1----------------------------------------------------------
From Liviu Lalescu:

These are some rather technical problems, for developers, referring to some possible improvements in the generation code:

In generate.cpp, improve the stack memory for variables which are using int[MAX_DAYS_PER_WEEK][MAX_HOURS_PER_DAY]
and int[MAX_HOURS_PER_WEEK] (but be careful, I tried this and it seemed to slow down the generation.)

In the initial order, in nIncompatible, consider also teachers(students)intervalMaxDaysPerWeek, like in teacherMaxDaysPerWeek

Make students max gaps per day perfect. This is very difficult/complicated. Any bug/mistake would be critical.

2----------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Disable menus and shortcuts (in FET main form) if they are currently not
usable. For example: Disable teacher constraints, if there is no teacher
in the dataset. Disable space constraints if there is no room in the
dataset. (Disable means: Just make them unavailable/gray. Don't hide
them. Do it like OpenOffice.org, Firefox, etc.)

3----------------------------DONE--------------------------
From Horatiu Halmajan:

DONE since FET-5.20.0 on 27 September 2013 --> Students set max days per week
(but you can use for the moment students (set) interval max days per week). <--DONE

Max gaps constraints with weight under 100% (this is very difficult)

4----------------------------------------------------------
From Horatiu Halmajan:

Horatiu:
I met a situation: a teacher asks for maximum 2 working days, but these
days should not be consecutive.

Is there a way to implement it in .fet?

The only (manual) way I could think of, is to set the teacher as
unavailable on Tuesdays and Thursdays, thus leaving him available on
Monday, Wednesday and Friday (any two of these are unconsecutive).

Any other ideas...?

Liviu:
I have another idea: add a dummy activity for this teacher, split into 2
per
week, min n days = 2, with 100%. You just need to take care that this
teacher
has place for these dummy activities (enough slots in the day) and to
consider
these dummy activities as possible gaps, so if teacher has max gaps 2 then
make max gaps for him 0.

Horatiu:
For my case, the second idea worked perfectly, as my teacher does not accept
gaps.

I have also "played" with the first with the first idea, as it seems to be
the most un-restrictive one. It also worked. I tried it three times, and in
all three situations at least one of the dummy activities was the first or
the last activity for the teacher's day. So, there is a chance that the
teacher would end up with only one gap.

Which leads me to a suggestion: An activity end (or starts) a teacher's day.
Similar to "an activity ends students's day".

5----------------------------------------------------------
From daviodan:

I will refer to sample_Brazil_more_difficult_max_2_gaps_for_teachers.fet

1. In the FET activities dialog there exist more filters after the teacher, group, etc.
If we choose for instance the subject "Math" and we do the filtering also after the name of 
the teacher, then the list of the filter should contain only the name: Bruna,Silvania,Wellington,
because only these teach Maths. In the present moment the filter contains the list of all teachers.
The same for all the other filters.

2. In the teachers' statistics dialog, when we click a teacher, there should appear in the right
in a box all the constraints for this teacher inputted by that moment.

6----------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

for code cleanup always use the same style:
some constraint c have
c->teacher_ID
others have
c->teacher_Index

7----------------------------------------------------------
From Azu Boba (modified/updated by Liviu Lalescu):

About timetable view teachers: ... I propose is to 
have fixed cell height and width so it would be easier to comprehend and 
pinpoint what you see when switching between teachers. 
We have a 3D table (teachers/days/hours). I propose to 
add a new view named e.g. "View (day for teachers)" (of course you keep 
the "View (teachers)" too). This view will be similar to "View 
(teachers)" but it will have all the days as selectable tabs on the top. 
The 2D table it will display below the tabs would be the Teachers/Hours 
view for the day selected. The buttons and functionality will be the 
same as in the case of "View (teachers)". ...
The best part though is that with this 
new View you will be able to better comprehend/modify the schedule in a 
day by day base...
You might also want to consider adding an additional flag when locking 
an activity. This flag might be called "Save data and timetable flag" 
and would be set when an activity is locked automatically during the 
"Save data+timetable as..." procedure. Why? Mainly, because when you 
want to unlock e.g. a specific day in a "Save data+timetable as..." 
saved timetable you do not want to unlock all the activities of the day; 
you want unlocked only the ones that were locked by the "Save 
data+timetable as..." process. There are activities that the schedule 
creator manually locked them before FET generated the table (e.g. a 
specific lesson needs to happen only on a specific day and time). By 
selecting and unlocking a whole day as things are now you unlock these 
activities too! This means that if the schedule creator doesn't pay 
enough attention he might mistakenly create a schedule with activities 
set at undesired hours. The solution I propose to this is to toggle 
between locked/unlocked only the activities that have the "Save data and 
timetable flag" set. To unlock the manually locked ones the user would 
have to do it in a different/manual way (see the paragraph below about 
the editable "Details" box) or even better be asked with a message box 
if he wants to unlock the manually locked activities too.
I also mentioned that in order to remove a teacher from a specific day 
(because he is ill or on a leave) I have to go to "View (teachers)" and 
pinpoint all the activities assigned to the teacher for this day 
(checking their IDs from the "Details" text box and then writing them 
down in notepad). Then I close this view and go to the "Activities" 
list, find the specific activities and uncheck "Active" for them. This 
is a little annoying and a prone to errors procedure especially if there 
are more than one teachers missing. What I thought as a solution for 
this has to do with the "Details" text box on the "View (teachers)". It 
would be great if it wasn't just a simple text box but an editable 
interface for every changeable value. What I have in mind is to split 
the "Details" into two parts; the upper part would include all the non 
editable values while the lower part all the editable ones. Right now 
for me, only the "Active" and "locked time" values are worth of being 
editable, so  simple check boxes would suffice but someone else might 
want other values editable too (e.g. Total number of students, duration) 
or new values worth being editable might be added in the future, so it's 
a good thing to have.
Last but not least (and certainly the most difficult modification) it 
would be great if you could drag and drop activities in the "View 
(teachers)" and "View (day for teachers)" GUIs. Of course by doing so 
you create conflicts and this will need handling. But I think all the 
before mentioned changes are enough work for you now and I need to think 
this a little more to come up with a viable solution.

8----------------------------------------------------------
From Marco Barsotti:

The only thing that I would like to find in a future version of FET is the
ability 1) to find when a combination of constraints is impossible to
respect. 2) to recognize which constraints generate a bottleneck, where FET
stand by searching the little hole where to pass and go on, placing
activities.

9----------------------------------------------------------
From Saad (on forum):

Manual improvements of the timetable.

10---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Change remove redundant to deactivate redundant.

11---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr

I got reports from a user that he had trouble to find the correct
output files today, because there were so many files in the directory.

just maybe:
maybe write only the index file into the result directory. then make 3
subdirectories. one subdirectory with all html files, one with all xml
files and one with all csv files. so we don't need the export menu
anymore, because it is exported always by default and the directory is a
little bit more tidy.

12---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr

We have:

1. category: 3-4 classes
2. category: 5 courses
3. category: 4 religions (always same time, so i didn't enter it)
4. category: several working groups (after noon lesson, so i add them
manualy)

Now have a closer look:
4 classes * 5 courses * 4 religion is already 80 subgroubs.
so if i also add working groups (lets say 5, but there are more!)
then we have total 400 subgroups.

that is stupid, because i have only around 100 students in a year!

i think in that case it is wise to enter data not in groups, add
students
individual.

that is like high school do it.

- add a year.
- add groups (NOT with split year, but same names)
- add a group ALL STUDENTS.
- add subgroup with all students names into ALL STUDENTS.

- now we need a table to every year:
	- horizontal are the division names (must not be group names, but
	can)
	- vertical must be the student names
	- every cell is a bool checkbox

no the timetablemaker can check every single student. of yourse by
checking the studentsname must be added as subgroup into that group.

13-------------------------DONE----------------------------
From Maciej Deorowicz:

DONE --> Possibility to disable contraint without removing it.
Such 'Active' checkbox like on activities dialog. <--DONE

14---------------------------------------------------------
From more users:

Multiple processor - split multiple timetable generation on multiple processors

15---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr

how about displaying "minimum home
room hours" and maybe also "maximum special room hours" in the teacher
statistics? because a timetable maker (maybe) need that for his
planning.

16---------------------------------------------------------
From Danail Traichev:

You see, this division in subgroups is very complicated - to understand 
and to add by hand. And at the end you came with a lot of subgroups that 
have only formal sense, for the algorithm, but are visible in dialogs, 
in the final chart and everywhere. It should not be like this. One will 
have to divide years in wizard-like dialog, with questions:
1. How many classes you have for this year?
2. Define courses for which students from this year study together
3. Which of these curses start at same time. Group them by this criteria
4. Define from which classes came students for these courses. Whole 
class is caming, or only part of it? Where other part goes - have rest, 
or has another activity, and if yes - which one?
5. Define teacher that is teaching in every course.

This is a draft, but some wizard like this will save *a lot of* 
mistakes, and will make program much more user friendly. Then you can 
add internal groups, but not show them to users, or at least show if 
they set some option. Show them only groups and subgroups that they need 
to put in activities, and show these same in final html output.

This is my opinion of user in trouble :-)

Second set:
1. Ability to select more than one constraint and delete it, or set its 
weight
2. Ability to disable all informative and warning messages, or to display 
them in status bar or in another log window.
3. Option to remember last focused control in dialogs - very useful if 
you want by keyboard to open many constraints and change their weight
4. Constraint "longest gap is n hours"
5. A way to save last generated timetable and reopen it again (for example 
for printing it with different html level, or for viewing it.
6. Ability to show free teachers for every position in students and 
teachers timetable - very useful if you want to find somebody to replace you

17---------------------------------------------------------
From my80s:

also in program we have
a matrix with days x hours = n x n
if this is allocated from some activity it should get error in
precomputing in real time
if we put another activity 100% in same cell

that would take less time to find mistakes

18---------------------------------------------------------
From my80s:

export as odt (OpenOffice.org) table (spreadsheet)

19---------------------------------------------------------
From Danail Traichev:

If you make it how it is now with years, groups and subgroups, it will not
be complicated for entering and even will not need change in most
constraint dialogs. What I mean - define "groups of subjects", and allow
"group of subjects" name to be used in every place where subject can be
used. Much  like it is now with student sets - both student years, groups
and subgroups are placed in one control and added from one place.

