JourFixe-2024-09-16

Date and place

Monday, 16 September 2024 from 13:00 – 15:30 at VC meeting in BBB.

If you like to participate at the Jour Fixe, please join our BigBlueButton-based Jour Fixe VC!
We recommend to use BBB in Chrome (or Firefox).

1 Appointments

2 Technical Board

This is a new topic on our agenda that should improve the information flow between the Technical Board and the society members and ILIAS users.

• Please stand for election! The next election of the "Technical Board" takes place in March 2025. If you are interested, please consider running for this election as soon as possible. You can apply to the ILIAS Board at any time.

3 Miscellaneous

3.1 Composer Conflicts

There are currently frequent conflicts between competing Composer library versions in the ILIAS core and plugins (see: Discord). Libraries such as ‘psr/container’ or ‘prs/http-message’, which are available in higher versions in plugins than in the core, are often problematic. Depending on the winner in the ‘autoloader race’, the Composer autoloader of the plugin wins, which then leads to a crash.

Michael pointed out a few possible solutions to solve the problem:

• Plugins:
  • ... could explicitily require the same library version as the ILIAS core, even for transitive dependencies
    
    • e.g.: "psr/container": "1.1.2"
  • ... could use "Mozart" (a composer library: https://github.com/coenjacobs/mozart) to rewrite namespaces
  • ... could define the problematic dependencies via Composer's replace
    •   "replace": {
          "psr/http-message": "*",
          "psr/container": "*",
        } 
    • see this page concering security issue with replace
• Core:
  • Maybe upgrade the problematic libraries?

3.2 Documentation

There is an update for the documentation of the security process in ILIAS:

• PR7741 • 10/docu/add security process: Pull request is highly appreciate. Please merge PR to trunk (nevetheless, change of process is valid for all maintained versions).

3.3 UI Clinic

Our UI/UX/A11y experts Yvonne Seiler, Kristina Auerswald and Kendra Grotz are offering bi-weekly UI clinic consultation hours for UI/UX and accessibility topics. The consultation hours are open for all users that need or are interested in related help for their ILIAS development activities. The UI Clinic consultation take place every Wednesday before the Jour Fixe from 10h30 to 11h30.

If you are interested in discussing an issue, please register here!.

3.4 Style Guide for English Language

Our expert for English language, Chris Potter, is maintaining a Style Guide for English Language in ILIAS to help developers when writing English labels and bylines. Major aim is to improve the quality and the consistence of the English language file. We kindly ask all developers to have a look at this style guide and follow its recommendations! In case of questions to the style guide or the correct use of English language in ILIAS, please feel free to contact Chris.

The Style Guide contains a new page that focuses on 'How Similar Do Language Variables Need to Be Across Languages?'. Have a look at this page when you are creating new language variables or if you are maintaining one of the languages supported by ILIAS.

3.5 Authorities

3.5.1 Authorities to be Handed Over

For the following components there are authorities to be handed over:

• Learning Module SCORM: Kohnle, Uwe [ukohnle] would like to hand over the authorities to sign off on conceptual changes, to sign off on code changes and to (de-)assign authorities.
  • The developer interested in the takeover has unfortunately withdrawn his readiness. We are therefore still looking for a developer to take over the pending authorities.
• LTI: Kohnle, Uwe [ukohnle] would like to hand over his authorities to sign off on conceptual changes, to sign off on code changes and to (de-)assign authorities. Meyer, Stefan [smeyer] keeps authority to sign off on code changes.
  • LTI already consists of two components – LTI for the provider function and LTI consumer. According to Uwe it is possible to keep only one of both in ILIAS while the other component can be abandoned if no new developer is willing to take over the authorities for entire LTI.
  • There is now an expression of interest. A meeting with developer and TB is scheduled for 17 SEP 2024.
• Excel: Excel service was under implicit maintainership but has currently no person that takes care of it.
  
