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The [[Front Page]] can be complex. It deals with [[Themes]], it's [[Front Page settings|own settings]], many features used in a [[Course]], [[Roles]] and [[Authentication]]s.  It is also the first page a site administrator will try to tweak and customize. Here are some common questions and answers.
{{Front page}}
==What do we mean by the 'front page' of Moodle?==


==Why not use the Front Page Files area for restoring courses?==
The front page is the site home page. The front page link in the navigation block and navigation bar is called 'Home'.
There are two excellent reasons you do not do this, the first is site/course security. It is easy to not delete the zip file you have restored, you get distracted, forget to do it, not realise that there is a problem. The [[Files]] area for the front page is not secure behind Moodle's native barriers, they are easily accessible to anyone who can work out to get there - which is almost anyone. So you may not be protecting your courses. The other issue is that a [[Course backup|course backup]] can be interrupted by a lot of things and be faulty without anyone knowing it. If you restore in the Front Page, then you risk damaging your Front Page, which can break your site. It is easier to have a special course to allow Administrators and Teachers specifically to [[Restore|restore courses]] from.


==I just restored a course to the Front Page Site files and now I am having serious trouble with the site==
When logged in, a user's customized home page is called 'My home'.


There are a number of issues here. Firstly, the [[Site files]] link in the Administrator's block is an open folder that anyone can access. Putting anything in there can expose it to anyone who wants to look.
==How can I change the look of the front page?==
[[Image:Restorecmf01.gif|200px|thumb|left|Course Restore options]]
*There are various ways of enhancing your front page without needing access to theme files on the server. First, see the section on tips and tricks in [[Front page settings]]  
Restoring Courses needs be done in the appropriate area. From an Administrator's point of view, it is better to have a single restoration point, a dummy course you can use to restore Courses within. It also allow the Administrator to use a single point from which elements or even whole courses can be exported throughout the whole Moodle.
*If you are using the More theme you can [https://docs.moodle.org/27/en/Standard_themes#Customising_the_.27More.27_theme customize it following these instructions] quite easily, to get a nice page such as [http://school.demo.moodle.net/ the Mount Orange School demo site].


Moodle provides you with a process that allows you to select where you want Courses to be restored to and how you want them restored, so the dummy course is a practicable solution, and it affords a modicum of consistency within the site.
*If you are using the Clean theme  or any  other bootstrap-based themes  you can then do some cool things with Bootstrap layout elements, as described in the thread [https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=267662 LOOK & LEARN: How to add marketing spots as a front page topic].
*You can set  a different front page for guests and logged in users with [[Conditional activities]] as described in the thread [https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=268238 Show a different page to guests and logged in users]]
*If you are able or willing to change code then you can add in your own code with an include. See MDL-28163
*You may consider installing  a contributed theme such as the [[Essential theme]] . It is the most downloaded plugin for 2014 and has [https://moodle.org/plugins/reviews.php?plugin=theme_essential great reviews]


This is not a problem for Teachers or Course Creators, they can Backup and Restore only in those pages that recognize them as having a Role greater than an Authenticated User or Student.
==How can I add text and a picture to the centre column?==


==How can I change the look of my Front Page to include a HTML block in the centre column?==
# In ''Administration > Front page settings > Edit settings'' make sure that 'Include a topic section' is ticked
There are lots of different ways to do this. The easiest is to use the ''Administration > Front Page > [[Front Page settings]]''>>Include Topic setting. [[Image:Frontpage04.gif|200px|thumb|right|Front Page settings that impact its look.]]
# In ''Administration > Front page settings'' click 'Turn editing on'
[[Image:Moodlefrontpage.gif|200px|thumb|left|Images inside a HTML table in a label.]]
# Return to the front page and click the edit icon at the top of the centre column
# Go to '''Front Page''' and change each setting to None, None, None None. This Front Page means '''before''' log in so what do you want your visitors to see?
# Add text and a picture
# Go to '''Front page items when logged in''' and change each setting to what you want, or None, None, None, None. This displays '''after''' log in.
# Click the 'Save changes' button
# Go to '''Include a topic section''' and click this ON, a tick appears in the check box.
# Go to '''Save Changes''' and when saved, return to the Front Page.
# Click the "Turn editing on" button and you should see two drop-down combo boxes and a number of icons.
# Select the "Add a resource" and take your pick of either a Label or a Web Page. (Hint: The label is perhaps a better option here, but suit yourself.


