JourFixe-2014-04-14

The Jour Fixe takes place at Monday, April 14, 2014, from 12h30 - 17h40 at ILIAS office in Cologne. Participants:

• Colin Kiegel, Alexander Killing, Richard Klees, Matthias Kunkel (Minutes), Jörg Lützenkirchen, Stefan Meyer, Martin Studer

1 Appointments

2014-04-28: Jour Fixe at Databay in Würselen
2014-04-30: ILIASuisse at Interkantonale Hochschule für Heilpädagogik in Zürich
2014-05-12: Jour Fixe
2014-05-16: ILIAS-Nord at Hochschule Bremen
2014-05-23: ILIAS-NRW at Fachhochschule Dortmund
2014-05-26: Jour Fixe
2014-06-23: Jour Fixe (no Jour Fixe at June 09 due to Pentecost)
2014-07-01: Annual meeting of ILIAS Advisory Council, Fürth
2014-07-02: ILIAS-Süd at Uni Erlangen in Fürth

2 Bugfixing for maintained versions 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4

Last releases:

• ILIAS 4.4.2 published at March 26, 2014
• ILIAS 4.3.7 published at March 21, 2014
• ILIAS 4.2.9 published at September 04, 2013

• 4.4.3 is scheduled for May 2014
• 4.3.8 is scheduled for June 2014
• 4.2.10 is scheduled for April 2014

We went through Mantis and had a overlook about all open issues reported or modified since the last Jour Fixe. All issues were screened and assigned to the responsible developers. We discussed in detail:

1. Disabling dysfunctional, dangerous or deprecated system check features / Mantis 9202 : Stefan Meyer will disable features which he thinks could be insecure/dangerous. He will also revise the system check with 4.5.
2. HTML Textfield Autocompletion by Browsers: Due to the negative feedback we prefer to remove the autocomplete="off" attribute for the login screen.
3. Is there a way to improve merging of forum threads? See discussion here. We would like to rename the "Merge" function to "Merge postings into other thread". The "Move Thread" feature should be named "Move thread to other forum". @Fabian: If you select two threads in the first step, it is not clear which of them is target and which one is the source.
4. Mantis 12937 / Start Page Handling : We agree that the wiki navigation should use the name of the page and not "start page". However we consider the title of the first page being created and the title of the option that defines the landing (start) page after entering the wiki, two different things. We keep the different namings here for now.
5. Mantis 13091 - Trimming of TextInput fields : Multiple participants in the Jour Fixe stated that they know of cases, where users tried (and succeeded) to use leading spaces to tweak ordering of items. Since this behaviour would be broken, the central code change would at least be a "feature" request.

3 Feature Requests for ILIAS 4.5

3.1 ILIAS 4.5 Statistics
 

According to the presentation at the last Development Conference we want to improve the documentation of the development process. The data of the following overview of development activities for the next upcoming major release is taken from the page Release 5.0. All developers are requested to update the status of their features.

3.2 ILIAS 4.5 Development Issues

• none

3.3 Feature Requests for 4.5 – Supported by Maintainers

The following list contains features that have been added to the Feature Wiki before feature freeze and are supported by the responsible component maintainer, see also Feature Requests 5.0. Please do not add new features on this list.

