Moodle 2.0 Release Candidate 1 release notes
What is Moodle 2.0 Release Candidate 1?
We are calling this a Release Candidate because all the features are done and most of the code has had quite a lot of testing, both from a code point of view and a functional point of view (See the results of our first QA Test Cycle).
However, we are still:
- testing the code with more data and more users,
- polishing small bugs in the interface and elsewhere, and
- working on documentation, translations etc.
At this point we don't recommend Moodle 2.0 for large production sites unless you have very experienced Moodle administrators.
For minimal issues, wait until the official Moodle 2.0 release in about a month.
How to get it
- Download it from the Moodle download server (built nightly) or
- Get the latest HEAD version from CVS, or
- Try it out on qa.moodle.net (updated daily and reset hourly)
Upgrading from a previous Moodle 2.0 preview
If you are upgrading from a version of 2.0 in the past few months then we highly recommend dropping the tables and REINSTALLING YOUR TEST SITE FROM SCRATCH (by upgrading again from 1.9, or starting fresh with a new database). If you don't do this your configuration will vary in a few small ways (and this may depend on the last version you had).
From now on, though, you can rely on the upgrade path from day to day.
Moodle 2.0 features
For more details about what is actually in Moodle 2.0, see the Moodle 2.0 release notes.
Improvements since Preview 4
Here is the full list of issues since Preview 4 (approx 900 of them at the time of release)
Highlights include:
- Full backup and restore of 2.0 courses (new .mbz extension for backup files = Moodle Backup Zip)
- Enrolment interface improvements
- Course files returns (see Course files)
- New support for plagiarism plugins
- Many other API and interface cleanups
How you can help
Usability
Many of the interfaces still need polishing.
- Use the latest version of 2.0 RC1 on your own server or qa.moodle.net, and if you notice particular pages that need improving, then
- Search the Tracker for an existing issue, and make a new one if required
- Post a description of the issues, and using the mockup tool there to describe solutions
- Start a discussion about the bug in the Usability forum, linking to your issue by mentioning the bug ID, and make some noise :)
Performance and upgrade
We plan to do all kinds of testing on different types of sites, to help ensure that everyone's upgrade from 1.9 goes smoothly, and then Moodle runs faster after the upgrade.
We would really love those of you with big sites to help us with this. Try upgrading a COPY of your production sites from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.0, and give us data about:
- What environment was Moodle running in? (DB etc)
- How long did the upgrade take?
- Were there any serious errors? (and what did you do to fix them :) )
- Can you compare the performance of your 1.9 site to 2.0?
Please post your results in the Testing and QA forum and join in!
If you find bugs, please make sure they are in the tracker against 2.0.