At this point you can edit the label or web page any way you want. You are taken to the WYSIWYG editor so you can include any text or image you like. When done, save it and return to your [https://docs.moodle.org/en/Front_Page Front Page] and the changes you made should appear.
==How can I change the logo to the front page?==


==How can I get a different look to my Front Page? ==
# In ''Administration > Site administration > Appearance > Themes'' click the name of the theme you are using (If you're not sure which theme you are using, you can find out in ''Settings > Site administration > Appearance > Themes > Theme selector'')
The [[Front Page]] document has a [[Front_Page#Front_page_format_examples|section on examples]] for achieving different looks with a [[Standard themes|standard moodle theme]].
# Enter the URL for your logo. (Note - you must previously have uploaded your logo somewhere online)
# Click the 'Save changes' button


There you will see examples of 1 column, 2 columns, no center column created by moving or hiding blocks on a Front Page.
Note: This setting is only available for certain themes.


You are not limited here to one view for all users. Look at the [[Front Page settings]]. You can chose what non logged in people see in the center column, which maybe different than someone who has logged into your site.  So you can place a message to welcome people, with some blocks but not show any courses.  When someone logs in show them course categories or just their courses. You will find this under the settings '''Front Page''' and '''Front page items when logged in'''.
==How do I get rid of a resource/activity that's appeared in "Site Pages"?==
When a resource or activity (like a page, file or forum) is added to the [[Main menu block]] on the front page, it will appear in the Site Pages of the Navigation block. To remove this link, turn on the editing on the front page, go to or add the [[Main menu block]] and click to delete the item.


Experiment with different configurations or options, you might hit on one that is spectacular, or more likely, discover the configuration and theme to meet your needs.
[[File:mainmenu.png]]


==How can I make News on Front page seen by only Teachers?==
==How can I prevent activities I made on the front page being seen in the navigation block?==
*[[Make News on Front Page viewable to Teachers only]]


==I want to use our own logo on our Moodle, how can I do that?==
Uncheck the box "Show front page activities in the navigation"  in ''Administration> Site administration > Appearance > Navigation''.
There are lots of ways.  You will be working with [[Themes]] to make this change.
==How can I hide front page blocks from guests but show to logged in users?==
See [[Blocks FAQ]]
==How can I show front page blocks to guests but hide from logged in users?==
See [[Blocks FAQ]]


===Quick way===
==I want to limit the number of courses that appear on the Front Page==
The simplest is to switch to the [[Standardlogo theme]], that comes with Moodle. In this theme you can upload your own logo to site files rather than having to ftp and edit code. You can always change the rest of the theme by adding in colour and such.


===A longer way with more options===
At this time, there is no easy way to do this, as such. In  '' Administration>Site administration>Appearance>Courses'', you can change the number of courses to be displayed on one page to a different number. Currently, the default is 20, but you can make it whatever you want. It is still messy, though. You can also, from ''Administration>Site administration>Front page>Front page settings'', change what is displayed after login to show only categories.
It is possible to change the logos in other existing themes, but it requires a bit of planning. You will need to create the correct size logos, then determine the location and px (pixel) size of the Moodle logos used in your theme(s), then replace the old with the new in the Moodle file structure.  


Firstly, you should know what theme(s) are used in your site and look at the image properties of the logos used in those themes.  One way is to right click on the logo image and select properties.  In the Formal White Moodle theme,  on the front page, the header logo property shows http://demo.moodle.org/theme/formal_white/logo.jpg , a 400 px (wide) by 100 px (high) image.  On the course page the header logo property shows http://demo.moodle.org/theme/formal_white/logo_small.jpg and it is a 200 px by 50 px image. There is also a logo in the footer http://demo.moodle.org/pix/moodlelogo.gif  The size and file location depends upon the theme properties, different themes are, well, different.  
One way of resolving this issue is to replace the course and Category list on the Front Page with a HTML block that links off to the various category pages. This keeps your courses off the front page altogether.  


The height of these files is VERY IMPORTANT. We recommend creating your logo images so they match the pixel width and height of the existing logo files. 
There are a couple of ways to do this, you can have a list of Categories, in a table, or you can use a table full of icons, much the same as Moodle's front page. Depending on your number of Categories, say 11 different subject areas and one Administration area creates a table either four columns or four rows. For most people, the orderly nature of a balanced table implies an orderly site that is really welcome, particularly if the images linking to a Category are clear and the alt tag text says what it is linking to.
==How can I get users to complete an activity on the front page?==
You can either:
#set your default front page role to 'student' in ''Administration>Front page>Front page settings''
#add the chosen users to the student role in ''Administration>Front page>Front page roles''
#upload the users in the student role in a csv file  with frontpage course in course1 and student role in role1 columns (with if desired the group in group1 column also)


