a [[Parent role|mentor role]]) and network servers (unless you are using [[MNet|Moodle Network|Moodle Networking]]).
-===Instances===
-The blocks page also lists the number of instance for each block. Clicking on a number results in the list of courses containing that block being displayed.  See [[Block settings]] for configuration settings that might be of interest to a site administrator or someone with Front Page editing permissions.
+===Protecting blocks from deletion===
+By clicking the padlock against a block in this column, you are preventing it from being deleted on the site. The [[Settings block]] and [[Navigation block]] are already padlocked, as major difficulties arise if these blocks are deleted. Only unlock them if you are absolutely sure you understand the consequences and have alternative settings and navigation features in place.
 ===Block deletion===
-Any block (apart from certain protected blocks, such as the Navigation and Settings blocks) can be deleted using the link in the delete column. There is usually no reason for standard blocks to be deleted (they are usually hidden), however non-standard blocks may need to be deleted before upgrading.
+Blocks can be deleted using the link in the delete column (but see comments about the [[Settings block]] and [[Navigation block]] in the previous section) There is usually no reason for standard blocks to be deleted (they are usually hidden) However, non-standard blocks may need to be deleted before upgrading.
 :''Note:'' To delete a block completely, in addition to deleting it on the blocks page, you also need to remove/delete the actual block folder from the ''moodle/blocks'' folder, otherwise Moodle will reinstall it next time you access the site administration.

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