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Moodle 2.3 release notes: Difference between revisions

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* Nicer-looking File Picker with fewer clicks
* Nicer-looking File Picker with fewer clicks
[[File:nicerlookingfilepicker.png]]
* Images now display as true thumbnails in the file picker and file manager
* Images now display as true thumbnails in the file picker and file manager
* Other files have pretty icons for most file types  
* Other files have pretty icons for most file types  
* Files view can be easily toggled between icons view, or a table view with sizes and dates, or a hierarchical list view.
 
[[File:truthumbnailsiconsview.png]]
 
 
* Files view can be easily toggled between icons view (above), or a table view with sizes and dates:
 
[[File:tableview.png]]
 
or a hierarchical list view:
 
[[File:hierarchicallistview.png]]
 
 
* You can now drag and drop files directly from your desktop straight into file areas!
* You can now drag and drop files directly from your desktop straight into file areas!
[[File:dragandrop.png]]
* File info (eg license information, sizes, dates) can be easily edited and viewed in a popup dialog
* File info (eg license information, sizes, dates) can be easily edited and viewed in a popup dialog
* Files can be created as "aliases/shortcuts" of other files.  This allows you to, for example, use a single file in your private files area multiple times in all your courses.  If you update the original file then all the aliases will automatically update!
* Files can be created as "aliases/shortcuts" of other files.  This allows you to, for example, use a single file in your private files area multiple times in all your courses.  If you update the original file then all the aliases will automatically update!

Revision as of 12:15, 31 May 2012

Releases > Moodle 2.3 release notes

Release date: 18th June 2012 (expected)

Here is the full list of fixed issues in 2.3.

Many thanks to everyone that worked on the new features in this release, including those from Moodle HQ, The Open University, NetSpot, Synergy Learning, Lancaster University Network Services, Catalyst IT, CV&A Consulting and others. More details can be found below under each major feature, or look at the list of bugs fixed above.

A special thanks to our incredible 'Integration Team' from Moodle HQ who worked tirelessly with all developers to review, test and help finish code for inclusion in Moodle core:

  • Eloy Lafuente
  • Sam Hemelryk
  • Dan Poltawski
  • Aparup Bannerjee

Finally, thanks to all our testers both within Moodle HQ and from the whole community, who have contributed to producing our most exciting and stable release yet!


Requirements

  • Minimum browser: Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 8, Safari 5 (New!)
  • Moodle upgrade: Moodle 2.2 or later (if upgrading from earlier versions, you must upgrade to 2.2 as a first step)
  • Minimum PHP / DB versions: the same as for Moodle 2.2

Major new features

Files usability

(insert screenshots with realistic example files)

  • Nicer-looking File Picker with fewer clicks

nicerlookingfilepicker.png

  • Images now display as true thumbnails in the file picker and file manager
  • Other files have pretty icons for most file types

truthumbnailsiconsview.png


  • Files view can be easily toggled between icons view (above), or a table view with sizes and dates:

tableview.png

or a hierarchical list view:

hierarchicallistview.png


  • You can now drag and drop files directly from your desktop straight into file areas!

dragandrop.png


  • File info (eg license information, sizes, dates) can be easily edited and viewed in a popup dialog
  • Files can be created as "aliases/shortcuts" of other files. This allows you to, for example, use a single file in your private files area multiple times in all your courses. If you update the original file then all the aliases will automatically update!
  • Aliases are easily identifiable in the file manager interface.

(MDL-31907)

Credits to Moodle HQ: Marina Glancy, Barbara Ramiro, Martin Dougiamas, David Mudrak, Dongsheng Cai and others.

Repository improvements

  • MDL-28666 - If a repository supports it then it's possible to make an alias/shortcut to a file in an external repository. If the file is updated in the repository, then this change is reflected in Moodle. The fie remains under Moodle access control however, and the original URL is not usually revealed. In the 2.3 core release, this is supported by Equella, Filesystem, user private, coursefiles and box.net repositories.
  • The repository plugin is now able to take over the whole right-hand pane of the file picker and provide it's own searching/browsing interface.
  • MDL-31675 - Server files repository now available for database, forum and glossary activities.

Credits to Moodle HQ: Dongsheng Cai, Marina Glancy, Martin Dougiamas, Petr Skoda

Improvements to course pages

  • MDL-32476 - Courses can now choose to show sections on individual pages
  • MDL-31052 - All AJAX editing on the course pages has been modernised and cleaned up (YUI3). It's on by default now too.
  • MDL-31263 - Blocks can be dragged and dropped around the page (again)
  • MDL-30617 - An optional new popup "Activity chooser" has been added with full introduction, examples and links about each activity or resource module.
  • MDL-22504 - You can now drag files straight into the course page and they will be added as resources.
  • MDL-31215 - You can edit the name of any activity or resource directly on the course page without entering the settings (works particularly well with drag and drop).
  • MDL-32771 - You can now add/remove sections directly from the course page.

