A beta release of Sensei Certificates has just been released. This release contains two new translations and some bug fixes. You can download it here.
Here’s what’s in this beta release:
If you find any problems with this beta, please leave a comment or open an issue. Thanks!
Sensei 1.12.2 Beta 2 is now available for testing. You can download it here.
Here’s a list of what’s been fixed in this beta:
Please report any issues you find in the comments. Thanks!
Today we’ve released Sensei 1.12.2 Beta 1. You can download it here.
This releases touches many files across the entire codebase. As such, we encourage everyone to test Sensei functionality in both WP admin and on the front-end of your site.
What else can you help test?
Please report any issues you find in the comments. Thanks!
Today we’ve released the second beta for Sensei 1.12! You can download it here.
This beta addresses a few issues discovered while testing the first beta:
For more information about the 1.12 release, please see the original announcement post.
Today we’re pleased to announce that Sensei 1.12 is available for beta testing!
You can download it here.
1.12 is a minor release and will be launching in October. There should be no breaking changes and new functionality should exist in a backwards-compatible manner. Here’s what to look for in the update.
It used to be that you had to find specific Sensei-compatible themes for your site. In the upcoming release we’ve made big improvements in how Sensei handles themes that were previously unsupported. This means you can now use Sensei with almost any theme!
The following are before and after screen captures of the course page using the Divi theme, which does not formally declare support for Sensei:
After a learner clicks the Complete Lesson button, they will automatically be redirected to the next lesson in the course. No more confusion over students thinking that the same lesson is being repeated.
In the Analysis > Lessons screen, the lesson start date will now be set to the date and time at which a student first views a particular lesson. They need to be logged in, enrolled in the course, and have completed any lesson prerequisites before a particular lesson will be logged as started.
Here are a few other notable changes in Sensei 1.12:
sensei_course_image_html filter to enable altering HTML output of a course imagesensei.cssWe’re hoping to release Sensei 1.12 in October, but could use your help with testing. Here’s how:
Thanks to all of our testers and contributors! If you find any problems, please open an issue or leave a comment here with the details.
Sensei Certificates 1.1.0 Beta 1 is now available and ready for testing! Sensei Certificates 1.1.0 will be released on August 1st.
Here’s the list of changes to be tested:
Thanks for testing Sensei Certificates, and if you find any bugs please open an issue!
Sensei 1.11.0 Beta 1 is now available and ready for testing! Sensei 1.11.0 will be released on June 13th.
Here’s the list of changes to be tested:
Thanks for testing Sensei, and if you find any bugs please open an issue!
UPDATE: We’ve released Beta 2 which includes:
* Tweak: Update URL and Twitter account in tweet that can be sent after activating
Sensei 1.9 is currently in the beta testing phase, and one of the new features included with it will be downloadable language packs. Sensei in your language at the click of a button!
We rely on the Sensei community to contribute translations. Sensei is currently being translated into 30 languages, but there are only 8 languages with over 80% of the strings translated.
We need more languages!
We are looking for bilingual/multilingual Sensei users who can help us translate Sensei into other languages.
If you know a language other than English, you can help. All you need to do is head over to our Sensei project on Transifex, and click HELP TRANSLATE “Sensei”.
You’ll be taken to a signup page where you can create a free account, and as soon as that’s done you can start translating into any of the listed languages.
If your language isn’t listed, you’ll need to request a new language, and once we’ve approved the new language you can start translating.
If you’ve translated Sensei into your language, using POedit, Codestyling Localization, Loco Translate, or any other translation plugin, you can easily upload your .po file to Transifex. Just join the translation team for your chosen language and click on “Upload file”.
Translating in Transifex is simple, you just select an English string on the left, enter your translation on the right and click “Save”.
If you need more help using Transifex, check out their support pages.
If you have any questions about contributing translations, leave a comment below.
We’ve been hard at work on the latest Sensei update, and it’s almost ready! This beta release contains 514 commits from 10 contributors.
We would really love your help with testing the new features, to make sure it all works seamlessly.
The main changes in this version are an improved template system, built-in language packs, and a new collection of shortcodes for adding Sensei content anywhere in your site.
We need help to test these changes, to make sure that the new features work as they should, and also that everything still works as it did before for existing users.
We’ve made some changes to the frontend Sensei templates, combining files where appropriate, and separating logic from markup, making the templates much more flexible.
We need to test all of the following templates thoroughly. All screens need to be tested both when logged in and logged out. When testing courses/lessons/quizzes, you should test when logged in and taking the course, and when logged in and not taking the course.
