dirname() is a slow function compared with __DIR__ and using
'/../'. Moodle has a large number of legacy files that are included
each time a page loads and is not able to use an autoloader as it is
functional code. This allows those required includes to perform as
best as possible in this situation.
There is a new theme property 'blockrendermethod' that can be set by the
theme in its config.php and tells Moodle what method it is using to render
blocks in the layout files.
Either blocks, or blocks_for_region.
Then when adding custom block regions to a page content we ensure we use
the same method the theme is using elsewhere.
This is really a hack becuase we (I) didn't properly deprecate
blocks_for_region when I added the blocks method.
Thanks very much to Remote Learner Canada, especially Hubert Chathi and Olav Jordan, for their work on the bulk of this code, and also Mike Churchward for supporting them. I worked on it after that (actually simplified it by removing a feature temporarily: multiple pages) to bring it more to what I was imagining, and to provide a base to build on and get all the navigation perfect.
There's still work to do. Some blocks don't quite work as expected, and some of the code still needs upgrading to bring it fully into line with 2.0. We also could use a much better course overview block and better CSS styling of the profile pages. But it's definitely more usable this it was, I think.
Navigation has now been re-ordered in accordance with http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Navigation_2.0_structure.
This has led to several changes in the way in which navigation is generated included API changes, most notably using the
navigation_nodes add method now returns the newly added node rather than the key.
At the same time the global_navigation_tree block has been renamed to navigation and settings_navigation_tree to settings.
The code to print blocks in now in theme layout.php files. (Or in
moodle_core_renderer::handle_legacy_theme)
Code for printing blocks everywhere else has been stripped out.
(Total diffstat 1225 insertions, 2019 deletions)
The way the HTML for a block instance is generated has been cleaned
up a lot. Now, the block_instance generates a block_contents
object which gives a structured representation of the block,
and then $OUTPUT->block builds all the HTML from that.
How theme config.php files specify the layout template and block
regions by page general type has been changed to be even more flexible.
Further refinement for how the theme and block code gets initialised.
Ability for scrits to add 'pretend blocks' to the page. That is,
things that look like blocks, but are not normal block_instances.
(Like the add a new block UI.)
Things that are still broken:
* some pages in lesson, quiz and resource. I'm working on it.
* lots of developer debug notices pointing out things that
need to be updated.
Start calling $PAGE->set_url in all the places it will be necessary
Start of a stub implementation of $PAGE->blocks to stop other things breaking
Remove some of the special case methods in admin_page