But of course, I don't know how this will fit with FET internals. And FET
is fine even without this. It simple will make entering constraints a bit
easy. The other posibility is if every activity constraint dialog has a
posibility to select multiple activities, and to filter them by "subject
group", or at least by "selected subjects". That will make entering
constraints like in my case easy.

20---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

maybe it's possible to do Form::setLayoutDirection(Form::LeftToRight) only to the filename or language in menu.
(bracket bug in Arabic translation)

21---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

I saw at Les's timetable, that he called hour==period.
also at wikipedia it´s called period. (see School_timetables chapter, terminology)

I am not sure about that. in German we have the also the word "periode",
but we don´t use it for timetables. we say hour.
but maybe that´s just colloquial language. this colloquial language is ok,
because the schools have 1 schoolhour (45 minutes) or 2 schoolhours (90
minutes).

but maybe it´s better to use also the word periode, because by this
schools with 60 minutes activities (2 periods) and 90 minutes activities
(3 periods) don´t get trouble with the word hour (because it entrap /
ensnare /
inveigle so write 1 hour and 1,5 hour. but "hour" is an integer values!

but on the other hand people (maybe) will not understand immediately the
word period.

so maybe we should write "period (hour)".

22---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

maybe change "current constaint" into "description", "constraint
information", "description of the selected constraint", ... (very very low
priority, maybe one day)

23---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr, regarding translation:

1. maybe it's better to be more exact. example: phrases "min hour" better "min hour per day"

2. sometimes the english version isn't always the same.

sometimes you wrote "add current activity"
sometimes you wrote "add activity"
sometimes you wrote "add current"
sometimes you wrote "add"
i think it should always be the same.

also sentence like: "You have to know that this constraint ..."
should only be: "This contraint ..."

3. maybe "start" should be "generate" in the generateform.

4.	- if you wrote one or more sentences, please always end with ., ! or ?.
	- sometimes you wrote "students subgroups", i think you just need to write
	"subgroups", because teachers have no subgroups.
	- all "add", "modify", and "remove", "close" phrases should only contain
	this word. no more words like "current" or "group". maybe wrote them with
	QObject, because nearly every dialog have this 4 phrases.

5. i think we should think and write a small definition note for english
phrases.

it looks like in a few times this terms are not always used same/correct:
hour
duration
period
lesson
activity

when we write a small definition note, then we have to care about this:
words must also be correct for schools that don't use "hours" as one time
hour.
in Germany one school hour is 45 minutes. but that's no problem. we use the
same words for that.
but i remember a letter, a user wrote that he has 60
minutes hours and 90 minutes hours. so he defined 30 minutes "hours" and
set duration == 2 or duration == 3 to the activities.
so the definition and use of hour, duration, period and lesson must also
match to this.

please let us first a small definition not for this terms:
hour, duration, periode, lesson, activity
this will help if we add new or modify old english phrases and it will
also help translators.

6. maybe: no brackets in "view (students)", "view (teachers)", and "view
(rooms)".

7. and it looks like we shouldn't use the word "lesson".
in the most phases it's better to replace "lessons" by "subactivities"

8. that is also why i already asked you to change english translations,
because some phrases can be shorten.
for example all sentences with "you", "current" or "that mean" can be
shorten (in english and german).
example:
"If you insert current group to current year, that means that some years
share the same group (overlap)"

shorten version:
"Some years share this group if it's inserted."

9. and a maybe other thing. example:
view in fet-mainform.
there is "Time contraints (techers)".
and in this folder is for example "Teachers max gaps per Week".
i recommend to write just "Max gaps per Week".
Reason:
- it's shorter
- it's clear that it "teachers" contraint, because it´s in that folder

the English version looks fine, because you are always possible to write
first "teachers". (except on min days between activities. You
are not able to write Activities first.)
In German translation it is much more difficult the write "teacher" always
first. even including the word teacher is a much longer phrases than in
english. it will be much easier and nice, if we don't write teacher here.
maybe the same problem in other languages.

24-------------------------DONE----------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

DONE ---> how about this:
if you go to data->activities
the you have 4 different filters where you can choose something.

for example i choose filter subject "DE". now can see all "DE" activities
at the left side. so it is ok like it is, or i see a missing one. if i see
a missing one, then of course i want to add a subject "DE". so this
subject should be default if i press add.

so the function should have four parameters (the four filters),
defaultsetting in the data->activities->add screen should have be the
filters of data->activities. <--- DONE

25---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

For multiple generation:

Maybe add a checkbox "shutdown after job is done".

26---------------------------------------------------------
(see also entry #194)
From Volker Dirr:

long time goal: code cover planning.

27--------------------------------------------------------
From bmlahcen13:

for that i advice to start thinking from now to
- enhance the UI
- use Database
- add web client
- use UML models

and also for the structure, use "int id", this will
enhance both runtime and will reduce the storage,
because in the FET xml files, for example to store and
activity, you have to write again the name of the
subject, teacher, students and also the day and time
slot in a solution. the same happens in time and space
constraints, these 3 entities represent a big
percentage of the size of the file, so you use int IDs
and not names you will certainly gain a lot of space
and also a better execution time, i know, as you said,
that the internal structure uses int id but for
loading and saving xml files and searching, the usage
of strings delays them.

Liviu: maybe it would be better to compress the input file

28--------------------------------------------------------
From more users:

Improve the user interface - add help and wizard.

29--------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Towers:

What about a rewrite of the front end in a scripting language - e.g. Python? It might speed 
development and help debugging. It could also make maintenance of the code easier.

Is there some way of doing "interactive" timetable development? The human would make 
suggestions, or place some items, run the program, maybe move a few things around, run the 
program again ...

A clear and clean interface to your engine as an entity separate from the 
input/output might be useful.

It seems to me, it should be possible (but of course only after a lot of work!) to have 
a beautiful manual timetable editor (which can also print the various timetables, and 
perhaps save the data sets and results in a database) with an interface to an automatic 
timetable scheduler which can be used to speed up the work."

30--------------------------------------------------------
From TheStar:

A constraint to think about is that some activities, and I suspect 'normal school management'
talks about teachers as in "One teacher per x students".

In the HSC year here, it's about one teacher per 26 students (or something like that).
At a recent excursion, it was one teacher per 10 students.  Hope that helps :)

Liviu Lalescu: Of course, you can add each student. I could have implemented this solution.
But I doubt that the user has such patience.

You could always autogenerate the students...
"Quick-Build Students"
[Properties]
[Number]
(Build)

And it will generate students with name: AutoGen-11231, ID: 11231, and the like.

The user could then 'select' groups of these students... and... (Just an idea)

31--------------------------------------------------------
From Abdul Hadi Kamel:

Do you have a plan in mind to upgrade the existing fet from standalone
application to a client-server/web-based database oriented type of
application in the future. This is because the current fet is quite limited
especially in terms of timetable data which cannot be keyed-in /view s
amongs several users at the same time. This will cause hardship because the
people involved in making the class timetable in universities normally
consist of several key persons from different departments. Using standalone
application by several persons sometimes make data consolidation process
among departments become difficult and error-prone

I think it will be better if the FET can support a single timetable data
repository (using client-server model) in a database that can be input/view
by several users simultaneously.

32---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

If you think that other people don't like this default constaint how about
making a menu "default settings". there you can add "language" and my
default wish. maybe there are other parameters, that can be set in this
settings. I guess that there a people who want set duration to 2 or 4 by
default.

33---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang

I would like to see FET generate the time table in 

1. certain amount of time for each time table
2. with some setting about the remaining weight soft conflicts
3. generate multiple variants

For example
(A) rules are
(i) the user select to generate 10 minutes time limit for each time table
(ii) user set 0 for remaining weight soft conflicts
(iii) the user select 10 variants

the outcome
(B)
(i) the time table finished and it has generate 10 time table that concur with 0 remaining soft conflicts for each time table
(ii) the time table finish and it only manage to get 5 variants from 0 remaining weight soft conflicts
(iii) the time table finish BUT it don't manage to generate any variants with 0 remaining weight soft conflicts

refer to (B)(iii)

the user can change
(i) longer run time to generate time table (with crossing finger) hehe... Others setting is not change
(ii) longer run time to generate time table with increasing value for remaining soft conflicts (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 etc)

As you can see in timetable --> generate multiple variants, features in (A)(i) and (A)(iii) are already there. I hope that you 

can figure it out on how to implement the feature in (A)(ii). It would be marvelous.

34---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang

If a user want to add "an activity have a set of preferred rooms", the user will need to click one 
by one to add right???... So, I would like to suggest that we group them like when user want to add 
an "activity". There (activity), we can select by years, groups and subgroup for students. Instead of 
clicking all the student groups in years 1, user can just click year 1 to include them all into students....
 
For example for rooms (room group then room subgroup)
 
HALL
Hall A
Hall B
Hall C
 
TUTORIAL
A-A1
A-A2
B-A1
 
COMPUTER LAB
Lab 1
Lab 2
Lab 3
 
So when user want to add "an activity have a set of preferred rooms" for all the tutorial room, instead 
of clicking 20 tutorial room one by one, user just click the group that is Tutorial. Easy right???

35---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang

What I meant is in Data --> Time Constraints --> Teacher Time Constraints --> A Teachers not available time, 
1. If you double clicked Afida, 
2. It will show Afida not available time right. 
3. Then if you want to change Sambilan not available time by choosing Teacher drop down menu, nothing happen. In fact, It still shows Afida not available time. 
4. So, if you want to change Sambilan not available time, you have to clicked Cancel button first, 
5. then double clicked Sambilan. 
6. Now you can see that Sambilan not available time is updated.

My suggestion is that It will be better If FET can update to Sambilan from Afida in Step no 3. 

