Release notes for WeBWorK 2.5.1

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                                     WeBWorK                                    
                         Online Homework Delivery System                        
                                  Version 2.5.1                                

                    Copyright 2000-2012, The WeBWorK Project                    
                              All rights reserved.                              

Details
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Release date: June, 2012 (version 2.5.1.1 August, 2012)

Github repository:  https://github.com/openwebwork
Modules:    webwork2   pg



    IMPORTANT!! The configuration files have been rewritten.  
(1) You will need to configure the prelocal.conf site.conf and postlocal.conf localOverride.conf 
files when installing this version.
   This will help simplify future webwork2 upgrades since fewer modifications will 
   need to be made to the configuration files.
(2) You will also need to replace your database.conf by the new database.conf.dist which includes tables for MathAchievements. 
  Simply copy database.conf.dist to database.conf (unless you have made local modifications to database.conf - which is rare)
(3) You will need to upgrade the databases for all of your current courses that you will be using again. 
(4) You will need to replace your modelCourse in your courses directory with the new modelCourse in  webwork2/courses.dist
   The new modelCourses has directories html/achievements and templates/achievements that suppor the MathAchievement feature.
(5) For those old courses in which you wish use MathAchievements you will need to manually add the achievements directories currently in the modelCourse. 
 Until  you do this the upgrade courses page will indicate that the course database has been upgraded but that the directory structure must be upgraded by hand.


Community Developments as of June 2012

  • Doxygen is now used to manage the POD documentation (thanks to Djun Kim and Jason Aubrey)
  • Github and git are now being used to manage WeBWorK development. The switch over took some time but it seems to be paying off in terms of flexibility.
  • A blog aggregator has been installed at https://webwork.maa.org/planet which will collect blog posts about webwork development and webwork use.
    • Send email to Jason Aubrey or Mike Gage to have your blog url added to our list
    • How to include your blog in the webwork.maa.org planet aggregator.
  • The localization project continues but needs a volunteer to help coordinate efforts. The link is to a blog post that gives detailed news about the localization effort.

New features for 2.5.1

(updated to 2.5.1.1 in August 2012)

  • Highlights
    • MathAchievements module added. When turned on it provides "gamefication" for WeBWorK. (Geoff Goehle)
    • New configuration files (Danny Glin)
    • New features for Admin courses editor page.
    • New Experimental editor pages: (Grant He and Mike Gage)
    • New authentication modules. (William Wheeler)
    • New theme management (Djun Kim and Mike Gage)
    • There is a new Statistics page with a graph (Paul Pearson and ?? )
    • DragMath option for entering answers. (Djun Kim)
    • New Help options use Knowls technology (John Jones)
    • There is a VERSION file which displays the current version of webwork2 in the footer of each page.
  • Configuration files
    • configuration files split into prelocal.conf, global.conf.dist,postlocal.conf
    • (2.5.1.1 addition) the files above were renamed sites.conf, default.config and localOverrides.conf respectively. They were also refined considerably by Danny Glin
    • These files make incremental upgrading of webwork2 much easier since the configuration files will not in general need to be rewritten.
  • Editor pages
    • There are new (beta) editors HmwkEditor1,2; ClasslistEditor1,2,3 PGProblemEditor1,2, 3 and LibraryBrowser1,2,3
      • Some of the third versions of these editors are not completely ready for prime time
      • All versions are included so that instructors can compare them and make comments that will influence the look and feel of the new editor
      • All of these editors do essentially the same thing behind the scenes. It's just the user interface that is different.
    • There is a setting in postlocal.conf which allows you to determine which links to editors are displayed in the left margin. (You can hide the more experimental browsers if you wish.)
  • Authorization
    • Add module for authorizing using the shibboleth module. (thanks to Pan Luo)
    • LTI standard interface installed allowing for WeBWorK integration into Course Management Systems using that standard. (thanks to Bill Wheeler)
  • Themes
    • Themes are now placed in htdocs/themes
      • Adding a folder newTheme containing system.template, newTheme.css etc to the themes directory will automatically add newTheme to the menu on the Course Configuration page.
  • MathAchievements
    • Written by Geoff Goehle. Adds awards and prizes for specific accomplishments while doing your homework. (Starting early for example.)
    • MathAchievements can be switched on from the Course Configuration page.
      • Old courses will need to be upgraded. The tables can be upgraded from the admin course, but the html/achievements and templates/achievements directories found in the new modelCourse will need to be added from the command line.
    • MathAchievements is configurable -- new achievements can be created.
    • (2.5.1.1 addition) The necessary directory and sample achievements and badge designs are now in courses.dist/modelCourse.
      • Courses built using this modelCourse as a basis will automatically be ready for MathAchievements.
  • VERSION
    • There is now a VERSION file which contains the current version number and prints at the bottom of each WeBWorK page


  • Admin pages:
    • Ability to show/hide courses from the command line
    • Replace email registration of WeBWorK site with link to the MAA registration form


  • Editor pages
    • There are new (beta) editors for homework, classlists, librarybrowser and PGproblemeditor.
    • There is a setting in postlocal.conf which allows you to determine which links to editors are displayed in the left margin. (You can hide the more experimental browsers if you wish.)
    • Homework editor pages
    • Classlist editor pages
    • PGProblemEditor pages
    • LibraryBrowser pages
      • There are now three alternatives for browsing the collection of problems (WeBWorK Open Problem Library or OPL for short. Formerly called NPL)
  • Add basic support for using WeBWorK on the ipad. This makes WeBWorK useable on an ipad and iphone but it has not yet been optimized for ipad use.


  • Dates, Time and Timezones
    • pop up menu date entry for some (not all) date entry in HmwkEditor2


  • Localization


  • Authorization
    • Add module for authorizing using the shibboleth module.
    • LTI standard interface installed allowing for WeBWorK integration into Course Management Systems using that standard. (thanks to Bill Wheeler)


  • More changes under the hood
    • webwork webservice: Upgrades to the to serve LibraryBrowser
    • webwork webservice: Allow option to assign homework when user is added via web service (John Hsu at UBC)
    • webwork webservice: Allow course creation via webservice (John Hsu at UBC)

New features for PG 2.5.1

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