Moodle 2.5 release notes: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:34, 14 May 2013

Releases > Moodle 2.5 release notes

Release date: May 14 2013

Here is the full list of fixed issues in 2.5.

See New features for a user-friendly tour with screenshots.

Many thanks to everyone that worked on the new features in this release.

Requirements

These are just minimums. We recommend keeping all your software updated.

Recommended minimum browser: Google Chrome 11, Firefox 4, Safari 5, Internet Explorer 8 (IE 10 required for drag and drop of files from outside the browser into Moodle)
Moodle upgrade: Moodle 2.2 or later (if upgrading from earlier versions, you must upgrade to 2.2.9 as a first step)
Minimum DB versions: PostgreSQL 8.3, MySQL 5.1.33, MariaDB 5.2, MSSQL 2005 or Oracle 10.2 (oci_native_moodle_package.sql needs to be executed before upgrade on Oracle servers)
Minimum PHP version: PHP 5.3.3
New PHP extension requirements: GD

NOTE: We will drop support for IE8 in Moodle 2.6 (to be released November 2013). This means IE8 will probably still work for 2.6, but developers will not be required to test their new code on that browser. Moodle, like most of the world's web sites and browser producers, encourages you to keep your browsers current to improve security and functionality while saving us valuable time. (For example see what Google is doing)

Major new features

Open Badges integration

MDL-35073 - Badges may be awarded manually or for course or activity completion. Users can choose to display their badges in their Moodle profile and in their Mozilla backpack.

Add-on installer

MDL-38509 - New admin tool for installing add-ons

Themes

MDL-38016 - New themes Bootstrapbase and Clean with responsive design for all screen sizes
MDL-23504 - Transparency and RGB support in themes colour picker

Forms improvements

MDL-30637 - Improvements to the usability of big complex Moodle forms in general

Enrolment

MDL-26956 - You can now search the list of users enrolled in a course
MDL-36514 - New option for preventing of new self-enrolments in course
MDL-7537 - Support for more currencies in PayPal
MDL-32387 - Implemented expiration of PayPal enrolments
MDL-37291 - Restore support for PayPal enrolments
MDL-37187 - Multiple problems fixed in Flat File enrolment plugin
MDL-28705 - Configurable mapping between IMS course names and Moodle course names for IMS Enterprise enrolment
MDL-36504 - Complete list of all enrolment related improvements

Assignment activity

MDL-36804 - New assignment settings for handling resubmissions
MDL-37337 - Assignment settings page improvements

Quiz activity

MDL-38538 - Option to auto-save during quiz attempts
MDL-37417 - Question editing forms improvements
MDL-36955 - Better grading for partially correct Cloze questions with Interactive behaviour
MDL-35793 - Defaults for when a question is previewed
MDL-10516 - Essay questions can have a template, so the student starts answering from the template, not a blank editor

Workshop activity

MDL-37602 - Overall assessment feedback support in the Workshop activity
MDL-37806 - New 'Save and show next' button for workshop submissions

Resources

MDL-33206 - Book] print dialogue link
MDL-37455 - New folder resource setting to display folder contents on the course page
MDL-30790 - New folder resource setting to display sub-folders expanded or collapsed
MDL-34137 - Option to drag and drop a media file onto the course page to create a label
MDL-33946 - Option to drag and drop text onto the course page to create a label

Course listings

MDL-37009 - Course listings are displayed consistently throughout the site (theme changes may be required)
MDL-38708 - Option to add images and other files to the course list

Performance improvements

MDL-35716 - New performance overview report
MDL-35685 - Improved login performance
MDL-36809 - Support for persistent connections to MariaDB/MySQL servers
MDL-34344 - CFG caching in MUC
MDL-34346 - New repository caching
MDL-34401 - New caching of plugin information
MDL-37718 - Improved database recordset memory use
MDL-38212 - Workaround for some memory issues in cron
MDL-38391 - Improved YUI module loading performance
MDL-37127 - Use of minified YUI modules to reduce content size

