Releases > Moodle 2.6 release notes

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Release date: November 2013 (Not yet released)

Requirements

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

Recommended minimum browser: recent Google Chrome, recent Mozilla Firefox, Safari 6, Internet Explorer 9 (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 2.2.11 as a first step)
Minimum DB versions: PostgreSQL 8.3, MySQL 5.1.33, MariaDB 5.2, MSSQL 2005 or Oracle 10.2
Minimum PHP version: PHP 5.3.3 (always use latest PHP 5.3.x, 5.4.x or 5.5.x on Windows - http://windows.php.net/download/)
New PHP extensions: zlib extension now recommended

NOTE: IE8 and Safari 5 are not fully supported any more, they should still work but they are not tested regularly and there might be some known problems, IE6 and IE7 are not compatible with Moodle. Like most of the world's web sites and browser producers, we encourage 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

MDL-31776 - Alternate name fields
MDL-31830 - Improved course management interface
MDL-13114 - Bulk course creation tool
MDL-40121 - New Single Activity Course Format (and removed SCORM course format MDL-40122)
MDL-30740 - Microsoft Skydrive repository
MDL-17081 - Roles import and export
MDL-41098 - New Atto simple text editor suitable for iOS devices
MDL-40493 - Users may select preferred text editor
MDL-37565 - Toolbar switching in TinyMCE editor (one or multiple lines)
MDL-41866 - Multiple calendar support (MDL-18375 was the original issue but it was decided we would split this into two separate tasks, hence the newly created epic).

Assignment activity

MDL-38359 - New marker allocation and grading workflow settings
MDL-37621 - Admins can set assignment setting defaults
MDL-42023 - Edit PDF plugin
MDL-37148 - Lots more webservices

Forum activity

MDL-29663 - Forum read tracking options now Off, Optional, and Forced.
MDL-41933 - Option to set default read tracking option.

Quiz and question bank

MDL-32188 - Big improvements to how certainty-based marking (CBM) works. There is now much better feedback for students about how they have done, and what they need to do to improve in future.
MDL-9873 - Question text is now a required field when creating questions.
MDL-39155 - Option for what size user picture to show during quiz attempts.

SCORM activity

MDL-28579 / MDL-41580 - Allow use of file aliases and direct linking to imsmanifest.xml inside an extracted zip in the file system repository.
MDL-39910 - Improved SCORM player with responsive design elements and better support for mobile devices.
MDL-39926 - New objectives report
MDL-41290 - Improved user level reporting with ability to export data.
MDL-41434 - When updating a SCORM package we no longer delete and re-create the scorm_scoes table - we now use a sortorder field.

Performance

MDL-38189 - Restoring of large courses possible
MDL-40415 - OPcache extension fully supported and recommended
MDL-31501 - New session drivers supporting files, database and memcached storage
MDL-40545 - New $CFG->localcachedir setting (intended for clustered servers)
MDL-40563 - Improved theme resource caching (local cache compatible)
MDL-40546 - Improved javascript caching (local cache compatible)
MDL-41019 - Language caching improvements (local cache compatible)
MDL-41017 - HTMLPurifier caching improvements (local cache compatible)
MDL-39474 - Developer debug checks improvements
MDL-38570 - Automatic temp directory cleanup

Other highlights

MDL-40770 - New TinyMCE editor icons
MDL-11270 - Significantly improved MS SQL Server compatibility
MDL-39985 - Full MariaDB support
MDL-19390 - Email notification for new users added manually
MDL-33955 - Support for open_basedir restriction
MDL-9873 - Question text now required
MDL-41245, MDL-41437, MDL-41086 - Multiple installation and upgrade fixes and improvements
MDL-23692 - Simplified forgotten username/password process.
MDL-38155 - User enrolment may be suspended via CSV upload
MDL-16073 - New test pages for external database authentication and enrolment plugins

Security issues

To be published after release.

For developers: API changes

MDL-39854 - Automatic class loader
MDL-39797 - New events infrastructure
MDL-41267 - Support for sub-plugins in admin tool plugins
MDL-26943 - Support for sub-plugins in local plugins
MDL-20045 - Unofficial support for custom context levels
MDL-40359 - 3rd party libraries updated to latest versions
MDL-40305, MDL-40940 - PHPUnit testcase autoloader
MDL-23493 - Support for including a font through theme CSS
MDL-35434 - File picker available in themes settings
MDL-40248 - Better support for subplugins in Activity chooser
MDL-41953 - Plugin name restrictions were relaxed, multiple trailing numbers are allowed

Upgrade notes for developers

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
Forum: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/forum/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question types: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/type/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Repositories: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=repository/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

Documentation

Moodle 2.6 release notes

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