Developer meeting September 2009
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Developer meetings > September 2009 meeting
The meeting was at 07:00 UTC on Friday, 18 September 2009. We had 28 participants and we covered everything in around three hours.
- Recording of the meeting (password moodle)
Meeting participants, please feel free to edit the page and add details of what you talked about. Complete meeting notes available soon!
Moodle 2.0
- Project management overview
- Martin talked about the Moodle 2.0 Planning document, saying that the Database API and File API are pretty much done; the resource modules have been added to HEAD and seem to be working quite well (thanks to Petr for a much more secure system); the repository API is working but breaking occasionally (usability improvements are still to be done); the portfolio API still needs polishing, Penny is adding LEAP2A support; the community hub is coming together nicely (Martin working with Jerome); a course completion patch is in the tracker (thanks to Jonathan Newman at Catalyst); IMS CC is also done (to go into HEAD and be ported back to 1.9); Feedback hasn't changed much; messaging 2.0 needs cleaning up; Workshop 2.0 is looking good (thanks to David Mudrak); Roles usability improvements are done (thanks to Tim); SCORM 1.2 Certification was sent in months ago, hopefully will be finished soon, we just need the stamp; Nicolas, Helen and Petr are working on prioritizing gradebook improvements; web services is going to be very good (thanks to Jerome and Petr); re. page layout, new blocks and themes are all working quite well, Petr is proposing to modernize themes further; re. upgrade and install improvements, Petr worked on these a while ago; all places we currently have comments will have the same consistent commenting interface (thanks to Dongsheng); site-wide groups is essential - the number one requested feature; Eloy still to do most of backup 2.0; wiki 2.0 need to be revisited.
- The following things may not make it into 2.0: secure RSS feeds (a GSOC project), progress tracking, lesson 2.0 (needs a refactor, looking for funding, might need to do emergency work to get it working), My Moodle (Mike C promised he would do it).
- Anything not 90% done by Dec won't make it into 2.0, so Dec will hopefully just be polishing. We have a hackfest in Prague (16 people) mostly polishing and fixing bugs. We will then give 1-2 months of solid testing and fixing more bugs till release end Jan or Feb. If quality not there then there won't be a release - no rush release. Martin would like 5 months on 2.0 beta, 2 months most optimistic. The good thing is lots of fixing is already going on. There will be no 1.10.
- Quiz cleanup
- Tim mentioned a possible extra thing for roadmap, a quiz cleanup, which he will be working on at the OU in the next few months. In Dec it will either be done and added to 2.0 or not done and will wait till 2.1. It will fix reliability problems. It's separate from question bank stuff and involves changing the moodle question engine.
- Overview of Blocks/Themes/Layout/Navigation 2.0
- Tim described the process of developing Blocks/Themes/Layout/Navigation 2.0, starting from a detailed spec then forum discussions. 1.9 was limited to blocks on left or right and sticky blocks to course page or my moodle but nothing else. In 2.0 the navigation is very flexible so you can put blocks anywhere and sticky blocks can appear on any page. Themes have more control over blocks. Previously themes had a header and footer.html, in 2.0 there's just layout.php, more like a template. In the past blocks code was duplicated on every page, now code just in layout.php. Things are very nearly backwards compatible. In the past there was a moodle page class, now single class is used everywhere. Petr is planning changes which will break backward compatibility more. Tim has handed over his work to Sam. Fully templated themes will be possible.
- Proposed further changes in themes - Petr Skoda
- Navigation and Settings blocks - Sam Hemelryk
- Blog - Nicolas Connault
- Comments and File Manager element - Dongsheng Cai
- Community Hub - Jerome Mouneyrac
- HotPot, QuizPort and TaskChain
- Gordon Bateson described the QuizPort module, for administering potentially *any* externally authored quiz format; it's designed for Moodle 2.0 as it was in Feb 2009; it's been publicly available since early 2008 (i.e. over 18 months ago), is compatible with Moodle 1.0 - 1.9 and is in beta status. The TaskChain module is the QuizPort module with a meaningful, Moodle-friendly name; it also imports HotPots from Moodle 1.x. Gordon will add the TaskChain module to Moodle contrib with a view to replacing HotPot in Moodle 2.0. In the meantime he will continue to maintain HotPot for Moodle 2.0. Gordon also gave a demonstration of the TaskChain module (see the meeting recording).
- Workshop module - David Mudrak
Other news
- Helen encouraged everyone to check GSOC/2009 for all tracker issue, discussion, blog and test site links for our Google Summer of Code 2009 projects. Jerome and Dongsheng are attending the GSOC Mentor Summit at Google HQ, CA, USA in October.
- Helen also mentioned the GHOP contest for 13-18 year olds, which will hopefully be starting in December. Helen will create a page in Moodle Docs for task ideas.
See also
- Meeting subtitles developer conversation for more detailed meeting notes (only available to developers with CVS write access)
