Release notes for WeBWorK 2.20

This article is under construction. Use the information herein with caution until this message is removed.

Warning :

This page should be considered incomplete until the release of 2.20 has been announced

New WeBWorK Features

• Fix several security vulnerabilities [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]
• Improvements to efficiency of database calls ([6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12])
• Fix a memory leak, which should improve memory usage by WeBWorK processes [13]
• Change student and instructor emails from plain text to HTML [14]
• Allow the ability to synchronize section information from your Learning Management System when using LTI authentication [15]
• You can now load a problem directly from the Problem Editor, or start with any of the sample problems [16]
• Students can now use achievement items directly from the Problem Set page [17]
• The "Upgrade Courses" feature in Course Administration now checks and fixes additional things:
  • Data types of database columns are checked and corrected [18]
  • Links to standard libraries and problems (Open Problem Library, Contrib, Student Orientation) are added if they are not present. [19]
• There are now more options for adding users during new course creation (e.g. adding multiple instructors during course creation) [20]
• Add the ability to manage secrets for two-factor authentication to the admin interface [21]
• More configurability for when grades are sent back to the Learning Management System using LTI [22]
• Update the Shibboleth authentication module to work with the current version of WeBWorK [23]
• Fix error in displaying how often grades are sent back to the LMS [24]
• Problem editor upgraded to CodeMirror 6 - introduces new features: accordioning, autocompletion, improved syntax highlighting [25]
• Add option for LTI 1.3 where students can work on assignments even if they are not linked to the LMS and grade passback is set to homework [26]
• Importing set definition files with paths to problem files that contain spaces now works [27]

New PG Features and Improvements

• Improvements to degree n matrices (matrices/tensors of more than two dimensions) [28]
• The interface with Rserve has been rewritten within PG. The `Statistics::R::IO::Rserve` package is no longer required or used [29]
• Improvements to the GraphTool [30]
  • Tools for polygons [31]
  • Sine wave tool added [32]
  • Vector tool added [33]
  • Improvements to fill tool [34]
• Improvements to contextReaction.pl [35]
• New contextExtensions.pl [36]
  • Fraction contexts are now extensions of the parent context [37]
  • Units now implemented as MathObject classes - contextUnits.pl [38]
• New plots.pl macro that allows a more modern, more efficient way of generating a wide variety of plots. See documentation at https://webwork.maa.org/pod/pg/macros/graph/plots.html [39]
• Ability to use full html in drop-down menu items [40]

Breaking changes

• custom_problem_grader_0_60_100 has been removed. Problems should be converted to custom_problem_fluid
• Change in behaviour when comparing a degree 1 matrix and a degree 2 matrix [41]

Updated Dependencies

• It is recommended to install Cpanel::JSON::XS
• Any version of perltidy
• Several perl packages are no longer required, and can be removed from your system
  • Array::Utils
  • Email::Sender::Simple
  • HTML::Tagset
  • HTML::Template
  • IO::Socket::SSL
  • JSON
  • JSON::MaybeXS
  • Net::LDAPS
  • Net::SMTP
  • Net::SSLeay
  • Padwalker
  • Path::Class
  • Safe
  • Statistics::R::IO
  • Template

Upgrade Instructions

• First update the webwork2 and pg code. For this run

  > cd /opt/webwork/webwork2

  > git fetch origin

  > git checkout WeBWorK-2.20

  > git pull

  > cd /opt/webwork/pg

  > git fetch origin

  > git checkout PG-2.20

  > git pull

• Update the javascript and css assets for webwork2 and pg with

  > cd /opt/webwork/webwork2/htdocs

  > npm ci

  > cd /opt/webwork/pg/htdocs

  > npm ci

• Run bin/check_modules.pl to ensure you have all programs/modules (although there are no new dependencies for this release).
• Restart the webwork2 server: >sudo systemctl restart webwork2
• If you use the webwork2 job queue, then that will also need to be restarted. Do that with: >sudo systemctl restart webwork2-job-queue
• You should update the modelCourse via: rsync -av /opt/webwork/webwork2/courses.dist/modelCourse/ /opt/webwork/courses/modelCourse/
• Upgrade the admin course by executing the upgrade_admin_db.pl script.
• Make sure to upgrade courses from the admin course to relegate changes to the database.