Database reads (-4.6%)	Time used (-7.3%)	Files included (-2.7%)
Database writes (0%)	KiloBytes downloaded (+1%)	getstring() calls (+0.4%)

More info about the tests environment

Security related improvements

MDL-35332 - Improved security of hashed passwords
MDL-21342 - New user account lockout mechanism

Other highlights

MDL-35611 - Behat integration, the framework for testing of user expectations

Drag and drop improvements

MDL-33688 - Drag and drop file upload progress indicator in filepicker
MDL-32652 - Block drag & drop now works throughout the site (not just on course pages)!

Miscellaneous

MDL-38166 - Database activity URL field has option to open link in new window
MDL-28585 - LDAP authentication password expiry handling
MDL-20131 - Global glossary entries can be displayed in the random glossary entry block
MDL-35842 - New option for displaying entries in alphabetical order in the random glossary entry block
MDL-37644 - New setting for showing course full names in the navigation block
MDL-5875 - Option to show the word count of forum posts
MDL-37728 - Role definition overview improvements
MDL-37641 - Prettier names when a file already exists
MDL-36602 - mnethostid available as an upload users field
MDL-33669 - Option to access Equella site when using Equella repository
MDL-32341 - Configurable calendar export date range
MDL-31983 - Settings block renamed 'Administration' and reports moved there
MDL-34917 - Jump to section navigation for 'One section per page' setting in course formats
MDL-36395 - New setting Maximum users per page for specifying the number of users shown in search results
MDL-37596 - Scheduled maintenance mode
MDL-35775 - Group import allows new groups to be assigned to groupings
MDL-38494 - Upload users accepts date-time format custom profile field
MDL-26649 - Date picker usability improvements
MDL-37572 - Categories edit page is separated from view and does not depend any more on global editing mode
MDL-37217 - Folders are now displayed in the Google Drive repository (renamed from Google Docs repository). An administrator must enable the Drive API in the Google APIs Console, as described in Google OAuth 2.0 setup.
Multiple improvements in MS SQL Server and Oracle database drivers
MDL-37284 - Unicode support in MariaDB/MySQL is now configured automatically during installation
MDL-35819 - Rewrite tooltip help to improve UI consistency, and performance.

Security issues

A number of security related issues were resolved. Details of these issues will be released after a period of approximately one week to allow system administrators to safely update to the latest version.

Moodle 2.5 also includes fixes to security issues resolved in earlier minor versions released after Moodle 2.4. See the release notes for Moodle 2.4.1, Moodle 2.4.2 and Moodle 2.4.3 for more details.

For site admins: Warnings

It is very unlikely that any of these issues will cause you problems, unless there is something quite unusual about your Moodle installation. However, we highlight them here just in case:

Multi-server architectures with different PHP versions

Moodle has moved to use a more secure mechanism for securing passwords, from 2.5 new passwords will be generated using bcrypt rather than md5. Because bcrypt is only supported for PHP version 5.3.7 and above, it is important that all servers within a cluster use the same version of PHP (MDL-35332).

Restoring Moodle 2.5 backups to sites with old PHP versions

Because bcrypt is not supported in PHP versions below 5.3.7, course backups made using the $CFG->includeuserpasswordsinbackup setting on a site using PHP version 5.3.7+ that are subsequently restored to a site with PHP version < 5.3.7 will require a password reset.

The same issue would occur if you downgraded the PHP version on the server running your site from 5.3.7+ to less than 5.3.7. (MDL-35332)

Manual grading option in the quiz settings

Before Moodle 2.5, you could set 'How questions behave' in the Quiz settings to 'Manually graded'. This caused all questions in the quiz, including multiple choice questions, to require manual grading. This option was not necessary because essay questions, the only ones that need to be graded manually, will always work that way whatever behaviour is selected.

