Groups
Improving the Groups design in Moodle 1.9
Summary of problems:
- Groupings not implemented in modules
- Concept of orphaned groups
- Not integrated into Moodle core
- Potential group sharing problems
Other proposals
Change groups/groupings relationship
At present both groups and groupings are not linked strictly to one course, you could use one group in several courses and groupings at the same time. This loose relationship of groups and groupings adds too much complexity and could be/is a source of bugs in code.
Solution: Each group and grouping would link the course id directly. Groupings would be only limiting the number of usable groups in activities. This allows free sharing of groups in groupings inside course without potential problems. This idea was proposed by Enrique. See attached db schema.
Benefits:
- fewer tables
- normalized
- simpler SQL
- easier backup/restore implementation
- more compatible with old group implementation in 1.7
Linked groups
maybe in future - it would allow synchronizing of group membership from different courses
Group/grouping cloning
Cloning or duplicating is UI feature only, it helps to prefill new groups/groupings with existing data.
Other code cleanup
Current group code does not follow Moodle coding guide, has several unfinished/broken/obsoleted parts, is not integrated into core, etc. To do:
- integrate setup and upgrade into main lib/db/*.*
- remove columns from groupings table that can be replaced by permissions
- reduce the number of functions, rewrite or fix them, move them into lib/grouplib.php
- rewrite UI in /group/
- implement module and course groupings support, fix all mods to use it (course edit form, mod edit form, etc.)
- fix legacy functions
- documentation
Needed time
1 month for implementation and testing.
