DeutschLMS

A secure, lightweight learning management system (LMS) for WordPress. Build courses out of lessons, topics and quizzes, enroll students, track their progress and hand out PDF certificates. It was built for teaching German, so its quizzes include gap-fill and word-order questions with an ä/ö/ü/ß keyboard bar, but it works for any subject.

• Version: 0.2.0
• Requires: WordPress 6.5 or newer, PHP 8.1 or newer
• License: GPL-2.0-or-later (see License)
• Languages: English, plus a full German translation

Status: early but in production. DeutschLMS runs a live German course with 30 lessons and about 2,400 questions. Version numbers stay below 1.0 while features are still being added, and paid enrollment is not built in yet (see Roadmap). Back up your site before you install or update any plugin.

---

Contents

• Features
• Requirements
• Download and install
• Updating
• Quick start: your first course
• The question bank
• Question types
• Course rules
• Roles and permissions
• Blocks and shortcodes
• Customising the look
• Translations and multilingual sites
• Your data: what is stored, and uninstalling
• FAQ and troubleshooting
• Developer reference
• Development
• Roadmap
• License

---

Features

Courses

• Courses → lessons → topics → quizzes, in any combination. Quizzes can sit under a topic, a lesson or the whole course (a final test).
• A drag-and-drop course builder on the course screen: add, rename and reorder lessons, topics and quizzes, and add section headings ("Part 1: Grammar") between lessons.
• Free enrollment with one click. Course pages are public; lesson, topic and quiz content is only for enrolled students.
• Linear progression (optional, per course): students must finish each step before the next one opens.
• Drip content: open a lesson a set number of days after a student enrolls.
• Progress tracking: "Mark complete" buttons, automatic completion of lessons and topics when all their parts are done, progress bars.
• Student dashboard with enrolled courses, progress and certificates.

Quizzes

• Four question types: multiple choice, true/false, gap-fill and word order (drag-and-drop or dropdowns; works on phones).
• Graded on the server. The quiz page never contains the correct answers, so they can't be read from the page source.
• Pass mark, attempt limit, optional answer review, and an optional time limit that survives page reloads.
• Instructors can see every student's attempts and reset a student's attempts.

Question bank (new in 0.2.0)

• Every question lives in one central bank (Courses → Questions) and can be used in any number of quizzes. Fix a typo once and every quiz that uses the question is fixed.
• Organise questions by category, difficulty (Easy / Medium / Hard, German labels "Leicht / Mittel / Schwer") and CEFR level (A1–C2).
• Random questions: a quiz can say "5 random questions from category X, difficulty Y", and each student gets a different set.

Certificates

• A PDF certificate when a student completes a course, made on demand (nothing is stored in your uploads folder). You can set a title, a signer and a background image per course, or replace the template completely.

For site builders and developers

• Six blocks and matching shortcodes, overridable templates, a REST API, actions and filters.
• Four roles: Student, Instructor, LMS Admin, plus the Administrator.
• Works with WPML and Polylang: progress counts across translations.
• No external services, no tracking, no ads. The only bundled library is Dompdf, for the certificates.

---

Requirements

	Minimum
WordPress	6.5
PHP	8.1
PHP extensions	dom and mbstring (standard on almost every host). gd is needed for background images on certificates.
Database	MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+ (whatever your WordPress uses)

Nothing has to be installed with Composer or npm to use the plugin: the download already contains everything it needs to run (vendor/ and build/).

---

Download and install

Option A: download the ZIP (easiest)

1. On this GitHub page, click the green Code button, then Download ZIP. You get a file called dlms-main.zip.
2. Rename the folder (recommended). Unzip the file, rename the folder dlms-main to deutschlms, and zip it again. The plugin works under any folder name, but deutschlms keeps updates simple (see Updating).
3. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin, choose the ZIP and click Install Now.
4. Click Activate.

Option B: upload by FTP / file manager

1. Download and unzip as above.
2. Upload the folder to wp-content/plugins/deutschlms/.
3. In WordPress, go to Plugins and activate DeutschLMS.