Since the only effect of that setting was that people somehow choose it by mistake, we have hidden it. There should be no circumstances for which you would need to re-enable it, but if necessary, it can be restored by going to Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Question behaviour.

For developers: API changes

MDL-34640 - Improvements to how the question engine handles uploaded files. This should make it possible to write question types that automatically grade uploaded files.
MDL-37287 - 3rd party libraries updated, ex.: YUI 3.9.1, TinyMCE 3.5.8, latest tcpdf and others
MDL-15727 - jQuery and jQuery UI supported in add-ons
MDL-29996 - Legacy filters are not supported any more, developers need to migrate filters from modules to standard filter location
MDL-35356 - Excel and ODS export improvements
MDL-35434 - Theme developers may use new admin setting type for user uploaded logo images
MDL-37726 - PREVIOUS and NEXT attributes are not required in install.xml files
MDL-38558 - It is now possible to run local pre-upgrade script
MDL-38391 - Convert YUI_config to class in lib/outputrequirements.php.
MDL-35819 - JS M.util.help_icon deprecated in favour of moodle-core-popuphelp

Upgrade notes for developers

Activity modules: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Assignment: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/assign/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Backup: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=backup/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Cache: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=cache/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Calendar: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=calendar/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Core: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=lib/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Course formats: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=course/format/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Enrolment plugins: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=enrol/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Filters: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=filter/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question types: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/type/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Themes: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=theme/upgrade.txt;hb=master
TinyMCE plugins: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=lib/editor/tinymce/upgrade.txt;hb=master