  • Strassner, Denis [dstrassner] is willing to take over the authorities to sign off on conceptual changes, to curate testcases and to (de-)assign authorities.
  • Kergomard, Stephan [skergomard] wants to take over the authority to sign off on code changes.
  • They consider the component to be important for the Test&Assessment - as well as for a number of other components - and would like to take on the corresponding responsibility.

Community members who are willing to take over one of the offered authorities are highly appreciated. In case of interest, please contact the Technical Board.

4 Maintained Versions

At the time being, we are maintaining ILIAS version 8 and ILIAS version 9.

4.1 Roadmap

Lifecycles of maintained versions

• ILIAS 8 : end of full maintenance at 31 DEC 2024, security bug fixes (only) until 31 DEC 2025.
• ILIAS 9 : end of full maintenance at 31 DEC 2025, security bug fixes (only) until 30 JUN 2027.

4.2 Mantis Reports

The following Mantis reports have been tagged with 'Needs Jour Fixe Decision' and were therefore be discussed in detail:

1. #34021: Accounts created using expired registration codes: We highly appreciate the mentioned pull request to solve this issue (even it is not considered as bug). Please merge the PR for all maintained versions.
2. #:

4.3 Mantis Statistic

Current information from Mantis:

                        * … Issues with status 'open' and 'fix.acc.prio.' are recorded.

4.4 Development Issues of Maintained Versions

The following development issues concern one or more maintained versions. Issues related to trunk are listed further below.

• none

4.5 Pull Requests

4.5.1 Pull Requests for Maintained Versions

Pull requests in the ILIAS repository on GitHub that are related to maintained versions of ILIAS.

• No PRs to discuss today.

4.5.2 Looking for Shepherd

The following PRs are adressing components that are currently under no authority. So nobody has the authority to do the related code change and accept the PR. We are looking for shepherds that check and review the PR and merge it.

1. PR6538 • Fix value presentation and allow combination input types:
2. PR7544 • App: Use PHP core randomizer and remove Randomization component:
3. PR7599 • Add ext-pdo as required extension in composer.json:
4. PR7605 • [PROPOSAL] Remove Cloud Data from ILIAS:
5. PR7618 • Prevent deletion of required file uploads:
6. PR7815 • Phpunit code coverage:
7. PR7857 • Block: Preserve block title on slice:

4.6 Continuous Integration

• Unit Tests:
  • As of today, there are (executed with PHP 8.3) /  scripts/PHPUnit/run_tests.sh --random-order-seed 1720173999
    • 11902 (+212)
    • 29403, assertions (depends on the order of tests being executed / not stably determinable)
  • 1 failure:
    • ILIAS\Cache\CacheTest::testLockFailed asserting that false is true.
      /var/www/ilias/trunk/components/ILIAS/Cache/tests/CacheTest.php:166
  • 1 error (-9):
    • ILIAS\Tests\Data\LanguageTagTest::testRisky
      The data provider specified for ILIAS\Tests\Data\LanguageTagTest::testRisky is invalid
      Using $this when not in object context
      /var/www/ilias/trunk/components/ILIAS/Data/tests/LanguageTagTest.php:50
      
      • PR https://github.com/ILIAS-eLearning/ILIAS/pull/8039
  • 41 skipped:
    • See file below
  • 655 PHP deprecations (PR https://github.com/ILIAS-eLearning/ILIAS/pull/8040)
    • See file below
• Code Style:
  • 273 Violations (-17) / vendor/composer/vendor/friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer/php-cs-fixer fix --config=./scripts/PHP-CS-Fixer/code-form
    at.php_cs --using-cache=no -vvv --dry-run components/ILIAS/* :
    • See file below
• ilCtrl "// @todo: removed deprecated ilCtrl methods, this needs inspection by a maintainer."
  • 55 findings (-10)
    • See file below

