VPL 4.1.1

Release of Version 4.1.1 of VPL for Moodle

This update brings enhanced user functionality, improved performance, and several important bug fixes to VPL for Moodle.

Improvements

• Graders are no longer required to enter a password for VPL activities that require one.
• The VPL's web service now has an enhanced scope, allowing users with the necessary permissions to open, save, evaluate, and get_results for other users. This is facilitated through the addition of a new 'userid' parameter in the respective functions.
• For VHDL language, GHDL is now the default compiler. If GHDL isn't available, the system will automatically switch to FreeHDL for compatibility.
• We've added a new run script for direct access to the execution server command line. This must be manually selected from the execution options page and won't be used automatically based on file extensions. This powerful feature allows students to use the command line for compiling and executing their code. Note: Code files edited in VPL will be simultaneously updated on the execution server when saved.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue in the file router.php in the PHP run script (kudos to @breeze833 for spotting this).
• Resolved the improper use of XMLRPC introduced in the previous version.
• Fixes the use of PHP CLI by eliminating an obsolete command line parameter when using it.
• Improved the performance of the code highlighter based on the ACE editor.
• The VPL plugin's JSON decoding is now more resilient, tolerating invalid UTF-8 characters. This issue surfaced while trying to fetch the 'ddd' version that displayed German characters in non-standard encoding.

Compatibility

This version of VPL has been tested under the following software versions (where applicable):

• Moodle: from version 3.9 to version 4.2.
• PHP: from version 7.4 to version 8.1.

Upgrading from a previous version

Upgrading does not change the data used by the plugin. You can upgrade directly from VPL 2.4.

Due to the use of JavaScript in this plugin, the Moodle administrator may need to purge all caches (Site administration -> Development -> Purge caches) after updating. Additionally, some users may need to clear their browser's cache (Ctrl + F5). This issue seems to have been resolved in Moodle 4.2.