We have updated all templates except for the Email templates. If you have customised your templates in your theme they will still work. Please give us feedback if any of your templates break so we can look at improving the backwards compatibility.
The main frontend CSS file has moved from /assets/css/frontend.css to /assets/css/frontend/sensei.css
Previously we relied on shortcodes to display our course archives. In 1.9 we have introduced a new course archive template, as well as some new shortcodes that customers can use to display Sensei content wherever they wish.
The current shortcodes:
These will continue to work for at least the next few versions, and we need to make sure they still work as they did before.
However, we will be encouraging people to switch to using the new course archive page, and the new shortcodes instead. The course archive page no longer requires shortcodes, and will be the page you select as “Course Archive Page” in Sensei > Settings.
All the following shortcodes and their parameters need testing thoroughly:
Today we are ending support and maintenance of the Sensei LMS extensions Share Your Grade and Course Participants. Share Your Grade provided social networking links to learners after they completed quizzes that allowed them to post their quiz grade. Course Participants added a widget that listed the learners in the course.
Both plugins had limited usage. Therefore, by retiring them we hope to focus our efforts on adding new and exciting features to Sensei LMS. An archive of the source code is available on GitHub for both Share Your Grade and Course Participants.
In Sensei LMS 3.10, we released the Learner Courses block, which introduced a redesign of the My Courses page.
In Sensei LMS 3.12, we’ve added an all-new layout to the Learner Courses block – grid view! This is in addition to the list view you already know and love:
Grid view is responsive, meaning the number of columns increase or decrease automatically based on the current screen size. To use it, add the Learner Courses block to the My Courses page, and select Grid view from the block toolbar or settings.
Here are some other things you’ll find in 3.12:
To update, please head on over to Dashboard → Updates in the WordPress admin.
Please note: While we have thoroughly tested this release, it’s always possible that we’ve missed something. We recommend that you test the update on a staging site before updating your live site.
Without a doubt, the My Courses page is the central hub of your learners’ online course-taking experience. It’s where they go to access their courses, and generally bask in the glory of all the progress they’ve made so far.
And let’s face it…this page was overdue for a little ❤️.
That’s why in Sensei LMS 3.10, My Courses has been updated with a cleaner, fresher look. Not only that, but we’ve also shifted more control over to you by giving you the customization tools you need to really make My Courses sparkle and shine.
So long shortcode, hello blocks!
The My Courses page harnesses the power of three new blocks – Learner Messages Button, Learner Courses and View Results.
The Learner Messages Button block enables learners to view their private messages with the teacher. This block is only displayed if the learner is logged in and private messaging is enabled in Sensei’s settings. Clicking the button takes the learner to a page that shows all of their communication with the teacher.
The Learner Courses block displays a list of courses the learner is currently enrolled in. There are separate views for filtering by active or completed courses, and the block’s settings enable you to customize colours and select which elements to display.
The View Results block is added to My Courses automatically once a course has been completed, but it can also be added to any of your individual courses. Clicking the button takes the learner to a page that shows how well they performed in each lesson of the course.
Your existing My Courses page is not affected when updating to 3.10. If you’d like to convert it to use the new blocks, you can do that by first deleting the [sensei_users_courses]shortcode, and then adding the desired blocks from the block inserter:
Here are some other changes you’ll find in 3.10:
To update, please head on over to Dashboard → Updates in the WordPress admin.
Please note: While we have thoroughly tested this release, it’s always possible that we’ve missed something. We recommend that you test the update on a staging site before updating your live site.
sensei_filter_category_questions_by_author – Whether category questions should be filtered by author.
Sensei_Frontend::sensei_get_user_quiz_answers – Use Sensei_Quiz::get_user_answers instead.Sensei_Quiz::stop_quiz_questions_loop – No replacement.Sensei_Assets::override_script – No replacement.Sensei_Assets::wp_compat – No replacement.Sensei LMS 3.9 is out and brings with it a brand new way to manage quizzes – right inside the editor!
Both new and existing quizzes are now edited using the Quiz block. This block is automatically added when a new lesson is created, but can be removed if you don’t need it. Existing quizzes are also switched over to automatically use the new block:
The Quiz block supports the same functionality as the old meta boxes, including question types, settings, and selecting existing questions or category questions:
Blocks are also used when editing an individual question residing in the question bank:
The view that the learner sees remains the same, and quizzes are still displayed on a separate page as before.
To learn more about how to use the Quiz block, please see our documentation on quizzes and questions.