Option C: Git

cd wp-content/plugins
git clone https://github.com/rooodpud/dlms.git deutschlms

Then activate the plugin under Plugins.

What happens on activation

• Three database tables are created: enrollments, progress and quiz attempts.
• The roles Student, Instructor and LMS Admin are added, and Administrators get all LMS permissions.
• Default difficulty levels and CEFR levels are added to the question bank (on the first page load after activation).
• The permalinks are refreshed so that /courses/… URLs work.

A new Courses menu appears in the admin sidebar.

If course pages show "Page not found" after activation, go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes once.

---

Updating

1. Back up your site (files and database).
2. Download the new version as described above.
3. Replace the plugin folder: either upload the new ZIP under Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin (WordPress offers to replace the installed version when the folder names match), or overwrite the files in wp-content/plugins/deutschlms/ by FTP.

Database changes run automatically on the next page load. Your courses, students, progress and quiz results are kept.

Updating from 0.1.x to 0.2.0: 0.2.0 adds the question bank. Existing quizzes keep working: a quiz that has not been opened and saved in the new quiz builder still uses the questions stored in it before. To move the existing questions into the bank, open each quiz in the admin and click Update: its questions are then added to the bank and linked to the quiz. (Bulk migration scripts are not part of this repository.)

---

Quick start: your first course

1. Create the course. Go to Courses → Add New Course, give it a title and a description (the description is the public course page), and click Publish.

2. Build the outline. Scroll down to the Course builder box on the same screen:

   • Add lesson for each lesson;
   • Add topic inside a lesson to split it into parts;
   • Add quiz under a topic, a lesson or the whole course;
   • Add heading to group lessons into sections;
   • drag items to reorder them, then click Save order.

3. Write the content. Click a lesson or topic in the builder (or use Courses → Lessons / Topics) and write it like any WordPress post: text, images, videos, downloads.

4. Add questions. Open a quiz (Courses → Quizzes). In the Questions box:

   • Add new question writes a new question (it is saved to the bank too);
   • Add from question bank searches the bank and adds existing questions;
   • Add random questions adds a rule such as "3 random gap-fill questions from category Perfekt".

   In Quiz settings, set the pass mark, the number of attempts, the time limit (0 = none) and whether students see the correct answers afterwards. Click Update.

5. Course settings (box on the course screen): turn on Linear progression or Certificate on completion, and set the certificate heading, the signer's name and an optional background image (landscape A4).

6. Drip (optional): on a lesson, set Unlock after (days).

7. Publish the lessons, topics and quizzes. Drafts are hidden from students.

8. Check it as a student. Create a user with the role Student (or any role; Subscribers can take courses too), open the course page, click Enroll and work through it.

To list your courses on a page, add the Course grid block (or [dlms_course_grid]). For a "My courses" page, add the Student dashboard block (or [dlms_student_dashboard]).

---

The question bank

Courses → Questions lists every question.

• Columns: the question, its type (with a marker when it is incomplete), category, difficulty, CEFR level and Used in (the quizzes that use it).
• Filters: type, category, difficulty, CEFR level, and course or lesson (shows the questions used in that course or lesson).
• Categories, Difficulty levels, CEFR levels have their own submenus, where you can rename, add or nest them. Categories can have sub-categories, for example A2 › Lektion 3.

Linked editing. A quiz links to bank questions; it doesn't copy them. When you edit a question (in the bank or inside any quiz), the change appears in every quiz that uses it, and the editor says how many quizzes that is. Remove from quiz only unlinks the question: it stays in the bank.

Random questions are drawn from published, complete questions that match the rule, never twice in the same quiz and never one the quiz already contains. The draw is made when the student opens the quiz and stays the same until they submit, so a reload doesn't reshuffle the quiz.

Incomplete questions (for example without a correct answer) are saved but never shown to students.

---

Question types

All questions are all-or-nothing: a question earns its points only when it is answered completely right.

