2.5 Release Planning-4 (20071003)

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Last updated: Oct 10, 2007 by Former user (Deleted)Version comment
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Agenda

  • Review of Action items
  • Create the Branch this week (10/3)
  • Highlights of particular changes
    • Gradebook Highlights
    • E-mail Notification changes & Recommendations for testing - Zach Thomas
    • Attachments - Protection for Attachments Directory SAK-10743 - Invited Chuck Severance
    • CSS Changes
    • Change from dbcp c3p0 - Lance, Andrew
      • Many schools (i.e. 5+ large deployments) have switched to c3p0 to avoid database connection errors.
      • DBCP, unless configured in one very particular way, is given to serious deadlocks.
      • c3p0 is recommended by the hibernate people and is a very surgical change.
      • No additional QA is necessary, i.e. all QA will exercise the new connection pool implementation.
  • Blog tool's branch management (trunk vs. 2.4.x vs. post-2.4)
  • Updates from Development and QA
  • Review of open Blockers: http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/QA/Pre-Release2.5BranchMgmt
  • Review Reported Problems against 2.5 code base
  • Demo Build Changes
    • More Drop down enabled (Peter)
    • Any template changes?
  • Other

Attendees

Colin Clark
Kate Ellis
Jim Eng
Steven Githens
David Haines
Michael Korcuska
John Leasia
Jean-Francois Leveque
Megan May
Kathy Moore
Andrew Poland
Seth Theriault
Zach Thomas
Aaron Zeckoski
Jeff Ziegler

Action Items

dynamictasklist: task list macros declared inside wiki-markup macros are not supported

Notes

Megan: Next on list, creating the branch. Branching after meeting for 3rd tag. Concerns?

<dead air>

Megan: I don't think we should have too many problems. Fairly stable.

Highlighting changes that occurred this release

Email Notifications: Zach

Zach: I was contracted by the Sakai Foundation to fix the problems with the Sakai email notifications. The URL's tend to get broken in some email clients. Namely, Outlook. The problem was that everything went out as Plain Text. The fix was to turn everything into multipart mime with both plain text and html version of the notification. So, now clients that accept HTML mail will see the html with the real <a/> link in it. That affects the notifications for Resources, Syllabus, Annc, Wiki, and Email Archive.
???: Anything using the service?
Zach: Anything using the Email Notifications which are part of the events(question) module. Get sent to EmailService eventually, but composed ahead of time in the Notification.
Aaron: So I'm actually working on replacing the event system implementation, I think this should just drop in. In trunk?
Zach: Have been in trunk for about 6 weeks.
Aaron: I'll just make sure it gets tested and tried out. I've probably been already using it.
Zach: Class is - EmailNotification.java and SiteEmailNotification.java
I also had to modify each tool a little bit, because they all subclass SiteEmailNotification.java. Had to be tweaked to use the new methods.
This is pretty significant from a QA standpoint, because email is hard to test. Need to check to make sure new messages look correct in clients such as Mac Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird. Want to make sure both the plain text part and the HTML part look the same.
Clay: Is there a way to test if the email is sent to the logs.
Zach: Probably, not completely sure what they look like in the logs. I'm guessing it's just the raw plain text off all the headers and delimiters. Could probably test against that output to see if it meets expectations?
Clay: What should we check for? A link tag?
Zach: The main thing, is that MIME envelopes are correct for the messages to disaply properly. Not sure if that can be checked from raw log, it's a visual thing. Email clients configed for HTML won't typically show the plain text. Need to just test this visually.
???: Comprehensive list of tools?
???: Other tools, like Assignments do outbound stuff with emailService.
Zach: This change is not in the EmailService, just things that subclass SiteEmailNotification.
???: Does in Assignments.
Jim: There are two SiteEmailNotifications in Content Hosting. It's pretty new for the dropbox. Within in the last few weeks.
Zach: Ok, I'll need to look at that one then.
Jim: definitely can't just trouble shoot by looking in logs, but all the headers and what not are in there.
Zach: One reason you really have to look at the client, is that the client is trying to infer from the plain text where the URL is. The solution is an attempt to make it fool proof for the client to see where a link is. The test is to send out a notification and make sure the URL is still a clickable link in like Outlook.
Clay: What about FCK Editor, in stuff like Announcements. It worked in a prior thing.
Zach: Announcements was actually the only tool in Sakai already sending an html formatted message. Just had to wrap it.
For this to work more elegantly than it does now, each tool will need ot supply two versions, one that looks nice in plain text and one that looks nice in html.
<Zach delves in Email Client lore>
Leasia: If a client only accepts plain text, they'll see HTML?
Zach: I took the messages as the tools already produced them and split them into 2 parts. Because Annc is already spitting out HTML, Plain text reader will see all that HTML. That won't change.
???: You've just touched that one issue, nothing is worse?
Zach: Yes. For those non html tools, the only difference is that the urls get wrapped in a <a/> in the html version. And the plain text is still plain text. If your client only reads plain text then this won't help you, there is no getting around that. If you're client can't recongnize a URL we can't get around that.
Seth: Whats the default mime type your sending out.
Z: Good question, just text/plain with no encoding information.
Seth: Don't want to force things, especially for like a foreign language class.
Z: that would be a good thing to test
I can fix it if there's a problem
???: which qa servers are sending email. what do we have to test this.
Z: does effect messages that are retransmitted. can test all tools without sending mail except MailArchive. that's a more complex situation. the sending client is important as well as the receiving client.
Clay: the pain point is the MailArchive?
megan: qa2 and 4?
Z: Original jira was from IU saying content tool was culprit for users with outlook. attachment urls were being broken
Seth: can forward some interesting emails about the testing scenarios. do have some test cases
megan: good time to leverage numbers in qa group by setting up some sites with test messages
megan: any other questions for Zach on this?
Jean-Francois: i18n are the notifications Ok with the tools you've looked at?
z: multibyte?
???: are the notifications fully i18n'ed right now?
z: I don't think they are fully i18n?
Jean-Francois: we can look at together
z: some are using their bundles, some are not. will email the list.
clay: can we do this in the QA group instead?
z: yes ,I'll join the QA group (smile)
Seth: SAK-1775 the ultimate email notification Jira of lore
Megan: thanks for coming Zach.
Zach: assign any problems with this to me