If you’d prefer to continue to use the meta boxes to manage quizzes, you can disable the Quiz block by using the following code snippet:
add_filter( 'sensei_quiz_enable_block_based_editor', '__return_false' );Here are some other improvements you’ll find in 3.9:
Developers: For deprecations, please see the beta release post.
To update, please head on over to Dashboard → Updates in the WordPress admin.
Please note: While we have thoroughly tested this release, it’s always possible that we’ve missed something. We recommend that you test the update on a staging site before updating your live site.
Sensei LMS 3.9 is now available for testing. This release delivers an all-new quiz editing experience that uses blocks to manage quizzes right inside the lesson editor:
The quiz block supports the existing question types you’re already familiar with — multiple choice, true/false, gap fill, single line, multi line and file upload — as well as selecting existing questions from the question bank:
Although blocks will be the default quiz editing experience going forward, there are a couple of scenarios in which the legacy meta boxes will continue to be used:
sensei_quiz_enable_block_based_editor.sensei_question_types.See what else is in this release.
*Please note that the test site integrates with Smartlook to record your visit. Smartlook is GDPR compliant out of the box, and any recordings will be deleted automatically after 1 month.
If you find a bug, please submit an issue on Github or leave a comment on this post. Our tentative release date is March 25th.
As this is a beta release, please test it on a staging site and not your live site. If you don’t have a staging site, you can use the WP Staging plugin to create one.
input to button..quiz => .quiz:not(.quiz-blocks)).sensei-lms.Question.questionTypes (JS) – Filter the available question types.sensei_course_block_template – Customize the course block template.sensei_file_upload_file_prefix – Customize the filename prefix for file upload questions.sensei_lesson_block_template – Customize the lesson block template.sensei_question_type_specific_properties – Customize the properties for a specific question type.sensei_quiz_enable_block_based_editor – Whether to enable the block editor for quizzes.sensei_rest_api_schema_question_type – Filter the schema for a custom question type.sensei_rest_api_schema_single_question – Add additional question types to the REST API schema.sensei_rest_api_category_question_saved – Fires when a category question is created or updated by the REST API.sensei_rest_api_question_saved – Fires when a question is created or updated by the REST API.Thank you to all our testers and contributors!
Sensei LMS 3.8 is available now and introduces two new blocks – Conditional Content and Lesson Actions.
The Conditional Content block, available on the course page, is very handy when you’d like to display content to a specific group of people. For example, you may want to write some sales copy to entice people to enrol in your course, but not display it to those who are already enrolled. The Conditional Content block makes this possible!
To configure the block, just add some child blocks inside it and set the visibility condition to only display the content when the person is enrolled in the course, is not enrolled in the course, or has completed the course:
The Lesson Actions block groups together the actions that can be taken on the lessons page including viewing the quiz, marking the lesson as complete, moving to the next lesson in the course, or resetting the progress of the current lesson. Each of the buttons can be customized by changing its style, color or border.
You can use the dropdown in the toolbar to simulate what the learner will see depending on whether or not they have completed the lesson:
When creating a new lesson, the Lesson Actions block (and Contact Teacher block) are automatically added to the page for you. They are equivalent to the elements that already appear on the lesson page, but because they have been rewritten as blocks, it’s now possible to change how they look, adjust their order, or remove them altogether:
If you’d rather not use blocks for new lessons, you can remove them in the editor and the PHP template will be used to render the lesson as before. This will create a consistent experience for learners until you’re able to update existing lessons to also use blocks.
Here are some other improvements you’ll find in 3.8:
Developers: For deprecations, please see the beta release post.
To update, please head on over to Dashboard → Updates in the WordPress admin.
Please note: While we have thoroughly tested this release, it’s always possible that we’ve missed something. We recommend that you test the update on a staging site before updating your live site.
Thank you to all our testers and contributors!
Sensei LMS 3.8 is ready for testing, and contains two brand new blocks!
The Conditional Content block can be used to conditionally display content on the course page depending on whether the visitor is enrolled or not enrolled in the course, or has already completed it:
The Lesson Actions block is a grouping of buttons that enables a learner to perform specific actions for a lesson. The style of these buttons are inherited from the theme, but can be customized independently:
See what else is in this release.
*Please note that the test site integrates with Smartlook to record your visit. Smartlook is GDPR compliant out of the box, and any recordings will be deleted automatically after 1 month.
If you find a bug, please submit an issue on Github or leave a comment on this post. Our tentative release date is February 9th.
WooCommerce Paid Courses 2.3.1 fixes an issue where some text was not being translated.