36---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang

I have some other suggestion.
 
1. It will be GREAT if FET can be turn to tree structure. We can show/hide the structure
2. In the tree structure, we can use the copy, cut and paste to edit the subject, activities, etc in the tree structure

37---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang

If I want to change many teacher not available time, I need to add one by one although the teacher not available time is the SAME.
 
So, I suggest that you can add a set of teachers not available time. Same as rooms not available time feature.

38---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang

On current version, there is no group for subject and teacher. It is quite annoying if you have to look for certain subject X and teacher Y in that list. When the list grows bigger (let say 100), it's kinda hard because you have to find that lecture and subject in that 100 lists. Although the sorting is a good way to find the subject and teacher, IMHO maybe we can make groups in that teacher and subject section

For example I want to find teacher X and subject X. Teacher X is a teacher that teach Diploma IT student. So, I just search that teacher in Diploma IT group rather than searching 100 other list. Same as subject X.

This feature is needed if my/our/your university/school is a big one where teacher and subject are hundreds.

39---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari

We've created a timetable but the rooms aren't. So we do it by hand.
How can I change in FET the rooms simpler in a generated timetable?
The times are locked.
It would be the most simplier when I open e.g. the teachers timetable,
click on a activities and I can add room to this.

Liviu:
I'm sorry, but you'll have to add manually constraints activity preferred
room for each of the activities.
I am not sure I understood correctly the problem, if not, please excuse me
and explain more detailed.

Yes, imho you understand my problem. I hoped that there is a simpler
solution. So, maybe in the next releases would be nice: when a
timetable is generated, user can changes/sets the rooms (only the
activities without rooms of course) from the timetable (Timetable ->
Show teachers/students): you select an activity, you click a button
with "Assign room" and choose a room.

40---------------------------------------------------------
From Naji

Hopefully, FET's team can enhanced it to be able to export the xml data to database, that will facilitates the 
output of the data and enables programmers to engage it with their programs.

41---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini

This is a request for a new feature...
For Teachers and Subjects I like to use a brief description (BD), a code, and I optionally convert it to corresponding long description (LD) in the generated timetables (I refer to my current timetable procedures). So I need to define two new fields. Example:
Theacher:  MANC, MANCINI
Subjects: MAT, MATEMATICA

I think that this can be achieved without any change to current interface, simply using the format above. Of course I want use the BD only in defining activities and when I have to specify subject and Teacher.
I wish to output the brief (only BD) or complete (LD) timetables

42---------------------------------------------------------
From jaspal

INSTRUCTION FOR ALLOTMENT OF SUBSITUTION/ ARANGEMENT PERIODS

On a particular day, faculty can be on leave, or may be busy with some 
other work hence unable to take the assigned classes. Thus, the classes 
taken by those faculty members are to be assigned to some other faculty 
members.

Facility of keeping track of back log periods due to absence or 
unavailability are to be recorded year and group wise in the software. 
Also extra periods taken by the faculty has to be recorded year and group 
wise.

43---------------------------------------------------------
From Bingen

For the internal organization of my school, it's convenient to have a general timetable for each
group, A and B, and our timetabling software gives it. But as you observed, the footnote legend
style it's not probably the best, as it's a little bit difficult to understand. I think in FET a good
solution could be to be able to define a group of activities for a group (for example A, or even the whole
year A and B), and then subdivide this group of activities in many subactivities, each of them
with its own teacher and classroom (I have read the term "subactivity" in the manual, but I
can't find a definition of it, nor find it in FET menus). So a group would be attending many
activities at a time, which is not possible right now in FET. Maybe if it represents a structural
problem FET could define internally subgroups, but being transparent for the user. This activity
group should have a user defined name to identify (for example "Optative 1"). And then inside,
each subactivity would have the real subject ("French language", "Arts", etc.). In this way the
user would avoid to define such a great number of subgoups, and in the teacher's timetable
everything would appear right and clear, with no reference to the activity group, just to his own
subactivity, and with information of room besides of the group (opposed to the pseudoactivity
solution to book the room).

In the group timetable, the common activities would appear as always, and the others would appear
with the activity group name. Then parallel timetables with blanks in the common activities and
one of the subactivities for the rest could be printed . So we would need as much timetables as
the maximum number of subactivities of the largest activity group. Maybe the subactivities could
be diplayed in couples to avoid many timetables, as it happens now with group timetables and
"same day+hour" activities.

These parallel timetables could be hanged up on the classroom board, and, of course, each pupil
should know which of the subactivities has to attend. I think this display should be clearer than
the footnote legend style. I don't know if I have explained it clear enough, but if not I could
send a spreadsheet with an example.

Also, with this solution, if no activity group are defined all works as before, so we would avoid
the problem commented by Liviu of people not needing it.

44-------DONE since FET-5.19.0-(10 January 2013)-----------
From Zsolt Udvari:

DONE --> command line version which needs no X server <--DONE

45---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

SUGGESTION BY: Massimo Mancini

WHERE: add activity form

WHAT: a check box to lock the total duration of activity

WHY: to introduce an automatic check and alert on the sum of durations of
single subactivities (currently the total duration reflect always the sum,
so if you alter the single duration, FET recompute the total, this can be
what you want or maybe not)

WHEN: all new future are always ASAP :-D (the programmer says...)

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS: a templates system for automatic generation of activity based
on year and subjects expected for a class of that year (normal italian
situation, abroad I don't know ;-)

46---------------------------------------------------------
From Bingen:

- In my school the timetable is divided in morning (from 8:00 to 14:30h) and afternoon (15:00 to 17:00h). In the morning there's a break from 11:00 to 11:30h.
I have defined this break as an hour of the timetable, but not allowing activities for any set of students in this slot. The reason is to plan the surveillance
of the teachers in this slot. There must be always 2 teachers looking after the pupils during this period, so I define activities without students.
The problem is that if a teacher does not have surveillance at break time, it should not count as a gap. If I define this slot as break in "Misc time constraints"
then I can not define the surveillance activities.
- We try that all the teachers work maximum 2 afternoons per week. This has been easy to define with "All teachers work in an hourly interval max days per week".
But we try also that teachers who work two days per week in the afternoon to have a free morning. I don't know how to define this situation.

47---------------------------------------------------------
From T. Renganathan:

2) You can give a provision for the user to perform his own sorting of years,
teachers, etc., for e.g., using dragging and dropping.
 
3) You can include a provision for multiple selection of subjects, teachers,
activities, etc., for example using Ctrl or Shift key. This will especially be useful for deleting
multiple entries.

48---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Volker:
if i am in FET->Data->Subjects
i can't see at the right side all constraints.

in my latest samplefiles for example the "a set of subactivities has a
set
of preferd time slots" is missing to that subject.

also in FET->Data->Activity Tags are not all constraints displayed.

Liviu:
Yes, I know, because these are related to activities. I chose not to show them.

Volker:
please add in TODO. i think this is a nice feature we should not forgot.

Liviu:
I thought about your proposal. I think it cannot be done and I know the reasons why I didn't do that: 
a constraint activities preferred starting times has subject "" or specified. If it is "", then it is for 
all subjects. So, I should write all constraints of this type with subject "" for each subject. But this 
is not correct. A constraint might have a teacher who doesn't have this subject.

49---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

by the way we should add a new tests before generating a timetable:
if 2 activities are grouped, then turn of min n day constraint of that
activities.
if 2 activities are consecutive, turn of min n day.
if 2 activitives have same starting time, turn of min n day.

or the opposite, bedending on what has a higher weight.

maybe instead of turning of maybe just warn the user that this two
constraints are not acceptable at the same time and tell him he should
care about that problem first of all (by removing or reducing weight to
0%).

50---------------------------------------------------------
From Les W. Johnstone

Hi Liviu,

I'm into the thick of it again scheduling...
now working on two different schools...

Sacred Heart College is not a problem since they use a five day blocked
schedule. Saint John's College though is a slightly different problem...

They have a five day AB schedule...

which means I entered two activity groups... one for week one and one for
week two and used different activity tags... w1 and w2 to keep things
separate, with specific rules of placement of w1 in Week1 and w2 in week
2...

However, your spacing feature doesn't work ... not on more than five
days.... not sure it would be possible to extend your logic or not... (what
do you think?)

The other thing I've noticed is a bit of an annoyance concerning
constraints... when you are trying to get a schedule to work you push in
constraints however, on slight modification of activities (concerning
resources etc.) sometimes, what was once soluble becomes insoluble.

Usually this means you have to relax constraints in order to get the
schedule soluble... some (most) can be set to a 0% weight which means they
are ineffective.. then later you can turn them on again... however, some
rules are only acceptable at 100%... which means you need to drop them from
the constraint set...

but the constraint may be important and be forgotten to reimplement...
could you set an active/inactive flag for constraints like you have for
activities... so it can later be reimplemented?

51---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer:

Liviu:
There is no easy way to remove a component.

Chafik Graiguer:
well
to re-use  last year .fet file,
what about
-removing all activities at once, so Data keeps only subjects, teachers and groups ?
or
- removing all teachers from all activities (because teachers dont teach the same groups every year)
or
- removing all groups from all activities

Liviu:
I just looked in the sources and it seems that in statistics I only count active activities. Please verify that, though.

Chafik Graiguer:
yes !
and I spend nealy ONE hour counting periods for teacher  Eng1!!
in Statistics, teacher  Eng1 has only 20 hours
in Data  ---> activities, I count 21 hours :-))  for him
finaly, I realised that I has deactivted one hour component by mistake

so, is it possible to add this line into activity window:
Quote:
Activity:
Teacher=fr4
Subject=fr
Students=2Lg -1
Id=1
Activity group id=1
Duration=1
Total duration=5
Total active: XX
Active: yes
Total number of students=0 

-----------addition:
Chafik Graiguer:
- removing all groups from all activities
sorry, removing groups does not make sense, because, activities should keep group's information
Groups have the same set of activities every year

So the most important is:
-removing all activities at once, so Data keeps only subjects, teachers and groups ?
but this is not so good, as we will lost time and space constraints related to those activities
So, the best of the best is:
- removing all teachers from all activities (because teachers don't teach the same groups every year)
so we can re-assign new teachers to groups

52---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

Consider this:
1. I inspect the activities of a teacher (via filter on teacher)
2. I see the lack of an activity (or I delete one or more filtered
activities because I want redefine them)
3. I push the add buttom... why the subjects aren't
only those that teacher teach?

