Boost theme
Boost is the theme included with Moodle. It simplifies navigation between courses, provides more space for content, and coordinates appearance between Moodle LMS and the Moodle mobile app.
Accessing Boost settings
To configure Boost, go to Site administration > Appearance > Themes and click the settings cog on the Boost card.
General settings
The General settings tab includes the following options:
- Unneeded blocks: blocks listed here will not appear in the Add a block menu.
- Theme preset: pick a preset to broadly change the look of the theme. Default is
default.scss. - Additional theme preset files: upload custom SCSS preset files to further alter the theme appearance.
- Background image: upload an image to display as a background across the site. This overrides any background image in the theme preset files.
- Login page background image: upload an image to display as the background on the login page. See Login page for more about customising the login page.
- Brand colour: set an accent colour for the theme.
Advanced settings
The Advanced settings tab allows further customisation using raw SCSS.
Moving from the Classic theme
Moodle 5.3 removes the Classic theme from core, so Boost is now the only theme included with Moodle. Sites that used Classic are switched to Boost when they upgrade.
Settings copied from Classic
When a site that used Classic is upgraded, its customised Classic settings are copied to Boost. If a setting was left at its Classic default, the Boost setting is kept.
- Brand colour
- Background image and Login page background image
- Raw SCSS, in the Advanced settings tab. Check it after the upgrade, as code written for Classic may not work in Boost.
- Unneeded blocks: Classic's list is copied, and Boost's default unneeded blocks are added to it.
Theme presets and Classic's dark navbar setting are not copied. If the site used a custom Classic preset, create an equivalent preset for Boost.
Blocks that were in Classic's right-hand column appear at the end of Boost's block drawer, so check the block order on important pages. Courses, categories, users and cohorts that were set to use Classic go back to using the site theme.
If config.php contains $CFG->theme = 'classic';, change it after upgrading.
To keep using Classic, install it as an additional theme from the Classic theme repository before upgrading. This keeps its settings. Installing it after the upgrade starts from default settings.
Links to the site-wide pages from Classic's Navigation block are now added to Boost:
- Site participants: Site administration > Courses > Site participants. See Participants.
- Manage user notes: Site administration > Users > Accounts > Manage user notes. See Notes.
- Site content bank: Site administration > Courses > Site content bank. See Content bank.
- Site blogs: View site blog entries in the Miscellaneous section of the user profile. See Blogs.
- Site badges: Site badges in the Badges section of the user profile. See Badges.
- Tags: Tags in the Miscellaneous section of the user profile. See Tags.
Each link only appears to users with permission to use the page.
Set Dark mode in Boost theme
Dark mode, one of the most requested improvements, has finally landed in the Boost theme in Moodle 5.3. This introduction is a part of a range of visual and navigation improvements that make the platform easier to use.
A new 'Light / Dark / System' option in the navigation bar lets users match the site theme to their device or browser preference (without a reload), improving ease of readability for a clearer and eye-soothing experience.
It's an opt-in, experimental feature in this release, enabled via a new Experimental settings tab under Site administration > Appearance > Themes > Boost.
