Hi all,
As you may have seen through the Roadmap page (http://support.chamilo.org/projects/chamilo-18/roadmap), we are closing in on the BETA milestone for the 1.8.7. There are no big implementation left that hasn't been started yet (PENS is the one that has been started most recently).
A lot of what is currently scheduled for 1.8.7 STABLE will be moved to 1.8.7 BETA or 1.8.7.1 as we continue towards a BETA release.
This being said, the major efforts of converting portals contents to UTF-8 have already been started by Ivan Tcholakov, our youngest external team member (http://support.chamilo.org/account/show/33) and we will continue working on that during the next 2 weeks.
Developments¶
We would like, also, to add a messaging hook system (we discussed that internally and never got it developed and a recent report on 2.0 roadmap made me remember it) that will allow the administrator to configure which event send messages to who and through what channel. With this, we should have the 4 golden features of 1.8.7:
- migration of content and interface to UTF-8 (internationalization, here we come!)
- attendance sheets (as a new, flexible tool, usable through the gradebook)
- HR manager dashboard (with nice charts and a plugin system and all)
- messaging system
Of course, a lot of other features have already been included, but that's not the point here.
We encourage you to report bugs and suggestions. After the ALPHA release, no new feature will be developed and no database structure change will be accepted and focus will be put on fixing remaining bugs before reaching the BETA stage.
Releases¶
An ALPHA release is a release meant to show that the system works, make it easily installable for testers and make sure a wider audience can start reporting bugs. It also stops development for all big features. There might be several ALPHA releases before the BETA.
The BETA release cuts the development for minor new features, and marks the transition from development to pure bugfixing. No more database structure changes are accepted from this point, but inserts can still be made and new files added.
The Release Candidates (RC) releases are meant for pur testing and reporting of new bugs. No major bugs is supposed to be found at this stage, but that could happen, in which case another RC is required before the release of the stable version.
Planning¶
The suggestion (submitted for approval) of releases planning is:
- ALPHA: 18th of March
- BETA: 7th of April
- RC1: 28th of April
- STABLE: 11th of May
If you would like to comment on this, please subscribe and send your e-mails to dev@lists.chamilo.org, our development mailing-list here: http://lists.chamilo.org/listinfo/dev
Yannick Warnier
Lead of Chamilo 1.8 development