Moodle Front Page Customization

The front page is the initial page seen by someone reaching a Moodle site after or before a login. Typically a student will see courses, some blocks of information, displayed in a theme. In the Navigation bar and Navigation block it is called "Home".

A combination of site policies, user authentication and front page settings determine who can get to the front page. And once they get there what they can see and what they can do.

In many ways, a Front Page has similar features and functions to those in a Course. For example, Activities, Resources and Blocks can be added to the Front Page to give it different looks.

The site's Front page is similar to a course page. The front page settings, roles, filters, backup, restore and questions are currently duplicated in Settings > Front page settings AND Settings > Site administration > Front page.

Front page and front page items when logged in

The centre of the front page can display any combination of the following: news items, a list of courses, a list of course categories, a list of categories and courses or none. The order is determined by a combination box.

It is possible to create one setting for anyone who gets to the front page without logging in to the Moodle site, and another look for only those who have logged into the Moodle site. There are two combination boxes.

Include a topic section

This adds a topic section to the centre-top of the front page. When editing is turned on, resources and/or activities can be added to the topic section using the dropdown menus, in the same way as on a course page.

Note: The label resource can be used to add text and/or an image to the centre-top of the front page.

Default front page role

The default frontpage role enables logged-in users to participate in front page activities. It is recommended that it is set to frontpage role. It should never be set to Guest.

For sites which do not have a default frontpage role (because they upgraded from 1.9), it is recommended that the administrator creates a new role with frontpage archetype, resets it to default and then sets it as the default frontpage role.

Front Page roles

As in a course, you can assign users roles just in the context of this page. Note this is different than the default Authenticated User on Front Page role found in front page settings. As a security issue, usually only admins can modify the front page, other users do not.

Front Page backup

You can backup the front page, similar to a Course backup.

Front Page restore

As in a course, you can Restore a backed up version of the front page. However, there are currently issues with front page restore, as outlined in MDL-31500 and MDL-30808

Front Page questions

The Question bank is accessible from the Front Page. For example, if "topic" is checked in the front page settings, you can add a Quiz module activity.

Tips and Tricks

A Moodle site's front page can be reconfigured from the default standard to give it a different look and or change how it functions. Depending upon the changes, this can be a simple or a more complex process. Of course a custom theme may have its own unique front page format.

Source by Moodle.org