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A Comprehensive Course List for Moodle by

Using a Tree Structure
Weerarathna U.I.M., Member, IEEE
Computer Science and Engineering,
University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.
E-mail: [email protected]

AbstractIn the Open-Source community the most popular

learning management system is the Moodle. It is used by most of
institutes in present, because it is open to modification as desired.
Numbers of difficulties are faced by Moodle users due to lack of
growth of its course list. Course list is a block which is
responsible for showing subjects that are taken by a user. Issue is
rising with the increasing of number of courses in the course list,
because user is usually take more time to select relevant subject
from list which is not categorized at all. This effort has used to
reduce that difficulty by categorizing the courses using a tree
structure.
Index Terms Course list, Moodle, Moodle block, Tree List

I. INTRODUCTION

HE world is truly globalized with the improvement of the

technology. Every time when we talk about technology,
immediately the thing that comes to our mind is the Internet.
Internet has influenced in most of our day-to-day lives of
humans. It actually has become a human need. Institutes,
universities or even schools are always looking to improve
their productivity. So, the technology is used to their activities
too. One area of such network technology is used, is managing
courses and their contents which provided to the students. A
system has to be used here and those are available at different
levels on demand. Most popular learning management system
in Open-Source Community is the Moodle. The reasons to
increase the popularity of the Moodle are, it is easy to use and
it is available to modify as users they want, hence improves
the flexibility of the system according to the various cultures
of users.
One of an area that most Moodle developers are not
looking to improve is its course list. Course list shows all the
subjects taken by a user. It doesnt categorize the courses at
all. What it does is, it sorts the subjects according to alphabetic
order of subjects name and represents as a list. This makes a
huge issue of selecting a course when the number of items in
the list is so large. Our eye may not able to capture the
necessary subject at once, making some time to familiar with
the list and choosing it.
In this paper, I will describe how I achieved a solution to

this problem using a proper structure and methods. This paper

has organized as follows. In the next section I introduce what
technology is used to solve this problem. Then I will elaborate
what approach was taken by me to understand user
requirements. In section IV, I will explain how the
implementation is done according to most programming
standards.
II. MOODLE AND ITS TECHNOLOGY
Moodle
If you already have used the Moodle, you may know or not
that it is programmed using the PHP. Yes, its true that it must
have used some Open-Source scripting language for its
development. Also, almost all dynamic page creations are
done in the server side. Client side is only just showing the
pages what it receives. In other words Moodle is built on 3-tier
architecture.
All the data about users and their entities are stored in a
database. Usually Moodle supports many database platforms
but most frequently used database server is MySQL. Moodles
architecture is simple. Some of you might afraid by seeing
thousands of files in Moodle, but the architecture is simple. It
is simply a modular architecture, hardly any objects but lot of
functions. Every entity in Moodle is a folder. Only thing to do
to input a new entity to Moodle is create a folder or sometime
a file according to the proper format and Moodle itself handles
all automatic installation of those entities.
No other extra new technology has been used for this my
new course list. If I used new technology here, all I have used
has to be distributed with installation files. This may cause to
incorrect operation of Moodle. So it has to be clearly and
cleanly implemented the new course list. PHP has used for the
generation of the block while JavaScript is used to control the
behavior of the tree structure.
Block Structure
It is better to explain how the block structure in Moodle is
operating. All the blocks are stored in the blocks folder in
Moodle root directory. For each block there must have a folder
and that its name should not be included any spaces or invalid
characters, because Moodle parses its name as a variable and
uses globally to identify it. If you want to separate words, use
underscore (_) letter.