A more general question... why not associate in advance the teacher with
his students and with the subject he teaches? In this way I could obtain some
type of automatic filter.
If I add an activities of mines I select MANC but MANC teach MAT in GEO_1B,
GEO_2B, GEO_3B and IGE_1A. The program should be aware of this.

53---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

When I review generated timetable with view (teachers) menu option I can lock/unlock
the placed activities and this is ok. But why I cannot do the same for
empty cell? The meaning of locking an empty cell should be to add/modify a
Teacher not available constraint or something that have the
same effect... so a new generation leaves those positions untouched.

A I said I would to lock/unlock some students or some teacher and
recalculate the rest.

54---------------------------------------------------------
From Frans Cilliers:

About campuses: What I thought is the following. Currently you have min
gaps between buildings and maximum building changes per day. If this can
also be done for campuses, for example minimum gaps between campuses for
teachers. (An extra constraint but it will probably be to difficult as
you mentioned)

55---------------------------------------------------------
From K:

Maybe you remember my post from April (many teachers – many groups). Since
than in our team we’ve been trying to adapt our internal solutions to use
FET (it is really your great success).
We tried to use FET to solve timetable for a pretty big plan and by the
way we had to solve a few problems and got some experiences as an
end-users. Maybe it would be interesting also for you.
...
    The third problem was to export data from the program we use for planning
(a database application) to FET and than import data back. I pre-assumed I must
enter data to the FET automatically as the number of activities and
constraints is too high to handle them manually. Also a plan generated by
FET had to be automatically imported to our database. I used FET
procedures to import teachers, students and rooms. I also tried to use
FET import procedure for activities too but I had a problem with IDs. FET
generate its own ids but I needed to use my own ones to keep link between
data in the database with those in the FET so finally I decided to
generate input file instead. Fortunately FET doesn’t change ids and
generate perfect XML file with generated plan and
thanks to known ids I could import data from FET to our database with no
problem.
    The next point. Due to number of constraints we have in our database I
used similar procedure to generate a part of FET input file with teacher
time constraints and room time constraints. Hence I have a question.
Would it be possible to include file path into FET input file to keep
data in a couple of separate files as working with 100 000 lines file is
not fun?
    We prepared the whole procedure for timetabling with FET. First we
planned (in the database program) activities for VIPs manually. To use FET
we also had to put into the timetable all activities where students from
one group could choose one activity from a several ones (languages and
some lectures) at the same time. That is why in the input files are so
many “permanently locked” activities and activities with many groups and
only 10 students to avoid conflicts with room capability (I used
<Activity_Tag>UL to mark them). Together with these activities we locked
a room by preferred_room constraint. After that I included prepared data
to the FET input file and after all we started to generate
the plan. Fortunately FET is smart enough to find mistakes in locked
activities (room and time conflicts) so than we removed conflicts for
already planned activities.
    By the way – during reading the input file I noticed the error
that rises when the number between tags:
<Number_of_Not_Available_Times>NUMBER</Number_of_Not_Available_Times>
was  not exactly the same as the number of constraints in the file. Of
course it is not a bug. It never happens if user use FET to input
constraints. But it forced me to count constraints during generating data
and shows that program is rather “sensitive”.
The first hint for other users is to start with minimum number of
constraints and if FET would generate the plan than thinking about adding
the next ones. In TODO file I found the suggestion of “possibility to
disable constraint without removing it. Such 'Active' checkbox like on
activities dialog”. I admit – it would be nice. Moreover finding a good
plan is just like using 10 knobs increasing one constraint and decreasing
the other so fast access to the constraints window is crucial. I suggest
to put “Time constraints” and “Room constraints” buttons also in the main
menu (or creating any other shortcuts) as these constraints are rather
deep in the menu.
The next suggestion is to change the interface for some constraints
(particularly wherever there is a long list). For instance for the
constraint Max day for a teacher per week if we have many teachers a
simple table like:

| Teacher Name | Max days|
| teacher 1    |     n   |
| teacher n    |         |

with a button “Save all changes” would be great. Now we have to enter
value for every teacher one by one in separate windows.
    After setting constraints we tried to generate the next version of the
plan. We added more and more constraints (for instance WOLNE – dump
activities - free day for student or increasing max day for teacher) and
I was really surprised when FET coped with that. It took from about 1,5
minutes (almost no constraint) to over 20 minutes (with many constraints).
With too many constrains after
about 10 minutes when I saw no change in the number of placed activities
(neither up nor down) I cut simulation, removed some constraints and
started it over.
    The second hint is not to change too many constraints in one simulation
as it may lead to impossible timetable and than it is difficult to say
which particular constraint was too much.
    Of course there is a lot of work to do. For instance even when two
consecutive activities are placed at one day (the same group and the same
teacher) sometimes there are placed at different rooms what would force
them to needless changing room. I guess that FET is focused on fulfilling
constrains but not on optimizing timetable. Sometimes simple changing of
two activities makes plan better both for students and teachers. I think
that manually improving generated plan is faster than creating many many
more constraints and repeating simulations. And this is the third hint.

56---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer:

When a user click on Data ---> activities
he is presented with a list of all activities because filter fields are empty
all activities are listed based on Activity Id
Now, is it possible to a add sort feature like this
Sort by:
	Teachers
	Students
	Duration
	Subject
	Act Id
	
So for example, if you select teachers, all activities will be listed alphapetically in a ascendent order

57---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

In advanced lock/unlock I would lock/unlock on teachers basis (with pick up
the teacher from list of teachers) or on students groups basis (always from
a list) The lists are mentained from subsequent generations and saved with
data.

58---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

I have another suggestion: an history file where you record all the actions
of the timetabler and theirs effects. If the history was visible in a a frame
in the View timetable forms, I would see scroll the messages without interruption
and with the opportunity to review them (please don't answer that is too
complicated... you can use a tab widget, a tab for the current situation
another for history... the right answer is: GREAT! I add it in TODO! ;-))). 
In general an history file should be a great thing and the base for
undo/rollup features.

59---------------------------------------------------------
From George Milliotis:

I propose the ability to sort constraints by:
1. Type [so single ones - ones that you can't add twice - go to the top]
2. ID of activity
3. room / day
and so on

This could also be done for activities. If I add two activities for the
same subject, why do I need to have one at the bottom (id 200) and the
other at the top (id 5)?

BTW, I haven't used the menu once since I got this new version. I like
the basic concept of the shortcuts. If the dialogs were not modal I'd be
opening all sorts of windows and working much faster. If I could HIDE
buttons selectively I'd even be able to get the secretaries to do the
schedule and save ALL my time.

60--------------------------------------------------------
From Frans:

I refer to the Data menu, space constraints and say students, set of home rooms and then add.
In this box I select the students and then the individual venues.

If I for example already defined an activity tag for Large rooms, I want to add the activity tag
instead of the individual venues.

Now that I think again I doubt if it will be possible, because FET has to make a distiction between
general activity tags and "room" activity tags as the room activity tags must also appear in the rooms
list so that it can be selected. How will FET know this.

61--------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

an other useful feature is:
modifying in settings the default min days constraint (for add activity).

because we nearly always use 100%, not 95%.

modifing later all to 100% isn't the best, because there are a few
activities with min n day = 0%.

62------------------------DONE-----------------------------
From Frans:

DONE --> I came across the following:

Let say one define the number of FET hours per day as 11. Now I enter prefered starting slots, not available constraints etc. and set the timetable.

Next I change the number of FET hours per day from 11 to 10 and try to generate again. A timetable is now impossible.

In changing the number FET hours from 11 to 10 the constraints were not automatically adjusted. I must now go to each constraint and change. Sometimes I had to remove the constraint and re-enter.

I just want to know it it must be like that or if FET cannot change the constraints automatically. <-- DONE

63-----------------------DONE------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

DONE --> Our timetablemaker played a bit with FET. he done several changes in the
dataset, sadly he used the FET file with locked activities.
he tried to generated, but of course it failed, because of the changes in
dataset, but locked times/rooms.

Of course easy to solve, just remove all locking constraint.
I tried with the unlock all activities feature, but it was not possible,
because FET complains it must be generated first. but why? can't we unlock
even it is not generated?
(yes, i know i can remove constraints manualy. i just mean: unlocking a
special day and unlocking all activities is possible, even if table is not
generated.) <-- DONE

64---------------------------------------------------------
From aliponte:

An activity tag can be assigned the property not to count the underlying activities.

Please consider also this flag to affect the constraints with "days". A pseudo activity should not increase the number of days (if it is the only 
activity of a day). A pseudo activity should be "invisible" for all countings concerning constraints, and for countings concerning statistics (teachers, students, subjects).

65---------------------------------------------------------
From aliponte:

There are many suggestions from FET users to improve FET's UI. It will be nearly impossible to find a UI that meets everybody's needs, I know. But let me just present, what was confusing me for a while. Maybe I'm not the only one.

Dialog "Modify activity":
Changing the state of the check box "Active" does not change the active/passive state of all subactivities that belong to the same activity. It affects only the single subactivity that shows in the tab (= the one that has been highlighted bevor the dialog was opened). If I want to activate the whole activity I have to click through all of the tabs. (It took some time until I understood this.)

Since there are two dialogs, one for activities and one for subactivities the (novice) user does not expect the possibility of editing individual subactivity properties in the activities dialog (because individual activation and individual duration of subactivities can be chosen in the subactivities dialog).

By the way, is it really necessary to have two dialogs? I could imagine a check box "subactivity only" in a common dialog for both, activities and subactivities. This would make this comment obsolete.

