Add a block cleanup
| Add a block cleanup | |
|---|---|
| Project state | Completed |
| Tracker issue | MDL-73299 (epic) |
| Discussion | Add a block cleanup for Moodle 4.0 |
| Assignee | Sara Arjona |
In the Add a block menu, the list of blocks is really long. This project is about figuring out how to reduce the list.
Disabling blocks if the feature is disabled
Blocks such as the blog menu, blog tags and recent blog entries will be disabled if blogs are disabled in advanced features.
Blocks this applies to:
- Accessibility review
- Blog menu
- Blog tags
- Recent blog entries
- Comments
- Course completion status
- Global search
- Latest badges
- Learning plans
- Network servers
- Random glossary entry
- Tags
Disabling less useful blocks
Some blocks that we have disabled by default are:
- Course summary
- Feedback - as the block only works if a Feedback activity is added to the site home page
- Remote RSS feeds - as RSS feeds are not used as much these days
- Self completion - as the block is only needed if self completion is enabled in the course completion settings. Instead we can mention in the interface that for self completion, the block needs to be enabled by an administrator.
For new installs, the above blocks will disabled by default.
For upgraded sites, we check if there are any instances of the block and if not, disable it.
Letting themes define "unneeded" blocks
The Administration and Navigation blocks are only needed if the Classic theme is used.
A new theme setting has been added to let themes mark blocks as "unneeded" (to avoid them being displayed in the "Add a block" list page). This will allow Boost to mark the following blocks as unneeded:
- Navigation - as it has been improved in 4.0
- Administration - as navigation has been improved in 4.0
- Courses - as we have My courses in 4.0
- Section links - as the course index in 4.0 provides access to sections
As it's a theme setting, admins can still remove them from this "unneeded" blocks list, if, for any reason, they want to get them displayed in the "Add a block" page.
