JourFixe-2023-02-06

Date and place

Monday, 06 February 2023 from 13:00 – 16:45 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 Miscellaneous

2.1 UI Clinic

Our UI/UX/A11y experts Yvonne Seiler and Kristina Auerswald 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 hours take place every Tuesday before Jour Fixe from 14h30 to 15h00.

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

2.2 Style Guide for English Language

Our expert for English language, Chris Potter, has created 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 please all developers to have a look at this style guide and follow its recommendations!

In addition, Chris is currently revising the entire ilias_en.lang for ILIAS 8 and corrects and streamline the texts. This already came with a couple of commits in the last weeks (and still will go on).

In case of questions to the style guide or the correct use of English language in ILIAS, please feel free to contact Chris.

2.3 Maintainerships

2.3.1 Maintainerships to be Handed Over

The following maintainerships are offered for takeover by another developer:

Developers willing to take over this maintainership are highly appreciated. Please contact the Technical Board if you are interested in taking over the maintainership.

2.3.2 Ongoing Transfers

3 Maintained Versions

At the time being, we are maintaining ILIAS version 6 and version 7.

3.1 Roadmap

Lifecycles of maintained versions

3.2 Mantis Reports

All open issues reported or modified since the last Jour Fixe were screened by the product manager before the Jour Fixe and assigned to the responsible developers if necessary. The following issues were discussed in detail:

Postponed to next Jour Fixe:

3.3 Mantis Statistic

Mantis reports[1] set to status 'open' and not been touched by responsible maintainer for more than 21 days (checked this morning) as well as bug reports with priorisation voting:

* New votes: bugs priorised within the last 14 days   ** Old votes: priorised bugs before last JF (older then 14 days)   *** Resolved: Resolved or closed bug reports in the last 14 days

Reports with status 'Fixing according to priorisation' should be fixed before other bugs are tackled. Priorised bugs are very important for one or more institutional members of the ILIAS society. Handling this reports with low priority contradicts the intention of the established bug fixing process.

3.4 Development Issues of Maintained Versions

The following development issues concern one or more maintained versions. Issues related to upcoming versions have to be added in chapter 4.

1. JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe]:

3.5 Open Pull Requests to Discuss

The following pull requests in the ILIAS GitHub repository were marked with 'Jour Fixe' this morning:

Postponed to next JF:

3.6 Continuous Integration

Postponed due to absence of Michael Jansen

4 Publishing ILIAS 8

4.1 Timeline for ILIAS 8

4.2 Software Requirements for ILIAS 8

4.3 Development Issues

1. Changed language entries for ILIAS 8 : The team of the gender mainstreaming project funded by ILIAS.nrw has analysed the German language file in the last month. A couple of terms that the team considers problematic have been replaced by alternative terms. They are all listed on the page Changed language entries for ILIAS 8.

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe]: Grotz, Kendra [kgrotz] presented the list of changed terms and gave a short explanation on the procedure of the team and why existing labels have been changed and how.

   In addition, she asked how the terms that should be used and those that should be avoided should be documented so that all developers can quickly access this info. A md file with these terms should be made available in the /languages folder of ILIAS. Kendra and Matthias (as language maintainer) will provide a related file.

2. EmployeeTalk: It is documented in the testcases, that the 'Content'-tab in the Administration of the Talk Templates should have a 'Manage'-subtab, similar to other container objects. However, for Talk Templates the options offered there are either nonsensical, not implemented, or elsewhere accessible.
   The probationary maintainer of EmployeeTalk would hence like to get rid of that subtab entirely (along with 'Sorting', which is comparably useless) and adapt the testcases accordingly.

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe]: We highly appreciate the suggested solution to get rid of the unused tabs 'Manage' and 'Sorting' for ILIAS 8.

4.4 Status of Implementation

In  the meantime, all affected developers have been contacted personally and asked for completion.

4.5 Testing ILIAS 8

Timetable

Status 06 FEB 2023

Current Performance

Other Issues

As of 6 FEB, there are 813 open issues (last JF: 847) in Mantis selecting the following filters:

329 of these issues have the title "Failed test". This implies that 484 have not been pushed from TestRail. Hansjörg Lauener and I retested older 8.x issues and noticed that about one third of these issues have been "fixed in the meantime". This means that about 320 more real issues are waiting for fixes. 