1. Learning Module HTML: HTML-LM Improvements : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
2. Learning Module ILIAS: Complete LaTex Support in LM Questions : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
3. Learning Module ILIAS: Essay Questions in Learning Modules : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
4. Learning Module ILIAS: Full JavaScript support for embedded questions : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
5. Learning Module ILIAS: Hints and suggested solutions in LM questions : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
6. Learning Module ILIAS: Learning Modules: Learning Progress based on Correct Answers : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
7. Learning Module ILIAS: Restrict Navigation based on Questions : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
8. Learning Module ILIAS: Progress status for learning modules : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5. Alex should write a detailed description on the status icon behaviour and reschedule this topic before final implementation.
9. ILIAS Page Editor: Add subscript and superscript : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5. Funding for integration of provided code by D.Streifert and database migration is required.
10. ILIAS Page Editor: Copy and Paste elements in ILIAS Page Editor : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
11. ILIAS Page Editor: Full Screen mode for images as a greybox : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
12. ILIAS Page Editor: Page Editor » Data Table Editing : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5. Alex will update the description based on the discussion and reschedule this topic before implementation.
13. Online Help: Online Help: Search : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
14. Wiki: Statistics with graphics and export for entire wiki and single wikipages : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
15. Wiki: Template pages in each wiki : Supported by maintainer and highly appreciated by HoD and PM. Therefore scheduled for 4.5.
16. SOAP / Webservices: Get mail content over webservice with method: We support the request in general and schedule it for 4.5. The following questions/issues should be clarified:
    • We would omit the user_id, the user id should be determined by the sid. (only mails by the corresponding user should be returned).
    • Where do you get the mail_id from? HasNewMail returns only a boolean. We think a second function getUnreadMails(sid) may be necessary, returning subjects, sender, timestamp and ids of unread mails (without content).
    • How are attachments supposed to be handled? They must not be send immediately with the getMailContent function.
    • Please provide answers to the questions and reschedule this topic on the JF agenda.
17. Booking Tool: Book only a defined number of objects per user: We support this feature request and schedule it for 4.5. This setting is only offered in the "No Schedule" mode. If a similar settings should be available if schedules are used, it must be type-specific and a time frame would be needed. Please re-schedule the topic if this is needed.
18. Survey: Export E-Mail in Personalized surveys: We support the request if privacy is respected as outlined by Jörg and schedule it for 4.5.
19. Discussion Forums: Notification for edited Postings: We support the request in general and schedule it for 4.5. Please outline the content of the notifications for these cases and re-schedule the topic. The reason for censorship should be included.
20. Forums: Moderators contributions highlighted by anonymized forum: We support the request and schedule it for 4.5.
21. Search: Optimisation of Autocomplete User Search: We support the request and schedule it for 4.5 with the following changes.
    • In case of 1) the link should somehow indicate if the list has been truncated or not.
    • 2): The autocomplete feature should list only values of the corresponding property: Only logins in the login field, only first names in the first name field and so on. If should also respect entered values in other input fields, e.g. if last name is set to "Schmidt" the autocomplete for first name should only present first names of users with the last name "Schmidt".
22. Learning Progress, Reporting and Statistics / RBAC: Permission Read Learning Progress: We support the request and schedule it for 4.5. It should be implemented for all object types that support learning progress.
23. Calendar: Date and Time Picker: Streamlining: We support the idea and schedule it for 4.5. We prefer v1 for the behaviour of start/end dates. If possible the datepicker should support historical dates (dates before 1971/1900). We are unsure, if sliders for time selection are the best solution, other suggestions are welcome.
24. Calendar: Improve Navigation in Side Block: We support the feature request and schedule it for 4.5. The arrows should be in front of the month, today should be separated on the right.
25. Calendar: Drag and Drop of Calendar Events: We support the idea and schedule it for 4.5. Recurring events should asks users if they want to change only one event or the whole series.
26. Calendar: Instantly showing/hiding events of selected calendars: We support the idea and schedule it for 4.5.
27. Exercise: Individual Deadlines for different users: We support the idea and schedule it for 4.5. Peer Reviews should be disabled as long as one user is able to hand in results.
28. User Administration: Deletion of inactive Users - Mail-Alert: We support the idea and schedule it for 4.5. If the properties of the edit screen are saved ILIAS should check if the cron job schedule ensures that any mail is sent before the account is deleted. If not, a warning should be shown.
29. Booking Tool: Enhancement of Post-Booking Information: We support the idea and schedule it for 4.5.
30. Blog: Improving Overview Page of Postings (2): We appreciate the feature and schedule it with the following changes:
    • I) is ok, it should be possible to deactivate the block "Authors" in collaborative blocks too and to define its position.
    • II) should not allow the deactivation of the postings block
    • III) ok
    • IV) We discussed this again. If we see the "overview" page as the entry page, this feature can be implemented in the suggested way. Clicking a month would show more postings.

3.4 Postponed

The following features requests have been postponed to the next Jour Fixe due to missing time.

1. Forum: Up / Down Voting for Forum Topics
2. Exercise: Personalised Peer Feedback
3. Exercise / Personal Desktop: Administration Setting: Add exercise to Personal Desktop
4. Exercise: Tutor Feedback in Peer Feedback Mode
5. Exercise: File as Peer Feedback
6. Flashcards
7. Comments: Additional Settings for Public Comments
8. Comments: Sorting Comments
9. Learning Progress: Additional Options and Usability
10. Course: Course relevant User data - Edit mode for admins
11. Survey: Status of a survey (finished or nor) in participant tab
12. Survey: Labels in Print View of Survey
13. ILIAS Page Editor: Accordeon behavior
14. Glossary: Notes and comments in Glossaries
15. Competence Management - Set minimal and desired level for competences in job profile
16. Portfolio: Search Portfolios used as Personal Profiles
17. Exercise: Usability improvement in adding members to team solution
18. Exercise: Preserve solution teams in exercises with multiple assignments
19. Forum: Preview of forum postings
20. Bibliography / Portfolio: Showing Bibliography in Portfolio
21. Personal Workspace: Improve Usability of My Workspace - needs to be discussed in Jour Fixe
22. ILIAS Page Editor: Media object image/media: custom size in percent - technical discussion needed in Jour Fixe

4 Miscellaneous

• Maintainership for Web Access Checker: Uwe Kohnle, Internetlehrer GmbH in Bruchsal and Fabian Schmid, studer + raimann ag Bern, are interested to make a general revision of the web access checker and to take over the maintainership of this component. We are supporting this activity, but need to now from when on the maintainership will be taken over.
• ILIAS Security: Studer+Raimann will provide an ILIAS security report that has been made for the ILIAS installation at Uni Basel.
• Proceed with Additional Coding Guidelines: Studer+Raimann have started to write down a first version of the additional coding guidelines in a Google Docs document, see also Additional Coding Guidelines. All developers are welcome to comment these guidelines.
• Next Developer Meeting: Every developer can add suggestions for an upcoming core developer meeting in the Core Developer Group. We will schedule a meeting if we have two or more topics for the agenda.
• Next Jour Fixe: Monday, April 28, 2014, from 10h00 until 15h00 at the office of Databay AG in Würselen.