Type	What students do	How you write it
Multiple choice	Pick one answer, or several if more than one is correct	Answers, with a checkbox for each correct one
True / false	Pick True or False	Choose the correct one
Gap-fill	Type the missing words into gaps in the text	Put each answer in curly braces, other accepted answers after a \|: Ich {bin} nach Berlin {gefahren}. or Er {ist\|war} müde.
Word order	Build the sentence from shuffled words or blocks	List the blocks in the correct order; add other correct orders as alternatives

• Gap-fill: extra spaces and different quote characters are forgiven; capital letters and ä/ö/ü/ß count. A bar with ä, ö, ü, ß, Ä, Ö, Ü buttons helps students without a German keyboard.

• Word order has two display modes, chosen per question:

  • drag (default): drag or tap the tiles into place; works with touch;
  • dropdowns: one dropdown per position; a word chosen in one is not offered in the others.

  The built sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with the ".", "?" or "!" taken from the end of the question text. When comparing answers, capitalisation and punctuation are ignored. Without JavaScript, both modes fall back to plain dropdowns.

---

Course rules

• Access. Course pages (overview and outline) are public. Lesson, topic and quiz content needs a login and an enrollment. Anyone who can edit a course (its author, LMS Admins, Administrators) can always view it, to preview.
• Completion.
  • A lesson or topic without quizzes or topics under it is completed with the Mark complete button.
  • A quiz is complete once the student passes it. Later attempts never undo that.
  • A lesson or topic with topics or quizzes under it completes automatically when all of them are complete.
  • The course is complete when every published step is complete, final quizzes included.
• Linear progression. Every earlier step must be complete. The exception is the step's own lesson or topic: a topic's quiz opens together with the topic, and passing it is what completes the topic.
• Drip. A lesson opens a number of days after the student enrolled. Its topics and quizzes follow it. Students see the opening date.
• Time limit. The clock starts when the student first opens the quiz and keeps running through reloads. At 0:00 the answers lock and the student is asked to submit; after 15 seconds the answers are submitted automatically. An attempt that arrives too late is still graded and stored, but marked late and not counted as passed.
• Attempts. When a student has used up the attempt limit without passing, the instructor or an LMS Admin can reset their attempts. This can be done on the quiz screen (Student attempts) or on the user's profile.
• Certificates. When the course is complete, students get a certificate link: in the enroll box, on the dashboard and in the completion notice.

---

Roles and permissions

Role	Can
Student	Enroll in free courses, take lessons and quizzes, see their own progress and certificates
Instructor	Create, edit and publish their own courses, lessons, topics, quizzes and questions; see and reset attempts on their own quizzes; take courses
LMS Admin	Manage all LMS content (including other people's), enrollments and reports
Administrator	Everything
Subscriber, Contributor, Author, Editor	Can take courses (change this with the dlms_learner_roles filter)

Assign roles under Users → Edit user → Role.

---

Blocks and shortcodes

Course, lesson, topic and quiz pages get the LMS parts added automatically: the enroll box, the outline, "Mark complete", the quiz, and previous/next links. On course, lesson and topic pages, if you place one of these blocks or shortcodes yourself, the automatic output is skipped so that you control the layout (filter: dlms_auto_append_content). Quiz pages always show the quiz.

Block	Shortcode	Shows
Course outline	[dlms_course_outline course_id="" show_topics="yes"]	Lessons, topics and quizzes with completion ticks
Progress bar	[dlms_progress_bar course_id="" show_label="yes"]	The student's progress in a course
Enroll button	[dlms_enroll_button course_id=""]	Enroll / Continue / Certificate button
Mark complete	[dlms_mark_complete step_id=""]	The "Mark complete" button for a lesson or topic
Course grid	[dlms_course_grid columns="3" per_page="12" orderby="date" show_progress="yes"]	A grid of courses
Student dashboard	[dlms_student_dashboard show_completed="yes"]	The student's courses, progress and certificates

An empty course_id / step_id means "the course or step of the current page". The blocks are in the DeutschLMS category of the block inserter.