66---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer and Pietro:

-Min hours daily with an activity tag (to count real activities only leaving pseudo activities out of count)
-Min hours continuously with an activity tag 

67---------------------------------------------------------
From Gert Veltink:

I would be very pleased, if in a future version it would be possible to specify the number of students for an activity as an extra column in the activities.csv.

Rationale: I mainly use FET for planning examinations. In this setting the number of calculated participants and actual participants differs significantly, because students have to repeat examinations or do not register for examinations.

68---------------------------------------------------------
From Mr Robo:

In the Time tab, Break button, leading to the dialog to set up break times... At the moment, I set up one break time constraint that has morning breaks and lunch breaks combined.

If I set up two (one for break and one for lunch) and I could attach a label that would be displayed in the unavailable slots in the finished timetable, such as 'Break' or 'Lunch', it would save me having to edit each Student, Teacher and Room timetable before they can be printed, etc. It's quite manual at the moment because '-X-' is used throughout and I can't do a global search and replace.

69---------------------------------------------------------
From George Miliotis:

About the "Years", "Groups", "Subgroups" check boxes in add/modify activity and
modify subactivity dialogs:

I'd be more interested in FET actually remembering these settings
globally (not even per form) for each session, no need to actually store
to disk.

70---------------------------------------------------------
From Frans (on forum):

Frans:

I came across the following, it is possible that you know about this:

I generate a timetable with constraints such as minimum hours daily for a students set

Next from the data, students, groups or subgroup menu I deactivate all activities for one group. This group has the constraint minimum hours.

I generate again and then Fet- gives an error message and stops, namely you have too little activities to respect the constraint minimum hours ....

In other words I must go to minimum hours and delete the constraint. It is not deactivated automatically.

As said I do not know if it must be like this. Other constraints such as same starting time are automatically de-activated.

Liviu:

It is normal to be like that, because it is hard to take care of such constraints, and because you don't deactivate a students set, but a set of activities. The constraint min hours daily is for a students set, not for a set of activities.

Frans:

I understand what you say, but I am not talking about deactivating activities.  In my case however I had to deactivate a complete studens set and this one can only do from the data menu. In other words everything for a students set must be deactivated.

Studens go out to work in private practice for a few months. During that period they are not on campus and everythig must therefore be deactivated as another students set takes their place and must be scheduled.

If it was possible to deactivate everything only when one uses the data menu.

Liviu:

Yes, you are right in a way, but there are many problems which may appear if I do like you say, and the things are complicated.

For instance, user deactivates a students set's activities, then activates only one activity for this user. Or if there is an activity with more students sets, of which some are deactivated and some are activated. Or there might be a global constraint min hours daily for all students.

The perfect approach might be to add a flag to each teacher, subject, activity tag, students set -> active or not active.
It would be kind of tedious and difficult to change now, as it was not designed from the beginning.

71---------------------------------------------------------
From Jason (on guestbook):

Ask for new feature:

- Auto generated after allow user to manual adjust timetable (Drag and Drop in view timetable)

72---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

If I de-activity all activities of a whole year (student set), FET will not ignore "min hours daily" constraint.
So I've two suggestion immedi:
- when FET checks this (and similar) constraints, would tolerate this
- can deactivate the students set (and related activities, constraints, etc.)

73---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

It would be nice when can filter in activities list by "no teacher" and "no students".

74---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

It would be nice when can pair teachers with his/her subjects and can filter in the activity dialog.
So, what do I think? I'm teaching Math and Physics. So to my name can add these subjects and when I add a new activity and select Literature, my name will not shown, only those teachers who teaches Literature. 

75---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

Clone activities or constraints:

Is it possible to clone activities for one student set to another?
Last year, Year 1S had 3 student sets
Now Two new student sets have been added
Student sets from same year have same activities and of course same time constraints
So how it is possible to do an activities Clone from 1S03 to both 1S04 and 1S05 with or without assigned teachers ? 

76---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

Default settings per subject:

Is there any chance to make it? In my school the all "English" subject is 4 per week (and there are more similar subjects). So it would be nice, when I don't should set these settings (activities per week, tags).

77---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

Save button on Activity Planing Window:

For users working with activity planning window, they will probably spend most of the time on it
But this window is lacking a save button, so users have to close it from time to time to get access to FET main window to save work
Can a save button be added to activity planning window?

78---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

About constraint min gaps between a set of activities:

Now, how about applying this contraint globally? I mean every activities with subject (or tag) Math sould be 2 hours apart from an activity with subject (or tag) Physics?
Entering all activities, one by one is tedious
How it is easy/possible to add: min gaps between a set of activites with a tag?

or better:
Min gaps between two subjects/tag

79---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

Filter for modify multiple constraints at once:

In the min days between activities window
there is an option for: Modify multiple constraints at once
Is it possible to add a standard filter: teacher, student set, subject, tag ?
So I can multi-change only those activities with a given subject or teacher... etc?

80---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

Filter teachers:

Students are easily filtered because they are grouped using years then groups
So at Students set not available time window, we can, for example, apply unvailability to only one year, thus affecting  groups under that year
We can also apply unvailability to group, thus affecting  Subgroups under that group.

Unfortunately , teachers are treated either individually or totally (constraints for ALL teachers): ONE or ALL
Zsolt Udvari already wrote:
Quote:
It would be nice when can pair teachers with his/her subjects and can filter in the activity dialog.
So, what do I think? I'm teaching Math and Phisycs. So to my name can add these subjects and when I add a new activity and select Literature, my name will not shown, only those teachers who teaches Literature.

So it would be very practical, less time consuming, to treat teachers per groups based on
- Home subject
or
- any other artificial tag like :
-part_time_teachers,
- team teachers,
-..etc

81----------------------------DONE-------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

DONE --->  More statistics after generation:

FET has a stastics menu
What about adding statistics after generation accessible from statistics menu
(for teachers and students sets as well)
- Total free days
- Total working days
- Total gaps

Because the quality of a timetable depends on overall total of free days and gap  <--- DONE

82---------------------------------------------------------
From Valdo (on forum):

Conclusion: he has many teachers, and almost all should have max 2 gaps per week, with 2 exceptions, who may have more gaps. He
does not want to add manually that many constraints. So, he suggests that FET should add constraints for all teachers,
with a selected number of max gaps per week, and then the user can modify each one by hand.

83---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

1. Constraint not available time slots for a teacher
2. I put a name in filter and I see there's any constraint of this kind on
that teacher
3. Then I press Add. I expect the teacher field filled with the name I used in
filter... but currently FET propose always the first teacher in list.

84---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini and Chafik Graiguer:

Consider this:

1. the max num of hours for day is 5 for ALL teachers, the max num for teacher X is 3: this
works

2. the max num of hours for day is 4 for ALL teachers, the max num for teacher X is 5: this
NOT works as expected. FET simply refuse the exception. The exception does
not override the global in any case. 

I remember we discussed this "strange" logic (imho an exception is an
exception and always override a global condition) last year, it seems that
the workaround is to manage this scenario using only individual constraints
(isn't it?), very tedious. If so I suggest a button in the form of global
constraint to automatically generate all the individual constraints one
needs.

From Chafik Graiguer (same subject):

My suggestion was not only about adding a teacher one by one
It is about get rid of double menu entries
For example, for Teachers and students, and for every constaint, FET has double entry like this:
-Max days per week for a teacher
-Max days per week for all teachers
-Min days per week for a teacher
-Main days per week for all teachers
...etc
My idea is to make a single entry for any constraint like this :
-Max days per week for teacher (s)

-Min days per week for teacher (s)

This has another advantage:
user will be presented by a window like described in my screenshot, where he can press Add all button
Now suppose, like user X, that I have 50 teachers or 50 student sets
I can easily add them all into Min days per week =5
then on the right pan double click on 5 teachers to deselect them before clicking Add constraint
Then add another Min days per week =3 for those 5 teachers !!
If we have tags for teachers (and rooms) it will even more easier

This concept is already used in FET in two places:
- Set all available, set all not available
- subject has a set of prefered rooms 

85---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

Consider the form that lists the constraint "teacher non available":
change the line format from DESC CONSTRAINT + TEACHER'S NAME to
TEACHER+CONSTRAINT or, better, codify description of constraint using some string of
fixed size like so:

HTNA - NAME .....

I know the problem of translation (you may omit the description at all, it is
useful only when you display ALL constraints), but I think that a code is less boring
than a long and incomplete description repeated at beginning of all lines.

86---------------------------------------------------------
From Andres Chandia (on forum):

Is there a way to tag teachers, for different purposes like, a group of teachers can only work in the morning, or an activity can only be given by a
teacher of certain group, etc.