Beta testers will receive the WooCommerce Paid Courses beta directly to their inbox. If you would like to sign up to be a beta tester and have a valid license, please fill out the beta tester signup form using the same email address you used to purchase your license.
If you find a bug, please leave a comment on this post. Our tentative release date is February 9th.
As these are beta releases, please test them on a staging site and not your live site. If you don’t have a staging site, you can use the WP Staging plugin to create one.
If you’re a developer, there’s a single deprecation in Sensei LMS that you need to be aware of:
Sensei_Block_Take_Course::get_course_prerequisite_message – Replaced by Sensei_Course::get_course_prerequisite_messageSensei_Setup_Wizard::setup_wizard_set_script_translations (Added on February 9)Thank you to all our testers and contributors!
Sensei LMS 3.7 contains some important bug fixes and performance improvements, and adds an integration with the Site Health tool.
One especially important bug fix involves a pesky issue where some learners were being added to a course or lesson multiple times. This was preventing those learners from making progress in the course. As part of that fix, we’ve also brought back the ability to remove a learner’s progress at the lesson level.
Upon upgrading to 3.7, indexes are automatically added to the comments table if they don’t already exist. As Sensei LMS stores a lot of data in this table, this should noticeably improve the performance of large sites.
We’ve also added an integration with the Site Health tool. The integration does some checks on the status of the learner enrolment job and migration, and will also let you know if your theme is using outdated Sensei template files:
When a learner purchases one or more courses, those courses are now listed on the Order Details page. Clicking on any of the courses takes the learner right to that course:
We’ve also added a Courses section to the sidebar of the My Account page, which navigates to the learner’s My Courses page:
Developers: For new hooks, deprecations and template file changes, please see the beta release post.
To update, please head on over to Dashboard → Updates in the WordPress admin.
Please note: While we have thoroughly tested this release, it’s always possible that we’ve missed something. We recommend that you test the update on a staging site before updating your live site.
Thank you to all our testers and contributors!
Sensei LMS 3.7 is now available for testing. This release includes some performance improvements, small enhancements, and important bug fixes:
See what else is in this release.
sensei_add_comment_indexes – Whether to add indexes to the comments table. Default true.sensei_duplicate_post_ignore_meta – Meta keys to ignore when duplicating content.sensei_quiz_answer_file_upload_types – Allowed mime types for file upload questions.sensei_show_enrolment_debug_button – Whether to show the enrolment debug button in Learner Management.sensei_tools – Functionality available from the Tools menu.sensei_tools_listing_after_{$tool_id} – Display additional information for a specific tool, such as status.Sensei_Admin_Rest_Api_Testharness – Deprecated the entire class.Sensei_Setup_Wizard::get_woocommerce_connect_data – Use Sensei_Utils::get_woocommerce_connect_data.Sensei_Updates::assign_role_caps – Use Sensei_Main::assign_role_caps.Sensei_Updates::add_sensei_caps – Use Sensei_Main::add_sensei_admin_caps.Sensei_Updates::add_editor_caps – Use Sensei_Main::add_editor_caps.Sensei_Updates::sensei_updates_pageSensei_Updates::function_in_whitelistSensei_Updates::updateSensei_Updates::set_default_quiz_grade_typeSensei_Updates::set_default_question_typeSensei_Updates::update_question_answer_dataSensei_Updates::update_question_grade_pointsSensei_Updates::convert_essay_paste_questionsSensei_Updates::set_random_question_orderSensei_Updates::set_default_show_question_countSensei_Updates::remove_deleted_user_activitySensei_Updates::add_teacher_roleSensei_Updates::restructure_question_metaSensei_Updates::update_quiz_settingsSensei_Updates::reset_lesson_order_metaSensei_Updates::update_question_gap_fill_separatorsSensei_Updates::update_quiz_lesson_relationshipSensei_Updates::status_changes_fix_lessonsSensei_Updates::status_changes_convert_lessonsSensei_Updates::status_changes_convert_coursesSensei_Updates::status_changes_repair_course_statusesSensei_Updates::status_changes_convert_questionsSensei_Updates::update_legacy_sensei_comments_statusSensei_Updates::update_comment_course_lesson_comment_countsSensei_Updates::remove_legacy_commentsSensei_Updates::index_comment_status_fieldSensei_Updates::enhance_teacher_roleSensei_Updates::recalculate_enrolmentYou can download the Sensei LMS 3.7 beta here. Alternatively, if you don’t have a staging site, you can use our Sensei LMS Test Site. You will be given the same level of access as a teacher, so some functionality may not be available. Please note that the test site integrates with Smartlook to record your visit. Smartlook is GDPR compliant out of the box, and any recordings will be automatically deleted after 1 month.
