JourFixe-2016-03-14

Date and place:

• Monday, March 14, 2016 from 12:30 – 18:30 at ILIAS-Verein office in Köln

• Alexander Killing, Fabian Schmid (via Skype), Jörg Lützenkirchen, Matthias Kunkel (Minutes), Max Becker, Richard Klees, Timon Amstutz (via Skype)

1 Appointments

• March 31, 2016: Feature Freeze 5.2
• April 04, 2016: Jour Fixe
• End of April 2016: ILIASuisse, skyguide, Wangen-Brüttisellen (CH)
• June 08, 2016: ILIAS Nord, Neumünster
• June 2016: ILIAS NRW, Lemgo or Detmold

2 Maintained Versions

2.1 Roadmap

Last releases:

• ILIAS 5.1.4 published at March 10, 2016
• ILIAS 5.0.11 published at March 01, 2016
• ILIAS 4.4.14 published at March 01, 2015

• ILIAS 5.1.5 is scheduled for April 2016
• ILIAS 5.0.12 is not scheduled yet
• ILIAS 4.4.15 is not scheduled yet

2.2 Mantis Bug Reports

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. Booking Tool: Reservation list usability : Product manager and modue maintainer decided to accept the original suggestion as mentioned above under A. We see the problem of an upcoming inconsistency with other tables but think that the usability improvement of this development is more important. Nevertheless, we are open for a general solution for filter settings. Please create a feature wiki page to discuss this request.
2. #18090: certificate configuration screen delivers thumbnail via http when page is delivered via https(more a HTTPS detection issue): We do not conside this being a bug but a configuration problem. Until 4.4 this setting is made in 'Administration > Server > HTTPS'. Since 5.0 this is configured in the Setup.
3. #18095 - exercise notifications : The current implementation does not violate any guideline so we cannot consider this being a bug. We need a clear concept for the notification handling before doing any changes here. 
4. #18105: Full date representation is in fixed order, not localizable: This is a feature request - which we highly appreciate! Please create a feature wiki page to "Support date/time localisation". Please consider that a future solution should support international installations (user related setting like UI language).
5. #18120: Benutzernamen: Vor-/Nachname nur bei eingeschaltetem Profil?: What is the maintainer's suggestion? The product manager suggests to remove profile dependency and only to use the solution from "username with profile".
6. #18115: Authentication mode of root user should be "ILIAS Auth" by default: Authentication mode for root should always be "ILIAS Auth" for new installations with 5.2. We cannot change the setting for existing installations. We would like to have a page in the Feature Wiki where we collect all changed default settings for new installations. Matthias will set up this page.

2.3 Open Pull Requests

• none

2.4 Continuous Integration

Overview on current status and reports from CI server at http://ci.ilias.de:

• Result of last test at March 13, 2016:
  • Tests failed: 130 (131 at last JF)
  • Tests passed: 427 (426 at last JF)
• Dicto architectural tests: currently not working...

2.5 Missing Information About Implementation in Feature Wiki

Among the new features for ILIAS 5.1, the following 3 feature pages still have no information about how the feature is implemented. As decided on the last Jour Fixe, all missing information on the feature's new or changed functionality have to be added / completed until end of January at the latest.

Features implemented by Uwe Kohnle:

1. http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_generic_import_%2F_export_of_learning_progress_for_scorm_modules#ilPageTocA18
2. http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_Storing_data_without_session_for_SCORM_1.2#ilPageTocA19

1. http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_Competence_Service_for_Question_Pool#ilPageTocA111 : Please give some more information about the implementation (currently only in attached document) and add also missing links to test cases.

3 Kitchen Sink

DIscussion and decision upon the following UI Kitchen Sink issues:

1. KS: Integration in Layout and Styles: We appreciate Timon's suggestion and decided:
   • Styles should be editable by an Action button instead of clicking on the title.
   • We need a clear description for the data handling of Skins in the Customizing directory. @ Timon: please make a suggestion how and where the files are stored. This is a requirement for a final decision of the feature request.
   • Delete action should be supported for the Customizing » local ... directory but not for Customizing » global.
   • We would like to have dedicated permissions for "Edit System Style" and "Edit Content Style". Please define which actions are possible with write permission on Layout administration node.
2. Survey for centralizing UI-Components: http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto_docu_svy_5094.html: Timon invites every interest user to take part at the survey.

4 Developing ILIAS 5.2

4.1 PHP 7

Current state of getting ILIAS PHP7 compliant:

• Funding: see http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto_docu_dcl_3700_747.html
• PHP7 Branch: see https://github.com/ILIAS-eLearning/ILIAS/tree/php7
• Current status: see last postings in Discussion of http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto_docu_wiki_wpage_3701_1357.html
  • Signature mismatch needs less effort than estimated originally
  • New problem is 'Calling non-static methods statically...' (not fixed through HHVM support as thought before). Cases are difficult to find automatically.
  • Jörg introduced comments to mark PHP7-relevant patches.
  • Fabian is thinking about a general rewriting of the Setup instead of fixing the PHP7 issues in the existing (and old) code. He probably will setup a feature wiki page.
• Next steps: We decided to merge PHP7 branch back to trunk. Fabian will merge the latest changes from trunk into PHP7 branch and solve problems. A pull request will be made for merging PHP7 branch back to trunk. Everybody is invited to have a look at the PR and add comments until this Friday (March 18).

