Sakai CLE 2.8 new features
Highlights
Among the many enhancements included in the Sakai CLE 2.8 release are:
For a complete listing of new features see the lists below.
Portal
Ticket | Project | Feature |
|---|---|---|
| portal | Adds portal icons for Etudes's Mneme, Melete and JForum tools. |
| portal | Leverages browser caching opportunities. |
| portal | Adds ability for tools to request the maximum tool area for display purposes now that navigation menu can be collapsed (portal.allow.auto.minimize=true). |
| portal | Logout timer setting (timeoutDialogEnabled) is now enabled by default. |
| portal | Eliminates Presence iframe and replaces with JQuery.Ajax calls. |
| portal | Adds ability to specify a URL (rather than a siteId) for the gateway page (gatewaySiteUrl=myurl). |
portal | Adds link to PDA portal on gateway page. | |
portal | Includes tool css in background portal document so JSR-168 tools can be styled. | |
portal | Adds collapsible navigation menu (icons only). See also . | |
skins | Add FLUID reordering support. | |
portal | Sub-sites in navigation menu are sectioned separately from a site's tool list and each sub-site is assigned an icon. | |
portal | The Kernel version can now be listed in the footer. See also , . | |
portal | Implements Javascript routine to more accurately poll status of user session. | |
portal | Render menu links to "hidden" tool pages in italics and with an opacity of 0.7. | |
portal | portal/xlogin page converted to a vm template. | |
portal | Cancel button added to (xlogin) login page. |
Mobile/PDA Portal
Ticket | Project | Feature |
|---|---|---|
portal | Added ability to hide synoptic tools. | |
portal | Added tool icons to help distinguish between site and tool lists. | |
portal | Adjust .css to distinguish between sites and tools in mobile portal. | |
portal | Mobile .css skins updated. | |
portal | Since 2.7.0 the standard portal has (SAK-15097) the ability to insert some markup on a site-by-site basis via a site property (sakai:htmlInclude). This has been ported to the PDA portal in such a way that the same site can (if needed) contain a different markup include as the standard portal. | |
portal | PDA changes for 2.8: breadcrumbing simplified; additional rendering capabilities added for devices that adhere to the following @media selector: "@media screen and (max-device-width: 480px)"; .css trim and ellipsis provided for site titles that go over the width of the viewport; css3 selectors used for compatible devices in order to differentiate items in the breadcrumb; <meta /> tag modified in pda.vm to make changes in orientation smoother (portrait/landscape); modified how links to child sites are displayed (passing control over to the css); moved strings from pda.vm template to bundle; and changed how links in the site menus are rendered (make entire block clickable) and styled in order to make them more in accordance to practice. | |
portal | Added "opt out" link in the /portal/pda footer in order to forward user to portal/site (i.e., "classic view"). | |
portal | Auto-detect mobile devices and forward to /portal/pda; otherwise forward to portal/site (desktop/laptop access). |
Tools
Ticket | Project | Feature |
|---|---|---|
account | Added recaptcha support for new account signups. | |
announcements | Authors can now change display order of announcements. | |
announcements | Notification history added. | |
announcements | entitybroker support added. | |
announcements | Announcements tool is now registered as group-aware when starting PermissionHelper. | |
announcements | Accessibility: list navigator buttons provided with appropriate contextual text labels in order to render them meaningful to Screen-Readers. See also . | |
assignments | Letter grades now customizable (assignment.letterGradeOptions). | |
assignments | Instructors now provided with a manifest of archives uploaded by students (*.zip only so far). | |
assignments | Assignments tool is now registered as group-aware when starting PermissionHelper. | |
assignments | Allows instructor to specify options for Assignment tool default page (e.g., show no assignment) but do search or other filters first. | |
basiclti | Now auto-registers events for use by sitestats. | |
basiclti | Adds ability to set grades in the Sakai CLE from an external tool using web services. Disabled by default (basiclti.outcomes.enabled=false). | |
basiclti | Permits multiple placements of basiclti in a given context (e.g., site). | |
basiclti | Adds ability to open a basiclti tool in a new window. | |
basiclti | Adds support for the ext_lms feature in IMS Basic LTI permitting basiclti to know which LMS it is dealing with so it can tune it's tool UI appropriately. | |
basiclti | Adds a checkbox that provides option to minimize the portal navigation menu after a launch occurs. See also . | |
basiclti | Added support for basic outcomes and settings service. This change alters the outcomes service to reflect the draft of the basic (as compared to simple) outcomes service and adds a per-placement settings service. Disabled by default (basiclti.outcomes.enabled=false). | |
basiclti | Implemented the Context Memberships Service as described in the IMS GLC Basic Learning Tools Interoperability Extensions Recommended Practice. This allows an external tool (if granted proper permissions) to retrieve a course roster for the course that they were launched from. | |
basiclti | Added support for the IMS Basic LTI ext_resource_link_content extension. This allows the launch to specify a URL that contains resource content. Initially simply a field in the configuration dialog, future work will permit basiclti launches from a resource handler (e.g., the way to send the URL of the current resource that BLTI is being launched from), allowing the launching of a SCORM object with an external SCORM player or perhaps a QTI2 test engine and handing the player or test engine the actual content to be played. | |