If you find a bug, please submit an issue on Github or leave a comment on this post. Our tentative release date is January 21st.
WooCommerce Paid Courses 2.3 contains a couple of small improvements that we think will make a big difference in helping your learners get started after purchasing a course:
sensei_wc_paid_courses_my_account_menu_courses_position – Change the position of the Courses item in the My Account menu.Sensei_WC::course_link_from_orderSensei_WC::generate_order_noticeBeta testers will receive the WooCommerce Paid Courses beta directly to their inbox. If you would like to sign up to be a beta tester and have a valid license, please fill out the beta tester signup form using the same email address you used to purchase your license.
If you find a bug, please leave a comment on this post. Our tentative release date is January 21st.
As these are beta releases, please test them on a staging site and not your live site. If you don’t have a staging site, you can use the WP Staging plugin to create one.
Thank you to all our testers and contributors!
We are very pleased to announce that Sensei LMS 3.6 is now publicly available. Although technically a minor release, 3.6 packs a major punch!
Sensei LMS 3.6 introduces several new blocks to the course page:
When creating a new course, these blocks are automatically added to the page for you. They are equivalent to the elements that already appear on the course page, but because they have been rewritten as blocks, it’s now possible to change how they look, adjust their order, or remove them altogether:
The Take Course block is a button that enables a registered user to enrol in the course. Once enrolled, the Take Course button is no longer displayed for that user. The block can be customized by changing its style, colors or border.
The Contact Teacher block enables registered users to contact the teacher. The user is not required to be enrolled in the course in order to send a message to the teacher. Similar to Take Course, the Contact Teacher block can have its style, colors and border customized.
Course Progress displays the user’s progress in the course. This block is only visible to users who are already enrolled. The course progress block enables you to customize the border radius, progress bar height, and colors.
In addition to displaying the modules and lessons that make up a course, the course outline block enables you to build your course structure right inside the editor! Any modules or lessons you add to the block will be created automatically once the course is saved:
Please note that it’s not currently possible to add existing modules or lessons to the course outline block. Given this, the recommended flow for creating a new course is to start with the course outline block, and then add content to the individual modules and lessons once they’ve been created.
You can learn more about how to use these blocks in our documentation. A future release will add more blocks for both lessons and quizzes.
If you’d rather not use blocks for new courses, you can remove them in the editor and the PHP template will be used to render the course as before. This will create a consistent experience for learners until you’re able to update existing courses to also use blocks.
Here are some other enhancements and fixes you’ll find in 3.6:
WooCommerce Paid Courses 2.2 extends the Take Course block, and changes it to a Purchase Course button if there is a single product attached to the course, or pricing cards if there are multiple products attached to the course:
Developers: For new hooks, deprecations and template file changes, please see the beta release post.
To update, please head on over to Dashboard → Updates in the WordPress admin.
Please note: While we have thoroughly tested this release, it’s always possible that we’ve missed something. We recommend that you test the update on a staging site before updating your live site.
Thank you to all our testers and contributors!
The Sensei Share Your Grade and Course Participants extensions are being retired.
The My Courses page now has an alternate layout – grid view!
The My Courses page has been reimagined with a cleaner, fresher design.
Sensei LMS 3.9 brings a new default quiz-editing experience using blocks.
The all-new quiz block is ready for testing in Sensei LMS 3.9 Beta 1.
Sensei LMS 3.8 introduces the Conditional Content and Lesson Actions blocks.
Sensei LMS 3.8 and WooCommerce Paid Courses 2.3.1 are now available for testing.
Sensei LMS 3.7 and WooCommerce Paid Courses 2.3 adds integrations with Site Health and WooCommerce.
Sensei LMS 3.7 and WooCommerce Paid Courses 2.3 are now available for testing.
Sensei LMS 3.6 and WooCommerce Paid Courses 2.2 introduce several new blocks for building courses.
If a Sensei translation exists for your chosen language, it can now be installed and updated directly from WP admin.
To test this:
There are currently only a small number of language packs available, mostly with incomplete translations. We will be posting again soon with more details on how you can help contribute Sensei translations.
There are several other changes in this release, which also need testing:
Sensei()
now officially replaces
$woothemes_sensei
, which will be deprecated in a future update.
If you’re interested in helping us test this update, please complete this short form, and we’ll get back to you soon with further details:
Sign up for beta testing
This round of beta testing will be open until Monday 30th November, so the sooner you can test the better.