87---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

a problem that we discussed in the past is about the description of
constraints (specially in the list of constraints or in the list of
conflicts): they are too long.
You must well understand that the unlucky timetable maker need to see the
troubles at a glance: reading long sentences with absolutely redundant
parts is very difficult and time consuming.
This is a problem in english but the solution can be achieved also and only in
translations... (a buon intenditor...;-)

So in the following you will find an example of that I think is a good list.
Of course is only my opinion. But, trust me, is a useful one

----- NOW --------------------------------------------------

Conflitti lievi totali: 13.7
Elenco dei conflitti leggeri (in ordine decrescente):
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 290 (I:PANS, M:FRA, S:AMM_1 B) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 289 (I:PANS, M:FRA, S:AMM_1 B), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Martedì e Martedì, incremento dei conflitti= 0.99. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante DIRU il giorno Mercoledì durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante GADO il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante MALG il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante MESS il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante OSIO il giorno Lunedì durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante POLE il giorno Venerdì durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante PULI il giorno Mercoledì durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante RAPE il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante xAZ1 il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 416 (I:LUCH, M:DIR, S:IGE_2 C) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 415 (I:LUCH, M:DIR, S:IGE_2 C), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Sabato e Sabato, incremento dei conflitti= 0.95. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 521 (I:LUZZ, M:EAZ, S:IGE_5 A) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 517 (I:LUZZ, M:EAZ, S:IGE_5 A), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Martedì e Martedì, incremento dei conflitti= 0.95. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 617 (I:xAZ2, M:EAZ, S:IGE_3 B) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 615 (I:xAZ2, M:EAZ, S:IGE_3 B), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Sabato e Sabato, incremento dei conflitti= 0.95. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 718 (I:CARU, M:COS_DIS, S:GEO_3 A) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 715 (I:CARU, M:COS_DIS, ChA:info4, S:GEO_3 A), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Sabato e Sabato, incremento dei conflitti= 0.95. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno

----TOMORROW I HOPE ()IMHO)-------------------------------------------------

Conflitti lievi totali: 13.7
Elenco dei conflitti leggeri (in ordine decrescente):
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: AttID= 290 (I:PANS, M:FRA, S:AMM_1 B) vs. AttID= 289 (I:PANS, M:FRA, S:AMM_1 B): +1 Mar -Mar : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  DIRU : Mer : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  GADO : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  MALG : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  MESS : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  OSIO : Lun : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  POLE : Ven : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  PULI : Mer : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  RAPE : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  xAZ1 : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: id.416 (I:LUCH, M:DIR, S:IGE_2 C) / id.415 (I:LUCH, M:DIR, S:IGE_2 C): +1 Sab-Sab : +0.95
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: id.521 (I:LUZZ, M:EAZ, S:IGE_5 A) / id.517 (I:LUZZ, M:EAZ, S:IGE_5 A): +1 Mar-Mar : +0.95
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: id.617 (I:xAZ2, M:EAZ, S:IGE_3 B) / id.615 (I:xAZ2, M:EAZ, S:IGE_3 B): +1 Sab-Sab : +0.95
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: id.718 (I:CARU, M:COS_DIS, S:GEO_3 A) / id.715 (I:CARU, M:COS_DIS, ChA:info4, S:GEO_3 A): +1 Sab-Sab : +0.95

88---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

students set max gaps per week
and
students set begins early

need a filter/checkbox show only O year O group O subgroup
because there are so many students (subgroups) and it is useful to add
that counstraints for lower years. but the list is so long, so it is very
difficult to find the years.

that filter is also useful for students set not available.

89---------------------------------------------------------
From Paolo (on forum):

Well, for me it would be very very (very) important thinking over the constraints while fet is working.

So i ask, kindly, if it is possible getting a print function of all constraints (at least of time constraints).

Liviu: A temporary solution would be to open two FET programs simultaneously.

90---------------------------------------------------------
From daviodan:

Possibility to edit the timetable after generation, drag-drop of activities.

91---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

Sometimes we have 3 teachers available to teach the same "kind" of
class. For example, Teacher A, B C may teach either one of Math for
7A, 7B, and 7C. It is possible that one combination may yield a
timetable that is easier than another. So, it would be nice if we can
have an option to generate "alternative" scenarios with the different
combination.

A possible way to do that may be:
- adding a "teachers-activities pool" dialogue.
- activities of the same pool may swap teacher
- each pool may be enabled or disabled at timetable generating time
(you may not need all combination all the time)
- all generation time, make an option for "generating alternatives"
and save each alternative in a different folder or something

Or:
- activities are created without teachers
- adding a "teacher can teach: activity tag" dialogue
- at generation time, teachers are assigned to activities based on
which teacher has the right "teacher can teach tag"

Or, another way of doing this (perhaps a more elegant way) is to make
a "preferred teacher" constraint like the preferred room constraint.
However, also add an "same room/teacher" option. That is, room/teacher
may be selected from list of preferred rooms/teachers, however, the
same room/teachers must be assigned to the same activities.

92---------------------------------------------------------
From Silver (on forum):

Constraint "Min gaps between activities in the day for teacher".
I mean like this :
when I select Min gaps = 2
Saturday: activity - gap - gap - activity - gap - gap - activity

93---------------------------------------------------------
From George Miliotis (on forum):

I think the ability to renumber the IDs of the activities starting from a specific ID would be very useful in other XML-related work, too.

An advanced option: "renumber activities" with a dialog asking for "new lowest ID" would be ideal for these merge-split issues.

In this case we could renumber the first FET file from 1, the second from 1000, then copy paste directly into the XML file.

This would get all rules and activities, wouldn't it?

But maybe we could use XSL for this.

94---------------------------------------------------------
From aang (on forum):

I have a problem though in the formatting of the html files and consequently the printing. Now, an activity will be printed with six subgroups on the timetable
making it unusually wide(or tall) and the subgroup names do not actually reflect the student set that should be displayed e.g Mwaniki-CRE-4 E BIOCRE1, 4 E PHYCRE1,
4 W BIOCRE1, 4 W PHYCRE1, 4 N BIOCRE1, 4 N PHYCRE1, 4 S BIOCRE1, 4 S PHYCRE1
instead of Mwaniki-CRE-4 CRE1 or Mwaniki-CRE-4. This means i edit the timetable manually after every generation to make this changes. I suggest adding a displayname
tag to the activity which defaults to the current display name (without the activityID) and using this to determine what is displayed for the activity.

Another thing, for activities with same starting time, is it possible to have them in one column/row so that the number of rows/columns is fixed to the either the number
of days or lessons (depending on the selected timetable)? This way it is easier to print.

95--------------------------DONE---------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

DONE---> Activities preferred times constraints also need "duration".
(because many schools allow activities with duration 2 only at special
times. by this new feature it will be very easy to add (just one
constraint - instead of adding a tag to every activity with duration 2). <---DONE

96--------------------------DONE---------------------------
From liquid (on forum):

DONE---> Consider a split activity 2/5 - 1/5 - 1/5 - 1/5. FET places my 2 hour activity part in the same room. However in case of soft conflict when FET cannot place other 3 hours separately, it places them consecutively but not in the same room.
I might agree with FET in some cases when it cannot do desired split but if FET must join some activities consecutively let it do this in the same room. How to tell it to do in such way in case of soft conflict? <---DONE

97---------------------------------------------------------
From liquid (on forum):

Based on what I experience while creating not an easy timetable I would do suggest to enable more categories than 3. Max number of categories I need years to split to is 7. I do it manually at the moment but it is time and mind consuming. I know it might seem unusual however requirements for the timetable are indeed real not theoretical.

Liviu: Too many categories might slow down the generation and consume too much memory (there will be many empty subgroups). Anyway, anybody can consider as many categories as needed, by adding groups/subgroups manually or using another program to generate the .fet XML file.

liquid: I'd like to mention something that might be worth to consider. As we said earlier we can always make our own division of the year to groups and subgroups which are going to be most suitable to one's needs. It would be good to have the possibility to delete unused (empty) subgroups from all groups. Now, FET kindly informs us that a subgroup belongs to another group and you have to delete it again and again from every other group. 

Update: The maximum number of categories now is 4.

98------------------------DONE-----------------------------
From Juan Marcos Filgueira Gomis:

DONE --> One question, the update dialog shows buttons '&No' and '&Yes' that I
couldn't find in fet_gl.ts. How could I translate them?

Liviu: These strings are in the Qt translation. It is a bit difficult to manage also the Qt translations.
(we need some other files, qt_gl.ts, which complicate things). I'll think of some solution maybe in the future. <-- DONE

99-------------------------DONE----------------------------
DONE --> From Yush Yuen (in collaboration with Liviu Lalescu):

Feature: Allow user to customize the initial order of activities for the
generation.

Benefit: Usually, a few activity converge to be "more difficult" toward the
end of the generation. It might be beneficial (unproven) to put those
activity earlier rather then later. Also, I can force some "important"
activities to be completed first, and some "unimportant" ones to be
completed later.

Suggested solution: Add a "generate order" text box in the add/modify
activity form. Values to be taken are 0-100%. The percentile represent what
percentile out of all the activities should this one be placed. 0 = default
(according to the original order)

Of course, there could be a dedicated form just to manage generation order.

Another solution: add some special activity tags, like: order##1, order##2, etc.
Each activity can have one of this special tags, and those with order##1 will be
placed before those with order##2 and greater orders.

Even better: default order for each activity is 0, then order##1, 2 and so on will
be after them, and order##-1, -2 and so on will be before them
(-2 before -1 before 0 before 1 before 2).

It would be nice if you can make it an "advance feature", so user can turn
on or off the feature. It's useful for cases where I have added a lot of
custom put order, then want to see how it work with or without it. Probably
a setting check/uncheck under the menu. <-- DONE

100---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

I spent much time striving to solve an impossible timetable
I wonder if FET can automatically report it impossible then abort
-First case: a teacher having only 5 hours per week: 1+1+1+2 (Min days between activities=1)
With Min hours per day for teachers = 2
This lead for an impossible timetable, but FET desperately trying to solve it for hours and hours

-Second case:
A teacher has 15 hours

With a maximum of 4 hours per day, given a 6 days week, this would allow him 1 free day or even 2 free days (4+4+4+4)
But activities were split in a rather strange fashion
Group G1: 3+3
Group G2: 2+2+2+3 (Min days between activities = 1)
Activities from G1 alone would occupy him for 2 days
Then come activities form G2 which require additional 4 days
Total is 6 days !!
I set Max days per week = 5
This leads to yet another impossible timetable

My question: can FET automatically report it impossible then abort?

101---------------------------------------------------------
From drew:

Actually the biggest problem was with teacher T1, who was mistakenly scheduled for 7 activities with activity AT1. But, there are only 6 timeslots available for AT1. FET needs a way to detect and report on this kind of error. This is not the first time I made that kind of mistake.

After I deactivated activity id 1, a problem with teacher T2's not available times. Instead of marking him not available for the first two AT1 time slots on Saturday afternoon. After I relaxed it to him just being not available for the 1st time slot FET was able to create a schedule.

I'm not sure how you in on T2's not available time slot as the cause of the problem. I think you need to try to find a way to automate that process and generate warnings about which constraints need to be relaxed.

The problem with activity id 2 was a variation on this problem. T2 had 5 activities for tag AT1, AT1 has 6 preferred time slots, but T2 was unavailable for 2 of them.

