Projects for new developers
Getting started
Moodle uses PHP, JavaScript, SQL and a number of other Web languages, so learning those is a good place to start.
When you have some basic PHP programming skills, you may wish to start learning about how the Moodle code is organised. It is recommended that you complete the Introduction to Moodle Programming course on dev.moodle.org. To access this you will need to have an account on moodle.org first.
If you are looking for projects suggested in the tracker, look for issues with the 'addon_candidate' label.
If you are looking to make a quick contribution, look for tracker issues with marked as easy.
Please consider adopting a plugin seeking a new maintainer. See the Plugins adoption programme.
As you become more involved in Moodle development, you might like to learn more about the coding conventions used and how changes to Moodle core code are processed.
Potential projects
This evolving page lists possible Moodle projects for new developers derived from community suggestions.
If you have any ideas for new features in Moodle which might be suitable as projects for new developers, please see New feature ideas.
Allow to crop/resize/rotate images when inserting them
This project is inspired by MDL-52982 - the ability to alter an image via JS in atto.
- Skills required: Javascript (YUI), PHP
- Difficulty level: Medium
- Possible mentor: Mark Nelson
Improve Behat tests in SCORM plugin
The Moodle SCORM plugin does not contain very many behat tests and most tests are manual. The Claude Ostyn diagnostic SCO should be used to implement a range of new Behat tests to cover the functionality that the SCORM module provides.
Deliverables:
- Behat tests for all existing SCORM QA tests (where possible)
- Behat tests for all SCORM settings (eg standards mode, mastery score settings etc)
- The code should pass 100% of the Moodle codechecking tools to ensure the code meets with Moodle Guidelines.
Extra requirement for prospective students:
- We require prospective students to make an attempt at fixing at least 1 issue in the Moodle tracker before their proposal can be considered - on top of this you must also attempt to convert one existing QA test into a Behat test. This MUST be completed before your application can be considered valid. If you do not have time to do this before the submission deadline your application will not be considered.
- Skills required: PHP
- Difficulty level: Medium
- Possible mentor: Dan Marsden
Advanced Grading in Forums
Finish the work required to add the advanced grading feature to the Moodle forum activity. This builds on some existing work available at MDL-31860
Deliverables:
- Modify the forum grading so that it pushes 2 grade areas (or 3 including ratings) into the gradebook instead of a single grade.
- Improve interface that allows overall forum participation grading.
- Behat tests for all new functionality.
- The code should pass 100% of the Moodle codechecking tools to ensure the code meets with Moodle Guidelines.
Extra requirement for prospective students:
- We require prospective students to make an attempt at fixing at least 1 issue in the Moodle tracker before their proposal can be considered - on top of this you must also attempt to convert one existing QA test into a Behat test. This MUST be completed before your application can be considered valid. If you do not have time to do this before the submission deadline your application will not be considered.
- Skills required: PHP
- Difficulty level: Medium
- Possible mentor: Dan Marsden
Add support to end-to-end testing in the Mobile app
Protractor is an end-to-end test framework for AngularJS applications. Protractor runs tests against your application running in a real browser, interacting with it as a user would.
The basements for this project are done, see MOBILE-1179, the only remaining work is to add more tests to the app and document the set-up process in the Moodle developers wiki.
- Skills required: Javascript (AngularJS)
- Difficulty level: Medium
- Possible mentor: Juan Leyva
Create a desktop version of Moodle Mobile using Electron
Electron is a tool for creating cross platform desktop applications using web technologies.
Moodle Mobile 1 (the previous version of Moodle Mobile) had an experimental desktop application using a similar tool (Node-Webkit, now NW.js), for Moodle Mobile 2 we’d like to see the application packaged for desktop using Electron.
In this project you will implement some of the Cordova APIs to use the Node.js API provided by electron:
- FileSystem API - For browsing the local file system
- FileTransfer API - For downloads and uploads
- Camera and capture API - For taking photos, videos and audios using the webcam
Notice that these APIs are already implemented in the previous version of Moodle Mobile 1, this project is about migrating this old APIs from Node-Webkit to the new version of the application using Electron.
- Skills required: Javascript (Node.js)
- Difficulty level: Medium
- Possible mentor: Juan Leyva
Generator of Moodle plugins scaffold code
There are many plugin types in Moodle. There are files and code patterns that all plugins have in common. Also there are specific interfaces that individual plugin types are expected to implement. When developing a new plugin, Moodle contributors use some available templates for various plugin types as well as existing plugins as a reference.
The goal of this project is to develop a tool that helps Moodle contributors to generate a scaffold code for a new Moodle plugin. Given parameters such as plugin type, plugin name, list of enabled/disabled features and other meta-data (such as author name etc), the tool should generate a scaffold code for that plugin that the developer can build on.
Deliverables:
- Research and analysis of existing tools and approaches used in other software projects.
- Specification of the format/syntax of templates that will be used to generate the plugin code (consider Mustache as it is templating language that Moodle developers are most familiar with).
- Templates for all Moodle plugin types and specification of their storage, organisation and maintenance (so that it is possible to keep them up to date in further Moodle versions).
- Software tool that makes use of these templates and actually generates the plugin scaffold code.
Requirements:
- The generated code should pass 100% of the Moodle codechecking tools to ensure it meets with Moodle Guidelines.
- The generator itself should be written in either PHP or JavaScript (Node.js) and provide both CLI and GUI.
- Skills required: PHP / Node.js, experience with Moodle plugins development is a big plus.
- Difficulty level: Medium
- Possible mentor: David Mudrák
Add search to more moodle components
MDL-31989 is introducing global search to Moodle to index moodle data in an external source and to retrieve data back from that external source. There are some module components, like glossary or databases that can use the search engine to index their data on it, so moodle users with permissions can access them quickly. This project would be about implementing the search API in some moodle components, the number of components can vary depending on the time available, but ideally this should land into core.
- Skills required: PHP
- Difficulty level: Medium
- Possible mentor: David Monllao
Elastic search
MDL-31989 is introducing global search to Moodle to index moodle data in an external source and to retrieve data back from that external source. The only search engine that will be initially supported will be solr, as elasticsearch has a good use base would be nice to write a search_elastic plugin implementing moodle's search engine API. This does not necessarily need to go into core.
- Skills required: PHP
- Difficulty level: Medium
- Possible mentor: David Monllao
See also
- GSOC - describing Moodle's involvement with Google in their Summer of Code program
- Popular new feature and improvement requests in Tracker that can be implemented as plugins
- Archive of outdated and/or inactive calls for projects
- a Wishlist by some Moodle users. Some of the good ideas here may be adopted.