[LON-CAPA-announce] New version released - LON-CAPA 2.10.1

Stuart Raeburn raeburn at msu.edu
Thu Dec 1 08:37:02 EST 2011 

New Version 2.10.1 Released

This is primarily a bug fix release.
Update of 2.10.0 installations to 2.10.1 is recommended.

Changes from 2.10.0

Linux Distros
- Support now available for CentOS 6, SuSE 12.1, Fedora 16.


General User Interface

- Destination of "Log-in again" link on logout page determined in the order:
     (1) portal page for user's domain (if defined).
     (2) the domain's portal server, if log-in pages for user's domain's
         servers are set to redirect (e.g., to a lonBalancer server).
     (3) least busy server in user's domain.

- Any session hosting restrictions are overridden when a co-author or
   assistant co-author role needs to "switch server" to author's home server.

- Consistent behavior for "New User?" link and log-in via standard log-in
     page for users without a LON-CAPA account, already authenticated by
     institutional log-in, if domain has rules for self-creation of
     accounts, based on institutional status.


Authoring Resources

- New Problem Templates:
   - Numerical Response with Custom Units.
   - Numerical Response with Pre-Processing.
   - String Response with Pre-Processing.

- New attributes in response types:
   - Algebraic input permitted in numericalresponse items.
   - Custom units permitted in numericalresponse items.

- New LON-CAPA functions:
   - &wrong_bubbles() can be used to generate wrong answer bubbles.
   - Easier access is provided to certain parameters and stored data
     - &parameter_setting(), &stored_data().
   - Additional course data can be accessed - &classid(), &middlename().

- Pressing "Return" no longer triggers "Undo" within the "colorful" editor.

- The "colorful" editor can now support the option 0 in an option list.

- Parameter for maxtries automatically set to 2 when creating
   radiobuttonresponse from testbank import of multiple choice question.

- Submissions are now recorded for published problems where the selected
   foil was named "0".

- radiobuttonresponse items containing a foil with location="bottom"
   and value="false" can now include "true" foil in next to bottom position.


Student Interface

- Now possible to eliminate all entries in the collaborator field.

- In Course Contents, an item's status is only shown for resources
   (and not for folders).

- When submit is pressed in a composite page (.page) a javascript error
   no longer occurs.

- Display of date with <displayduedate> tag in a problem handles the
   format attribute more intelligently.


Course/Community Management

- A condition whereby a stale connection could exist (for certain library
   servers) and cause searches of the shared repository (including the
   corresponding domains) to hang is eliminated.

- Better highlighting of hidden resources for Coordinators in Course
   Contents.

- Role switcher handles case where selected role does not have privileges
   to view current page by offering choice to display Main Menu or cancel.

- Message displayed when storing changes now correct when more than one
   category was selected in Course Configuration.

- When handing back file(s) to a student, uploads are no longer duplicated
   in multi-part problems with non-numeric part ids.

- Clicker grading for i>clicker now supports numerical and alphanumeric
   data (as provided by i>clicker2).

- Warning message displayed if points assigned exceed weight.

- Ungraded status shown in "What's New" page will now be removed after
   grading an assignment by uploading scores.

- When exporting student submissions to Excel, incomplete last row no
   longer created for a student without submissions.

- Choice of "Student Data" (fullname, username, status, etc.) when exporting
   student submissions now honored for all formats (HTML, CSV, Excel).

- Permission checking for Spreadsheet based on role (e.g., student)
   replaced with checking based on privileges.

- Start and end date for student's access no longer shown as "none" when
   exporting classlists in Excel or CSV formats from "Manage Users" utility.

- "Each PDF contains exactly one section" option no longer offered when
   creating a printout for Anonymous CODEs.

- Pop-up window created when setting a parameter in table mode no longer
   blank in Internet Explorer 9 (without compatibility mode).


Domain Coordination/Domain Settings

- Saving domain setting for notification of course requests requiring
   approval no longer causes error.

- Replacement of domain files, i.e., custom bubblesheet format file, logo,
   images on log-in page, custom login help file etc. will cause subscribed
   servers to retrieve updated versions.

- Permissions updated to allow server status utility - ping.pl - to test
   connectivity to any host in the cluster, from any other host in the
   cluster.

- For server status scripts using IP-based access control. access now
   permitted automatically for both 127.0.0.1 and also if remote IP is same
   as IP of host server.

- Readability of "Course/Community Level" box in DC's create/modify
   user screen improved.

- E-mail sent by Domain Coordinator using Broadcast e-mail utility now
   includes character encoding (UTF-8) in header.


Internals/system behavior

- jQuery javascript library updated to 1.6.2 (jQuery-ui to 1.8.16).

- In lond, hardcoded 'http' replaced with check for protocol used by
   remote server (used when resource needs to be replicated).

- Eliminate condition where lonc connection could be hung by a remote
   LON-CAPA server with incompatible NAT configuration.

- Nightly system status check (loncron) no longer modifies running
   total for warnings, if count of delayed messages is negative.

- New script (lchttpdlogs) called by loncron to tail web server logs.
   This eliminates "cannot open <logfile> for reading" warnings when
   starting or restarting loncontrol.

- loncron now includes a 20s timeout when attempting to contact each
   server with an entry in /home/httpd/sockets/delayed.