next

megan: some changes to css, colin is on the call
colin: 4 jira bugs weve been working on with consideration to the more sites DHTML. turned off by default. sak11682, changed, so top navigation appears literally as tabs. making them look like tabs since documentation calls them tabs.
other jira to make drop down show all sites in the portal handler. will now see the full list of sties. sak 11386
some extra stying. some of the new things added by IU didn't have styling. someone at Berkeley added some styling for it.
sak11460 got fixed as well with a little text and the customize tabs screen in the preferences tool.
megan: you said you were waiting for commit access by Gonzalo?
colin: if been added
megan: want to make sure that it got added before this next tag.
any queations? they will help imporove the ui quite a bit
leasia: have you looked at them with someone with lik e 500 sites?
meagan: I did not. just looked at the sample server with 5 10 sites?
???: how does it handle large sites?
colin: don't know. i think thats why its turned off. not cmopletely doesn't with large numbers of sites. we are working on some issues with showing large numbers sites, but for now , its' not completely known which is why is=t's turned off?
megan: anythig else ?
???: will that b3e turned on on one of the qa servers by default?
Megan: Peter was interested by turning it on in the demo, but that usually follow=s the qa props peretty closely. We will turne it on in =at least a couple servers?
clay: we turn on provision al tools early on the qa process and then turn othetm off later in the qa cycle. should to the same maybe for this.
megan: can you set this up in the properties seth
seth: yes
???: lets flip this on for the next week for exposure, and then introduce a mix after another week.
megan: where can we find the property?
colin: ian created it, can't remember at the second.
seth: push that to the qa list and we'll put it out there
???: will there be doucmentation for this when it ships?
Clay: there will be an item for the release notes.
megan: can you add that to the todo list.

next up:

megan: changeding from dbcp to c3po, andrew will present this
andrew: talk on production call about 2 weeks agoa. there was istisntustiaon that were having production issues. many have switched in produciton already. it's used by hibernate which is why we went with it. we've had good luck withit so far. has a few worker threads than can recover things if there are any problems. a few changes before we cut the branch. the db settings in sakai.properties will have to be adjusted just a bit.
clay: we are going with c3po too, but thinking we need to be a bit cautious about doing this. wondering if we should get at least a sememeters workth of testing before moving this into the release since it could be a big change.
andrew: no problem with that. can provided the doucmentation fo rswitching, so I can providefde that for putting in the release.
megan: I thik it does make sense to wait for this change. moving a bit too fast for a change of this magnitude.

