As part of this major release, the team in Open LMS upgraded the platforms and reviewed the code of versions 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, 4.0.4, and 4.0.5, adding the corresponding fixes, improvements, security patches, and important backports.

For the full releases notes from Moodle.org, please see:

• Moodle™ 4.0 Release Notes

• Moodle™ 4.0.1 Release Notes

• Moodle™ 4.0.2 Release Notes

• Moodle™ 4.0.3 Release Notes

• Moodle™ 4.0.4 Release Notes

• Moodle™ 4.0.5 Release Notes

Recommended browsers:

Moodle™ is compatible with any standards-compliant web browser. We regularly test Moodle™ with the following browsers:

Desktop:

• Chrome

• Firefox

• Safari

• Edge Note: Moodle™ 4.0 does NOT support Internet Explorer 11.

Safari 7 and below has known compatibility issues with Moodle™ 4.0.

Mobile:

• MobileSafari

• Google Chrome For the best experience and optimum security, we recommend that you keep your browser up to date.

 

Open LMS Mobile App version upgrade

Release Highlights

We have updated our mobile App to Moodle™ version 4.0.2 for IOS and 4.0.2.1 for Android devices. You can find it in the Android and Apple stores available for download.

     

Moodle™ Highlights and how they look in Open LMS

Improved Usability and Navigation

This new version of Moodle™ has improvements in usability, user experience, and navigation, which are especially evident if you use the Boost theme.

SNAP, in addition to Classic, is going to maintain a very similar look and feel to 3.11MP5.

General Improvements

• Primary and Secondary Menus

• Visible option to enter edit mode

• Collapsible and better aesthetic blocks

• Dashboard with improved calendar and timeline

• New My Courses Tab

• Contextual course navigation

• Improved course Index

• Collapsible course sections

Primary and Secondary Menus

There are new Primary and secondary menus in the navigation of the platform that can be found in the header and within the body of different sites. This secondary menu will show contextual navigation, depending on the user’s role and site.

Visible Edit Mode Option

Boost now has a visible edit mode option that is always visible on the top right corner of the platform. This element was not adopted into SNAP or Classic, both have their traditional Turn edition on options.

Improved collapsible blocks

Boost has improved the user experience of the blocks, they are now collapsible and have an enhanced look and feel.

Boost

 

Dashboard with improved calendar and timeline

The dashboard view has now an improved calendar with a new timeline functionality. This timeline improvement will help users stay on top of their deadlines, and easily sort them by date, course, or timeframe.

All improvements were adopted by Boost, SNAP, and Classic.

Boost

 

My Courses Tab

There is a new My courses tab in the 4.0 release. This tab is visible in the header of themes Boost and Classic and will redirect the users to their enrolled courses.

This view has improved filters and an intuitive search bar

SNAP has not adopted this new tab and maintains its original My courses tab.

 

Contextual course navigation

A contextual course menu was added in Boost to ease the navigation of its users. Now, at the top of the course body, users will find a new menu, that will show different elements depending on their role.

 

Course index

Boost now has an improved course index, which will ease the course content's navigation. This index has collapsible sections and a grey/green indicator for completed content.

This contextual navigation and the course index functionality were not adopted by SNAP or Classic, which will maintain their course navigation as before.

Boost

New resource and activity icons

With this release, Moodle™ introduced a new set of activity and resource icons, with a new color scheme.

• Green: Collaboration

• Pink: Assessment

• Red: Communication

• Blue: Content

Classic has adopted all new icons and colors. SNAP adopted the new package of icons, but kept their original SNAP colors.

Boost and Classic

SNAP

 

Assignment improvements

Assignments in this new version have interesting new features, such as a new activity description section, a new condition: Grade to pass, and timed assignments. These enhancements can be found across all themes.

Please note that the new Timed Assignments feature must first be enabled at the system level, which can be done by navigating to Administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Assignment > Assignment settings

Formerly a feature of Moodle Workplace™, the Report builder feature is now integrated with version 4.0 for all users. This functionality allows administrators to create and share custom reports.

• Easily add and remove columns

• Conditions, filters, better structure, and card view

• Preview Button

• Define the access type by report

• Program reports

Read more about this feature in the Moodle™ documentation.

 

BigBlueButton integration

With this new release, Moodle™ is introducing a free trial of BigBlueButton for live web conferencing.

This free layer of functionality includes:

• Teachers can create sessions of up to 60 minutes with up to 25 participants

• Teachers can also share their screens, use whiteboards, and surveys, divide sessions into groups and record the session for up to 7 days.

Other course improvements

• Better Drag-and-Drop

• On/Off visible option

• Improved “Add block” and “ Add an activity or resource” buttons

• Content updates notification for students

 

Other General Improvements

• Improved User tours with images

• Question bank plugins show or hide options

• Question bank improved question management

• Improved Accessibility for the Atto Editor

• Support of LTI 1.3 Advantage

• Admin configuration presets

 

Open LMS Highlights

General UX and UI improvements

For the 4.0 release, the Open LMS team focused on the review and adaptation of the new core 4.0 code for our platform and its themes. Within that process, we made several UI and UX improvements.

 

SNAP icons redesign for activities - Core and Open plugins

 

File Appearance info attributes for SNAP

For design reasons in the past, the Appearance section in SNAP’s course settings was hidden by default. This section is now visible and with new options.

 

 

Login settings view

The login redesign for SNAP was further improved with more explicit descriptions and instructions so that the new features were more intuitive.

New “Open LMS” tab for Boost contextual menu

In the new contextual menu of Boost, there is a new tab named More. Open LMS had too many unique elements that were listed in this category, so we decided to create a new one named “Open LMS” for specific Open LMS plugins.

 

 

 

Accessibility improvements for Open LMS 4.0

The new Moodle™ 4.0 version comes with several accessibility improvements. Since these changes come from Moodle™ core, every Boost-based theme will benefit from them.

These are the updates that were made for this new version

 

Remove online-offline options on notifications.

In Site administration > Messaging > Notification settings are the options for notifications across the site.

This view has been improved to increase its usability while reducing the number of switches and simplifying the Online/Offline settings to "On"/"Off".

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-67853

Old version	New version

 

Give users an indication that they encountered an editor

In order to improve the usage of screen readers, now when a user finds an Atto editor navigating with their keyboard, the platform will announce that the user found an editor.

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-72078

 

Make html_tables responsive by default

Across the site, every table has the same rendering through HTML. Now these tables are fully responsive independently of the screen size.

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-72896

 

Move the screen reader helper button to the first row

The Atto editor option of the 'Accessibility checker' and the 'Screenreader helper', are being moved to be main elements in the options of the editor.

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-71604

 

Old version	New version

 

SNAP in 4.0

With the changes made, the Snap theme has substantially benefited from the improvements. Adding to this the continuous changes made by the Open LMS team with each release, accessibility will continue to be an angular part of our efforts. Expect more to come with our next releases.

 

New Core plugins

 

Updated plugins

End of life of plugins

Core Moodle™ plugins removed by Moodle™