There are some obvious concerns regarding the compatibility of this "patch" with existing code in core. Ideally we would like to take the best stuff from LSU gradebook and merge into core (extra weights, curving, sticky tabs are the main features), but we're not sure if this is feasible for 1.9 yet.

Any progress on this? Is there a test install available anywhere?

http://test.moodle.org/lsugradebook/course/view.php?id=5

Thanks for helping with testing.

Besides, it's not possible without a heap of JS, and probably a week of work. Not worth it IMO.

Or is the only solution to tell people to remember to limit the number of students per page? That brings it's own set of challenges like how do you navigate to the students who are on the other pages? You have to click through page numbers to find them.

We need a workaround and I guess I'll keep on thinking of ideas. Hope it's helping rather than hindering

Of course you're not hindering! What a silly idea

Someone in the forum suggested an alphabetical filter like the one used in the admin user search page. This would make it easier to find students.

And of course we could put the headers at the bottom, but it would look rather awkward I think, if you have 4 levels of categories... Plus you would need to mirror them completely, so that the top-level categories would be output at the bottom. Maybe you could put together a mock (on paper or html) to see what it would look like. I'm not convinced that this is the best solution.

I have to say that not having the horizontal stroller right inside the browser window is cumbersome.
It is indeed really nice to have student names "stuck" on the left, but this is true for small gradebooks only. Instructors with complicated gradebooks and a lot of columns will be in trouble. Also, previous view had narrower columns/rows, which helped visually.
I think we should un-stuck this column, and repeat not headers, but student names every X columns.
Unless we can make the horizontal stroller to appear in browser.

1. If the number of students per page is set to a small number like 10 then, enable sticky column and add A-Z navigation to find students

2. If more students per page:
a) Switch off the Sticky Column
b) Repeat BOTH rows and headers every x number of rows and columns.

For option 2 you'll have these benefits:
1. You'll always have the students names and column headers handy.
2. You get 2 scroll bars which are always visible on large gradebooks.

Do it similar to 1.8 Preferences:

• Reprint Headers: select # (note: do not repeat Categories structure every single time; just simple Items and Totals would be enough)
• Reprint Student names : select #
• Stick Student names on the left?: Yes/No (note: should be No by default )

The categories would help tell them apart.

• Reprint Headers: select #
• Reprint Headers with Categories: Yes/No

• Reprint Headers: select #
• Reprint Headers with Categories: Yes/No
  Nice one, Good idea! Keeps it flexible for everyone.

Nicolas, I guess, we'd need new database fields for settings options like these in the interface. Does that affect anything?

Please update test.moodle.org.

No other files need to be updated besides the following 2:

grade/report/simple_grader/quick_edit.php has been updated in CVS
grade/report/simple_grader/lib/grade_sql.php has been updated in CVS

http://test.moodle.org/1.9/grade/report/grader/index.php?id=2

and got

Fatal error: Call to a member function is_excluded() on a non-object in /var/www/html/test/1.9/lib/grade/grade_grade.php on line 631

To return to Kenneth's initial comment about whether the goal is to incorporate the LSU gradebook changes into core, or to create a series of patches that allow it to be more easily used with core, as the LSU gradebook includes a number of features, it seems easiest to track these as separate issues.

Thanks to everyone who has voted for this issue. Please consider voting for individual features of the LSU gradebook which are listed as related issues - MDL-18228 and MDL-18229 so far.

If there are additional features of the LSU gradebook which you'd like included in core, please create separate issues for them.

I'm removing 1.9.5 as the fix version for this issue, since to make changes in core so that LSU gradebook does not need hacks in core (the title of this issue) would require database changes which can only happen in Moodle 2.0.