At long last, Moodle 1.8 is ready for production sites.
After some of the issues some people experienced with Moodle 1.7, we modified our release process somewhat to give the testing team more time to help developers evaluate and stabilise all the new work in Moodle 1.8. As a result I think Moodle 1.8 release is of a very high standard and I highly recommend production sites using older versions to upgrade to Moodle 1.8.
In this release we've (again) changed nearly every one of the thousands of scripts in Moodle. Here is a taste of some of the biggest new features:
- Accessibility improvements - Moodle now complies with all major international standards in this area, including XHTML Strict 1.0. All the main forms are now consistently generated using a new core forms library.
- Moodle Network - the foundation of our networking strategy leading up to Moodle 2.0, it is now possible to link Moodle sites allowing cross-site roaming, transparent enrolments and remote log viewing. We also now include a Web Services API using XML-RPC for remote control and commands. These features are a result of the work of Richard Wyles and Catalyst in New Zealand - thank you!
- Roles improvements - after feedback from the community, our implementation of Roles from 1.7 has been further improved to increase the usability and flexibility.
There's a lot more in this release - full details are the in the Moodle 1.8 Release Notes, and downloads are, as usual, on the Moodle Downloads page.
Thanks to all the developers, testers, users and supporters who, as usual, help make the Moodle project possible.
Enjoy! I hope this version makes it easier for educators to facilitate quality online learning.