README

Friendly, step-by-step wizards that help teachers who are new to Moodle get a course started, without long settings pages.

What it does

The course wizard

"Create a course with the wizard" asks one question at a time:

What do you want the course called? A short name is suggested, and you can change it.
Where should the course go? This is asked only if you can create courses in more than one category.
What layout do you want? Each layout comes with a plain description.
How many sections do you want to start with? Asked for layouts that have sections.
When does the course start? Asked only for weekly sections.
Should students see the course now? Asked only if you will be allowed to change this.

A review screen shows every answer, each with a "Change" button, before anything is created. Everything else uses your site's usual defaults: exactly the values the standard "Add a new course" form would use. "Show all settings", on every step, opens the standard form with your answers filled in.

The course is created the same way the standard form creates it, and the person who created it is enrolled in the same way. Events and defaults behave as usual.

The wizard is offered:

in each course category's menu, and in the site home menu,
in Site administration > Courses,
next to Moodle's own "Add a new course" and "Create course" buttons. Admins can switch this off with the "Show wizard links next to "Add a new course"" setting.

First content

On a new or nearly empty course, anyone who can add content there sees a card: "What would you like to add first?" Each option opens a mini-wizard in a pop-up. The card shows the first eight wizards; "More kinds of content" shows the rest. Every core activity and resource has a wizard. The external tool wizard is offered only where the site or course has a tool set up.

A mini-wizard asks a few questions at a time, one theme per screen. The first screen asks the essentials: a name and, for most kinds, what it is for, shown as picture cards. That answer pre-fills the later screens with the settings that suit it. You can check each screen, or press "Enough questions, let's go" at any point after the first to create it with what the remaining screens already hold.

Option	What it is for	Screens after the first
A file	Read it in the course / Download and keep it / Print it	details next to the link
Slides	Look through them in the course (PDF) / Download the original	details next to the link
A picture	(one screen: the picture, what it shows, a caption)	none
A page	(a title and the content)	shared screens only
A forum	Class discussion / Ask me questions / Answer before you see others / One discussion / Everyone posts once / Class blog	emails, deadline, grading, keeping discussions manageable
A glossary	Course vocabulary / Students build it together / Class FAQ / Collect useful links	approval, look, comments and repeated terms, automatic linking, grading
A quiz	Practice / Graded test / Pre-test / Homework	timing, tries, feedback, what students see afterwards, pass mark, layout, first question
An assignment	A file, such as an essay / Text written in Moodle / Work done outside Moodle / A group project	how work is handed in, dates, drafts and retries, marking, feedback, group work
A link	Read an article or web page / Watch a video / Use a website or tool	a note for students
A folder	Files on their own page / Files right on the course page	download button and how files open
A book	Course reading / Handbook / Collection of readings	chapter numbering, custom chapter headings
A choice	A class vote / A sign-up list / A quick check / Pick all that apply	answering, places, results, timing
A feedback survey	Course evaluation / Class opinion poll / Collecting information / Regular check-in	names, answering again, results, timing
A database	Shared collection / Share, then see others / Checked by you first / One entry each	approval, how many entries, open dates, comments and ratings
A wiki	Whole class together / Each group together / Each student alone	way of writing (editor or wiki markup)
A lesson	Tutorial / Choose your own path / Graded lesson	practice or graded, retakes, wrong answers, progress and page list, timing
A workshop	Feedback on each other's writing / Marking each other's projects / Reviewing classmates and themselves	what is handed in, how students review, marks, handing-in dates, review dates
An H5P activity	Practice / For a grade / Something to explore	tries and looking back, buttons under the activity
A SCORM package	A lesson to work through / A graded test	where it opens, tries, timing
A content package	(one screen: the package and a name)	shared screens only
An external tool	(one screen: one of the tools set up for the site or course, and a name)	shared screens only
A video meeting (BigBlueButton)	Live class with recordings / Live class only / Recordings only	waiting for a teacher and recording, opening times
A subsection	(one screen: a name)	visibility only
A question bank (on the course's Question banks page)	(one screen: a name and what it is for)	then opens the bank

After the activity's own screens come the shared ones, each shown only where it can matter: visibility, groups (when the course has groups and does not force a group mode), and completion (when the course tracks completion).

Choices are described by what students will experience; Moodle's own name for a setting is mentioned where it helps you find it later. A purpose's preset replaces the site's default for the settings it covers (for example, a practice quiz uses "Interactive with multiple tries"). Everything a wizard does not ask about is the activity's own default, as if you had used the standard form and changed only those fields. Completion, the gradebook and events work as usual, and a setting the site has switched off (a question behaviour, a way of showing files) is never offered.

Only the kinds of content you are allowed to add in that course are offered. Afterwards the card confirms what was added ("Nice, Week 1 discussion was added.") and suggests something different to add next.

The card never blocks the page. You can:

close it for now ("I'm done for now"),
hide it for one course ("Hide for this course"),
switch it off everywhere ("Don't show me wizard suggestions").

To undo either, open the help button (?) at the bottom of a course page and choose "Bring back the course wizards" (or use Preferences > Wizard suggestions). The card shows again straight away, even on a course that already has content.

