[LON-CAPA-dev] Draft of 2.6.99.0 release announcement
Stefan Bisitz
lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:48:19 +0200
Hi Stuart,
Sounds good.
> Localization
> - New translations and improvements have been made for the German interface.
Do you like to add:
- New translations for Portuguese interface.
- Interface languages are now all UTF-8 encoded.
(I assume that these changes will be included in 2.6.99.0/2.7)
?
Stefan Bisitz
Stuart Raeburn wrote:
> Hello,
>
> This is a draft of the release announcement for 2.6.99.0.
> Let me know if I've missed anything, or if anything needs changing.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stuart Raeburn
> MSU LON-CAPA group
>
> *******************
>
> New Testing Version 2.6.99.0
>
> This is a testing release for upcoming version 2.7
>
> This release is not ready for installation on production servers.
> However, if you have a development machine you are invited to test it out.
>
> To use this release you need to have version 1-12 of
> LONCAPA-prerequisites installed. This new package, as well as some new
> dependencies, are available from the testing repositories found at:
> http://install.loncapa.org/msu/testing/
>
> In a week or so, to coincide with release of 2.6.99.1, these new
> packages will be added to the main LON-CAPA repositories for the
> various distros, so that updates/refreshes of yum/up2date/yast on
> production servers will pick up the new packages.
>
> If you do not currently have your development server(s) configured to
> use the testing repositories please refer to:
>
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/pipermail/lon-capa-dev/2007-November/001852.html
>
> The list of distros for which testing repos exist, as described in
> that November 2007 posting, has now been extended with the addition of
> SuSE 10.3 and Fedora 8. SuSE 9.3 will cease to be supported for
> LON-CAPA 2.7. Although support for LON-CAPA 2.7 on Fedora 9 is
> planned, for now 2.6.99.0 is not supported because of a LaTeX issue
> with that particular distro.
>
> Notable Changes from 2.6.3:
>
> Authoring resources
> - Choices of problem templates shown for new problems in Construction
> Space are organized by type/function.
> - Math renderer and language can be set when displaying problems in
> Construction space.
> - Maxima libraries are available for mathresponse and forumlaresponse
> problems which use the Maxima CAS.
> - Import of questions from a testbank file now supports import from
> files in RTF and HTML format (including embedded images) as well as
> plain text.
> - Users uploading HTML files containing embedded objects (images etc.)
> to Construction Space will be prompted to upload referenced files.
> - New units are available (c, cc, e, hbar, mph, rpm, pc).
> - An improved example of a mathresponse problem is provided.
> - New accessor functions provide access to submission, current part,
> and open date, due date and answer date in a format suitable for
> calculations.
> - Publication of problems lacking response items is prohibited.
>
> Course Management
> - Recent role changes in a course are displayed on the What's New page.
> - The complete history of role changes in a course is available to a
> Course Coordinator.
> - A role switcher in a course's inline menu allows users with multiple
> roles in the course to choose a different role; Course Coordinators
> can choose any role currently assigned in the course.
> - Courses can be configured to allow students to self-enroll.
> - Modify Resource Parameters - Overview Mode can be used to shift all
> start and end date parameters in a course.
> - An individual course can be excluded from display in the course catalog.
> - A timezone selector is available when choosing a timezone to be used
> for a course.
> - The timezone is displayed when setting access dates, enrollment dates etc.
>
> Grading
> - Scantron format choices available for scantron grading are from the
> course's domain, instead of the domain of the server performing the
> grading.
> - Comparisons can be generated between raw scantron data and submission
> records for previously graded scantron exams.
> - Locking prevents role changes and logout while scantron grading
> and/or printing are in progress, unless overridden by the user.
> - The grading interface provides a free form data entry field for correct
> answers to clicker questions
>
> Student interface
> - Users in domains with institutional authentication (Single Sign On,
> Kerberos or local authentication e.g., LDAP) can be authenticated if
> they do not have a LON-CAPA account and can be given the opportunity to
> create an account.
> - A pop-up Dragmath WYSIWYG editor is available for composing math
> expressions and exporting in Maxima/LaTeX format.
>
> Domain Coordination/Domain Settings
> - Domain Coordinators can select an ad hoc co-author role for any
> author in the domain, unless the author chooses to opt out.
> - A hierarchy of categories and sub-categories for use in categorizing
> courses can be defined for a domain.
> - The course catalog can display courses cataloged by institutional
> code, and also by categories defined for the domain.
> - When cloning a course, date parameters can be omitted, preserved of
> shifted by a specified number of days.
> - Default authentication type, argument and language in a domain are
> configurable by a Domain Coordinator via the "Domain Configuration"
> interface.
> - Domains can permit self-creation of LON-CAPA accounts using a valid
> e-mail address as the username.
> - The scantronformat.tab file which describes the format(s) of scantron
> data used in a domain can be uploaded by a Domain Coordinator using
> the "Domain Configuration" interface.
> - All languages now use UTF-8 encoding.
>
> Documentation
> - Help files have been added for Maxima CAS, Formula Editor, and Vector Input.
> - Description of new accessor functions has been added to the functions table.
> - More help files have been translated into German.
> - A new help icon is used.
>
> Printing
> - utf-8 entity conversion to LaTeX has been optimized.
>
> Localization
> - New translations and improvements have been made for the German interface.
>
> To install this update:
>
> 1) You will need to be running Fedora Core 6, 7, or 8, RHEL (AS|ES) 4 or 5,
> SUSE 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.)
> Support for Fedora 9 is expected to be available soon.
>
> 2) update to the latest LONCAPA-prerequisites 1-12 by following
> these directions:
>
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/pipermail/lon-capa-dev/2007-November/001852.html
>
>
> 3) Download the new LON-CAPA tarball from
> wget http://install.lon-capa.org/versions/loncapa-2.6.99.0.tar.gz
>
> and untar it
>
> tar xzvf loncapa-2.6.99.0.tar.gz
>
> 4) stop the LON-CAPA system services
>
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/loncontrol stop
>
> 5) stop the webserver:
>
> Fedora/RHEL/Centos/Scientific Linux
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop
>
> SLES 9:
> /etc/init.d/apache stop
>
> SUSE 10.1/SLES 10:
> /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
>
>
> 6) Run the UPDATE script as root
> cd loncapa-2.6.99.0
> su
> ./UPDATE
>
>
>
> 7) restart the LON-CAPA system services
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/loncontrol start
>
>
> 8) restart the webserver:
>
> Fedora/RHEL/Centos/Scientific Linux
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start
>
> SLES 9:
> /etc/init.d/apache start
>
> SUSE 10.1,2/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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> LON-CAPA-dev@mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev
--
Schöne Grüße,
Stefan Bisitz
Institut für Medieninformatik
Fachhochschule Braunschweig/Wolfenbüttel
Tel.: ++49(0)5331 939-6223
st.bisitz@fh-wolfenbuettel.de
Projekt: http://www.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/vita
Übungsplattform: https://vita.fh-wolfenbuettel.de