Blocks drawer open by default

[berthelemy]

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We put things like the Completion Status block and important notices into the blocks drawer. However many of our learners do not see that there is anything on the right hand side to open, so they never see these things.

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Either:

1. A setting to allow admins to set the drawer to be open by default, or
2. A way to highlight to users that there is a button to press to view the information in the drawer.

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We've tried the user tours, but haven't found a way to display them by the drawer button.

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[tim1mw]

+1 for this feature, my Moodle has important stuff in the right bar of the dashboard we don't want users to miss.

I've worked around this on my Moodle by putting the following:

set_user_preference('drawer-open-block', true);

into a pre-existing custom local plugin that listens for \core\event\user_loggedin . You could probably patch this into core in the login process as well as a temporary fix. This will cause the drawer to always be open on first login, if the user closes it, it will then stay closed for the rest of the session. However a config option would be much better, perhaps re-opening the drawer when a user enters a course as well?

[willianmano]

@berthelemy @tim1mw

I understand that we have blocks with important info, but forcing users to have a behavior they don't want is not the best choice. If a user has an option to hide the block, then they need to have those blocks show or hidden.

Maybe having a version of the plugin with fixed blocks is the best approach.

[berthelemy]

@willianmano Fixed blocks might be the answer. Or just a way to highlight to users that there is something on the right hand side to open (many of our users either don't see the open icon, or they are confused about what it means).

[willianmano]

@berthelemy Moodle 4.0 come with a user tour explaining that area. This user tour is available for Boost, but I forced it to also be available for Moove.

[chrispratt-tonyyeb]

Would be a great feature to have this as a setting, despite any user tour some user skip those or eventually forget about the block area and miss important stuff.

[davwoo]

@willianmano @berthelemy

I understand that we have blocks with important info, but forcing users to have a behavior they don't want is not the best choice. If a user has an option to hide the block, then they need to have those blocks show or hidden.

Maybe having a version of the plugin with fixed blocks is the best approach.

Just a thought, but in order to cater for all tastes, why not:

1. Have an admin option to reverse the block drawer's default behaviour?

        E.g., Block Drawer Open By Default [Yes/No] (Default: No.)
   

2. Provide users an option within the block to be able to set their preferred default behaviour. (Default open/closed)

3. Give Admin a second option to disable/hide the user's in-block default selection option for sites where a permanently open block is required.