Teacher scaffold (optional)

If Teacher scaffold (tool_teacherscaffold) is installed, a teacher who unlocks new activities sees a message on their next course page, for example "Nice work! You've unlocked new activities: Quiz, Choice, Feedback." The message has a button that opens the matching mini-wizard. Wizards does not need Teacher scaffold, and works the same without it.

In-activity wizards

These wizards add content to an activity that already exists, one item at a time, with "Add another" after each save. Teachers find them as "Add with a wizard" (with the wand icon) on the activity's own pages, and as buttons on the course page straight after an activity wizard has added the activity.

Wizard	Where	Kinds
Add quiz questions	the quiz's Questions page and question bank	pick one answer, tick all right answers, true/false, short answer, number, match pairs, essay, description
Add questions to the bank	a question bank's page	the same kinds, and which category
Set up categories	a question bank's page and its Categories page	by chapter, unit, week, lesson, topics or your own word, from–to, with common subcategories
Add lesson pages	the lesson's Edit page	content page with buttons, the six question kinds, end of a branch; where right and wrong answers lead
Add chapters	the book	chapter or subchapter
Add entries	the glossary	term, definition, other words, linking
Add fields	the database's Fields page	text, long text, number, date, menu, radio buttons, checkboxes, URL, picture, file
Add feedback questions	the feedback's Questions page	multiple choice, short text, longer text, number, information
Add options	the choice	one more option, with its limit
Build the assessment form	the workshop	one criterion at a time, for the workshop's grading strategy
Give out reviews	the workshop	random allocation in plain language
Add example work	the workshop (when it uses examples)	an example submission
Move to the next stage	the workshop	where the workshop is and what happens next

Managing wizards

Every wizard, including the 38 that come with the plugin (the course wizard, 24 activity wizards and 13 in-activity wizards), is a definition: a JSON document that says what it creates, which screens and questions it has, how answers turn into settings, and what each purpose pre-fills. Site administrators (capability tool/wizards:managewizards) manage them in Site administration > Courses > Wizards > Manage wizards:

Enable, disable and order the wizards teachers see. The list is grouped into course, activity and in-activity wizards, with an on/off switch per wizard, per group and per activity that saves without reloading the page. Teachers also find the activity wizards under "Add with a wizard" in every add menu on the course page in edit mode: each section's own, and the "+" between two activities, which adds the new one at that place.
Edit a wizard's wording in every installed language, the order of its screens, and its pictures (shipped ones, or your own PNG, JPEG, WebP, SVG or GIF uploads).
Try it: walk any wizard in a real course and see exactly which settings it would set, without creating anything.
Build a new wizard with the wizard builder. Choose what it creates (a course or any installed activity), tick the settings to ask about from that activity's own settings form, word the questions and group them into screens, and optionally add purpose cards with presets. New wizards start as drafts.
Duplicate, export and import wizards, one at a time or in bulk, as a zip with their pictures. Imports are checked first; a wizard that already exists can be imported as a copy, replaced, or skipped. Every imported wizard, a replaced one included, arrives as a draft.
Improve with AI: if the site has a text-generation provider in Moodle's AI subsystem, describe a change in your own words and review the proposed differences before applying them.

The default wizards update with the plugin until you edit them. An edited default is flagged when a newer version ships, with a comparison, Reset to default and Keep my version.

Improving wizards with AI outside Moodle

Download the AI runbook from the wizard list. It explains the format, the design rules and the round trip for working with any AI assistant on exported wizards, and it is included in every export. The format is also described by runbook/wizard.schema.json, and files can be checked before import with:

php admin/tool/wizards/cli/validate.php wizards.zip

Extending

Other plugins can add building blocks that definitions use: actions, which run after a wizard has created its course or activity, and transforms, which turn several answers into settings. Register them through the \tool_wizards\hook\collect_extensions hook.

Settings

Site administration > Courses > Wizards:

Enable the wizards: switches everything on or off for the whole site.
Suggest first content up to this many activities: the card appears on courses with this many activities or fewer (default 1). The Announcements forum is not counted.
Suggest first content only in edit mode (default off): keeps the card off the course page while it is shown to a class or to students. It still appears straight after the course wizard, after a wizard adds something, and after "Bring back the course wizards".
Show wizard links next to "Add a new course".

The plugin adds one capability, tool/wizards:managewizards (manage the wizards; site administrators only by default). Using a wizard needs the permissions its action needs anyway:

the course wizard: moodle/course:create in the category;
an activity wizard: moodle/course:manageactivities plus the activity's own mod/…:addinstance;
an in-activity wizard: moodle/course:manageactivities plus what adding that content needs, for example moodle/question:add for questions or moodle/question:managecategory for question bank categories.

So students and non-editing teachers never see the wizards.

Requirements

Moodle 5.2 or 5.3.

Privacy

The plugin stores these for each user:

whether they switched wizard suggestions off (a user preference),
the courses where they hid the suggestions,
messages waiting to be shown to them.

All three are covered by its privacy provider.

Licence

GNU GPL v3 or later. See LICENSE.

adamjenkins / moodle-tool_wizards

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