---

Customising the look

Templates. Copy any file from the plugin's templates/ folder to your-theme/deutschlms/ (keep the same sub-folder) and edit the copy. A child theme's copy wins over the parent theme's. Your changes survive plugin updates.

Certificate template. templates/certificate/certificate.php is turned into a PDF by Dompdf, which supports only part of CSS:

• use simple CSS (no flexbox or grid) and the DejaVu fonts;
• use only local images from your uploads folder;
• position boxes with top, not bottom.

URLs. The defaults are /courses/, /lessons/, /topics/ and /quizzes/. Change them with the filters dlms_course_slug, dlms_course_archive_slug, dlms_lesson_slug, dlms_topic_slug and dlms_quiz_slug, then save the permalinks once.

Styles. The front-end CSS uses dlms- class names (BEM style, for example .dlms-outline__section), so your theme can override it.

---

Translations and multilingual sites

• Text domain deutschlms; the template is languages/deutschlms.pot.

• A complete German translation ships in languages/, using the formal "Sie". WordPress uses it automatically when the site language is German.

• To show the German texts to students on a site whose admin is in another language, load the file for front-end requests from your theme:

  load_textdomain( 'deutschlms', WP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/deutschlms/languages/deutschlms-de_DE.mo', determine_locale() );

• Dates shown to students (opening dates, certificates) use the translation's date format and month names, for example "3. Oktober 2026".

• WPML / Polylang: enrollments, progress and attempts are stored against the default-language course, so they count across all translations. wpml-config.xml copies the structure and settings to translations.

---

Your data: what is stored, and uninstalling

• Content (courses, lessons, topics, quizzes, questions) is ordinary WordPress posts, with post meta and taxonomies.
• Student data is stored in three tables ({prefix}dlms_enrollments, {prefix}dlms_progress, {prefix}dlms_quiz_attempts) and in a few user meta fields: the running quiz clock and the current random draw. Both are removed after each attempt.
• Quiz attempts store a graded copy of the answers. A reset marks attempts as reset; it doesn't delete them.
• The plugin sends nothing to external services and sets no cookies of its own (it uses the normal WordPress login).

Deactivating or deleting the plugin keeps all data. There is no automatic cleanup, so you can't lose student progress by accident. To remove everything, delete the content in the admin first, then drop the three tables and the dlms_* options with a database tool.

---

FAQ and troubleshooting

Course pages show "Page not found". Go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes.

Students don't see a quiz in the outline. A quiz only appears when it has at least one complete question and is published. Incomplete questions are marked in the quiz builder.

Can I sell courses? Not yet built in: enrollment is free. To limit enrollment (for example to members of a membership plugin), use the dlms_course_is_enrollable filter or dlms_step_access.

Can students see the correct answers in the page source? No. Answers are checked on the server, and the quiz form never contains them.

The certificate download fails. Make sure the PHP extensions dom and mbstring are enabled (and gd if you use a background image), and that the background image is in your own uploads folder.

Word order dragging doesn't work on a phone. Switch the question's display to Dropdowns in the question editor.

I found a bug / have an idea. Please open an issue on GitHub.