Secondly, place those files in the correct location in your Moodle file structure.  Use the path location as a clue. The easiest method is to rename your logo files to those used by the theme and copy them to the new location..  For example in the Formal White theme header, call your files logo.jpg and logo_small.jpg. Copy these files to /theme/formal_white/ folder. Did you notice the Formal White theme footer logo is located at http://demo.moodle.org/pix/moodlelogo.gif and has an html link to moodle.org?
==How can I add a page to the front page?==
#With the editing turned on, add the [[Main menu block]] if it isn't already present.
#Click ''Add and activity or resource'' and add a [[Page]]
   
If you wish the page to be hidden but accessible from the top dropdown menu, then:
#Copy the page's URL
#Hide the block
#Go to ''Site administration>Appearance>Themes>Theme settings'' and add your page URL to the custom menu items box according to the instructions.
   
==How can I get rid of the site short name in the navigation bar?==
Sometimes if the short and full names of your site are similar, you might wish to hide the short name. If you are using the Clean them, you can do this by adding lines to the custom CSS box in the Clean theme settings page.


Alternatively you can edit the theme's "header.html" or "footer.html" file. In the "header.html, find the php code
To hide the short name but keep the space where it used to be, add:
:<img src="<?php echo $CFG->themewww.'/'.current_theme() ?>/pix/big_logo.gif" width="300"
::height="100" alt="mycompany" title="mycompany" id="logo" />


and a few lines later:  
a.brand {visibility:hidden}


:<img src="<?php echo $CFG->themewww.'/'.current_theme() ?>/pix/small_logo.gif" width="210"
To hide the short name and also remove the space where it used to be, add:
::height="70" alt="mycompany" title="mycompany" id="logo" />
  .navbar .brand {display: none;}
 
It is '''highly recommended''' that you change only the file name, not anything else.
[[Category:FAQ]]
 
:Essentially you are creating a new theme by replacing the name of the image file that is your custom logo. If you are editing a standard Moodle's code, it is strongly recommended you first copy that theme (its folder) to your own theme folder.  When you upgrade Moodle, the standard Moodle Themes may change and all your work will be lost.
 
==Theme I want to use does not have a logo on it, how can I add my logo?==
Create the logo file you want to use in the sizes mentioned above, usually in a gif format. Have two logos, one about 70% the size of the other. Again, using the "header.html" file, look for the line:
 
  <nowiki><h1 class="headermain"><?php echo $heading ?></h1></nowiki>
 
and replace it with:  
 
  <nowiki><h1 class="headermain"><img src="<?php echo $CFG->themewww .'/'. current_theme() ?>/pix/logo.gif" alt="" /><?php echo $heading ?></h1></nowiki>
 
Remember this line appears twice, one for the front page then one for subsequent pages. You can limit the size of the file by adding, in the second line:  
 
  <nowiki><h1 class="headermain"><img src="<?php echo $CFG->themewww .'/'. current_theme() ?>/pix/small_logo.gif" alt="" /><?php echo $heading ?></h1></nowiki>
 
This works fine with "ocean blue" theme. (Thanks to DeWayne Demland and [[User:Mitsuhiro Yoshida|Mitsuhiro Yoshida]] for suggesting this)
 
==I have a lost a graphic and table on my Front Page when it is being viewed in guest mode in IE6, but it appears in Firefox==
IE6 (7 and 8) has caused trouble for design of web pages and themes for years but most css problems can be easily fixed. Usually the problem is that if for example some image is too big to some div etc "box" IE6 throws the image to next row or outside screen and so on. The fix can be one tag change or one number change - or scaling the new content smaller so that it fits to given box - but the hard part is to find the cause of broken css. Apparently this is a flaw that is found in a number of releases of IE, and it has to do with the implementation of CSS rules by Microsoft in some releases of different versions. 
 
If new css is needed for IE6 it can usually be added to theme styles_ie6.css file.
 
Better solution: Use Firefox.
Thanks Mauno.
 
==I want to limit the number of courses that appear on the Front Page==


At this time, there is no easy way to do this, as such. In the '''Administration > [[Front Page]] > Front Page Settings''' page, you can change the number of courses to be displayed on one page to a different number. Currently, the default is 20, but you can make it whatever you want. It is still messy, though. You can also, using the same '''Front Page Settings''' page, change what is displayed after login to show only categories - but this too, can get messy. 
[[de:Startseite FAQ]]
 
[[es:Portada FAQ]]
Perhaps the best way of resolving this issue is to replace the course and Category list on the Front Page with a HTML block that links off to the various category pages. This keeps your courses off the [[Front Page]] altogether.
 
