Settins for Header Messages

[Jeremy Hopkins]

The messages feature in the header is a bit of a mess.

Do we want to show notifications or ONLY messages between users, or an option to allow admins to choose?

Do we want to retain an option to show the last five read messages or ONLY unread?

For us (coventry) we do not need to show either notifications or past read messages so can fix this very easily.

The question is whether this would suit others and whether we need to add admin settings for this, and if we do add more settings (only two or three required) where to put them?

[Info 3bits]

The messages feature is probably one of the best features in BCU so I think we need to keep it in Adaptable.

But we can limit the number of messages to show to the last 5 and only messages between users (both, read and unread). Notifications can be removed from the list.

Another task following this could be to improve the Notifications pop-up. The existing is difficult to see with light background.

[Jeremy Hopkins]

For us things are complicated by the use of CUL Activity Feed and its local plugin which captures events for course updates:

https://moodle.org/plugins/local_culactivity_stream

So we get "notifications" for all course updates.

Others maybe useful in the theme messages such as forum posts.

To do this properly I think we would need another settings page that allowed you to choose what notifications appear. For example be able to select things like forum posts, assignment submissions etc.

We could also add a setting to show users the last x number of read messages. There is code for this already but it looks for a non existent theme setting.

Before adding another settings page I had thought we could do with a "manage settings" page. This page would have screen shots of each theme section showing which settings page elements were controlled under. It would also allow admins to disable any pages they did not need / use, and also disable things like the profile field targetting which would simplify the admin settings pages.

For now I think I will alter the query to only show messages between users and not show any "notifications" until the above changes can be implemented.

[Info 3bits]

Duplicate of #320.