You do similar checking for student groups which have too many activities for the available time slots 

102---------------------------------------------------------
From Christian Kemmer:

I have another suggestion which would make things easier for me.
When defining time constraints for activities, I can choose a group of students, let's say "year 05". But no activity belongs to this group, because all activities belong to subgroups of that group, let's say "class 05A" or "class 05B". So choosing a group in those dialogs has no effect for me.
What I really want to do is to define constraints for some activities that all belong to subgroups of a special group, for example all lessons in a certain subject of all classes in "year 05". I cannot use the "choose group"-combo-box at the moment, but I have to use the "subject" or "teacher" combo-boxes. If I use subject, I also get a lot of activities from other years, if I use teacher, I also get those other activities, and I have to change the teacher for each activity I am searching for.

My suggestion is that there is a checkbox "show subgroups of group" with the following effect:
If I choose a group and activate that checkbox, all subgroups of that group are also shown.
So if I choose "year 05" and subject "physics", all activities with subject "physics" in all subgroups like "class 05A", "class 05B", ... of group "year 05" are shown.
If I only choose the group and activate that checkbox while leaving the other comboboxes blank, all activities of all subgroups of that group are shown.

103---------------------------------------------------------
From Silver (on forum):

He needs a constraint to ensure that all activities of each teacher are hosted in different rooms (for exam scheduling).

104---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide G. M. Salvetti (on forum):

Would it be possible to sort on comments the activities list (like sorting the constraints)?

105---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide G. M. Salvetti (on forum):

I wonder if it's sensible to write a .fet file with all placed activities time and space constraints spelled out (i.e., just like the usual
_data_and_timetable.fet, where each activity is (non permanently) blocked in time and space) even when FET gets interrupted, rather than only
if it completes succesfully.  I think it could be useful, because that file could then be reused as a start, maybe manually deleting or adding
some constraint.

106---------------------------------------------------------
From Silver (on forum):

He needs "teachers_rooms.html" in the statistics folder, he thinks it would be useful for the examination timetable.

107---------------------------------------------------------
From Horatiu Halmajan and Yush Yuen:

They suggest the possibility of selecting more constraints in the all time/space constraints dialogs and
de(activate)/remove them in a single operation.

108---------------------------------------------------------
From skinkone (on forum):

What I realized is that FET won't allocate your students for you, so I will do that by hand. I can only suspect that such a problem increases the
complexity exponentially. However, if you are thinking of going down this road in future developments, I would vote in favor of having such a
feature where students can have "tag preferences". The user would set "minimum or maximum number of tags a student group must have". This would
then be an optimization problem to try to get the most students with their preferences. Essentially FET would form student groups as an output
rather than as an input.

109---------------------------------------------------------
From Jonathan Block (on forum):

It would be nice to have a fourth dimension.

Explanation from Liviu Lalescu: He considers students (1), teachers (2) and rooms (3) as three dimensions. He would like to allocate activities
to teachers (4) (and these teachers should be the fourth dimension, different in concept from the second dimension, but similar to the third dimension).

110---------------------------------------------------------
From Liviu Lalescu:

Possibility (check box, default checked) of safe saving for File/Save and Save as. Maybe even for Timetable/Save data and timetable as.

Safe saving means: create a temporary file (make sure it is truncated), write the data to it, remove the original file and rename the temporary file to the original file.

111---------------------------------------------------------
From kdrosos (bug report on forum):

When working with dual screen, i.e. one extra screen is connected to the main computer, and when choosing the "A teacher's not available time" in the "Teachers" tab under the "Time" tab I had moved the pop up window in the second display.

I chose the teacher that I wanted to work with, and the new window that I specify the free time of the teacher was kept in the main display.

I finished my work, without re-moving all windows to the main display.

After a while, and when I had only one display, I tried to chose again the "A teacher's not available time" but the pop up window did not appeared. 

I connected the second display, chose again the  "A teacher's not available time" and the window appeared in the second display. 

The window in which the free time for a teacher is specified, which I had it in the main display, could be opened from choosing "ALL" (under the "Time" tab) and selecting the desired teacher. 

Thus, I imagine that there might be a bug in the handling of multiple screens. Maybe some preferences of the FET do not refresh when changing from dual screen to single screen display.

Liviu: Maybe a solution would be in restoring geometry, to test if the geometry would be on an invalid screen, and correct this (add a better test than "if(rect.isValid())" in function "restoreFETDialogGeometry(...)" in file centerwidgetonscreen.cpp).

112---------------------------------------------------------
From murad:

Create please, in QComboBox, auto-complete. With a large number of students and teachers it is very difficult to find the necessary students or teachers.

113---------------------------------------------------------
From kdrosos:

In FET there is "School's name", where the school' s name appears in the final .html files.

Maybe the text "School's name" can be parametric and thus to allow changing to "Department's name" or "Institution's name" etc.

This can also allow a "School's name field" as:

"Faculty of FET: Department of FET"

Liviu's note: I think that kdrosos refers to the Greek FET. In the English FET, the string is "Institution name".

114---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Implement constraint "Activity needs several rooms". (I am not 100% sure if it is enough to have a constraint that adds all selected rooms to a
single activity or if it is also needed to get only some rooms from (a larger) selection. So maybe all current "roomS" constraints "just" need an
option "number of used rooms from the selection". Currently it is always 1. It is needed to increase this number.)

115---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis:

I've seen that with html files you save a "xxx_data_and_timetable.fet" file.
In this xml file, you save
<Time_Constraints_List> element which contains many <ConstraintActivityPreferredStartingTime>.

These <ConstraintActivityPreferredStartingTime> elements are the generated timetable data (Activity_Id, Preferred_Day, Preferred_Hour).

So, you could add an option (for example autosave) saving each generated timetable with a unique name (for example name_year_month_day_hour_minute.fet)

This file could easily be loaded from a user just to be able to preview the generated timetable inside FET.

116---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis:

I would like to suggest an extra optional field to entities of FET program.

For example:
Teachers_List: name, [id]
Students_List: name, [id]
Subjects_List: name, [id]
Hours_List: Name, [id]
Days_List: Name, [id]

etc

When someone (like me) would like to import FET generated timetable data to another program,
there should be a more accurate way to associate an FET entity with my database records beside the name ...

If you add the id field (as an optional field) there should be no problem to users already using FET ...

117---------------------------------------------------------
From mma:

When adding a constraint, a useful feature would be to check if an identical constraint exists already, and thus not adding the constraint. I just tried to add the same constraint repeatedly (just kept pressing 'Add'), and it kept adding. When there are many constraints it can be difficult to keep track of them all.

Removing identical constraints reduces the clutter, and perhaps also speeds up the timetable generation?

118---------------------------------------------------------
From k1aas:

The new printing feature in 5.17.0 is very nice. Here are a few requests:

1. I can't find a selection to center the text in the boxes. It would be nice to have the text displayed as on the screen in the 'View students/teachers timetable'.

2. Schedules are much easier to read if they are colour-coded. How about a range of selectable colours per teacher or per subject, and having these colours then inserted in the print file? See my attachment.

Klaas

Answer by Volker Dirr, on the first point:

1. It's already included in the FET sources. Sadly it is a Qt bug.

119---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

For printing: It would nice if I can specify a custom css file for the style.

120---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

I find that while the fixed max-room contraint works well, I notice
something with my situation:

I have a teacher, teacher A, uses room A and teaches year 6 classes. Unlike
the more senior years, which are heavily blocked (lots of constraints with
activities with same start time), year 6 classes are pretty free floating.
Therefore, the year 6 classes always appear at the end of the order of
allocation.

I have included room A as one of the available rooms for the preferred room
list for another teacher. room A is almost always chosen. But the problem
is, teacher A and room A become very difficult toward the end of the
allocation. My timetable has about 1280 activities, and most of the year 6
classes are toward the end of the list. The generation always got stuck
toward the end, like 1250, with teacher A not being able to get the right
allocation.

I don't think this is a bug. This is easily solved by removing room A from
the preferredRooms list for that other teacher. But I just want to point
that out to you.

Answer Liviu Lalescu:

I could improve the algorithm to take care of situations like that. So
it will know that in room A there can be only one type of activity
(one type of look-ahead). Or that in room A there can be only teacher A
(another type of look-ahead). But there are contrary reasons:

1) Will make other timetables slower, by the additional look-ahead.

2) Each look-ahead is to be avoided, because of possible new critical
bugs and general slowdown. There are many look-aheads in FET, but they
are necessary and not very time-consuming.

3) The user is advised to help FET towards a solution. The user needs
to collaborate with FET. (Of course, not necessarily us. We want to
push its limits )

4) This is the most important reason. Say I solve this problem for a
single preferred room for teacher A. But this is not everything. A user
may invent two preferred rooms for teacher A and go into the same
situation, which now becomes more complicated to manage. I cannot
forecast all situations similar to yours.

Please tell me what you think, I might need to treat situation like
these - I am still thinking. Because I did many look-aheads which are
necessary.

121---------------------------------------------------------
From Andres Chandia:

He has a custom version, developed by Liviu Lalescu, which among other things
ensures that if more people open the same file (on a common server), only the first
one who opened it will be able to save it, and the others will see that their file
is read-only. He suggests to add this into official FET. But it might be tricky and
potential bugs might be critical.

122---------------------------------------------------------
From Robert Sutcliffe:

I need to print out all the rules and constraints to document the settings to supply to another system, and for peer review.
Staff availability, activities, room allocation rules, not-overlapping activity selections - everything!
Is there any way to do this?
---Answer Liviu Lalescu: no, there is no direct way in FET---
If not, another web report that details all these settings would be ideal.

123---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari:

I think the following feature would be nice: when I deactivate a year FET should deactivate some time constraints, e.g. min hours daily for a student set.
When I deactivate a year and I want to generate timetable, FET says that some groups don't have enough activities to respect this constraint.

And when I activate a whole year these constraints will again be activated.

Answer Liviu Lalescu:

The best would be other buttons: "Activate/deactivate all constraints for selected students year" and so on, for groups, teachers, etc.
Because the button says "Activate/deactivate all activities for selected students year" (it refers only to activities).

