Moodle 2.6 release notes: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:34, 14 May 2014

Releases > Moodle 2.6 release notes

Release date: 18th November 2013

Here is the complete list of fixed issues in 2.6. See New features for a user-friendly highlights tour with screenshots!

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 5.3.5, MSSQL 2005 or Oracle 10.2
Minimum PHP version: PHP 5.3.3 (always use latest PHP 5.4.x or 5.5.x on Windows - http://windows.php.net/download/)
New recommended PHP extensions: zlib, OPcache

Known problems

IE8 and Safari 5 are no longer fully supported. They should still work but they are not tested regularly and there might be some problems. 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.)
IE6 and IE7 are not recommended for Moodle 2.6 at all. You will encounter difficulties trying to use those old browsers in today's Internet.
We are considering dropping our Oracle support in future versions. There are known performance and compatibility problems, many add-ons are not compatible. Most of these problems are caused by the fact that Oracle databases do not implement necessary industry SQL standards and contain several legacy limitations. If you are using Oracle, or planning to, then we highly encourage you to think about using one of the open source databases that we support.
IMS Enterprise plugin was not deleting user accounts properly, execute admin/cli/fix_deleted_users.php script to fix deleted users if you use this authentication plugin.
There are known problems with some PHP opcode accelerators, it is recommended to switch to the fully supported, standard OPcache PHP extension if possible.

Platform highlights

Administration and settings

MDL-31776 - Additional name fields
MDL-31830 - Improved category and course management interface
MDL-13114 - Bulk course creation tool
MDL-17081 - Roles import and export
MDL-38189 - Restoring of very large courses possible
MDL-41866, MDL-18375 - Support for alternative calendars (ie not just Gregorian)
MDL-23692 - Simplified recovery of forgotten username and password reset
MDL-41845 - Make default completion tracking selection an admin option
MDL-40368 - Improved capability overview tool
MDL-42110 - Add-on installer is using parent directory permissions for new directories and files
MDL-41245, MDL-41437, MDL-41086 - Multiple installation and upgrade fixes and improvements
MDL-42078 - Standardised plugin uninstallation and management.
MDL-38155 - User enrolment may be suspended via CSV upload
MDL-16073 - New test pages for external database authentication and enrolment plugins

Course design

MDL-40121 - New Single Activity Course Format (and removed SCORM course format MDL-40122)
MDL-39814 - Improved course activity/resource edit icons for usability on all screens

Usability

MDL-31830 - Improved category and course management interface
MDL-37565 - Toolbar switching in TinyMCE editor (one or multiple lines)
MDL-23646 - Improvement to TinyMCE editor resizing
MDL-40770, MDL-42102 - New TinyMCE editor icons and buttons improved
MDL-28019 - Plugin to manage embedded files in TinyMCE editor
MDL-39851 - Popups become full-screen on small screens
MDL-39813 - Login page simplified for a mobile devices
MDL-36002 - Move action for activities and course sections are keyboard accessible with JavaScript enabled
MDL-41305 - Group forms improved
MDL-40493 - Users may select preferred text editor
MDL-42887 - Make the collapsing of form fields for bootstrap and non-bootstrap themes responsive
MDL-40685 - Improvements to the consistency of headings
MDL-37717 - Teachers are warned before suspending own enrolment in course

Performance

Many important changes have been made to improve Moodle's performance: a new sessions infrastructure with 100% support that adds a new memcached session handler and improves the existing ones; OPcache support; changes to reduce memory usage and lots of new cache definitions to reduce database queries by using fast cache stores. (Some of these improvements have also been backported to Moodle 2.5.x so not all the improvements are reflected in 2.5/2.6 comparisons.)

MDL-41811 - Admin settings menu is loaded only when necessary
MDL-37761 - File-less backup/restore when importing and duplicating
MDL-38228 - Improvements to course validation during upgrades
MDL-34397 - Course modinfo cache is stored in MUC instead of DB, fields calculated on first request only
MDL-40415 - OPcache extension fully supported and recommended
MDL-38570 - Automatic temp directory cleanup
MDL-42206 - Meta enrolments are not synchronised after every course edit
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 improved
MDL-42016 - Simplify and speed up shortcut synchronisation
MDL-37028 - Integrity check of course data on-the-fly plus CLI script
MDL-42387 - Standardised file lifetime handling

Database reads (-12.2%)	Database writes (-25.33%)	Files included (+4.02%)
Kilobytes downloaded (+6.35%)	Memory (-4.42%)	Time used (-2.5%)

