Moodle 2.4 release notes: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 08:31, 23 November 2012

Releases > Moodle 2.4 release notes

Release date: December 2012

Here is the full list of fixed issues in 2.4.

Many thanks to everyone that worked on the new features in this release

A special thanks to our incredible Integration Team from Moodle HQ who worked tirelessly with all developers to review, test and help finish code for inclusion in Moodle core:

Eloy Lafuente
Sam Hemelryk
Dan Poltawski
Aparup Bannerjee

Finally, thanks to all our testers both within Moodle HQ and from the whole community, who have contributed to producing our most exciting and stable release yet!

Requirements

Recommended minimum browser: Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 8 (IE 10 required for drag and drop of files from outside the browser into Moodle), Safari 5, Google Chrome 11, Opera 9
Moodle upgrade: Moodle 2.2 or later (if upgrading from earlier versions, you must upgrade to 2.2 as a first step)
Minimum DB versions: Postgres 8.3, MySQL 5.1.33 (MDL-33984), MSSQL 2005 or Oracle 10.2
Minimum PHP version: PHP 5.3.2

NOTE: We will probably drop support for IE8 in Moodle 2.5 (June 2013)

Major new features

Performance improvements

A variety of improvements have been made under the hood to improve performance in a number of ways. Some of require configuration by the admin to take advantage of them but used properly they can allow you to make better use of your hardware for faster speed and more students.

MDL-33018 - New context index to substantially improve system performance on large PostgreSQL installations.
MDL-30643 - Improved daily statistics performance.
MDL-33017 - Significant size reduction of navigation widget.
MDL-25290 - MUC Stage 1: Implement some core caching architecture (MUC).
MDL-34343 - Database meta information caching.
MDL-34399 - Question related caching.

(NOTE: We need performance graphs here comparing 2.4 to 2.3)

Moodle 2.4 Beta performance test – comparison with Moodle 2.3

Plugin updating from within Moodle

MDL-35238 - Not only will Moodle tell you when one of your plugins is out-of-date, but you can also now update it via the web interface.

Course format plugins

Moodle has always supported pluggable course formats, but now we've given developers even more flexibility than before. Course formats can now provide their own settings for courses and sections, and they can also have a lot more control of all the pages in a course.

MDL-35218 - Course formats re-factoring

We're looking forward to seeing some exciting course formats from the community in future. (Note that in 2.4 the standard course formats have not been changed).

Themes

MDL-22955 - Support for SVG icons.
MDL-34299 - All pages are now served with HTML5 doctype by default. This allows us to improve usability, add new features, developers can use reliable iframe tag instead of broken object embedding, data attributes may simplify JavaScript code, etc.
MDL-36487, MDL-36481 - Improved compatibility with Internet Explorer 8-10.
MDL-34915 - SimpleYUI enables similar coding style to JQuery, it is intended especially for theme designers.
Multiple RTL fixes and improvements.
MDL-34080 - Complete overhaul of all icons. The default icons used for activities and editing actions have been updated for the first time since Moodle 1.0. Not only are they a little bigger and more colourful but they are SVG format and support full scaling on all devices, so they always look good. (Developers, see Moodle icons 2.4)

Improved TinyMCE editor integration

The integration of TinyMCE editor was significantly improved:

MDL-33041 - Support for fully configurable add-on plugins extending standard TinyMCE.
MDL-35172 - New TinyMCE editor settings allowing an admin to customise the toolbar, enable/disable icons such as insert equation and insert emoticon.
MDL-35955 - Support for built-in browser spell checking.
MDL-34875 - Other minor fixes and improvements.

(Developers, see TinyMCE plugins)

Enrolment related improvements

MDL-31437 - Cohorts can now be synchronised to course groups!
MDL-35071 - Completely reworked support for enrolment restore, fully implemented in manual, self, cohort and database plugins.
MDL-35064 - Option to move users to manual enrolment method when uninstalling other enrolment plugins.
MDL-35062, MDL-35063 - New configurable expiration action in self and manual enrolment plugins.
MDL-28980, MDL-35843 - Pending expiration notification in self and manual enrolment plugins.
MDL-23875 - Self enrolment can be restricted to cohort members.
MDL-35061 - More custom fields into enrol table.
MDL-34696 - Other minor enrolment fixes and improvements.

Integration of external calendars

The most-voted feature request in the tracker has been fixed!

MDL-16660 - You can now stream your external calendars (such as Google Calendar, or a calendar from another Moodle site) into Moodle's calendar via the iCal standard.

Full support for Unicode file names in Zip archives

MDL-33710 - Moodle creates valid Zip archives with Unicode file names.
MDL-33753 - Moodle now extracts most Zip archives with Unicode file names.

