JourFixe-2014-10-13

Date and place:

• Thursday, October 13, 2014, from 12h30 - 17h15 at ILIAS open source eLearning e.V. in Cologne.

• Björn Heyser, Michael Jansen, Alexander Killing, Matthias Kunkel (Minutes), Stefan Meyer

1 Appointments

2014-10-27: Jour Fixe
2014-11-10: Jour Fixe
2014-11-11: Workshop Course Series @ CaT
2014-11-21: ILIAS-Nord, HS Bremerhaven
2014-11-24: Jour Fixe
2014-12-02: ILIAS-NRW, ÄKWL Münster
2014-12-08: Jour Fixe
2015-03-26: DevConf, Uni Bern

2 Bugfixing for maintained versions 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4

Last releases:

• ILIAS 5.0.0 Beta1 published at September 23, 2014
• ILIAS 4.4.5 published at September 08, 2014
• ILIAS 4.3.9 published at August 26, 2014
• ILIAS 4.2.10 published at July 31, 2014 (last release of this version)

• 5.0.0 Beta2 is scheduled for
• 4.4.6 is scheduled for
• 4.3.10 is scheduled for

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. Mantis 13481 : Complex forum queries examining millions (and billions) of rows : We suggest to do the following things:
   • Please try to optimize the overall data handling/ retrieval, e.g. by always maintaining values in last edited (also on creation) (4.4+).
   • The administration setting "Topic Overview" (contain New or not) should also affect the underlying queries (4.4+). Additionally it should also affect the object presentation on the container level ("New" counter should be optionally in both views). (5.0+)
   • Make other features globally optional that cost lots of performance (e.g. posting confirmation by tutor).
   • Make a proposal for a "perfomant" intepretation of the "new" classification.
2. Mantis 13992 : Correction mode - Hot Spot / Image Map Question : The feature is currently not implemented in the way it has been approved by the JF (see feature wiki page Nachkorrekturmodus):
   • "Neubewertung (auch Löschung) von Fragen mittels:
     
     • - neuer / geänderter Punktevergabe
     • - Aufnahme neuer Antwortmöglichkeiten (bei Lückentextfragen)
     • - Änderung der Frageneigenschaften „Methode für Textvergleiche“ (u.a. Levenshtein) und „Identische Bewertung“ bei Lückentextfragen"
   • It should not be possible to add new answer options for any other question type than cloze questions. It should only be possible to change the points for given answer options. The effort to implement this should have been calculated in the first place.
3. Mantis 11643 : requirement to consider a question as answered unclear : We also prefer the first option being implemented: a question is considered as answered when the questions form is submitted at least once.
4. Mantis 14069 : Single Choice: Formatierungsfehler beim Textfluss iZm: TinyMCE und Bildern : clear: both is ok for us.
5. Mantis 14126 : Slow-Query/Join auf Tabelle tree - Material. Path: We would prefer to keep permission checks as they are. Please investigate what kind of requests lead to these executions times exactly. If this is about moving top level categories of very large installations, a ten second execution time is acceptable in our opinion.
6. Mantis 14153 : Copy online/offline status : This has been a topic of one of the last Jour Fixe sessions. We decided to keep online/offline for all objectes except the copied to node.

3 Development of ILIAS 5.0

The former version 4.5 is now named 5.0 (and 4.6 has become 5.1 accordingly).

3.1 ILIAS 5.0 Statistics

The data of the following overview is taken from the page Release 5.0. All developers are requested to update the status of their features.

3.2 ILIAS 5.0 Development Issues

1. Mantis 13693 : unable to login after updating from 4.4 to svn (51926): Do not set cookie_secure if "ILIAS https handling" is enabled.
2. User Interface: Mantis 13671 : Too much Buttons become disabled : Introducing ilButton service for ilTable2GUI buttons is desired but currently unfunded.
3. User Interface: Panels and Modals : Alexander gave an overview of the two Bootstrap concepts panels and modals that shall be used in 5.0+. The decision to use modals is also related to the Overlay Guideline suggested by Hansjörg Lauener (see below).
   • Bootstrap panels shall be used to create white content boxes on top of the grey background, see DevGuide : Panels
   • Bootstrap modals substitute (in parts) already used YUI panels for modal dialogs, e.g. internal link editing or calendar appointments), see DevGuide : Modals
4. Overlay Guideline : We support the request for a guideline. We did not come up with a complete suggestion for a guideline text yet, but collected some points:
   • With ILIAS 5.0 the YUI panels should be replaced by the new Modal component, if possible (e.g. internal link editing or calendar entries)
   • We think that "supporting features" like comments or notes that are used in mulitple contexts and that should be usable without leaving the current context could be implemented as bootstrap modals, too.
   • The online help feature should not use the bootstrap modals, since the content of the current screen should be visible (at least as much as possible).
   • Adding new items to collections (e.g. add new record) in general should not be done with overlays/modals yet, if there is not a good reason, since this is not a usual behaviour in ILIAS.
   • Please add your suggestions for a guideline. We need a full text before making a final decision.

