Developer conference May 2006: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 07:54, 15 September 2011

Developer meetings > May 2006 conference notes

Moodle 1.6

Quiz

Gustav Delius is handing over the Quiz module to the Open University on Tuesday 23rd May 2006
Tim Hunt will be the main person working on quiz
1.6 quiz is much cleaner, set up for growth, enabling questions in different modules, developing assessment type using questions
Comment from Mike Churchward: Hopefully more modules will use questions in future e.g. Questionnaire module

Themes

1.6 theme upgrade documentation
Unfortunate that theme developments were reverted - better to have tested more before committing
Currently problems with a "you are here" link and the jump link between blocks (see skip-block feature new in 1.6 forum discussion), images in navigation not so nice and the alternate icon set is incomplete
Lots of deprecated tags still in 1.6 - these should be cleaned up for 1.7, using a page in Moodle Docs rather than the bug tracker

Moodle 1.6 code

Comment from Gustav Delius: Lots of different styles of code - difficult for newcomers to know what to copy
Reply from Martin Dougiamas: Database module should be a good example with classes, plugins etc.

Release

1.6 should be released as soon as possible
Petr currently working on security bugs
The advice to backup everything before upgrading should be reinforced
Big sites will take a long time to migrate the database to UTF-8

Moodle 1.7

Database schema

Database support to be extended to SQL server and Oracle
Single system, one file in xml format; things more automated and regular
Explicit sql must be cleaned up, isolated in lib, pull out generalised sql and put in core file, may still need switch statements
Eloy Lafuente (stronk7) working out the issues - see XMLDB Documentation
Comments from Tim Hunt: datalib is big, getting even bigger, should we split? Should make sure unit tests are run on each database.

Roles and permissions

permissions = capabilities
The Open University (OU) have extended Martin and Shane's initial ideas
Site, course and activity level roles
Moodle HQ will do the work (funded by OU)
Currently polishing the general spec, publishing it soon - see Roles
Comments from Matt Oquist: OU proposal not generic enough, need ownership and permissions on a fine grained level, seems illogical to have separate permissions system for repository and roles - see Roles and Permissions architecture forum discussion
Comment from Gustav: We should consider how Boddington (UK Open Source VLE) handles roles - see flash movie demonstrating roles interface
post conference comment from MD, proposed by skodak: a flag to mark capabilities as "potentially insecure" would be a good idea

Additional comments

Gradebook needs fixing (changing from 'pull' to 'push'), anyone interested please get in contact, would love it to be in 1.7
Unfortunately dfwiki not in 1.6 - interface better but still needs work, hopefully it will be included in 1.7
Please can everyone add hacks, plugins, modules etc. to the Modules and plugins database (just need to allow different people to edit database entries)
SCORM 1.2 and AICC supported, but not yet SCORM 2004; new SCORM maintainer, Sadiel, a Moodle Partner (David Puente and team)
Re. web services, see Web Services in forthcoming Moodle forum discussion
Comment from Mike Churchward: Contracted to do web services (gradebook, enrolments etc.), standardised IMS enterprise, working demo, want work to be right for everyone - see Web Services API
RE. Google Summer of Code, 60 applications! Next year we must be organised, more opened up, more mentors, with projects in all areas of Moodle; potential for 30 or 40 projects; the Summer of Code gets bigger and better every year - it should be part of the Moodle calendar; anyone wanting to mentor existing projects, please contact Martin - see Student projects
Comment from Tim Hunt: If 1.7 is to be released in September, how do we stop people starting big changes in August? Mozilla is a good model for releases, how about a public list of key bugs to fix before release?
Reply from Martin Dougiamas: Accessibility and Sourceforge cvs caused 1.6 delay, need everyone's help with releases, use bug tracker advanced search
Comment from Tim Hunt: OU Open Content Initiative using Moodle to present stuff, October deadline then a series of releases

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[Developer conferences]] > May 2006 conference notes
+[[Developer meetings]] > May 2006 conference notes
 ==Moodle 1.6==
 ===Quiz===
-*[[User:Gustav Delius|Gustav]] is handing over the [[Quiz module]] to the Open University on Tuesday 23rd May 2006
+*[[User:Gustav Delius|Gustav]] is handing over the [[:en:Quiz module|Quiz module]] to the Open University on Tuesday 23rd May 2006
 *Tim Hunt will be the main person working on quiz
 *1.6 quiz is much cleaner, set up for growth, enabling questions in different modules, developing assessment type using questions
-*Comment from [[User:Mike Churchward|Mike]]: Hopefully more modules will use questions in future e.g. [[Questionnaire module]]
+*Comment from [[User:Mike Churchward|Mike]]: Hopefully more modules will use questions in future e.g. [[:en:Questionnaire module|Questionnaire module]]
 ===Themes===
 *[[1.6 theme upgrade]] documentation
@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 ===Moodle 1.6 code===
 *Comment from [[User:Gustav Delius|Gustav]]: Lots of different styles of code - difficult for newcomers to know what to copy
-*Reply from [[User:Martin Dougiamas|Martin]]: [[Database module]] should be a good example with classes, plugins etc.
+*Reply from [[User:Martin Dougiamas|Martin]]: [[:en:Database module|Database module]] should be a good example with classes, plugins etc.
 ===Release===
 *1.6 should be released as soon as possible
@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 *Single system, one file in xml format; things more automated and regular
 *Explicit sql must be cleaned up, isolated in lib, pull out generalised sql and put in core file, may still need switch statements
-*[[User:Eloy Lafuente (stronk7)|Eloy]] working out the issues - see [[Development:XMLDB Documentation]]
+*[[User:Eloy Lafuente (stronk7)|Eloy]] working out the issues - see [[XMLDB Documentation]]
 *Comments from Tim Hunt: datalib is big, getting even bigger, should we split? Should make sure unit tests are run on each database.
@@ Line 41: / Line 41: @@
 ==Additional comments==
-*[[Gradebook]] needs fixing (changing from 'pull' to 'push'), anyone interested please get in contact, would love it to be in 1.7
+*[[:en:Gradebook|Gradebook]] needs fixing (changing from 'pull' to 'push'), anyone interested please get in contact, would love it to be in 1.7
 *Unfortunately dfwiki not in 1.6 - interface better but still needs work, hopefully it will be included in 1.7
 *Please can everyone add hacks, plugins, modules etc. to the [http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009 Modules and plugins database] (just need to allow different people to edit database entries)
-*SCORM 1.2 and AICC supported, but not yet SCORM 2004; new [[SCORM]] maintainer, [http://www.sadiel.es/default.asp Sadiel], a Moodle Partner (David Puente and team)
+*SCORM 1.2 and AICC supported, but not yet SCORM 2004; new [[:en:SCORM|SCORM]] maintainer, [http://www.sadiel.es/default.asp Sadiel], a Moodle Partner (David Puente and team)
 *Re. web services, see [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=44079 Web Services in forthcoming Moodle] forum discussion
 *Comment from [[User:Mike Churchward|Mike]]: Contracted to do web services (gradebook, enrolments etc.), standardised IMS enterprise, working demo, want work to be right for everyone - see [[Web Services API]]