5 Developing ILIAS 10

5.1 Timeline for ILIAS 10

• Big Projects Jour Fixe at 27 November 2023 ✓
  
• Feature freeze at 30 April 2024 ✓
• Coding completed at 25 October 2024
  • New features implemented and related test cases completed
  • Existing test cases updated/revised
• Release 10.0 beta1 and release-10 branch planned for 28 October 2024
• Beginn of testing phase scheduled for 30 October 2024
  • Pretest: 30 October – 12 November 2024
  • Community testing: 13 November 2024 – 05 February 2025
• End of testing phase planned for 05 Februar 2025
• First stable 10.0 release planned for 13 March 2025
• Full maintenance support for version 10: until 31 December 2026
• Security bug fixes only: until 31 December 2027

5.2 Software Requirements for ILIAS 10

The required and supported software for ILIAS 10 is as follows:

5.3 Dependencies

The following pull requests in the ILIAS repository on GitHub are related to trunk and labeled with 'dependencies'.

• PR8026 • Composer: Add phpoffice/phpspreadsheet as dependency
  • Status of maintenance: is actively maintained by multiple maintainers (quasi standard)
  • Used by: several components, see PR
  • Decision: Dependency is accepted for ILIAS 10.
• PR8070 • Add jstree as dependency
  • Status of maintenance: actively maintained and 74 contributors
  • Used by: repository tree and org unit tree for asynchronous loading for better performance
  • Decision: Dependency is accepted for ILIAS 10.

PR7141 has been merged to trunk to create new package.json and composer. json with approved dependencies packages.

5.4 Deprecated for ILIAS 10

The following services, methods and UI elements are deprecated for ILIAS 10:

• Services/UIComponent
  • Checkbox List Overlay
  • Glyph
  • Grouped List
  • Lightbox (Has been removed from trunk while ILIAS 9 has being developed.)
  • Modal
  • Nested List
  • Overlay
  • Panel
  • Progress Bar
  • Split Button
  • Tooltip
• Services/FileSystem
  • ilFile
  • ilFileData
  • ilFileDataImport
  • ilFileSystemAbstractionStorage
  • ilFileSystemGUI
  • ilFileSystemTableGUI
  • ilUploadFiles
• Services/Database
  • ilDBAnalyzer
  • ilDBGenerator
• Services/FileDelivery (replacement will be done with PR)
  • ilFileDelivery
• Services/PermanentLink (replacement will be done with PR)
  • ilLink
• Services/Utilities (ongoing)
  • ilArrayUtil
  • ilLegacyFormElementsUtil
  • ilShellUtil
  • ilStr
  • ilUtil
• Services/Metadata (replacement via PR)
  
  • ilMD
  • ilMDCreator
  • ilMDUtils
  • ilMDCopyrightSelectionEntry
  • ilMD2XML
  • ilMDSaxParser
  • ilMDXMLCopier
  • ilMDGeneral
  • ilMDEducational
  • ilMDKeyword
  • ilMDIdentifier
  • ilMDLanguage
  • ilMDLanguageItem
  • almost all other 'ilMD*' classes except ilMDEditorGUI

5.5 Important Information

•  Any development installation created with ILIAS 10 before 17 July is unrecoverable broken due to errors in database schema and must be recreated. See #41729 for more informations.

5.6 Development Issues

1. Move Search Header to Kitchensink Filters; Famula, Thomas [tfamula]:

   1. The Filter Field "Title/Description" is not necessary. Since there is already a separate Text Input Field above the Filter, a Field in the Filter would be redundant.
   2. When the article was written, it stated that there will be no filter element for creation dates because of the lack of a respective KS Element. In the meantime, it has become possible to use the Duration Input in the Filter. So it should be used for the new Filter in the Search.

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe] : We agree with Thomas' suggestion. No need to have an additional filter for title and description as this is covered by the search input. And we highly appreciate that filtering for creation dates is also possible with this new implemantion due to the new duration input.

