I have just release my first block in a very long time, this one uses AJAX to populate Google search results into a block inside a course.
Now why would I want to do that you ask? I don’t want my students to have to leave the education site to go and complete searches for additional supporting materials. By using AJAX the block automatically populates the results directly into the current page with only the final click to the new site appearing in a pop-up window. To make things just a little extra special, the block also allows the user to limit the search results just to the current Moodle site. Now obviously if Google cannot view your site, thus isn’t very exciting, but if it is open to Google, this is fantastic!
The block makes use of Google’s own AJAX search API to generate the menu, so very little work was involved, but hopefully others will find this as useful as I have. If you do use this code, please make suer to leave your thoughts in the comments.
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This post is tagged block, contrib, google search, Moodle
5 Comments
Smart looking plugin, could you clarify what you mean by “open to google”, are you talking about the kind of enrolment used?
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If your site is not visible on the internet, then google cant see it and therefore search it. There is also an advanced option in Moodle administration that allows google to search your entire site with being logged in. For many reasons many users may choose to have that disabled which will also impact on Googles ability to index your site.
Juolian
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hey, i cant download the code.
the link is broken!
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We are trying to put this in place, as it is a great plugin, but it creates a Javascript focus problem when you type, anywhere, on the screen - it always focuses on the Google plugin. Any quick tips or should I role my sleeves up?
Thanks for a great block!
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