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As the content of the block, you can create a file or several
files implanting your functions. More important thing here is
all your implementation must encapsulate within a class name
block_[your_block_folder_name]. And also it must inherited
from the class block_base or any sub class which inherit from
block_base class. In there you have to override function
get_content() method which returns the content of the block
to be displayed. If you want to provide settings for your block,
a settings.php file can be implemented in the block folder.
This is optional.
Block types are controlled by moodleblock.class.php file.
It includes concrete classes for block implementation. In here
it can create new class types too.
All the operations regarding on blocks are done by
blocklib.php file in the lib folder in Moodles root
directory. It contains all the functions like printing block
headers, contents and footers, controlling behavior of block
etc. It is not mandatory to use blocklib.php class to your
block. If anyone like to have different functions than there
exists, can be created a separate file and call those functions
via moodleblock.class.php file.
III. DEMAND
Current course list has some issues regarding when increase
of number of courses in the list. Users like to have clean and
clear course list on their view to grab courses quickly. But this
does not meet with current course list. Users like to see
completed subjects to be hidden if they want to see them and
provide that too - and save space on the block. Also it is desire
to categorize courses according to the level it belongs to and it
makes clear cut of selecting courses quickly.
While providing those features we cant forget basic user
requirements that Moodle users are expecting. Like simplicity,
clearness, performance etc. All those have to be addressed by
the solution.
IV. IMPLEMENTATION
Before any implementation is to be started I searched for a
tree structure which I can use in my course list. First I thought
about external tree structure which will be available in
internet. But later I found out that there is already an internal
tree structure which is using for administrator option
displaying. (The tree list in the left hand side of the main page
of administrator logged-in) More observations has done by me
especially about where its origin and how the implementation
of it has been done. This admin tree is located same directory
in blocks. But the implementation is not generic, that is it is
not reusable for other things due to the hardcode of nodes and
all other things. So I had to look on another way to reuse it in
my project.
Idea was raised in my mind to create a new tree list block
type which may helps to other developers too in their future
developments. So, I examined how to create a new block type.
To create a new block type it has to use
moodleblock.class.php file. Inside it we can create a new
class with new parameters which may help to build a tree list

block. So creating it was my first step. At the beginning I

didnt include any specific function calls inside overridden
methods but more common ones. Then I began to implement
course list block.
As the structure I had to use only arrays because in PHP it is
hard and complex to implement any advanced data structures
like trees. I decided not to use a root node for my tre list
because in this scenario it is not important and it may take
another level of nodes. Also I decided to limit the tree list only
to two levels and no more. Reason for that decision is if I used
more than two levels the horizontal space may not enough to
display a tree node at deepest levels. Also this may increase
the complexity of implementation. Following has described
how the tree structure is made of.
Each node is a new stdClass in PHP.
All those nodes are stored in an array.
I used the advantage of using a stdClass for store node
information in PHP. As you know in stdClass you dont want
to implement explicitly each attribute and its type you want at
all. You can use attributes in time as you want by calling to it
assuming it is in there. PHP is responsible to create attribute
automatically if the called attribute is not exist, otherwise
returning the value. So, my tree node attribute as follows.
Attribute
id*
title*
items[]*

Description
Stores node identification number.
Display text of node.
Array indicating children items of
node. Just only by text.
icons[]*
Array indication icon for each
children node.
visibility[]*
Array storing the visibility of each
children node.
flags[]
Array of storing extra information on
processing each node.
recent_activities[] Array of storing number of recent
activities for each course.
footer
Footer text for node.
Node structure in tree list
* - mandatory when implementing your own tree list.

In the block_course_list.php file I have assigned values for

each of attributes above mentioned by taking every course
which user is currently taking. To decide whether a course is
completed or not I have to use extra strategy because that kind
of implementation hasnt been implemented so far. I observed
in the database there is an attribute number of weeks and
starting date for each course record. That was useful in
implementing a function to identify the course end time.
When starting to implement that function I had to think
twice in where should I implement it? I could have easily used
blocklib.php module in the lib directory on the Moodles
root directory. But as a good programmer it is better to not to
hardcode in these open-source environments. Hard coding can
cause damage to existing functionality of Moodle when the
module is distributing. Especially in case of the target user has

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already modified its module as they want and replacing that
same module with ours may not have those changed
functionalities at all. By all those reasons led me to create a
separate library module. It also may helpful even when
installing process.
Now the important part has to be implemented in that
library module that is printing function of the tree block. We
cant use currently existing printing function or change it
because it supports only text type and list type blocks. Since
tree functions are more different than above those two types I
had to create a new function for printing. As usual there
should have three printing functions one is for block header
printing, one for content printing and the other is for footer
printing. In my case, header printing is same as other blocks
but content and footer is different.
Content printing is the most complex part. Because PHP
doesnt have in-built sorting functions which helpful in my
case to filter courses according to completeness. All things
have to be implemented by myself very carefully with having
consistent code too. In sorting currently on-going subjects
have to be filtered on top of the node items while completed
ones are at the bottom. Following indicates the pseudo code
for sorting method.
for each (node in tree)
while (not all items in node are added)
for each (item in node)
if (item has on-going)
print node item
mark the node as added

Pseudocode for sorting function.