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Releases]] > {{FULLPAGENAME}}
-Release date: May 13 2013
+Release date: May 14 2013
 Here is [https://tracker.moodle.org/secure/IssueNavigator!executeAdvanced.jspa?jqlQuery=project+%3D+mdl+AND+resolution+%3D+fixed+AND+fixVersion+in+%28%222.5%22%29+ORDER+BY+priority+DESC&runQuery=true&clear=true the full list of fixed issues in 2.5].
@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 * MDL-38016 - New themes ''Bootstrapbase'' and ''[[Clean theme|Clean]]'' with responsive design for all screen sizes
+* MDL-23504 - Transparency and RGB support in themes colour picker
 ====Forms improvements====
 * MDL-30637 - Improvements to the usability of big complex Moodle forms in general
-* MDL-37417 - Question editing forms improvements
-====Enrolment improvements====
+====Enrolment====
 * MDL-26956 - You can now search the list of [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Enrolled_users users enrolled] in a course
@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 * MDL-28705 - Configurable mapping between IMS course names and Moodle course names for IMS Enterprise enrolment
 * MDL-36504 - Complete list of all enrolment related improvements
+====Assignment activity====
+* MDL-36804 - New [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Assignment_settings assignment settings] for handling resubmissions
+* MDL-37337 - Assignment settings page improvements
+====Quiz activity====
+* MDL-38538 - Option to auto-save during quiz attempts
+* MDL-37417 - Question editing forms improvements
+* MDL-36955 - Better grading for partially correct Cloze questions with Interactive behaviour
+* MDL-35793 - Defaults for when a question is previewed
+* MDL-10516 - Essay questions can have a template, so the student starts answering from the template, not a blank editor
+====Workshop activity====
+* MDL-37602 - Overall assessment feedback support in the [[:en:Workshop module|Workshop activity]]
+* MDL-37806 - New 'Save and show next' button for workshop submissions
+====Resources====
+* MDL-33206 - [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Book_module Book]] print dialogue link
+* MDL-37455 - New [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Folder_resource_settings folder resource setting] to display folder contents on the course page
+* MDL-30790 - New [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Folder_resource_settings folder resource setting] to display sub-folders expanded or collapsed
+* MDL-34137 - Option to drag and drop a media file onto the course page to create a label
+* MDL-33946 - Option to drag and drop text onto the course page to create a label
+====Course listings====
+* MDL-37009 - Course listings are displayed consistently throughout the site (theme [https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Courses_lists_upgrade_to_2.5 changes] may be required)
+* MDL-38708 - Option to add images and other files to the course list
 ====Performance improvements====
@@ Line 81: / Line 112: @@
 * MDL-21342 - New user account lockout mechanism
-====More====
+===Other highlights===
-* MDL-32652 - Block drag & drop now works throughout the site (not just on course pages)!
-* MDL-36804 - New [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Assignment_settings assignment settings] for handling resubmissions
-* MDL-37009 - Course listings are displayed consistently throughout the site (theme [https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Courses_lists_upgrade_to_2.5 changes] may be required)
-* MDL-37284 - Unicode support in MariaDB/MySQL is now configured automatically during installation
 * MDL-35611 - [[Behat integration]], the framework for testing of user expectations
-===Other highlights===
+====Drag and drop improvements====
+* MDL-33688 - Drag and drop file upload progress indicator in filepicker
+* MDL-32652 - Block drag & drop now works throughout the site (not just on course pages)!
 ====Miscellaneous====
 * MDL-38166 - [https://docs.moodle.org/en/Building_Database Database activity] URL field has option to open link in new window
-* MDL-37455 - New [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Folder_resource_settings folder resource setting] to display folder contents on the course page
-* MDL-30790 - New [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Folder_resource_settings folder resource setting] to display sub-folders expanded or collapsed
-* MDL-37602 - Overall assessment feedback support in the [[:en:Workshop module|Workshop module]]
 * MDL-28585 - LDAP authentication password expiry handling
 * MDL-20131 - Global glossary entries can be displayed in the [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Random_glossary_entry_block random glossary entry block]
 * MDL-35842 - New option for displaying entries in alphabetical order in the [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Random_glossary_entry_block random glossary entry block]
-* MDL-37337 - Assignment settings page improvements
 * MDL-37644 - New setting for showing course full names in the navigation block
 * MDL-5875 - Option to show the word count of forum posts
-* MDL-23504 - Transparency and RGB support in themes colour picker
-* MDL-37806 - New 'Save and show next' button for workshop submissions
 * MDL-37728 - Role definition overview improvements
 * MDL-37641 - Prettier names when a file already exists
-* MDL-38538 - Option to auto-save during quiz attempts
-* MDL-36955 - Better grading for partially correct Cloze questions with Interactive behaviour
-* MDL-35793 - Defaults for when a question is previewed
-* MDL-10516 - Essay questions can have a template, so the student starts answering from the template, not a blank editor
 * MDL-36602 - mnethostid available as an upload users field
-* MDL-34137 - Option to drag and drop a media file onto the course page to create a label
-* MDL-33946 - Option to drag and drop text onto the course page to create a label
-* MDL-33688 - Drag and drop file upload progress indicator in filepicker
 * MDL-33669 - Option to access Equella site when using Equella repository
 * MDL-32341 - Configurable calendar export date range
-* MDL-33206 - Book resource type print dialogue link
 * MDL-31983 - Settings block renamed 'Administration' and reports moved there
 * MDL-34917 - Jump to section navigation for 'One section per page' setting in course formats
-* MDL-38708 - Option to add images and other files to the course list
 * MDL-36395 - New setting Maximum users per page for specifying the number of users shown in search results
 * MDL-37596 - Scheduled maintenance mode
@@ Line 129: / Line 144: @@
 * MDL-37217 - Folders are now displayed in the [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Google_Drive_repository Google Drive repository] (renamed from Google Docs repository). An administrator must enable the Drive API in the Google APIs Console, as described in [https://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Google_OAuth_2.0_setup Google OAuth 2.0 setup].
 * Multiple improvements in MS SQL Server and Oracle database drivers
+* MDL-37284 - Unicode support in MariaDB/MySQL is now configured automatically during installation
 * MDL-35819 - Rewrite tooltip help to improve UI consistency, and performance.

Documentation