Credits to: Andrew Nicols and Ruslan Kabalin (LUNS) Davo Smith (Synergy Learning), Dan Poltawski and Martin Dougiamas (Moodle HQ)

Assignment module

  • MDL-26997 - Complete rewrite of the assignment module from scratch, by NetSpot (Moodle Partner in Australia)
  • Assignment subtypes are no longer needed. New plugins are possible for
  • Old Assignment module is still installed, and works, but is not necessary

Credits to Netspot: Damyon Wiese, Raymond Wijaya, Minh-Tam Nguyen

  • MDL-31731 - New marking guide advanced grading method, where a teacher enters a comment per criterion and a mark up to a maximum

Credits to Catalyst IT: Dan Marsden

Book module

  • MDL-32709 - The most popular third-party resource module ever, Book finally joins core. Welcome!

Credits to Petr Škoda, Moodle HQ

Quiz module

  • MDL-3030 - More robust handling of quiz attempts that are not submitted by the deadline.
  • MDL-3054 & MDL-11047 - There is now an option for teacher to force students to answer the quiz questions strictly in order. As part of this, the quiz remembers which page the student was last on, and will take them back there when they resume an attempt.

Credits to Tim Hunt, The Open University

SCORM module

Credits to Ankit Agarwal, Moodle HQ and Dan Marsden, Catalyst IT

Workshop module

  • MDL-26099 - Option to make the workshop switch to the assessment phase automatically after the submissions deadline (including automatic allocation of submissions for assessment)
  • MDL-25660 - Workshop submission deadlines are shown in the calendar
  • MDL-27508 - Improved support for pagination and filtering workshop submissions by group
  • MDL-32638 - Workshop supports file browsing via Server files repository (including improved access control when serving submission files)

Credits to David Mudrak, Moodle HQ

Available update notifications

Credits to David Mudrak, Moodle HQ

Other highlights

  • MDL-32508 - Sections can now be displayed to all users as "one section per page" (via a new course setting 'Course layout') with full navigation. Currently only supported by Weeks and Topics formats. (AKA death to scroll-of-death)
  • MDL-31121 - Option in file resource settings to display file size and/or type on course page (credits to Sam Marshall, The Open University)
  • MDL-32009 - Admin option for uninstalling messaging outputs and report of messaging output statuses on plugins overview page
  • MDL-29941 - Admin option to enable a CSS optimiser that analyses and refactors CSS before caching it
  • MDL-24419 - Conditional activities setting enabling teachers to restrict access to a course section using similar logic to Conditional Activities (with thanks to the University of New South Wales for funding and NetSpot for developing this feature and Sam Marshall at the OU for integrating it to core)
  • MDL-26901 - Option to add extra fonts to the TinyMCE HTML editor
  • MDL-31315 - When editing a form, a warning will be displayed if trying to navigate away with content edited

Security issues

All security issues that were fixed in 2.2.x and 2.1.x were also fixed in 2.3.

For developers: API changes

Core API changes

  • MDL-31902 All xxx_get_participants() functions are removed from core
  • As a part of MDL-32471, the signature of send_stored_file() has been modified. The last two parameters $filename and $dontdie were replaced with a single array containing additional options for the file serving. The pluginfile callbacks in plugins are supposed to transfer these options from the caller to send_stored_file() - see the note below.
  • MDL-28666 Files API changes, added ability to create file reference using file_storage::create_file_from_reference() method, update file record attributes using stored_file class
  • MDL-28666 Repository API changes, added new APIs repository::get_file_reference(), repository::get_file_by_reference(), repository::get_reference_details(), repository::send_file(), the new APIs make serving files from external repository possible

Plugin API changes

  • As a part of MDL-32471, the API of the plugin function xyz_pluginfile() has been extended. There is a new array parameter passed to these callbacks containing additional options for the file serving. The array should be re-passed to send_stored_file(). The change is pretty trivial - see examples.

Webservice changes

Few changes could break existing web service clients in 2.3 - untill this version we tried not to break anything. However these changes will make the client's developer life easier, so we prefered to do them now than later. Please take in consideration these improvements and retest your clients:

Unit tests

We have switched completely to using PHPUnit for all our unit tests now. All existing simpletests have been rewritten, and new tests have been added.

We intend to move towards a completely unit-test-driven development methodology (where the tests are written first!) for significant new code, and we also encourage all developers to implement unit tests covering at least the core features of their code.

Moodle HQ run these tests on an automated basis for all new code submitted for integration, as well as on each weekly release.

Community hub changes

Some bug fixes and improvements in core and in the plugin. Hub administrators must update their hub to the most recent version regarding CONTRIB-3646.

See also