New Test Cases for ILIAS 9

5 Developing ILIAS 9

5.1 Timeline for ILIAS 9

Due to the changed timeline of ILIAS 8 we had to fundamentally change the schedule for ILIAS 9. The aim was to secure sufficient resources for the completion of ILIAS 8 and to take away the time pressure for the programming of ILIAS 9. In short, the release plan for ILIAS 9 has been postponed by one year.

5.2 Software Requirements for ILIAS 9

The required and supported software for ILIAS 9 is as follows:

5.3 Development Issues

1. Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel] suggests to streamline the first sub-tab of all Settings tabs and to use one lang var in all object types with Settings screen. Suggested lang var would be common#:#general# with label 'General' / 'Allgemein'. The Tabs Guideline should be changed accordingly. The rule only applies to objects that have a Settings tab with sub-tabs. Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel] would provide the respective PRs to reduce the effort of involved maintainers.

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe]: We highly appreciate the suggested extension of the Tabs Guideline and accept it for ILIAS 9.

2. Follow-up to merged PR #4811 »Remove permanent link input field of footer« (Scharmer, Lukas [lscharmer], Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila])

   The requirements and feedback communicated in PR #4811 regarding the use of the KS button and JS were taken into implementation. As a result, there were discussions regarding the usage of toasts and the implementation by using a text just over the button as a visual feedback of copying the URL to the users clipboard. See PRs #5012, #5067 and #5301

   Due to the discussions and questions, the result should be communicated here.

   

   

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe]: We discussed the option we have to realise this request:

   1. Use the JS based solution as suggested in the PR above.
   2. Use just a linked text "Permanent Link" (link can be copied with right mouse click)
   3. Keep it as it is

   Facing A11y requirements for ILIAS, solution 2 is the best. And it will re-use a known pattern. Therefore, we prefer solution 2.

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

The first bi-weekly took place on 30.01.2023.
It was discussed how we can estimate the scope of the project and create a basis for estimations of ressources.
The first essential step is PR5498 • PHPStan-Rule Legacy UI, which should enable us to report/monitor. (Thanks @chfsx) 
Meanwhile, the informative value of the code analysis is being validated for the button rule by the maintainers.

Bi-Weekly: Monday 14:30 - 16:00 – in the week in which the JourFixe does not take place. Next meeting at 13 FEB 2023

5.5 Suggested Features for 9

1. Learning Sequence: Improve Handling of Learning Progress Settings of Sub-Objects: We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 9. Please add this new type of Actions menu entries to the known Action Menu Guideline. Stefan and Richard will revise the function to call the Settings tab from the Learning Sequence (because the current possible solutions should no longer be used according to Stefan Meyer.

2. Learning Sequence: Improve Usability of Objects without Kiosk-Mode (slightly): We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 9.

3. Learning Sequence: Make Completion more Visible: We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 9.

4. Revision of Access to Timings Settings of Objects: While we fully agree with the suggested revision for access settings in parent containers, we prefer to revise the solutions within an object. Therefore, we schedule the feature only for the implementation within the 'Manage' screen of parent containers. The part about implementing these settings within objects should be taken out of the FR and tackled in a separate FR. Revision of access to timings of objects from parent container is scheduled for ILIAS 9.

5. ‘Set Online‘ & ‘Set Offline‘ for Manage Screen: We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 9.

6. Abandon Copying from Create Dialogue: We highly appreciate this suggestion and abandon the function with to copy on the create dialogue for ILIAS 9.

7. Show Member View in Toolbar: We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 9. As a specific feature to visualise a view - here the view of a group or course member - the button 'Show Member View' should appear on the 'View' tab and is not needed on the 'Manage' tab.

8. Study Programme: Customize Front Page: We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 9. The Study Programme should support local style sheets. Oliver Samoila will clarify from where users should access the style sheet editing (Actions dropdown in slate or distinct sub-tab in Settings).

9. Study Programme: Page Editor Element for Status Information : We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 9. The second screenshot in chap 3.2 seems to describe a page we do not need to have because there won't be settings of this status information.

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6 Developing ILIAS 10

6.1 Timeline for ILIAS 10

6.2 Suggested Features for 10

No suggestions today to discuss.