adamjenkins / moodle-tool_bass

v0.2.0 2026-10-16 16:43 UTC

Requires

• moodle/composer-installer: ^1.0
• moodle/moodle: ^5.2

GPL-3.0-or-later

Published on Packagist.org on 2026-10-16 17:02 UTC

README

A Moodle admin tool that changes the settings of some or all activities of one type in a course in one go: pick an activity type, tick the activities, tick a Change box next to each setting to change, preview, apply. Every standard setting of the type's own settings form is offered, in the same order and under the same sections as on the activity's Edit settings page, including what other plugins add to that form (for quizzes: Safe Exam Browser, set to a site template in one go).

tool_bass replaces tool_quizbulkedit (Bulk edit quizzes), which did the same for quizzes only. It is a new plugin with its own component: it does not take over the old plugin's saved configurations.

Requirements

• Moodle 5.2 or later

Installation

1. Copy the plugin directory into <moodleroot>/public/admin/tool/bass/
2. Visit Site administration → Notifications to run the upgrade

How it works

From a course's administration menu (More → Bulk Activity Settings Selector), choose an Activity type. The menu lists the types the course has activities of that you may edit, with their number.

The page then lists the course's activities of that type in course-page order (a subsection's activities inline, where the subsection sits), with their section, maximum grade and grade to pass (for graded types) and completion tracking. A Filter by name box shows only the activities whose name contains the typed text (ignoring case); the select-all box then ticks or unticks the shown activities only, and hidden activities keep their ticks.

Below the table is the type's own settings form, built from the first activity of the type and starting from that activity's current settings. Every setting has its own Change box and stays disabled until it is ticked. Only ticked settings are changed; every other setting keeps each activity's own value.

Preview shows, for each selected activity, the settings that would change with the current and the new value, and any reason an activity cannot be changed. Nothing is saved until Apply changes is pressed. Changing a setting or the selection after the preview disables Apply changes until the next preview, and the server refuses an apply when the settings, the selection or the activities changed since the preview.

How an activity is changed

Each activity is changed through its own Edit settings form, exactly as if a teacher had opened that activity's settings, changed the ticked settings and pressed Save:

1. The activity's edit form is built with its current settings and read back the way a browser posts it.
2. The ticked settings are replaced by the requested values.
3. The result is posted to the activity's edit form, so the form's own rules and validation run (the preview reports exactly what Save would refuse), and is saved through Moodle's own module update (update_moduleinfo()): the module's own save code, grade items, completion, visibility, events and caches.

Each activity is saved in its own database transaction: an activity that fails is rolled back and reported, and the others are still changed.

What is offered

Every setting of the type's settings form, except per-activity content: the name, the description, every text editor, file and date field, the ID number, tags, access restrictions, competencies, outcomes and repeated fields (such as a quiz's overall feedback). A setting is offered even when some activities lock it (for example a quiz's Safe Exam Browser settings once it has attempts, or settings your permissions do not allow): the preview lists each activity that cannot take the change, says why, and skips it.

Extras:

• Grade to pass as a percentage of each activity's own maximum grade, for every graded type ("Grade to pass entered as").
• Quiz maximum grade (the quiz settings form has none): existing grades and overall feedback boundaries are rescaled, as on the quiz's Questions page.

What happens when a setting changes is what happens on the edit page, for example:

• Completion: changing the completion settings of an activity that students have completion data for deletes and recalculates that data; Apply changes then needs a confirmation.
• Quiz: saving a quiz deletes the teachers' preview attempts, as the edit page does.
• An activity whose grade item is locked in the gradebook is skipped (unlock it first).

Saved configurations and admin presets

• Save configuration (below the settings) stores the ticked settings, their values and the ticked activities under a name, for the course and the activity type. Load puts them back into the form; Delete removes one after a confirmation. Saving and loading change no activity: a loaded configuration still goes through Preview and Apply changes.
• Admin presets: a site administrator can tick Save as an admin preset for the whole site when saving; every course's page then lists the presets of that type under Admin presets with a Load button (presets hold settings only). Site administration > Plugins > Admin tools > Bulk activity settings presets lists and deletes them.
• A course's configurations are deleted with the course.

Permissions

The page needs tool/bass:manage in the course (editing teachers and managers by default; RISK_DATALOSS | RISK_CONFIG, because it changes settings in bulk, rescales grades and resets completion). Only activities on which the user also has moodle/course:manageactivities (what the edit page requires) are listed and changed.

Privacy

The plugin stores no personal data (saved configurations hold settings and activity ids, with no user reference) and implements Moodle's privacy null_provider.

License

GNU GPL v3 or later — https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html