Well, this has been a gamble. I don’t even know if I’ll call it successful, but here it is for you all to see
Many ask me how I go about building Moodle themes. They assume it is difficult, time consuming and a realm for experts. Well I am here to say “Poppycock!” to that and give you a brief glimpse into how quick and easy it is with just a little knowledge of CSS and HTML.
Below I have recorded myself developing a theme for a client..the whole shebang, while trying to provide some useful commentary. I don’t know how many will survive the entire duration. but it does show how simple the process can be. It is not necessarily best practice and I have tried to simplify as much as possible, but it should be enough to get even the most layman of people going.
The Video’s
Due to limits with YouTube, this has been split into 5 files. The first is embedded, the rest are links.
- Theming in Moodle -- LIVE! (Part 2)
- Theming in Moodle -- LIVE! (Part 3)
- Theming in Moodle -- LIVE! (Part 4)
- Theming in Moodle -- LIVE! (Prt 5)
Tools Used:
- MAMP -- The personal webserver for local testing)
- XAMP -- A windows version of the MAMP Tool
- CSSEdit -- My glorious CSS editing tool. I can’t live without it!
- BBEdit -- A great text editing tool for OSX
- Textpad -- If your on windows, try this for your test editing
- Firefox -- The browser of champions
- Web Developer Plugin -- You NEED this Firefox plugin if your going to do Moodle themes
- Photoshop -- The best image editor on the planet.
- Gimp -- The cheapest best image editor on the planet
Useful Links
- My Presentation outlining all the Moodle Theme Variables and files (You need this one)
- MoodleDocs link for Themeing
- Themes database on Moodle.org
Great Sites To Buy Themes
Too lazy to do it yourself? Want a theme thats cool without the effort? Try these options.
- New School Learning -- Best site for purchasing professional themes. These are the best I have seen and are cheap as well
- Get me to do it! - Cant resist the sales pitch, but I do build custom themes. This is a more expensive but customised way of getting your sites looking just as they need to.
Will have a look at vids when I get time
I think themes is one area where Moodle is weak, not helped by the use of tables within the layout.
Notepad ++ is a really nice free editor for windows and Firebug is another really useful FF plugin. More interesting than useful is Fire FTP, an FTP client that runs in FF.
The link is broken for part 5 btw.
what can i tell you, i’ve been looking for something like that over the internet but this is the best, so i have a small request, the video resoloution is very bad due to it’s uploaded to youtube, so can you upload it on rapidshare , or even send them to me by e-mail, this would be most appreciated.
thnx man very much
Uhh… incorrect captcha ate my comment. Briefly reconstructed: Hi, Julian! Nice blog, and nice work with Moodle overall!
I second the Firebug plug-in. It can show the inherited styles also + has a live-preview feature. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do!
Hi,
Thanks for the videos…unfortunately..Part 1 is missing. Part 5 does not have link.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ’0 which is not a hashcash value.
Hey this is fantastic. Link no 5 is not working.can you send me more easy links to download it .
Hi Julian,
Could you please drop me a quick email at the address I provided in this reply? I tried contacting you through this website but it kept timing out on me. I would like to send you some info about the visual design work I’m doing with Moodle themes and other topics.
Regards,
Ian
Hi Julien,
Great blog and moodle site… inspiring ideas. I tried contacting you through your website… but had trouble. Could you please send me an e-mail at this address… I would like to chat about the idea of using moodle to run a school intranet…
Thanks,
Julian,
Thanks for putting together what has to be the best resource on this subject I have found anywhere. I’ve always been put off by XAMPP but I have since built my editing set-up around your advice. One thing I would put forward is a Windows text editor, PSPad. It too offers tabbed pages, syntax coloring and so forth – not quite a CSS preview function, but certainly useful.
Cheers, D
I was wondering if Video 5 was available, and are there high res versions of the videos available anywhere to download.
Mnay thanks
Hi
Love it… really well explained…
Is it possible to have this videos with a better resolution?
Really Great !
Is there a way i can get those videos with a better quality?
I agree with the comments above, my audio was spotty. Is it locared elsewhere?
Really excellent information. Sure wish 5 of 5 was available, but thanks for the tips in 1-4 of 5.
Hi Julian,
I really liked your videos. Any idea when the 5th one will be up?
Waiting with baited breath……
Is there any way we can download this to play in our PC?
Great post! I like all your inspiring ideas that you are sharing with us. Will be looking forward for more useful posts in the future from you.