2. Centralizing online/offline status - step 4, Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila]: With ILIAS 9, the centralised online/offline status should actually already be used in the data collection - see step 3. At the time of the discussion of step 4, it was not predictable that this would not be the case. See ‘Data Collection (still not implemented with ILIAS 9)’ in Chap 1 Initial Problem.

   This development issue simply asks to be able to transfer the DataCollection with ILIAS 10 as well to centralised online/offline status.

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe] : Implementing the centralised online / offline status also for the data collection with ILIAS 10 is highly appreciated and accepted.

3. …

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe] :

5.7 Pull Requests for Current Development / Trunk

The following pull requests in the ILIAS repository on GitHub are related to the current development activities in trunk.

1. PR7717 • UI/Button: allow Glyphs as label #6922: We highly appreciate this suggestion and accept the PR for ILIAS 10.
2. PR7907 • [FEATURE] UI: Introduce Footer sections: We highly appreciate this suggestion and accept the PR for ILIAS 10.
3. PR7979 • [FEATURE] JS Unit Tests Migration: notified us about this PR and its intention. He asks all developers to read the PR and ask questions until the next JF when decision should be made about this PR.
4. PR8018 • Plugins: for 10, move plugins to public/Customizing/: We follow Richard's suggestion and postpone the change of the directory where plugins are placed to ILIAS 11. Plugins in ILIAS 10 have still be placed in the /Customizing/global directory. PR accepted for ILIAS 10.
5. PR • :

5.8 Project 'Removing of Legacy-UIComponents-Service and Table'

• Next Bi-Weekly-Meetings:
  • Monday, 23 September 2024, 14:30 - 16:00
• Further progress on UI components:
  • Field\TreeSelect and Field\TreeMultiSelect for the compensation of ilExplorer and related.
  • Confirmation Modals for the compensation of ilConfirmationGUI & ilConfirmationTableGUI
  • UI Progress Bar for the compensation of ilProgressBar
• Slow progress of the project due to lack of funding.
• Estimated funding needed to realise project for 2024 and 2025: 395.000€ (like 275 Person Days).

5.9 Testing ILIAS 10

The official test installation for ILIAS 10 is now online: https://test10.ilias.de. This installation is based on an alpha version of ILIAS 10 and might be buggy. 

Important: Please report only those bugs for the alpha version that are related to broken functionality (e.g. object cannot be created) or are related to error messages. Minor and trivial issues should not be reported before the start of the community testing mid of November. Please consider that extensive changes are still being made to the code until the end of 10_alpha!

5.10 Suggested Features for 10

1. Abandon Excel Exports in Question Pools: We highly appreciate this suggestion and abandon this feature with ILIAS 10.

2. Abandon Manage System Styles: We highly appreciate this suggestion and abandon the editing of system styles in the ILIAS UI with ILIAS 10. Export will be kept (incl. a new info message about successful download and impossibility to import it).

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6 Developing ILIAS 11

6.1 Timeline for ILIAS 11

• Big Projects Jour Fixe at November 25, 2024
  
• Feature freeze at April 30, 2025
• Coding completed: all features implemented and test cases finished until October 28, 2025
• Release 11.0 beta1 and release-10 branch planned for October 28, 2025
• Beginn of testing phase scheduled for October 31, 2025
• End of testing phase planned for Februar 06, 2026
• First stable 11.0 release planned for March 17, 2026
• Full maintenance support for version 11: until December 31, 2027
• Security bug fixes only: until December 31, 2028

6.2 Deprecated for ILIAS 11

The following services, methods and UI elements are deprecated for ILIAS 10:

• Services/UIComponent
  • ilConfirmationGUI & ilConfirmationTableGUI
  • ilExplorer
  • ilSyntaxHighlighter
  • ilTextHighlighterGUI
  • ilToolbarGUI
  • ilTabsGUI
• Services/Table

6.3 Suggested Features for 11

No feature suggestions to discuss today.

7 Participants