Moodle 2.8 release notes

Releases > Moodle 2.8 release notes

Release date: Expected in Mid-November 2014

Here is the full list of fixed issues in 2.8.

Major Features

Gradebook

Our main focus has been on the Gradebook, with improved UI based on community workshops, surveys and bug reports.

New Grader report (the main interface showing all grades):

• Uses the whole window
• Smooth, stable scrolling in all directions
• Works on all platforms, including phones and tablets
• MDL-18229 - A new Single view mode allows editing of any row or column on its own
• Allows quick editing of any cell without reloading.

New Natural weighting aggregation method

• MDL-43378 - Combines grades simply
• Clearer interface for using weights
• Supports extra credit, excluded grades, hidden grades
• Can remove the need to use any other aggregations

New Grade history report

• MDL-46191 - A grade history report lists full details of all grade changes

Improved Grader setup page (for defining items and categories)

• New design
• Easier terminology and clearer layout
• Bugs fixed relating to how grades are added in some scenarios
• Prevents loss of data when you leave the window

Improved User report

• New design
• Clearer calculations
• MDL-47064 - Contributions column explains grade calculations

Improved Grade import/export

• Improved interface
• MDL-46547 - Copy/paste import direct from spreadsheet programs
• Robust handling of null data or bad data
• Locked grade items are now protected from imports
• Export to multiple display types (Letter, Percentage…)

Forum

• MDL-1626 - You can subscribe to get email copies of individual discussions
• MDL-3714 - You can now reply to forum posts received by email, and even include attachments
• MDL-8501 - You can jump to the next and previous discussions easily
• MDL-36929 - New discussions are displayed in full recent activity report

Assignment

• MDL-39929 - Option of adding additional files for use in the assignment, such as answer templates
• MDL-45965 - New capability that allows to control which grader receives notifications

Choice

• MDL-3034 -More than one choice can now be made

External tool

• MDL-45843 - LTI 2.0 support
• MDL-44902 - Various additions and bug fixes for the external tool

Quiz

• MDL-43089 Edit quiz page: rewritten for improved usability.
• MDL-37993 New completion options: Can apply when a passing grade achieved or all attempts are used

Lesson

• MDL-38106 - Now includes Introduction like other modules
• MDL-38560 - Better handling of images in questions

Workshop

• MDL-31936 - Workshop submissions and/or assessments can be removed during the course reset

Analytics

• Event monitor: can look for patterns of events and send you notifications
• More detailed logging and events have been added, especially around grades

Usability

• MDL-45893 - New user menu in Clean theme: shows your profile on-screen in the header and allows quick access to personal pages.
• MDL-47559 - New user menu can be customised by the admin
• MDL-18014 - The Atto editor can now automatically save drafts of your texts so you don’t lose anything if any unexpected disasters occur
• MDL-45897 - Improved My Home page: better default blocks

Cohorts

• MDL-36014 - Teachers are now able to use enrol_cohort without having additional capabilities to view cohorts outside of the course. At the same time managers can define individual cohorts as not visible to prevent using them by teachers in enrolment.
• MDL-35618 - Teachers can manually enrol all cohort members without having capability to use cohort synchronisation enrolment method
• MDL-41639 - Cohort that do not yet exist will be created if specified in “Upload users” tool
• MDL-35468 - Admin or manager can bulk upload cohorts definitions from CSV file
• MDL-34189 - Admin or system-wide manager can view all cohorts in the system on the same page even if they are defined in different contexts

Other things

• MDL-16474 - Single-item scales: now you can implement “Like” buttons with no downside!
• Private files: you can now add files here by emailing them as attachments
• User preferences: Admin can set defaults for user preferences such as Email display, Forum tracking, etc. They are also displayed now in a separate field-set on edit user profile page
• MDL-44725 - Experimental setting "Enable group members only" has been completely replaced with Conditional availability ("Restrict access") and removed, group restrictions are now working correctly accross all modules.
• MDL-46481 - New faster backup method that just uses defaults
• MDL-42071 - Added support for split memcache/memcached stores
• MDL-46210 - Installed language packs can be updated as a scheduled task
• MDL-46921 - Sorting by additional name fields
• MDL-40356 - A new setting 'Alternative full name format' relating to additional name fields
• MDL-20367 - Decimal numbers may be used to define boundaries for grade letters
• MDL-43472 - It is possible for manager to move courses on the Search courses result screen
• MDL-20367 - Letter grade boundaries may be specified as real numbers and not only integers
• MDL-40351 - Course categories can be displayed for courses on My home page
• MDL-46450 - Activity names in the availability description now have links
• MDL-45991 - Ability to ignore users that are already in groups when auto-creating groups
• MDL-46524 - Auto-create groups from existing group or grouping membership
• MDL-45884 - My Courses are collapsed by default

For Developers

• MDL-47194 - Inbound email (such as already implemented for forums and files) can now easily be implemented by any plugin
• MDL-43835 - Unit tests on posgres and mysql use random sequence values
• MDL-46585 - Strings can now be deprecated to help translators
• MDL-39840 - Plugins can have their personal environment checks
• MDL-41663 - Plugins renderers and renderables can be located in namespaces and autoloaded
• MDL-46207 - Scheduled tasks can control if they should or should not run when plugin is disabled

API changes

• There are new convenience functions to obtain $cm objects that belong to the cm_info class. get_course_and_cm_from_cmid($cmorid, $modulename) and get_course_and_cm_from_instance($instanceorid, $modulename) will efficiently obtain $course and $cm at the start of a module script in one line. Also, the new function cm_info::create($cm) can be used when you need a cm_info object, but only have a standard database record.
• Choice event definitions have changed in MDL-3034 [placeholder for this to be expanded]
• MDL-47496 - The unused lib/pear/XML/ library was removed.
• MDL-36014 - Changes to functions retrieving list of available cohorts
• MDL-28484 - New function is_https() that detects if page is served on https

For more detailed list see lib/upgrade.txt and also upgrade.txt files in the plugin type folders