Feature Request: Add support for displaying group descriptions with a new placeholder (e.g. {mygroupsdescriptions})

[JofCla]

Prerequisites

• I am requesting the new feature to the correct repository.
• I checked the latest version on GitHub and the README.md documentation to ensure that this functionality does not already exist.
• I searched to make sure that this feature has not already been requested.
• I have, or I know someone who has, the ability and willingness to test the new feature on a Moodle LMS-based site.
• I agree to submit one feature request per issue ticket (do not submit multiple requests in one issue ticket).
• I understand that development and support is provided by volunteer(s) and that all final implementation decisions are up TNG Consulting Inc.

Feature Request - The User Story

Hello,

First of all, thank you for this very useful plugin!

Currently, the {mygroups} tag allows us to display the name of the group each student belongs to, which is great.
In our use case, we would also need to display the group description for each student.

Suggested idea:

• Add a new placeholder, for example {mygroupsdescriptions}, which would display the description of the group(s).
• Alternatively, as suggested in the discussion, it could be formatted as Group name: Group description.

We are aware that this could be less ergonomic in situations where students belong to multiple groups, but in our specific case each student belongs to only one group, so this would be extremely helpful.

Would it be possible to consider this enhancement?

Thank you very much for your work and support!

Best regards,

Screenshots / Mock-ups

No response

Alterative you have considered

No response

Additional information

No response

Planning on submitting a solution in a pull request (PR)?

No

Code of Conduct

• I have read and agree to the project's code of conduct.

[michael-milette]

Hi @JofCla ,

Thank you for taking the time to submit this feature request. I am glad to hear that you find this plugin useful.

Can you please describe the details of how you will use this new tag? For example, where would you use it and why would you need to do that? What are you trying to achieve?

Best regards,

Michael

[JofCla]

Hello @michael-milette

Thank you for your reply.

We would like to use this new tag in the context of a large blended course with around 3000 students (all first-year students in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Sorbonne University). Each student belongs to one group, and in the group description we would include their reference teachers, timetable, classrooms, and possibly an image of their schedule.

The idea is to display this information directly to the students in a Text & Media area or in the Book activity of the Moodle course. This would make the information immediately accessible, without students having to search through a PDF, and without teachers having to create 70 access restrictions or repeat the {ifingroup x} tag 70 times (since we have around 70 groups).

In short, this feature would help us make essential group-specific information visible in a simple and scalable way.

What do you think?
Thank you very much for your support!

Best regards,

[michael-milette]

Hi @JofCla ,

Thank you for the additional information. However, it sounds like cohorts would make morse sense than groups for your purpose.

Groups only exist inside a course whereas cohorts are like global groups.

Can you please clarify?

Best regards,

Michael

[JofCla]

Hello @michael-milette

Thank you for your reply. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough: our need is indeed inside a course, not a site-wide cohort.

Each student is assigned to a single group within the course, and we would like to display the description of that group directly on the course page.

Please tell me if it's clear enough, thank you!

Best regards,

[JofCla]

Hi @michael-milette,

I just wanted to kindly follow up on my previous message, in case it got lost in the thread.
Do you think this feature could be feasible within the plugin’s framework?

Thank you very much for your time and help!

Best regards,
Clara

[JofCla]

Hi @michael-milette ,

I hope you’re doing well!
I just wanted to gently follow up once more regarding my question about displaying group descriptions within a course page.

I completely understand you must be busy, I just wanted to check if you had a chance to take a look or if you think this might fall outside the current scope of the plugin.

Thank you again for your time and all the work you do for the Moodle community!

Best regards,
Clara

[michael-milette]

Hi @JofCla ,

I am indeed planning on implementing the new tag. I was thinking of having it list groups like this:

Group name: The description of the group would go here.

If there is more than one group in the course, it would repeat the above for each group with its name and description. I believe this would work for you and be generic enough to fit other use cases.

Best regards,

Michael

[JofCla]

Hi @michael-milette

That’s wonderful news, thank you so much! 😊
Yes, this would definitely work for us and would be extremely helpful.

Our initial need was exactly that: each student is assigned to a single group within the course, and we wanted to display the description of their group directly on the course page.

Your proposed solution sounds perfect and would really make things easier on our side.
Thanks again for your great work on this!

Please keep in touch when the new tag is implemented!

Best regards,

[JofCla]

Hi @michael-milette

I hope you’re doing well. I just wanted to follow up on the new tag you mentioned implementing, to see if there are any updates on your side.

No rush at all, we’re just keen to know when it might be available, as it would be very useful for our use case.

Thanks again, and looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

[JofCla]

Hi @michael-milette
I hope you're doing well!
I just wanted to share a quick update from our side: we ended up integrating the plugin as it currently stands into our course, and it has been really useful, so thank you again for your work on it!
If the new tag feature is still planned at some point, we'd definitely be happy to try it out and make use of it.
Either way, thanks again for this great plugin!
Best regards,