---

Developer reference

Data model

Thing	Stored as
Course / Lesson / Topic / Quiz	Post types dlms_course, dlms_lesson, dlms_topic, dlms_quiz
Hierarchy	Post meta _dlms_course_id (lessons, topics, quizzes), _dlms_lesson_id (topics), _dlms_parent_id (quizzes: lesson/topic ID, or 0 = whole course); order = menu_order
Course settings	_dlms_linear_progression, _dlms_certificate_enabled, _dlms_certificate_title, _dlms_certificate_signer, _dlms_certificate_background
Section headings	Course meta _dlms_section_headings: list of { id, title, before }, before = the lesson the heading stands above (0 = after the last lesson). Not steps: no progress, no page. In the student view a heading above a draft lesson moves down to the next published lesson
Lesson setting	_dlms_drip_days (days after enrollment)
Question bank	Post type dlms_question (admin only): _dlms_question (the question incl. its stable ID and correct answers), _dlms_question_key, _dlms_question_type, _dlms_question_ready ('1' = complete). Taxonomies dlms_question_category (hierarchical), dlms_question_difficulty, dlms_question_level (one term each; defaults Leicht/Mittel/Schwer, A1–C2, option dlms_question_terms_version)
Quiz content	_dlms_quiz_items: ordered { kind: question, question: post ID } and { kind: random, count, category, difficulty, level, type }. Without it a quiz uses its own _dlms_questions (from before the bank; kept as a backup)
Random draws	User meta _dlms_quiz_draws: canonical quiz ID => the questions drawn for the current attempt (removed after each attempt)
Quiz settings	_dlms_pass_mark, _dlms_attempts_limit, _dlms_show_answers, _dlms_time_limit (minutes, 0 = none)
Running quiz clocks	User meta _dlms_quiz_timers: canonical quiz ID => Unix time the current attempt started (removed after each attempt)
Enrollments	Table {prefix}dlms_enrollments (unique per user + course)
Progress	Table {prefix}dlms_progress (one row per completed step, unique per user + step)
Quiz attempts	Table {prefix}dlms_quiz_attempts (one row per attempt, with a graded snapshot of the answers, started_at and late for timed quizzes; resets mark rows reset instead of deleting them)
Schema version	Option dlms_db_version (1.2.0); roles version dlms_roles_version (3)

Course order:

Lesson 1
  Topic 1.1
    Quiz (topic quiz)
  Quiz (lesson quiz)
Lesson 2
…
Quiz (course-level / final quiz)

Capabilities

Roles: dlms_student, dlms_instructor, dlms_lms_admin. Primitive capabilities include dlms_take_courses, dlms_manage_lms, dlms_manage_enrollments, dlms_view_reports and the post-type capabilities (edit_dlms_courses, edit_dlms_questions, …). Meta capabilities: dlms_enroll_course (course ID), dlms_complete_step (step or quiz ID).

REST API (dlms/v1)

Method	Route	Permission
POST	/courses/{id}/enroll	logged in + dlms_enroll_course
GET	/me/enrollments	logged in + dlms_take_courses
POST	/steps/{id}/complete	logged in + dlms_complete_step (+ enrollment, drip, linear rules)
GET	/courses/{id}/progress	logged in + enrolled
POST	/quizzes/{id}/attempts	logged in + dlms_complete_step (+ enrollment, drip, linear, attempts limit); body { "answers": { "<question id>": [ … ] } }: selected answer IDs, word-order block IDs in order, or typed gap answers in gap order
GET	/quizzes/{id}/attempts	logged in + dlms_complete_step; own attempts (scores only)
GET/PUT	/courses/{id}/structure	edit_post on the course (+ each item). Also carries headings ([ { id, title, before } ], max 50); PUT without headings keeps them, an empty list removes them; a heading above a lesson of another course is rejected (dlms_invalid_heading)
POST	/courses/{id}/lessons	edit_post on the course + create lessons
POST	/lessons/{id}/topics	edit_post on lesson and course + create topics
POST	/courses/{id}/quizzes	edit_post on the course (+ parent) + create quizzes; body { "title", "parent_id" }
GET	/questions	edit_dlms_questions; params search, type, category, difficulty, level, page, per_page (max 50)
GET	/questions/count	edit_dlms_questions; same filters, returns the number of complete published matches

Cookie-authenticated requests must send the wp_rest nonce (X-WP-Nonce); application passwords work for server-to-server use. Certificates: admin-post.php?action=dlms_certificate&course_id=… (holder, course instructor or LMS Admin only).

