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With Activity themes, you can improve your students' experience using engaging and topical images and layouts that best suit each activity and folder.
When you create an Activity theme in a course, it is included when you copy that course or make that course a Course template.
Buzz's Activity themes allow you to configure:
- Overall layout and style
- Background image or color not displayed when using Full page layout
- Headers and footers not displayed in folders
- Question numbering placement, styles, sizes, and divider styles for activities with questions
Applying the same theme to a Folder and to the activities within it creates seamless experience.
Activity theme applied to a folder
Activity theme applied to an activity
Create Activity themes
To create Activity themes for a course, open Course settings.
- Click Add theme on the Activity themes card.
- Give the theme a Name.
- Note: Theme Names cannot be changed after the themes has been saved.
- Choose the Layout (and review the Preview provided):
- Add a Header and Footer.
- Note: Buzz allows you to use replacement variables to further customize the Headers and Footers for the specific course and assessment being used.
- Save.
Full page layout
Full page layout takes the full window, doesn't include a background image/color, and allows you to define:
- The Question number placement for activities with questions (you can choose Inline, Top left, Top right, or None).
- Whether you want a Line divider between questions for activities with questions.
Single card layout
Single card layout puts all content on a single card that sits over a background image/color and allows you to define:
- Question number placement for activities with questions (you can choose Inline, Top left, Top right, or None).
- Whether you want a Line divider between questions in activities with questions.
- The Card corner style.
- The Card width (you can choose Full, Standard, or Custom and provide your custom dimensions).
- A Background image that appears behind the content cards.
- A Background color that appears behind the content cards if you don't select a Background image.
Multiple cards layout
Multiple cards layout displays headers, footers, course content, and each question on its own card over a background image/color and allows you to define:
- The Question number placement for activities with questions (you can choose Inline, Top left, Top right, or None).
- The Card corner style.
- The Card width (you can choose Full, Standard, or Custom and provide your custom dimensions).
- A Background color that appears behind the content cards if you don't select a Background image.
- A Background image that appears behind the content cards.
Replacement variables in Headers and Footers
Replacement variables allow you to easily customize content in your Headers and Footers based on the course and activity that is being viewed.
To use them, place variable codes (outlined in the table below) between dollar signs ($) in the fields.
Buzz automatically replaces the variables with dynamic values drawn from course information when rendering each activity that uses the theme.
Replacement variables for Activity themes
Replacement variables are allowed in various places throughout Buzz, but only the variables outlined in this table are available in Activity theme Headers and Footers.
Simply set the variable code between dollar signs ($) to activate the variable, like this: $VARIABLECODE$.
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| COURSENAME | The title of the course that the current user is viewing. |
| ITEMNAME | The title of the item that the current user is viewing. In this case, this is the assessment’s title. |
Apply Activity themes
- Select the Theme from the Theme dropdown on the Activity tab.
Apply Activity themes to multiple folders and/or activities at once
When you Activity themes to a folder, the activities within that folder do not inherit the applied theme to allow you to use different themes for activities in the same folder. Because of this, you must apply Activity themes to each item.
To make this easier, you can apply or change Activity themes for multiple items at once using the Editor > Activity list Bulk edit tool:
- You can filter the list of activities and folders by Title, Type, and Location (folder) to easily access the items you want to apply the theme to.
- You can check the box next to each item you want to update or check the box at the top to select all shown items.
- When you've selected the desired items, click the Bulk edit tool in the toolbar.
- Check Activity theme in the list of possible edits, choose the desired theme, and Update.
