This project aims to resolve currently terrible UX of HKU Moodle page. Currently there is no method for user to adjust the contents of the page without resorting to JavaScript plug-in.
In v1.1 release, Cleaner provides sorting, filtering, course-specific notes and custom links embedding.
The course list is now sorted in lexicographic order under all cases.
User can filter the courses they want to see by providing which (academic) year and which semester of courses to keep. They can also provide course code prefixes such as COMP or FINA to filter further. To filter, the user must provide year.
If user only provides year, the Cleaner looks for the course text that has year inside. For example, if user enters 2024, "COMP3297 Software engineering [Section 1A, 2024]" will be selected.
If user provides both year and sem, the Cleaner looks for the pattern "Section <sem>X" or "Section FA" to match. Only semester 1 and 2 are now supported.
User can enter the course code prefixes to keep delimited by semi-colons (;). For example, if the user only wants to see ECON and FINA level 3 courses, they should type in ECON; FINA3. This field is optional.
User can provide texts (substrings) that exist in the course title. Cleaner looks for these strings and keep them on the page. Users need to provide a (ideally short) title to as the identifier of the course, which will be used as the text of the navigation button on the nav bar.
For example, if the user typed in "CUND9003/Canton", the Cleaner will pick up any course that has CUND9003 in the course title, and the button on top will display "Canton" instead of the course code. You can provide more than one condition, delimited by semi-colons (;). This can override the filtering results.
If the user provides both year and sem for filtering, corresponding hyperlinks to the filtered courses will be rendered on the top nav bar. Whenever users stay on moodle.hku.hk webpages, users can directly navigate to other pages through them.
For each course, users can add any links they want via the popup form. Those links will be shown on the top of the main body part of the moodle page for users to better organize their learning materials. Under such circumstances, only filter page can be accessed in the popup.
These features only work when the user is on moodle.hku.hk/course/, hence when users are on, say, forum or some resource, the feature may not be available.
We store the user information in 2 different cloud storage spaces. Users do not need to reconfigure their Cleaner when switching the device.
- Chrome sync storage: this is connected to the signed-in Google account of the chrome browser. In this storage, we stored filter parameters, course notes, userId for Firestore database querying.
- Firestore is storing course-specific links for all the users.
The project is open-source and is open for any reviews.
The only data that is being used is the course list when the user stays on the Moodle home page, and the data will be handled by converting necessary information to json format to be saved. The course data, along with the parameters typed in the popup, will be saved to the cloud storage to create HTML elements, and will only be saved locally or synced with your Google account.
Moodle Cleaner does not use user data nor share it to the third parties for unrelated purposes. In fact, there is no method for the developer to fetch the user data.
If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback regarding the privacy policy or Moodle Cleaner, please contact via hengyuli901229@gmail.com or leave your comment on chrome web store or github issue. Your advice is what makes this extension better.
Sep. 1
HKU Moodle Helper deployed a newer version recently, which allowed users to pin the courses in the home page to the top for quicker search. However, this extension is not compatible with Moodle Cleaner.
Aug. 18
HKU ITS removes the side bar navigation hyperlinks to other course pages in all moodle.hku.hk/* pages. Originally, the sidebar was used to fetch desired data, including course names and links to individual pages. The major features of this extension all rely on these. This also kills another extension called HKU Moodle Helper.
v1.1.2 fixes the bugs when the user is on the source page of a course (e.g. forum). These pages are not under moodle.hku.hk/course despite being associated with a certain course. Course note and custom links features are disabled under such pages.
v1.1.0 introduces multiple new features and serves as the demo version for capstone project.
Welcome
You can choose to make a small donation via Buy Me a Coffee. Your support can help the developer of this extension closer to more NewJeans & aespa concerts in the future!!!!!!