Chapter 1, Getting to Grips with the Moodle 3 Architecture, introduces the ethos of the Moodle project and how it has influenced the internal architecture. We prepare ourselves for plugin development by installing the tools we need.

Chapter 2, Moodle plugins - What Can I Plug In?, investigates the main plugin types, such as those dealing with users and how they access the platform. Also, it covers plugins that provide the learning interactions that users experience when they take a course. We also looks at the less obvious plugins, such as filters.

Chapter 3, Internal Interfaces, shows the different types of application programming interfaces (APIs) Moodle provides to support plugin development.

Chapter 4, Course Management, demonstrates how courses can be enhanced through the development of novel course formats. We see how plugins can be used to modify course structure and, by so doing, enhance teaching.

Chapter 5, Creative TeachingDeveloping Custom Resources and Activities, shows that there are two types of teaching interaction: resources and activities. Both of these are types of course module plugin. In this chapter, you will learn how Moodle course plugins work, which scripts need to be present in order for your plugin to behave correctly, and how to modify course plugins to fit your needs.

Chapter 6, Managing Users - Letting in the Crowds, explores how plugins can manage users in a variety of different contexts. We develop two novel plugins, one to authenticate users against an external WordPress site using OAuth, and another to automatically enroll users onto courses when they connect to Moodle via WordPress.

Chapter 7, Creating a Dashboard - Developing a Learner Homepage, teaches us how plugins can be used to create an enhanced learner homepage. Gamification is all about using the same tricks and techniques employed by game developers to entice learners into progressing with courses. In this chapter, we learn how plugins can be developed to promote similar techniques.

Chapter 8, Creating a New Skin, focuses on aesthetics after we have concerned ourselves with functionality. We investigate how Moodle can be rebranded through theme plugins, with a particular focus on support for mobile and tablet devices.

Chapter 9, Moodle Analytics, showcases how to develop plugins to monitor and analyze learner behavior. We learn how to extract data efficiently, how to judge the effectiveness of that extraction, and the various means by which data can be reported, including via a secure external interface.

You will need a computer suitable for software development, one that can run a web server and a separate development environment (Chapter 1, Getting to Grips with the Moodle 3 Architecture, guides the reader through the necessary configuration steps). This book is aimed at developers, so it is assumed that you will be able to install Moodle with minimum fuss. If you need more information on Moodle administration, check out Moodle Administration, also available from Packt (visit https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and-creative/moodle-3-administration-third-edition for details).

This book is for Moodle developers who are familiar with the basic Moodle functionalities and have an understanding of the types of scenarios in which the Moodle platform can be usefully employed. You must have medium-level PHP programming knowledge and should be familiar with the HTML and XML protocols. You do not need to have prior knowledge of Moodle-specific terminology.

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "For example, an administration setting named local_duallang/primarylanguage is accessed by calling get_config('local_duallang', 'primarylanguage')."

A block of code is set as follows:

var col_complete = completion_data.colors.completed_colour; 
var col_incomplete = completion_data.colors.notCompleted_colour; 
var col_submitted = completion_data.colors.submittednotcomplete_colour; 
var col_failed = completion_data.colors.futureNotCompleted_colour; 

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$repeatarray[] = $mform->createElement('text', 'option', get_string('optionno', 'choice')); 
with 
$repeatarray[] = $mform->createElement('editor', 'option', get_string('option','enhancedchoice'), null, array('maxfiles'=>EDITOR_UNLIMITED_FILES, 'noclean'=>true, 'context'=>$this->context));

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "When the learner clicks on the Description button, the client wants a Course information page to be displayed."

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To send us general feedback, simply e-mail [email protected], and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.

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