Moodle 3.8 release notes

Releases > Moodle 3.8 release notes  

Release date: Not yet released - scheduled for 18 November 2019

Here is the full list of fixed issues in 3.8.

If you are upgrading from a previous version, please see Upgrading in the user docs.

Server requirements

These are just the minimum supported versions. We recommend keeping all of your software and operating systems up-to-date.

• Moodle upgrade: Moodle 3.2 or later
• PHP version: minimum PHP 7.1.0 Note: minimum PHP version has increased since Moodle 3.6. PHP 7.2.x and 7.3.x are supported too. PHP 7.x could have some engine limitations.
• PHP extension intl is required since Moodle 3.4 (it was recommended in 2.0 onwards)

Database requirements

Moodle supports the following database servers. Again, version numbers are just the minimum supported version. We recommend running the latest stable version of any software.

Database	Minimum version	Recommended
PostgreSQL	9.4	Latest
MySQL	5.6	Latest
MariaDB	5.5.31	Latest
Microsoft SQL Server	2012 (increased since Moodle 3.7)	Latest
Oracle Database	11.2	Latest

Client requirements

Browser support

Moodle is compatible with any standards compliant web browser. We regularly test Moodle with the following browsers:

Desktop:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Safari
• Edge
• Internet Explorer

Mobile:

• MobileSafari
• Google Chrome

For the best experience and optimum security, we recommend that you keep your browser up to date.

Note: Legacy browsers with known compatibility issues with Moodle 3.5:

• Internet Explorer 10 and below
• Safari 7 and below

 

Major features

Analytics

• MDL-64739 - Analytics models may be restricted to category or course contexts
• MDL-65588 - Insights about students who have not logged in recently
• MDL-65562 - Report on the actions executed by users on predictions
• MDL-65633 - Allow targets to limit the analysis interval to a specific interface or parent class.
• MDL-66234 - Extra garbage collection for analytics
• MDL-66254 - Require enrolments to be active for most of the analysis interval
• MDL-62191 - Add bulk actions for analytics' insights
• MDL-66536 - Insight notifications improvements
• MDL-60949 - Analytics models should be sorted by name and not last modified
• MDL-66004 - Allow the Python machine learning backend to run from a separate server
• MDL-58992 - Add multi-class capabilities to prediction processors
• MDL-65585 - Global on/off switch for analytics

H5P integration

• MDL-66388 - Create a new button in Atto to add H5P content in anywhere from hp5.com and h5p.org external URLs
• MDL-66398 - Improve H5P filter to allow internal H5P content URLs
• MDL-66593 - Implement backup and restore process for H5P content
• MDL-67059 - Add Admin UI to manually upload H5P content-type libraries
• MDL-67057 - Create a capability to update H5P content-type libraries
• MDL-67058 - Create a task to install H5P content-type libraries
• MDL-66609 - Create the basic skeleton, library and interfaces for rendering H5P content
• MDL-66399 - Improve H5P Atto button to upload content
• MDL-66397 - Create a new filter to convert h5p.com and h5p.org URLs to embed code

Forum summary report

• MDL-66153 - Forum report: Basic skeleton
• MDL-66298 - Forum summary report option to message selected users
• MDL-66268 - Groups filter in forum summary report
• MDL-66373 - Dates filter in forum summary report
• MDL-66297 - Link forum summary report to export of each user's post content
• MDL-66694 - Add columns for word count and character count to the forum summary report
• MDL-66768 - Add the ability to download the forum summary report

Forum export

• MDL-66075 - Forum export functionality
• MDL-66631 - Dates filter in forum export
• MDL-66808 - Forum export options for human-readable dates and removing HTML

Forum grading

• MDL-66074 - Create forum grading interface
• MDL-66358 - Display grading form in the grading panel
• MDL-66365 - Add a button to display the entire discussion for a post being graded
• MDL-67116 - Make 'require grade' an activity completion criterion for the forum
• MDL-66381 - Forum grading user search
• MDL-66360 - Forum grading option to send notification to student
• MDL-66906 - Forum view grades option for students
• MDL-66359 - Support restricting the user list to a specific group