Hooks

Actions:

• dlms_user_enrolled( $user_id, $course_id, $source )
• dlms_step_completed( $user_id, $step_id, $course_id, $step_type )
• dlms_course_completed( $user_id, $course_id ) (fires once)
• dlms_quiz_attempted( $user_id, $quiz_id, $attempt_id, $passed, $percent )
• dlms_quiz_attempts_reset( $user_id, $quiz_id, $actor_id )
• dlms_course_structure_saved( $course_id, $user_id )

Filters: dlms_step_access, dlms_course_is_enrollable, dlms_learner_roles, dlms_auto_append_content, dlms_locate_template, dlms_template_args, dlms_certificate_data, dlms_canonical_post_id, dlms_course_slug, dlms_course_archive_slug, dlms_lesson_slug, dlms_topic_slug, dlms_quiz_slug.

Example: send a welcome email when a student enrolls.

add_action( 'dlms_user_enrolled', function ( $user_id, $course_id ) {
    $user = get_userdata( $user_id );
    wp_mail( $user->user_email, 'Welcome!', 'You are enrolled in ' . get_the_title( $course_id ) . '.' );
}, 10, 2 );

Code layout

Path	Contents
deutschlms.php	Plugin header, version and requirement checks, bootstrap
src/	PHP classes (namespace DeutschLMS\, PSR-4): Access, Admin, Blocks, Certificates, Content, Database, Enrollment, Frontend, Integrations, Progress, Quiz, Rest, Roles
templates/	Overridable front-end templates and the certificate
assets/	Front-end and admin JavaScript and CSS (no build step)
blocks/ → build/	Block sources and their compiled output (committed)
languages/	.pot, German .po/.mo/.l10n.php
vendor/	Composer autoloader and Dompdf (runtime only, committed)
tests/	PHPUnit integration tests
tools/dev/	Development tooling (Composer project for PHPUnit, PHPCS, WP-CLI i18n)

---

Development

You only need this if you want to change the code. To run the plugin, nothing needs to be installed.

vendor/ holds Composer's autoloader and the one runtime library, Dompdf (with php-font-lib, php-svg-lib, masterminds/html5 and sabberworm/php-css-parser; licenses under License). build/ holds the compiled blocks. The dev tools live separately in tools/dev/, so they never ship with the plugin.

Install Composer as tools/composer.phar (this file is not in the repository) and Node.js 20+. Then:

# PHP tooling (PHPUnit, PHPCS + WPCS, WP-CLI i18n) in tools/dev
php tools/composer.phar dev:install
# Blocks
npm install
npm run build        # or: npm start (watch mode)

# Tests: use their own database "deutschlms_tests", which is emptied on every run
php tools/composer.phar test
# Coding standards (WordPress Coding Standards)
php tools/composer.phar lint
npm run lint:js
npm run lint:css
# Translation template
php tools/composer.phar make-pot
# Translations: update the .po files, then compile .mo and .l10n.php
php tools/composer.phar make-translations

Tests need a WordPress install and a MySQL database called deutschlms_tests. They refuse to run against any other database. The defaults in tests/wp-tests-config.php use the WordPress install the plugin sits in (wp-content/plugins/deutschlms) and database user root with no password. Override them with the environment variables DLMS_TESTS_ABSPATH, DLMS_TESTS_DB_NAME, DLMS_TESTS_DB_USER, DLMS_TESTS_DB_PASSWORD and DLMS_TESTS_DB_HOST.

On Windows/XAMPP, use C:\xampp\php\php.exe and add -d extension=zip to Composer commands.

Contributing. Issues and pull requests are welcome. Please keep PHPCS, ESLint and stylelint clean, add or update tests, and describe the change in the pull request.

---

Roadmap

Planned, not built yet:

• Paid courses (WooCommerce) and groups
• Reports for instructors
• An automatic update notice in the WordPress admin

---

License

DeutschLMS is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or (at your option) any later version (GPL-2.0-or-later), like WordPress itself. The LICENSE file in this repository contains the text of GPL version 3, which this license allows you to choose.

Bundled libraries keep their own licenses: Dompdf (LGPL-2.1), php-font-lib (LGPL-2.1-or-later), php-svg-lib (LGPL-3.0-or-later), masterminds/html5 and sabberworm/php-css-parser (MIT).

Copyright © 2026 Pradeep Hingorani.