There is one thing I included here that is I have also used

cookie data to store and retrieve nodes status whether it is
expanded or collapsed already. This is very helpful in users
side because user may not want always to spend his/her time
on expanding/collapsing nodes. The status of nodes is already
being stored in the cookies.
At the footer printing I have to input the behavior of the tree
list in JavaScript. Those behaviors are added to the html
document by scripting as java script inside a Meta tags.

block_course_treelist.php

moodleblock.class.php
block_course_list

settings.php

Setting
Type of categorization

Show total activities

Show settings in course

block
Start level of
postgraduates

coursetreelib.php

Includes all the

functions required

5/375

0/52

It is true that every users desires are not equally distributed.

Various users have various desires. Satisfying all those
requirements is impossible. But basically we can do fair
adjustments to our projects which may satisfy most customers.
To do such thing we can provide some settings adjustment
manually by users. In this project I have implemented two
sided settings types, one is administrator side and other is
personal side. Administrator side settings are provided via
settings.php file in block_course_list folder. Following
indicates the brief description about those settings.

Functions
/Lines
9/1110

3/90

V. FLEXIBILITY

Completed Font Size

Description

0/49

Total Lines of code approximately = 1676

Images
Following images have been used for the project and tree
list.
Image
Image File Name
Description
expandall.gif
Used for settings icons
collapseall.gif
tick_green_big.gif
Completed course icon
arrow_collapsed.gif
Node status icons
arrow_expanded.gif
course.gif
General course icon
Module summary
Module

for course tree list.

Includes all the
strings that are
used by block.
Helps
for
localization.
Includes base class
for course tree list.
Includes
base
implementation of
course information.
Includes
settings
which may require
in
administrator
side.

Hide node for completed

courses
Collapse all completed
nodes
Different icon for
completed

Description
Type of categorization
whether nodes are sorted
according to completeness
or by levels.
Show/hide number of
recent activities since
user's last log-on.
Which font-size to be used
for completed subjects.
Automatically hides nodes
which all courses are
completed.
Automatically collapse
nodes which all courses are
completed.
Use distinguishable icons
for differentiate completed
and on-going courses.
Shows/hides the personal
settings for course block.
The level which
postgraduate courses are
started.

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These administrator settings are displayed under Modules >
Blocks > Course in administrator main page. Those settings
are never accessible by general users. So Moodle
administrator should aware the best settings which suitable for
their institute.
Other type of setting is Personal settings which allow
individual users to customize the behavior according to their
personal desires. This is more limited section than
administrator settings, but assumes more powerful. These
settings are shown just above the course tree list contents in
the block. There are one check box and two links. Check box
used to quickly show/hide the completed courses in tree list.
When the number of courses are increasing, the unnecessary
courses completed courses may not want to display or
sometimes users may want to access to completed courses. To
provide this ability it is poor design to implement this setting
on administrator side. Other two links are used to quickly
expand and collapse tree nodes. This is extremely important in
time saving by reducing some clicks. More important thing
regarding on these personal settings is it has the ability to save
your personalized settings even you logged-out by using
cookies. In next time you logged-in to the system those saved
settings will be automatically loaded. Not only settings but
also the node status like it is expanded or not are capable
of saving and restoring. This ability is so much valuable in
users side because user may not want to do same adjustments
again and again. There is one thing to remember that those
settings are saved only for 30 days period. That is if you didnt
log in to system for a 30 day period, your settings will be
expired and default settings may take in place. If you want to
change the length of time taken to store settings can be
increased via the code by changing only value in a variable.

VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper I proposed a comprehensive course list has
been implemented by using a tree list for Moodle users to
easier their course picking. In future I hope to extend this
project into which the recent activities are shown in tool tips
when you move your cursor on the course item. Then there
wont be any necessary to click the course and search for
where are the recent updates.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Special thanks goes to my parents for helping throughout
this project even they dont know nothing about computer but
providing recourses when I am in trouble. Also thanks goes to
our level 3 project advisors and coordinator Ms. Shahani
Markus Weerawarne who taught us more important concepts
and principles about software engineering and its field. And
also all the other staff who helps me throughout this project
development period. They all are warmly acknowledged.

REFERENCES

[Online]: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development :
Developer Documentation of Moodle, 6th of March 2011.
[Online]:http://www.w3schools.com/PHP/php_cookies.asp :
PHP Cookies, 6th of March 2011.
[Online]: http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp : PHP,
6th March 2011.