next up:

megan: changes in gradebook. the gradebook has a lot of changes wince 2.4 a lot of =funtioanlay added by IU. new stuff is : abilityt to grade in perdentages or letter grades. can now add acateagoreid wieighetd categories. jstudent view abailablae off a couple of ccreesns. can now do a bulk export as well as import. now there is also a notion of grader permissions so that an instructor can say this TA to grade a certain gorup of stu=dents or categories orf sutdnets. tied to the ta permission at the momten.
M?: did anything go away.
megan: no, just a lot of stuff added on top. built on top of original berkely gradebook.
here are a few instusutison that running pst 2.4.x branches
we are running it in production right now.
micheal:> whats needed on the qa side here?
megan: need review. fairly confident here. we've been running it since summer. other schools have qa'd it too. ashamed to say there is no test plan yet. we are having a couple graduate students working on the test plan for it right now. they will be working on it a combinded 40 hours a week.
clay: we should get the word out, so folks can start thinking about it for 2.5 much different in the features et.
M: whats the proper format for that?
clay: not sure. the list is the biggest place ubthere could be a more formal place?
megan: perhaps the newsletter?
M: how about a breeze session:
clay: could be a good thing to do
M: I don't wan tot volunteer anyonem but would be great to find someone
megan: we'll touch base and see if lance has time. we'll totally volunteer lance to do it

megan: seth wants to talk about blog
<missed some ofth econversation>
seth: the blog tool is sort of mixed between branches, is there some way we can handle these branch changes?
megan: had an offlist convo with adrain about this. not sure what folks want out of this post 2..4x branch? the feeling i got was that he is focused on the trunk work and doesn't have time on porting these back to 2.4.x . some of these changes aren't appropriate to merge back. Someone could help, but it doens't sound like he has time.
seth: we're not trying to blame adrian, we might be able to help, we just need some clarification. took a look a the commit logs between the trunk and the 2.4x branch. not to omany differences. just abit confusing for folks on what they should use.
<convo about process issues>
haines: might want to just put a message in saying support has been dropped for 2.4.x unless someone can handle the branching and M1 stuff.
megan: I don't think we can make a decisoin this minute. Seth, can you send a message?
seth: will follow up on the thread. not trying to be a jerkface, just want to make sure deployments are aware of the ramnifiactions.

netx up :
testing updates

Michigan folks:
jeff: just had time to test the wiki. havne't found any bugs. updated a few things in the test plan. not sure where to upload it. can't seem to upload it from where I downloaded it.
megan: will look at your perms
jim: fixed a few bugs at the end of last week. have been working on what will be a blocker in sites with lots of groups perforamance wise. not sure how to fix it yet, but we're working on it. discovered in ctools

M: tested the presentations tool. no new jiras just regression testing. it seems fine. also working on the test cases for that.

karen: verifying new features, haven't started regressison testing yet. this is for samigo.

James at GeorgiaT: looking at assignments. regressing, also working on assignmetns test cases. clay and others are reviewing and will upload soon.

megan: preferences was testing and signed off on by colin
??? was signed off on
number of folks are doing samigo testing, waiting for results
gives list of tools that are currently being tried.
the osp group is making pretty good progress

megan: one more update. qa-1 UK, mysql backup instance, isn't going to be able to participate in the qa cycle. will need to find someone to test the mysql conversion scripts.
action item for Steve: create action item for Megan to find someone in community to do this.

???: browser problem with firefox opening something in tabs version new window
tried to set a default. Netscape 8 works fine...
seth: when you use it in firefox, when you consistently click in something that opens in new window does it always open in tab?
???: when trying to open assignment, was expecting it to open in a tab.
seth: might be a mixture, not exactly familier iwht the screen...
megan: i don't think we ansewwrd the quesiton.
???2: has been added as a jira issue. At first I thought it might be a browser issue, but it does look like it might be a product issue.
SAK-???

next up : blockers:

megan: some have been checked. how have we handled problems with migrated data in the past with subsequent releases.
haines: there is a patch for this with

SAK-8932 Ongoing problem. definatley needs to be resolved for 2.5
SAK-11597 assigned to Glenn ,but he can't work on it. anyone have ideas on who could work on this?
Leasia: It has Ray's name on it? how about Ray?
Seth: isn't he doing fluid stuff for a month?
M: probably depends on how big it is.
Megan: we can check with ray, he might be able to recommend someone else.

11245: assume ian will resolve these
11278

11714: need to add another conversion to ian's conversion utility for a query on the column added for osp
megan: will have this by next wednesday
jim: will talk to ian about it.
11767: focuses on this one

Jean-Francois: I have to take off? can we talk about 11130 quick?
megan: i18n problem makes the tool unusable. we've assigned it to one of our new devs, hope to have it resolved for 2.5
Jean-Francois: sounds good. thanks

assigned to Peter:
11211
11711

10862: specific in IE6, will have an update on this next week. since it's an IU developer I can stalk them.

any questions?

make action itme for megan to check on az's kernel release process thingy