There are a couple of ways to do this, you can have a list of Categories, in a table, or you can use a table full of icons, much the same as Moodle's front page. Depending on your number of Categories, say 11 different subject areas and one Administration area creates a table either four columns or four rows. For most people, the orderly nature of a balanced table implies an orderly site that is really welcome, particularly if the images linking to a Category are clear and the alt tag text says what it is linking to. For more information on how to do this, try the [[Front Page]] Moodle Doc.
 
==See also==
*[[Beginning Administration FAQ|Beginning Administration FAQs - 1]]
*[[Beginning Administration 2 FAQ|Beginning Administration FAQs - 2]]
*[[Beginning Administration 3 FAQ|Beginning Administration FAQs - 3]]
*[[Beginning Administration 4 FAQ|Beginning Administration FAQs - 4]]
*[[Installation FAQ]]
*[[Administration FAQ]]
*[[Xampp Installer FAQ]]
 
*[[:Category:Administrator | Index of all Administrator-related pages]]
 
[[Category:FAQ]]
[[Category:Front Page]]
[[Category:Administrator]]

Latest revision as of 18:51, 25 September 2014

What do we mean by the 'front page' of Moodle?

The front page is the site home page. The front page link in the navigation block and navigation bar is called 'Home'.

When logged in, a user's customized home page is called 'My home'.

How can I change the look of the front page?

How can I add text and a picture to the centre column?

  1. In Administration > Front page settings > Edit settings make sure that 'Include a topic section' is ticked
  2. In Administration > Front page settings click 'Turn editing on'
  3. Return to the front page and click the edit icon at the top of the centre column
  4. Add text and a picture
  5. Click the 'Save changes' button

How can I change the logo to the front page?

  1. In Administration > Site administration > Appearance > Themes click the name of the theme you are using (If you're not sure which theme you are using, you can find out in Settings > Site administration > Appearance > Themes > Theme selector)
  2. Enter the URL for your logo. (Note - you must previously have uploaded your logo somewhere online)
  3. Click the 'Save changes' button

Note: This setting is only available for certain themes.

How do I get rid of a resource/activity that's appeared in "Site Pages"?

When a resource or activity (like a page, file or forum) is added to the Main menu block on the front page, it will appear in the Site Pages of the Navigation block. To remove this link, turn on the editing on the front page, go to or add the Main menu block and click to delete the item.

mainmenu.png

How can I prevent activities I made on the front page being seen in the navigation block?

Uncheck the box "Show front page activities in the navigation" in Administration> Site administration > Appearance > Navigation.

How can I hide front page blocks from guests but show to logged in users?

See Blocks FAQ

How can I show front page blocks to guests but hide from logged in users?

See Blocks FAQ

I want to limit the number of courses that appear on the Front Page

At this time, there is no easy way to do this, as such. In Administration>Site administration>Appearance>Courses, you can change the number of courses to be displayed on one page to a different number. Currently, the default is 20, but you can make it whatever you want. It is still messy, though. You can also, from Administration>Site administration>Front page>Front page settings, change what is displayed after login to show only categories.

One way of resolving this issue is to replace the course and Category list on the Front Page with a HTML block that links off to the various category pages. This keeps your courses off the front page altogether.

There are a couple of ways to do this, you can have a list of Categories, in a table, or you can use a table full of icons, much the same as Moodle's front page. Depending on your number of Categories, say 11 different subject areas and one Administration area creates a table either four columns or four rows. For most people, the orderly nature of a balanced table implies an orderly site that is really welcome, particularly if the images linking to a Category are clear and the alt tag text says what it is linking to.

How can I get users to complete an activity on the front page?

You can either:

  1. set your default front page role to 'student' in Administration>Front page>Front page settings
  2. add the chosen users to the student role in Administration>Front page>Front page roles
  3. upload the users in the student role in a csv file with frontpage course in course1 and student role in role1 columns (with if desired the group in group1 column also)

How can I add a page to the front page?

  1. With the editing turned on, add the Main menu block if it isn't already present.
  2. Click Add and activity or resource and add a Page

If you wish the page to be hidden but accessible from the top dropdown menu, then:

  1. Copy the page's URL
  2. Hide the block
  3. Go to Site administration>Appearance>Themes>Theme settings and add your page URL to the custom menu items box according to the instructions.

How can I get rid of the site short name in the navigation bar?

Sometimes if the short and full names of your site are similar, you might wish to hide the short name. If you are using the Clean them, you can do this by adding lines to the custom CSS box in the Clean theme settings page.

To hide the short name but keep the space where it used to be, add: 

a.brand {visibility:hidden}

To hide the short name and also remove the space where it used to be, add: 

.navbar .brand {display: none;}
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