3.3 Final Revision of 5.0 Features

We had a look on the following implemented features and decided about final acceptance:

• Test: Cloze question: limit of possible characters : We accept the feature, if
  • empty values are represented by empty strings, not by "0".
• Test: Matching Question : We finally accept this feature.
• Test: Refactoring of the Cloze Question type : We finally accept this feature.
• Test: Refactoring of Cloze-Question-Editing UI : We finally accept the implementation, if
  • buttons are migrated to bootstrap ui
  • the gap overlay is fixed (suggestion: ILIAS modal component)
  • we introduce a general CSS class for "invalid" input fields (defining a background color)
  • style of invalid fields should be changed as soon as the content changes not "on blur".

4 Feature Requests for ILIAS 5.1

1. User Interface: Enabling Right-To-Left languages : RTL support does not come automatically with bootstrap. This would be a feature request for 5.1. In general we support RTL capabilities in ILIAS. As a start we need a general technical concept about what would be needed.
2. Plugin Slots: Uninstall Plugins : We support the idea and schedule it for 5.1.
3. Forums: Option to deactivate the file upload possibility: We support this request. A global option in the forum administration would be good.
4. Mail: SMTP-Settings-Page : We reschedule this feature for 5.1.

Decision postponed

The following features requests have been postponed to an upcoming Jour Fixe due to missing time.

1. Blog: Editing a blog post by a non-author :
2. Notes and Comments: Notification to the author or administrator if a new comment was posted
3. Personal Profile: Option to disable/hide the Export Profile-Button
4. User Handling: Enforce Public Profiles + Option to force the global publishing of the personal profile (duplicate)
5. ILIAS Page Editor: configurable Autostart for Videos
6. Registration-Login-Authentication: Letter Avatars
7. Security: Password Recovery by using secret question
8. Database: MS SQL Support
9. Security: WAC: Enable Web-Access-Checker by default
10. ILIAS Page Editor: Time-based activation of sections
11. Test: Update questions from pools to tests
12. Search Engine: Search in blog
13. Learning Module SCORM: Password protection for SCORM Modules
14. Performance: Lightweight profiling of requests
15. Test: Style for Tests
16. Course Management: course assignment: add all users of a role
17. Course Management: option to skip Enter the course-page if direct join is possible
18. Booking Tool: First Come First Serve Solution
19. Booking Tool: Reminders and Notifications in Booking Pool
20. User Interface: Error and No Permission Screen
21. Forum: Add New Posting
22. Learning Module SCORM: generic import / export of learning progress for scorm modules
23. Learning Progress determined by Collection of Objects, yet alterable by Tutor
24. Main Administration: Searchable Labels in Administration
25. Booking-Tool: Booking also possible when a Timeslot has started
26. Learning Communities Who is online? tool for awareness
27. Learning Communities On-Screen Chat
28. Learning Communities User Connections / Approved Contacts
29. Groups - Import Members or Batch Selection
30. Test: Long Menu Question
31. Setup/Core: Modern Configuration File Format
32. ILIAS Page Editor: Manual Carousel / Slider Content Element for Page Editor
33. Wiki: Embedding and Scripting on Wiki Pages
34. Test: Excel-Export: disable setting "shuffle questions"
35. Test: Improve Shuffling of Answer Options during Testpass
36. Test Question Pool: Ordering questions: order pictures is not available in horizontal mode
37. Test: Random Test Directly Linked With Pool(s)

5 Miscellaneous

1. Editing a blog post by a non-author: We will discuss this request when the blog maintainer joins the Jour Fixe again.

Next Jour Fixe

Monday, October 27, 2014, from 12h30 until 17h30 at the office of ILIAS-Verein in Cologne, 2nd floor