- Internal HEAD request for mimetex script used for vertical alignment
   of inline math (with display set to mimetex) now uses loopback.

- lonBalancer will now correctly offload users from other domains.

- E-mail warnings to the administrator about possible string response
   grading discrepancies no longer include "false positives" triggered under
   certain circumstances for problem part with multiple stringresponse items.

- Specification of internet domains exempt from blocking of session
   hosting of users from remote domain now honored.

- If a lonBalancer server is configured to deny hosting of sessions for a
   user, server will now switch session to least loaded server in user's
   own domain.

- IP-based access to server status information available for manager
   specified in managers.tab.

- New cgi script available to display domain configuration as plain text.
   Only useful on primary library server for a domain.


Printing

- Support in PDF printouts for HTML tables now includes support for
   more options for rules attribute (all, rows, cols or groups), with
   support for tbody, thead, tfoot, where rules="groups".

- "bomb" message no longer triggered when generating a printout for an
   optionresponse item where "Don't show option list" checkbox is checked
   (i.e., attribute: texoptions="nochoice").


Localization

  - New translations and improvements for German interface.
  - Updates for a few changed keys in Spanish, Portuguese, French,
    Russian, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Turkish and Persian translations.


Documentation

- Information added for new script functions.
   - Function to generate wrong answer bubbles.
   - Easier access to parameters and stored data.
   - Accessing additional course data.

- Documentation added for new attribute: customunit.

- Documentation added for authoring adaptive hints.


Specific bug/enhancement request numbers addressed in this release:
53, 1311, 2020, 5100, 5528, 5629, 5771, 5817, 5853, 6048, 6157, 6167,
6243, 6258, 6291, 6311, 6317, 6410, 6413, 6414, 6425, 6436, 6456, 6466,
6472, 6475, 6478, 6489, 6492, 6493, 6498, 6500, 6505, 6510, 6513, 6514,
6515, 6522, 6528
(see: http://bugs.lon-capa.org/)


Installation Notes:

To use this release you need to have version 1-20 of LONCAPA-prerequisites
installed.  This is the same version as used for 2.10.0.

If updating to 2.10.1 from 2.9, or earlier, see release notes for 2.10.0:
http://mail.lon-capa.org/pipermail/lon-capa-announce/2011/000076.html for
information about default colors, rewrites for https, and localenroll.pm.

To install this update:

1) You will need to be running CentOS 5 or 6; RHEL (AS|ES) 4, 5 or 6;
Scientific Linux 5 or 6; SLES 9, 10 or 11; Fedora 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15 or 16; SuSE 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, or 12.1; Ubuntu LTS 8 or 10;
or Debian 5 or 6.

(Fedora Core 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9, and SuSE 10.1, 10.2 & 10.3 should continue
to work, but are deprecated.)

You will need to be root to use the commands listed at steps 2 to 8 below.
On Ubuntu LTS servers either prepend sudo for each command, or use sudo -i.

2) Update LONCAPA-prerequisites to 1-20.
Note: for Debian/Ubuntu the corresponding package is loncapa-prerequisites.

(a) Fedora

yum update

(b) RedHat Enterprise 4

up2date -u LONCAPA-prerequisites

(c) Red Hat 5/6, Centos 5, Scientific Linux 5/6

yum update

(d) SuSE/SLES

Use yast-> Installation Source to refresh the LON-CAPA repository
If refresh is unsuccessful, an alternative is to delete the repository,
and then add it again to the list of repos you use.
Use yast->Software Management->Search to update LONCAPA-prerequisites

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

(i) CentOS/RHEL/Scientific Linux/Fedora/SLES/SuSE
rpm -q LONCAPA-prerequisites

should report:
LONCAPA-prerequisites-1-20.X
(where X is a distro identifier e.g., centos5.lc)

(ii) Ubuntu/Debian
sudo dpkg -l loncapa-prerequisites

should report
ii loncapa-prerequisites 1.20-X
(where X is a version number which depends on Ubuntu/Debian distro)


3) Download the new LON-CAPA tarball from
wget http://install.lon-capa.org/versions/loncapa-2.10.1.tar.gz

and untar it

tar xzvf loncapa-2.10.1.tar.gz

4) stop the LON-CAPA system services

/etc/init.d/loncontrol stop

5) stop the webserver:

Fedora/RHEL/Centos/Scientific Linux
/etc/init.d/httpd stop

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

SuSE 11.X/SLES 10,SLES 11, Debian/Ubuntu:
/etc/init.d/apache2 stop


6) Run the UPDATE script as root
cd loncapa-2.10.1
su
./UPDATE


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


8) restart the webserver:

Fedora/RHEL/Centos/Scientific Linux
/etc/init.d/httpd start

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

SuSE 11.X/SLES 10,11, Debian/Ubuntu:
/etc/init.d/apache2 start


9) It is also recommended that loncron is run
(as the www user) after installation/update is complete.

su www
/home/httpd/perl/loncron

This will write to files in /home/httpd/lonTabs used to
store information about LON-CAPA versions on other servers in
the cluster to which the server belongs.  It may take some
minutes to complete as the script will contact other servers
in the LON-CAPA network sequentially.


----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
LON-CAPA Academic Consortium

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