basiclti | Added parameter ext_sakai_provider_eid so that an external consumer can pass an eid instead of a userid. | |
chat | Adds RESTful way of retrieving new chat messages for a channel. | |
content | Resources tool is now registered as group-aware when starting PermissionHelper. | |
email-archive | Site owners can choose to forward to site members or simply archive emails sent to the site email address. | |
email template service | Sender address can now be specified in a template. | |
email template service | Adds template loading/updating. | |
gradebook | Adds sorting for categories by name, average, weight. Category sorting also added to "roster" and "summary" pages. | |
gradebook | Adds edu-services scenarios for saving assignment with trailing whitespace to unit tests. | |
hybrid | Added hybrid-util dependency to login and provider projects in order to simplify adding the full hybrid project to Sakai 2.8. | |
memory | Added cache evict item functionality to Memory tool. | |
msgcntr | Forum threads are now sortable. | |
msgcntr | Added ability to set open/close dates for discussion boards,forums and topics. | |
msgcntr | Added ability to preview message before sending. | |
msgcntr | entitybroker support extended. | |
msgcntr | Added the ability to configure the default email behavior for the "Watch" functionality in Forums (mc.notificationDefault). | |
msgcntr | Option added to permit authors to save a message draft. | |
msgcntr | Query findNumModeratedTopicsForSiteByUserByMembership rewritten in order to improve performance. | |
msgcntr | Query findAllPendingMsgsByContextByMembership rewritten in order to improve performance. | |
msgcntr | Synoptic queries permissionLevelId and permissionLevelName rewritten in order to improve performance. | |
osp | Adds configurable property that turn off tool categorizations in the navigation menu in the xsl Portal (xslPortal.displayToolCategories=false). | |
osp | Adds support for email notification preferences in Matrices and Wizards. | |
osp | Adds Gradebook2 integration support to OSP Matrix helper. | |
osp | Adds a new "Public Portfolios" tab. | |
polls | Added import/export capabilities so that polls can be duplicated across sites, imported from other sites and exported as part of Site Archive. | |
polls | Anonymous user can now access public polls via /direct. See also for authenticated user access to polls via /direct. | |
polls | Now supports poll voting on multiple options through /direct. | |
polls | Adds option to allow public voting on individual polls. | |
presence | Presence is now turned off in My Workspace (display.users.present.myworkspace=false). | |
profile2 | Adds private messaging. | |
profile2 | A user's official institutional image can now be accessed and used as their profile image. Disabled by default. (profile2.official.image.enabled=false, profile2.official.image.source=url, profile2.official.image.attribute=jpegPhoto). | |
profile2 | Adds an image gallery along with privacy settings. Users can select their profile image from the gallery. | |
profile2 | Adds "kudos" ratings widget that provides scores based on profile completeness. Runs as a cron job using Job Scheduler. See also . | |
profile2 | Adds a business/company information panel to each profile. | |
quartz scheduler | The quartz scheduler event log has been replaced with a persistent, database-backed event log. The log combines Quartz-generated events and any logging the job developer chooses to include in the event log. This prevents the need to skim through Tomcat logs to find job execution errors or info statements and permits sys-admins to review job execution event logs across a cluster. | |
quartz scheduler | A default job has been added which will purge all but the last X days of events from the log (scheduler.loadjobs=init/true/false (e.g., on first start up (default), on restart, never). This purge job must be scheduled in order to control the size of the event log. | |
quartz scheduler | Update tool providing JobDataMap and trigger interfaces. | |
rwiki | Added Radeox <pre> macro. | |
rwiki | Authenticated users can now edit pages marked publicly editable. | |
rwiki | Optimize indexing batch size and frequency. Previously, the search indexing formula could result both in index rebuilds running slowly and running too frequently on idle nodes. The formulas where tweaked for better max batch sizes for large rebuilds (e.g., 1 million queued docs) and appropriate minimum indexing intervals (e.g., 30-60s when there are only a few pending docs, e.g., < 100). | |
schedule | Calendar tool is now registered as group-aware when starting PermissionHelper. | |
site info | Added the account validation tool in Site-manage-participant-helper. Activated via a property; default behavior = false (siteManage.validateNewUsers = true/false). | |
site info | Users can be added to sites with a status of inactive. | |
site info | Added a "Select all" checkbox to simplify the task of selecting all users. | |
site info | Option added that restricts the joiner role selection offered in Site Info / Manage Access only to roles which do NOT have site.upd permission. A new property siteinfo.prohibited_permission_for_joiner_role has been added for configuring a list of permissions that the joiner role should not possess. If not included the default is site.upd. | |
site info | Worksite Setup UI for site access options improved. | |
test and quizzes | Added ability to import questions from Respondus. | |
test and quizzes | Added ability to allow instructors to select a feedback option that would show students their overall score only. | |
test and quizzes | 4000 character limit lifted on questions, short answers and feedback. | |
test and quizzes | Added ability to allow instructors to enter a zero score in the gradebook for unsubmitted assessments. | |
test and quizzes | Added ability to use FCKEditor for composing short answers. | |
test and quizzes |