Forum .LRN Q&A: .LRN 2.5.0

At yesterday meeting, Dario from Universidad de Valencia offered to test assessment on postgresql 8.3. Alvaro also offered to do some testing (pg too). Thank you both!

We are still missing people to test .LRN install and upgrade on Oracle. This is making very difficult to keep supporting Oracle for future releases ... so please, Oracle users, show up!

We at Viaro will be testing .LRN (install, upgrade, functionality, etc) on Oracle 11G. Will let you know as soon as we have the results.

In University of Valencia we are testing the new .LRN:
-OpenACS 5.5
-.LRN 2.5.0d2
-Postgresql 8.4 beta 2

Installation is Ok only with some small problems:

-We need the package views (I have seen i other thread that it is resolved)

-We need to set the compatibility options in postgresql.conf
add_missing_from = on
regex_flavor = extended
default_with_oids = on
escape_string_warning = off
backslash_quote = on

-One xowiki error:
Error: Error sourcing /var/lib/aolserver/oacs_5_5/packages/xowiki/tcl/xowiki-utility-procs.tcl:
Cannot resolve 'self', probably called outside the context of an XOTcl Object
while executing
"my set age [list [expr {3600*24*365}] year years [expr {3600*24*30}] month months [expr {3600*24*7}] week weeks [expr {3600*24}] day days ..."
("eval" body line 2)
invoked from within
"::xo::Module ::xowiki::utility -eval {
my set age \
[list \
[expr {3600*24*365}] year years \
[expr {3600*24*30}] month..."
(file "/var/lib/aolserver/oacs_5_5/packages/xowiki/tcl/xowiki-utility-procs.tcl" line 248)
invoked from within
"source $__file "

Regards,
Agustin

The steps have been:
-Mounted dotlrn in the main site -- OK
-Created term -- OK
-Created department -- ERROR
Screen captured:
http://www.uv.es/avirtual/oacs-5-5/department.PNG

We have resolved it restarting aolserver.

-Created subject -- OK
-Created classes -- OK
But the template is showed in two column, the main-conten "DIV" are "float: right" maybe this to be a problem. We have tested with every templates and browsers.
http://www.uv.es/avirtual/oacs-5-5/template.PNG
We haven´t changed no one parameter

Regards (sorry by the previous post, I selected the format in HTML)

I can not reproduce any of the problems you mentioned. I think something went wrong during the installation, or, can it be related to using pg 8.4?

I'm using pg 8.2.6, didn't test myself on 8.3

here are our results:

Our LRN 2.5 tests
We at Viaro tested dotLRN 2.5 this last few days and this are our results.

We tested it using Oracle 11G, doing both fresh installs and upgrades.

Doing a fresh install we did not found any problems.
Doing an upgrade from 2.4.1 to 2.5.0d2 on Oracle 11G

• Assessment now requires Views, so it asked for it while doing the upgrade.
• For some reason the first time we tried to do the upgrade the upgrade script upgrade-5.5.0d3-5.5.0d4.sql did not ran correctly, we were missing the column implements_subsite_p but a second test did loaded the file correctly.
• While upgrading ACS Events we got an error with a call done to: apm_package_version.add_dependency, it complains about having the wrong number/kind of arguments.

On both fresh installs and upgrades we ran the automated tests and did some manual tests.

Assessment
• assessment_create_and_respond
• cleanup_test

dotlrn
• tclwebtest_dotlrn_edit_term
• tclwebtest_dotlrn_edit_subject
• tclwebtest_dotlrn_new_class

dotlrn-homework
• homework_new

Manual Tests:

We tested the normal operation of a few packages, including forums, file storage, faq, Lars blogger and the general use of dotlrn, like creating classes, everything seems to be working fine but we did noticed a weird problem on some dotlrn pages, especially the “assignments” portlet under the “class material” page inside a class. The problem is that the text, links, all, is painfully small to the point that is impossible to read.

Thanks for your commit.

Regarding the way to get the localized pretty_name, I recommend to use lang::util::localize instead of lang::message::lookup. It would be more straightforward requiring less code and dealing with the cases when the pretty_name is a combination of literal text and message keys (can happen!).

Regarding the form to edit assignments types, the pretty name form fields should be enabled for edition (the value need to be localized as you did). Those types are created by default to provide a pre-configured environment but they may not match the end users needs so they need to be editable.

Also, usually a course will be used in one sole language, so if the admin/teacher decide to enter a literal string it's OK. Anyhow, it should be admin/teacher decision, not the developer one. Also it would be a bit excessive to ask for a message key here.

Thanks for the help with the render of the message-keys, it's a lot better this way, I just commit again using that proc.

dotlrn packages have been branched (branch tag: oacs-5-5. thks Don). Hopefully we'll release before the end of the month.

Testing upgrade on pg 8.2/8.3 and Oracle 10/11 is needed.

Lately only dave, don and I attend the .LRN meetings weekly despite the leadership team has more members: http://www.openacs.org/xowiki/.LRN_Leadership_Team (where are you guys?).

None of the three use oracle, and I'm the only one still using .LRN so it will be hard to keep maintaining the software if the community doesn't participate.

.LRN 2.5.0 alpha 1 has been released but since our last calls for testing on Oracle have received no answer, we can not guarantee full support for oracle in this version.

Smoke tests have been carried out on version 9i but we're supposed to support the latest versions (i.e. 10g and 11g) and smoke tests are not enough to claim support.

This is a sad situation but unfortunately Oracle support is not possible without the commitment of the Oracle users in the .LRN community.