More info about the tests environment

Operating environment

MDL-11270 - Significantly improved MS SQL Server compatibility (warning: upgrade step for MS SQL servers may take very long time)
MDL-39985 - Full MariaDB support
MDL-33955 - Support for open_basedir restriction

Other

MDL-41838 - Ability to backup and restore courses bigger than 4GB
MDL-38192 - Backup and restore: Allow selection by activity type
MDL-19390 - Email notification for new users added manually
MDL-40874 - Retired MyMobile as a standard theme
MDL-40550 - It is now clearer with badges will be issued immediately on activation
MDL-28463 - Grade-based conditional availability is updated immediately after grading
MDL-42668 - The Box.net portfolio has been updated to use Box.net API v2. Note that Moodle sites must now use HTTPS in order to access Box.net. See Box.net APIv1 migration for details.

Module highlights

Assignment activity

MDL-42023 - PDF submissions can now be directly annotated by teachers (requires Ghostscript to be installed on the server)
MDL-38359 - New marker allocation and grading workflow settings
MDL-37621 - Admins can set assignment setting defaults
MDL-37148 - Lots more web services
MDL-41131 - Assignment plugins can be on automatically

Database activity

MDL-40871 - Multiple entries can be deleted in the database activity
MDL-29069 - Database and glossary entries can be unapproved (after previously being approved)
MDL-39040 - Database activity description is visible on all tabs

External Tool (LTI)

MDL-40531 - External Tool module has full compliance with LTI v1p1 (http://www.imsglobal.org/cc/detail.cfm?ID=192)
MDL-36224 - External Tool module now supports pluggable extensions

Forum activity

MDL-29663 - Forum read tracking options now Off, Optional, and Forced
MDL-41933 - Option to set default read tracking option
MDL-4908 - Per-forum digest settings

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 and editing questions.
MDL-39155 - Option for what size user picture to show during quiz attempts.
MDL-12403 - Backups no longer include unnecessary questions from the Question Bank.

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.

Repositories

MDL-30740 - Microsoft Skydrive repository
MDL-41940 - Option to prevent users from adding new files and directories to legacy course files
MDL-23044 - Filesystem repository shows images thumbnails
MDL-42666 - The Box.net repository has been updated to use Box.net API v2. Moodle sites which have used the Box.net repository previously need to run the Box.net-alias-to-copy-conversion tool as soon as possible. Also, HTTPS is now required for sites to access Box.net. See Box.net APIv1 migration for details.

Security issues

MSA-13-0036 Incorrect headers sent for secured resources
MSA-13-0037 Cross site scripting in Messages
MSA-13-0038 Access to server files through repository
MSA-13-0039 Cross site scripting in Quiz

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-40248 - Better support for subplugins in Activity chooser
MDL-41953 - Plugin name restrictions were relaxed, multiple trailing numbers are allowed
MDL-42040 - New API for registration of shutdown handlers
MDL-42148 - New admin page listing all third party libraries, thirdpartylibs.xml now supported in plugins
MDL-38197, MDL-41402 - New large courses generators for testing and development
MDL-41421 - New JMeter test plan generator
MDL-32188 - As part of this issue, the question behaviour API was changed, and plugins will need to be updated, though this is not hard. As a result Behaviours can display summary information on the quiz review page. See CBM behaviours for an example.
MDL-22236 - Files can be uploaded to web services.
MDL-39152, MDL-39153 - web service functions no longer require context ID.
MDL-42407 - new method of reporting HTML elements with zIndex value for consideration when presenting a Moodle Core Dialogue
MDL-39339 - zip_archive ignores system files.
MDL-40103 - Changes to temp table creation.
MDL-38019 - Filter changes are logged
MDL-41438 - Core renderer methods produce plain headings by default.
MDL-41806 - Accessors added for scheme, host and port to moodle_url class.
MDL-41956 - Attachments accepted in message_send() in email messaging provider.
MDL-42400 - Generators for almost all module types to use in testing with possibility to use completion/condition
MDL-41311 - Partially working code in tool_generator was removed.

Upgrade notes for developers

Authentication plugins: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=auth/upgrade.txt;hb=master
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
Blocks: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=blocks/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Cache: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=cache/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Cohort: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=cohort/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
Filters: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=filter/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Gradebook reports: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=grade/report/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Modules: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Messages: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=message/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question system: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question engine system: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/engine/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question behaviours: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/behaviour/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Question types: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=question/type/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Quiz reports: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/quiz/report/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Quiz: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=mod/quiz/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Repositories: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=repository/upgrade.txt;hb=master
Tags: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=tag/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
Webservices: http://git.moodle.org/gw?p=moodle.git;a=blob;f=webservice/upgrade.txt;hb=master

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