Development:Interface guidelines

Note: This page is a work-in-progress. Feedback and suggested improvements are welcome. Please join the discussion on moodle.org or use the page comments.

This document is not authoritative, it is a collection of ideas and under construction.

Keeping it simple

Use the minimum interface required to get the job done. Order the elements by contexts. Give the user a strong orientation where the places are to do several things.

Standard pages

See Address Bar/URL UI guideline

One script per major function/page

...

Page layout

See: Basic page _structure UI guideline

Form layout

See: Form UI guideline

Dealing with tables

Use the print_table function whenever possible.

Standard navigation tools

See:

The information that was here has been incorporated to those pages

URLs

See Address Bar UI guideline

Buttons vs links

See: Development:Button and Development:Link UI guidelines.

The information that was here has been integrated to those documents.

Language strings

Use your own language strings in a separate file. Don't use existing language files from moodle.php or other lang files. So translators can translate in the contexts in different ways as terms are used in the special learning culture.

CSS naming

Don't add font, color or layout definitions in code. This belongs to CSS theme files.
See theme standards

Linking to help

Help buttons should be on the right of the thing (as an exception it can be left, if the thing is right-aligned)

Documentation