Forum UI improvements

• MDL-66477 - Create settings side drawer for new discussion view
• MDL-64821 - Create new discussion view for forum
• MDL-66481 - Update display of discussion in discussion list table
• MDL-65129 - Search starred discussions only option in forum advanced search

Assignment

• MDL-63349 - Assignment: Annotate PDF - Rotate submitted image automatically
• MDL-66537 - Annotate PDF - Right-to-left UI - The rotate buttons order is confusing
• MDL-63878 - Enable the saving and printing of annotated PDFs from previous attempts
• MDL-64811 - Assignment: Add warning about students falling into Default group if group submissions are enabled but not required

Question bank

• MDL-66553 - Display ID number and tags in the question bank UI
• MDL-66816 - Question bank: replace the row of edit icons with an Edit menu
• MDL-67153 - Allow question types to add extra actions to the Question bank edit menu

Course relative dates (experimental)

• MDL-66147 - Assignment due date relative to the student course start date
• MDL-66144 - Weeks format relative dates
• MDL-66143 - Course relative dates mode setting
• MDL-66148 - Option to override the assignment due date in a relative dates course

Course overview

• MDL-64901 - block_myoverview: Add admin setting to control the available layouts
• MDL-66016 - An admin can set which filters are available for users to select in their Dashboard course overview
• MDL-66017 - An admin can specify a course custom field as a filter for users to select in their Dashboard course overview
• MDL-63612 - Course card pattern colours may be specified by an admin
• MDL-65621 - Courses with course visibility set to hide should be labelled 'Hidden from students' in the course overview
• MDL-64860 - block_myoverview: Improve pagination widget
• MDL-64094 - Change 'Hidden' to 'Removed from view' in the course overview

Emojis

• MDL-65896 - Add emojis to messaging
• MDL-46779 - Atto should support full emoji

Usability improvements

• MDL-34498 - Session Timeout alert
• MDL-61043 - Provide a more consistent and better way of selecting and deselecting all items in a list
• MDL-48610 - Show alphabet filter in grader report even when there are less than 100 users
• MDL-38555 - Forms do not prevent same data submission multiple times
• MDL-59639 - Browser back button should work as expected in the administration menu with Boost theme
• MDL-57208 - Let users set their default homepage
• MDL-66178 - Participants list - Filter users with no roles
• MDL-65671 - Calendar view selector enables users to switch between month, day and upcoming events
• MDL-66563 - Questions: Drag and Drop qtypes in high-contrast
• MDL-64032 - The UI for setting enrolment end date/duration should be consistent
• MDL-65406 - Boost Theme accessibility: Nav drawer should be marked up as list
• MDL-65915 - Better progress display while re-grading quiz attempts
• MDL-67048 - Drag and drop upload progressbar invert inner and outer

Other highlights

• MDL-65915 - Better progress display while re-grading quiz attempts
• MDL-66563 - Improve drag and drop question accessibility in high-contrast mode

Items to be added soon...

For developers

• MDL-66675 - New $CFG->behat_pause_on_fail option added.
• MDL-46267 - The $CFG->httpswwwroot was removed.
• MDL-66335 - New steps to navigate straight to any plugin web page. Plugins must implement their own resolver between page types and URLs.
• MDL-65349 - Profiling included and excluded URLs now are matched from start. Some adjustments may be needed.
• MDL-66633 - Quiz: quiz attempt API should let you create an attempt for a different user
• MDL-66709 - Components other than activity modules should be able to backup and restore question attempt data
• MDL-66754 - Question engine: report methods should not require a list of slots

Security issues

  A number of security related issues were resolved. Details of these issues will be released after a period of approximately one week to allow system administrators to safely update to the latest version.

See also

• Moodle 3.7 release notes