[LON-CAPA-announce] New version released - LON-CAPA 2.6.3

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:16:52 -0400

New Version 2.6.3 Released 

This is primarily a bug fix release. 

Changes from 2.6.2 

Bug fixes:
 - Erroneous timeouts when generating printouts eliminated.
 - Warning is displayed if resource(s) could not be retrieved when generating 
printouts.
 - Warning is displayed if resource(s) could not be retrieved when grading.
 - "Missing bubble" prompts suppressed again during scantron verification for 
parts included in a problem's "list of hidden parts".
 - Access to uploaded PDF files now controlled by content opening/close 
dates.
 - Domain Coordinator can again add roles in their domain for users from 
other domains.
 - Complete log messages available again when creating courses with batch 
creation.
 - Kerberos 5 authentication modified to work with Authen::Krb5 perl module v 
1.7.
 - Certain types of maxima set-up delays eliminated.
 - Duplicate entry for Top level sequence in folder dropdown box in CHRT 
eliminated.
 - User data directories receive correct ownership when a Domain Coordinator 
is created from the command line.
 - More compact display for Advanced Resource Assembly Tool (RAT) when Remote 
Control active.
 - Icons frame takes up less space when displaying external resources if 
display mode is set to "icons-only".
 - Improved randomly generated answers for numericalresponse items in exam 
mode when the correct answer is 0.
 - Better handling of encrypted/unencrypted URLs during generation of 
printouts for sequences/folders with mixed URL types. 

Enhancements:
 - Each new "course message" listed on the "What's New" page links directly 
to the message.
 - "uriprint" and "anchorprint" parameters can by used to allow/suppress 
inclusion of URLs and anchors when generating printouts.
 - Warning provided when publishing resource with dependencies on file(s) 
with variable names.
 - <allow>-tags are not generated for files with variable names
 - Missing image symbol not displayed in editor for images with variable file 
names
 - Warning when authoring an HTML/XML document if balanced <html>, <body> or 
<xml> tags are absent.
 - When the answer submitted to a mathresponse or formularesponse item is an 
equation instead of an expression, submission is identified as a 
'BAD_FORMULA' instead of 'INCORRECT'.
 - Some localization updates.
 - Spanish translation created.
 - Some German translations added or updated.
 - Some Portuguese translations added or updated.
 - Documentation added for LON-CAPA functions: &cas() and 
&implicit_multiplication().
 - Helpfile added to aid students entering answers to formularesponse 
problems.
 - Option to use dashed lines when generating dynamic plots using GNUplot.
 - LaTeX UTF-8 package used in generating printouts. 

To install this update: 

1) You will need to be running Fedora Core 6, 7, or 8, RHEL (AS|ES) 4 or 5,
SUSE 9.3, 10.1, 10.2, or 10.3, SLES 9 or 10, CentOS 5, Scientific Linux 5
 (Fedora Core 5 should continue to work but is deprecated.) 

2) If necessary update to the current LONCAPA-prerequisites (1-10), and 
replace gnuplot_loncapa with gnuplot 4.2. Note: if you already updated to 
2.6.0, 2.6.1, or 2.6.2 you will have already done this so you can skip this 
step. 

(a) Fedora
For Fedora 5 and 6 you will need to import the LON-CAPA public key.  For 
Fedora 7 and 8, it is assumed this occurred previously during the original
installation. 

rpm --import http://install.loncapa.org/versions/fedora/RPM-GPG-KEY-loncapa 

yum update --obsoletes 

(b) RedHat Enterprise 4 

up2date -u LONCAPA-prerequisites
up2date -i gnuplot 

(c) Red Hat 5/Centos 5/Scientific Linux 5 

yum update --obsoletes 

(d) SuSE/SLES 

Use yast-> Installation Source to refresh the LON-CAPA repository
Use yast->Software Management->Search to update LONCAPA-prerequisites (to 
version  1-10), install gnuplot and delete gnuplot_loncapa. 

On all distributions, it is recommended that you check that you have the 
correct versions of LONCAPA-prequisites and gnuplot installed before 
proceeding. 

rpm -q LONCAPA-prerequisites
rpm -q gnuplot 

should report:
LONCAPA-prerequisites-1-10.X
gnuplot-4.2.0.X 

(where X is a distro identifier e.g., fc7.lc) 

3) Download the new LON-CAPA tarball from
wget http://install.lon-capa.org/versions/loncapa-2.6.3.tar.gz 

and untar it 

tar xzvf loncapa-2.6.3.tar.gz 

4) stop the LON-CAPA system services 

/etc/rc.d/init.d/loncontrol stop 

5) stop the webserver: 

Fedora/RHEL:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop 

SUSE 9.X/SLES 9:
/etc/init.d/apache stop 

SUSE 10.X/SLES 10:
/etc/init.d/apache2 stop 

6) Run the UPDATE script as root
cd loncapa-2.6.3
su
./UPDATE 

7) restart the LON-CAPA system services
/etc/rc.d/init.d/loncontrol start 

8) restart the webserver: 

Fedora/RHEL:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start 

SUSE 9.X/SLES 9:
/etc/init.d/apache start 

SUSE 10.X/SLES 10:
/etc/init.d/apache2 start 

 ----NOTES
1) Many questions are answered at http://help.lon-capa.org
2) Defects reports, and enhancements requests can be entered at
http://bugs.lon-capa.org
3) Mailing lists can be joined and left at http://mail.lon-capa.org 

Stuart Raeburn
MSU LON-CAPA group