4.2 Development Issues 5.2

• none

4.3 Feature Requests To Decide Upon

The following features have been set on the agenda to be discussed and to force their scheduling for version 5.2:

1. Import and Export of Competence Categories : We highly appreciate this feature and schedule it for 5.2 with the following extensions:
   • When importing a competence structure, ILIAS should first check if the import IDs are already existing. If so, a confirmation screen should be displayed if the existing structure should be overwritten or kept.
   • When importing a 360° survey, ILIAS should show a message of missing relationships after an import.
   • When importing competence profiles, ILIAS should show a message of missing relationships after an import.
2. Enable Copy of Repository Plugin Objects with Container Objects: We appreciate this request and schedule it for 5.2. Stefan Meyer and Richard Klees will check if a plugin.xml will be a suitable solution to keep the information for supporting the copy action or not.
3. Introducing Workflow Engine : We reschedule the feature request for 5.2 with the following requirements:
   • Due to missing funding, the required Service Discovery and automatic generated documentation can not be offered with a first implementation of the WFE. As an alternative, we need to have a written and continually updated document that clarifies how a developer can introduce a new activity and a process that guarantees that this document fits these requirements.
   • All other information that is listed above should be available (in a written form if cannot be generated automatically).
   • Activities related to components of other maintainers should be offered as pull request. Maintainer may asks for changes or modifications.
   • We need a service discovery within the next two years to prevent huge documentation efforts and to offer an automatic generated documentation for the future. Without a service discovery we will stop future acceptance of activities for 5.4 and later.

Postponed

1. Separate Permission for Member Administration
2. Multiple Accounts for a User
3. Test: Don’t show Feedback button when there is no feedback
4. User management: Improve user export and import
5. Improve Session Ending
6. Template Pictures for Badges
7. Competences - Split Spider Webs
8. Improvement of import and export - I kindly ask our programmers to contribute to/discuss this feature request. Thanks!
9. Style Editor: Extensible Character Formats
10. Administrators can access My Workspace
11. Hide News Older than X Days
12. Export and Import Questions with Competencies
13. Visibility of objects in courses/groups
14. Exercise Points
15. Learning Progress Mode «Visited» for HTML-Learning Module
16. Support galera cluster for MySQL
17. Scheduled Reminders
18. Remove System Messages from Personal Desktop
19. Mail from Course Members Gallery
20. Printable Member List for Members
21. Additional sorting options for My Courses and Groups
22. Usability Improvements of Personal Profile
23. Group Templates
24. Category for Huge Amount of Data
25. Customisable Main Menu
26. Groups and Courses: News Timeline
27. Sichtbarkeit von Feldern Rechte-/Rollenbasiert anzeigen
28. Dropdownmenu to choose between mark, score, percentage
29. [[[Project] LTI Support in ILIAS]]
30. Interactive Video
31. Extract Test Results from the Participant tab and make a separate Tab of it
32. Renaming the Exercise Object
33. Add field with dropdown-menu - without a second table
34. Booking Pool: Adding more than one booking object at a time
35. Booking Pool: Assign Booking Objects to Participants
36. Booking Tool: Filter by date and time
37. Booking Tool: Possibility to surpress expired bookings in reservation-list
38. Don’t show Feedback button when there is no feedback
39. Gender-sensitive address for automatically generated e-mail in gender languages
40. Harmonize Approval and Waiting List Process in Courses/Group
41. Improve subject line in mail notifications for forum postings
42. Mark scheme for exercises
43. E-Mail notification to the participant of a survey
44. List of participants in an anonymous survey
45. Competences - Split Spider Webs
46. Allow to modify competence presentation by plugin
47. Extend Chart Service to Support Bubble Charts
48. Learning Communities
49. History Mode for Personal Skill GUI

4.4 Lists of Suggested Features

The following lists are auto-generated and show all feature requests that are already marked with the metadata ‘Suggestions for 5.2’ but not scheduled yet. If you want the Jour Fixe to discuss one of these requests, just add the feature title to the list above.

Suggested features for 5.2 with announced funding

Suggested features for 5.2 with partly funding

Suggested features for 5.2 that require funding

4.5 Features suggested to abandon

5 Technical Board

On its last meeting at March 04, the General Meeting of Members of the ILIAS open source e-Learning e.V. has decided to introduce a technical board (TB). It substitutes the former Head of Development and is responsible for the following departments:

• Software Architecture
• Performance
• Security
• Operating Concepts and Usability
• Quality Assurance and Development Process

Elected members of the TB for one year are:

• Alexander Killing
• Fabian Schmid
• Michael Jansen
• Richard Klees
• Timon Amstutz

The duties of the technical board are:

• The development of strategies for the development of the ILIAS software within the framework of the overall ILIAS vision.
  
• The continuous assessment of the development of ILIAS with respect to current trends and requirements.
  
• To initiate measures for the implementation of these strategies
  
• The inspection and assessment of feature requests to aid further decision making on their
  integration into the ILIAS core.
  

The technical board functions as a team of experts and advises the managing director in his role as product manager and the respective module maintainers on their decisions regarding the adoption of a feature into the ILIAS source code. The General Meeting of Members gave the TB the power of veto regarding Jour Fixe decisions. A veto has to be expressed in written form within 7 days after the Jour Fixe decision.

The TB appoints a spokesperson to represent the technical board internally vis-à-vis the other constituent bodies and members of the society. Furthermore, the technical board is to appoint a contact person for each of the aforementioned departments.

6 Miscellaneous

Feature Wiki : New Category ‘Streamlining’

A new category ‘Streamlining’ has been introduced in the Feature Wiki. It is a cross-component tag and should be used as additional metadata to identify streamlining issues easily.

Next Jour Fixe

Monday, April 11, 2016, from 12h30 until 17h30 at the office of ILIAS-Verein in Cologne. No Jour Fixe at March 28 due to Eastern.