Please note that the built-in Windows zip/unzip is not Unicode compatible. It is possible to extract the windows zips if you set the same language in Moodle and in Windows. Windows can not extract any valid Zip archives with Unicode file names, please use other tools such as 7-Zip, WinZip or WinRar.

Assignment enhancements

A number of significant - and very welcome - enhancements to the assignment module have been made:

MDL-31284 - Group assignments - It will now be possible to set an assignment which a group can work on collaboratively -and receive a common (or individual) grade.
MDL-31291 - Blind marking i.e. not knowing the identity of students when grading. Students' names will be replaced by randomly generated Participant numbers.
MDL-31295 - Submission date extensions - Teachers can set a cut-off date (and time) beyond which submissions will no longer be accepted. They can also grant extensions for those who miss the deadline.
MDL-31288 - Submission statement - It will be possible to set a submission statement so students have to check a box promising their work is original before submitting it.
MDL-31276 - Offline marking - Teachers can download all assignments plus the grading sheet, view, grade and give feedback offline and then upload back to Moodle and have the grades/files/comments transferred into Moodle's gradebook.

Other highlights

Workshop module enhancements

MDL-36135 Full support for alternative grading evaluation methods.
MDL-26349 Final grades are displayed to workshop participants when the activity is closed.
MDL-35421 Ability to define a conclusion text to be displayed to workshop participants when the activity is closed.
MDL-36209 Teachers can assess submissions in the grading evaluation phase without the need to switch to the assessment phase.

Miscellaneous

MDL-8249 - Localised standard role names and descriptions.
MDL-19430 - Users can set the order and number of courses displayed on their My home page.
MDL-34088 - Students can now see the content of advanced grading forms on their assignment page before they submit.
MDL-29538 - Activities and topics can be restricted according to user profile fields.
MDL-30643 - Statistics performance has been improved which should have impact for large sites primarily.

Security issues

All security issues that were fixed in 2.3.x and 2.2.x were also fixed in 2.4.

For developers: API changes

Abbreviated descriptions of API changes are always kept up to date in the "upgrade.txt" within each plugin area. We do this so that the information is always exactly right for the version of Moodle you are using. Changes in this release:

Core: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=lib/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Blocks: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=blocks/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
Filters: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=filter/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Activity modules: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/upgrade.txt;hb=master See also Moodle_icons_2.4 for information on the new icons.
Quiz access rules: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/quiz/accessrule/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Quiz reports: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/quiz/report/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Portfolio plugins: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=portfolio/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question behaviour plugins: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/behaviour/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question behaviour plugins: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/format/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question types: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/type/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Repository plugins: 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

Core API changes

MDL-36145 - Latest YUI 3.7.3 imported, includes full IE 10 compatibility.
MDL-34741 - Custom integration of YUI2 was replaced by 2in3. All legacy code needs to be updated to use new YUI3 modules, 2in3 dependency or SimpleYUI.
MDL-31973 - Component field in group_members table. Group membership can be linked to other plugins.
MDL-8249 - Improved API for customised role names.
MDL-34960 - Dropped support for Google Maps V2 API, use V3 instead.
MDL-35218 - Improved course-related functions.
Latest versions of 3rd party libraries - ADOdb 5.17, Flowplayer 3.2.14, phpMailer 5.2.1, TCPDF 5.9.181.

Plugin API changes

MDL-34270 - The ability to add blocks to My Moodle and to courses is now controlled by capabilities.

Unit tests

Unit tests are now required in most pull requests.

MDL-36701 - Composer dependency manager support.
MDL-33180 - SimpleTest support was removed, use PHPUnit instead.
MDL-35479 - New debugging support in PHPUnit tests - simplified testing of code that uses debugging().
MDL-36031 - Message redirection in PHPUnit tests - simplified testing of code that sends messages.
MDL-36703 - Basic enrolment support in data generator.
More unit tests for cohorts, enrolments and other areas.

Authentication plugins

MDL-34685 Auth plugins may provide custom user signup forms.

@@ Line 121: / Line 121: @@
 * MDL-19430 - Users can set the order and number of courses displayed on their My home page.
 * MDL-34088 - Students can now see the content of advanced grading forms on their assignment page before they submit.
-* MDL-29538 - Activities and topics can be restricted according to user profile fields.
+* MDL-29538 - Activities and topics can be [https://docs.moodle.org/24/en/Conditional_user_fields restricted according to user profile fields].
 * MDL-30643 - Statistics performance has been improved which should have impact for large sites primarily.

Documentation