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I hate Moodle so much. I have to use it though so I figured I would create a new "front-end" to it. I'm wondering if Moodle has an API I can just hook. I'm hoping to get this to work with most standard Moodle's so I can't rely on anything that has to be enabled or added to Moodle.

If there isn't an "API" I can use how would the best way to scrape it be? I'm best at PHP but I'm open to new ideas.

Thanks

Andrew Barber
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Jamie
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    I'd speak to the IT team – at the school I used to work at Moodle was a massive headache, and we were keen to do this sort of thing. It might even be possible to arrange payment for doing it – I know that if a student was able to demonstrate competency then we would have been happy to arrange that. – Rich Bradshaw Nov 29 '12 at 13:01
  • Hmm. Thanks for the idea @RichBradshaw - I'd probably wanna design and make the whole thing first before trying to get payment or anything. Thanks though – Jamie Nov 29 '12 at 19:10
  • I'd seriously check first – it might also mean you get proper DB access – scraping isn't fun or quick. – Rich Bradshaw Nov 29 '12 at 19:36
  • Might be worth asking. I just think it might be better to make the scraper since I can attempt to make it "universal" and the lots of people can use it. I doubt they'd give me DB access since that gives me access to passwords – Jamie Nov 30 '12 at 11:34
  • The passwords are hashed, so it shouldn't be a massive problem. Also, if I paid someone, then there would be a contract that said "Don't steal the passwords" in it. Alternatively, I'd give them a DB dump that missed out the password table. – Rich Bradshaw Nov 30 '12 at 13:35
  • I'll design the scraper and the front end and I'm sure it can be easily adapted to use the database instead of the scraper. – Jamie Nov 30 '12 at 15:28
  • I'm interested to do what you're asking. Had you been able to do it? If so, can I message you in some way, so I can ask you some questions? Thanks. – Arnau Mas Jan 29 '21 at 18:36

3 Answers3

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look here: http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Core_APIs

and here: http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Web_services_API

Moodle is an open source project. If you don't like it (or some part of it) why not join the community and help make it better?

Michael
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It would help if you said exactly what it is you don't like so much that you are apparently prepared to put hundreds of hours into "fixing" it.

If it's just the look of the thing then you can use themes to change HTML and CSS. Themes are trivial for an admin to drop into Moodle so if what you make is awesome it's not hard to convince an admin to do that.

Otherwise you may be interested in joining in with this new official mobile client based on HTML5 and here is the Documentation.

DoctorAV
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moodler
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  • Hmmm. I find Moodle very hard to navigate. It's a mess to be honest. There is no place where I can look at ALL of my feedback. It can take up to 5/6 clicks to get somewhere and sometimes I can waste 5 minutes trying to look for something. – Jamie Nov 30 '12 at 11:36
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The laconic answer: http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Main_Page

But seriously, the 'front-end' of a web application is pretty much the application; without it, you just have a database. And replicating the work of the entire Moodle dev team on your own seems like a massive case of wheel reinvention.

If you're just trying to reskin Moodle, take a look at http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Theme_development.

pixelbadger
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    I'm unable to reskin Moodle as I'm just a user. I suppose I could use some JS to change the skin on my client but I still can't do that at college. Personally I don't think it would be that hard to replicate most of the Moodle front-end. There isn't too much to it. I'm only looking at doing the user side and none of the teacher side – Jamie Nov 29 '12 at 12:30