124---------------------------------------------------------
From rjmillett (on guest book):

there are many things i would like to have in FET:

1. when adding activities there should be a choice list similar to the new print option now included in 5.18

to add multiple classes (sub-groups) with the same choice of periods and teacher in one click i.e. all same

2. there should be a similar option in the preview to choose a class and teacher preview both at the same time so as to make changes without having to go back and every time i.e. side by side view at one time click in drop down box

3. to right click in the preview and change the position ot LT or PLT activities and not having to go back every time to time > all > search > etc to make changes

4. print preview choice button on main panel

5. un/lock buton on main panel

6. an import and export to EXCEL or txt other than CSV file

7. print option of teachers statistics on preview not from HTML

125---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr and Bobby Wise:

Bobby:

1) Good morning Liviu,

I have a situation where a school has 3 Grade 11 classes. 11a, 11b and 11c.

All the classes have compulsory subjects: 7 Periods of English, 7 periods of
second language (Afrikaans, French and German) and 8 periods of Mathematics.

Then each student must select 1 subject from each of the combinations below:


Combination 1 (6 Periods)

Accounting

Biology

History

Science


Combination 2 (6 Periods)

Art

Biology

Economics

Science


Combination 3 (6 Periods)

Art

Biology

Geography

Science


They also have 2 remaining subjects of 1 period each Life Skills and
Religious Instruction.


They have a 7 day cycle and 6 periods in each day.


Could you please recommend a manner in which I should split the classes in
order to make it possible for all the subject choices?


2) Thanks Liviu, Volker did help while you were away so I have sorted out the
problem.

What I also discussed with Volker was the possibility of a forth category
split. I know it will slow down the generation but for me that is not too
much of a problem. I suggested that perhaps in the Settings Parameters you
should put an option so the user can decide if they would like a 4th
category or not. Then obviously they should realize if they do select the
option that the generation process will be much slower.


Volker:

i had several talkings about the number of categories now again.

what do you think about the following suggestion:

add in the settings a integer "max number of subgroups for split year
automaticly".

by that idea it is much much flexible in the number of categories and
the number of splits per category.

so you can increase/change as long as you are not over that limit.

the current limit is 12*6*6=432.
i think setting the limit to 500 is ok.

we maybe also allow the user to increase that limit a bit more, but of
course only with the warning that it will be slow, produce large html
files and doesn't make sence if it is (much) greater then "real"
students per year.

126---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

1)
>> i just want to tell you this and ask you if we maybe need that also
>> in FET.
>>
>> i am currently coding on an other small tool.
>>
>> i saved settings with QSettings and i reload that settings on an other
>> function.
>> the strange thing was this:
>> i saved QSettings in the destructor ~xxx and reload it in an other
>> function/file again, but it look like Qsettings didn't save. the
>> strange things was that visible/correct as soon as i restarted that
>> reload function a bit later.
>> first of all i tried a QSettings.sync(), but it doesn't help.
>> i also tried with a global variable, but it also doen't help.
>> it look like my "update"-function already run before the destructor
>> source was done.
>>
>> now i removed the destructor ~xxx and replaced it by a protected: void
>> closeEvent(QCloseEvent *event);
>>
>> now all work fine. it look like the protected: void
>> closeEvent(QCloseEvent *event); wait long enough.
>>
>> so a destructor run simultaneously? so it is critical to use
>> destructors with qt, because they might be to slow? (for example if
>> you clear variables, reload variables or something like that.)

2)
i am not sure if it is a problem.

it was more an information to you.

i was able to proove that the destructor is doing his job, but to slow. the
destructor isn't ready if the function go back to the main programm.
if i add a delay in the main programm and check if the destructor have
done his work, then it is ok. but without that delay it isn't ok. so
destructor is slow (i guess it simply run in a second thread
simultaniously).

so the solution is:
a) adding a delay in main code. (but that is a bad style, especialy because
i don't know how long it must be)
b) coding it with an closeEvent. (like in qt book). i coded it with
closeEvent and it run very fine now.

i just didn't check if this is maybe also critical for fet. that is why i
just want to warn you, because it took several hours to find this bug.

Liviu:

I think I understood.

You are right: "The readSettings() and writeSettings() functions must
be called from the main window's constructor and close event handler as
follows:" (from http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/qsettings.html#details)

I wanted to say: "For efficiency, the changes may not be saved to
permanent storage immediately. (You can always call sync() to commit
your changes.)", but looks like you already checked that.

I think that if the control goes to user interface (like waiting for
user to click), the critical time is gone. So, I hope your situation
will not appear.

I really cannot do all perfectly with closeEvent. There are too many
files. Maybe in the future.

127---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Lift the limits for the generation algorithm, like MAX_TEACHERS and
MAX_TOTAL_SUBGROUPS.

128---------------------------------------------------------
From yasin dehghan:

1- show warning message when enter 2 same activity
2- add exam date with subject in subject form
3- add list for teacher to show allow subject for each teacher in techer form

Liviu Lalescu:

I will add your suggestions in the TODO, but please explain to us more
detailed:

1 - When the user adds two same SPLIT activities?
2 - I do not understand.
3 - I think you mean each teacher has his own subjects list?

yasin dehghan:

1- no, don't split. when the user add 2 same activity show warning msg and
don't save 2nd activity

2- user able to add date of exam for each subject and print exam date with
subject name, just it, no exam planing and etc

3- yes, user able select list of allow subject for teacher, when add
activity, only allow subject show for teacher or show warning msg if select
don't allow subject

and other sugestion

4- user able enter min and max hour of each teacher per week and show this
min and max hour in teacher statiscal foe compare

129---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

do following speed check:

check all connections of radio buttons.
check if they use singnal toggled.

if you can see 2 times the same slot, then it is bad to use toggled.
example:
this is bad:
connect(radioButton1, SIGNAL(toggled(bool)), this, SLOT(something(bool)));
connect(radioButton2, SIGNAL(toggled(bool)), this, SLOT(something(bool)));

this is ok:
connect(radioButton1, SIGNAL(toggled(bool)), this, SLOT(something1(bool)));
connect(radioButton2, SIGNAL(toggled(bool)), this, SLOT(something2(bool)));

if you can find a bad version, then it should be converted into this:
connect(radioButton1, SIGNAL(clicked(bool)), this, SLOT(something(bool)));
connect(radioButton2, SIGNAL(clicked(bool)), this, SLOT(something(bool)));

reason:
if you click a button in bad example, then something is called twice!
(once, because one RB is checked and a second time, because the other RB
is unchecked).
if you use click, then something is called only once.

130---------------------------------------------------------
From Daniel (on forum, see http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=1224):

Allow activities to span over breaks. (For the moment, a solution is to split activities
and add constraints two (or three) activities grouped. Another solution is to not
consider explicitly the breaks in the timetable, but this way the constraints of
type max hours continuously may not work as needed.)

131---------------------------------------------------------
From daviodan:

After clicking 'Add' in the add activity dialog, he suggests that the students list
widget should be cleared, because usually the user adds activities for a specific
teacher (with all his students), then goes to another teacher.

132---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

Display the total number of hours of an activity: when I divide an activity
I would see the total of durations of all defined subactivities.
This total must be updated changing the number/duration of subactivities.

A good place for this changing label could be near number of sub in
group *divide*:

In my mind (italian one) I know that a teacher have 6 hours of a subject,
only then I think about how divide them.
See the total expedite and reduce input errors.

---

comment by Liviu Lalescu:

I added this in the TODO. But there is so little space in the dialog there.

---

comment by Massimo Mancini:

I think the space is pretty enough. There are two suitable places:

1. at the side of the field *divide* (too long, what is the max number of
subactivities? 9, 99, 999?)

2. below the check *consecutive*

the format of the label can be as little as T:xxx (5 chars).

Just this afternoon I spent 2 hours correcting mistakes that I would have
avoided if such counter was in place. Consider the input of a sequence of activities with
similar number of subactivities  but different duration of some sub, consider also that the
tab widget remember the past durations when you reduce and then re
increases the number of subs... so. it's easy (too easy) to insert a wrong total
duration, for a real check you must tab all the subs and add: very boring.

133---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

First, consider this situation...
1. I'm working on teachers not avalaible (TNA) constraint
2. I filter on MANC, fet show a blank windows: the constraint on MANC not
exist.
3. Good. I add it but the dialog not inherit MANC as selected teacher :-(
why? In general the dialog add/modify is not linked with existing constraints. Fet
prevents, of course,  multiple TNA about the same teacher, but I ask you, is it
possible to link the dialog with existing data?  in this manner the
add/modify functions would be the same. With the wheel of the mouse I can
scroll the list of teachers and quick view/modify the existing constraint!

Second, the comment area. I use it to note some info about the
contents of fet file. I would like to access the comment
space more quickly. My suggestion is "reduce the RECENT button and put near
a COMMENT button"

NEW	OPEN
RECENT	COMMENT
SAVE	AS

good! isn'it? ;-)

The best would be if you could show the first line of the comments along with
the file name in the recents list... so I would avoid to remember...

134---------------------------------------------------------
From Pietro (on forum):

I think would be nice we could enable/disable constraints even in the filtered masks
(ex: "constraints teacher not available times" mask), and not only in the "all time
constraints" mask. The "comments" button would be very useful too.

135---------------------------------------------------------
From Pietro (on forum):

I would suggest one more feature:
it would be very useful to have shortcuts with "ALT or CTRL + key" for the buttons in the various masks all over the FET.
So we could for example enable, disable or delete the various constraints without have to use the mouse, only the keyboard.

136---------------------------------------------------------
From arivasm (on forum):

I think it would be good if the activities dialog would be actualized every
time you enter a new one. That could allow to verify the last entered, and
prevent mistakes, without the need to close the new activity dialog.

137---------------------------------------------------------
From Pietro (on forum):

I think the "pseudo activities" shouldn't be shown in the teacher statistics, or
should be shown in a separate column. Infact, with actual situation the user can
confuse real activity with pseudo one and don't know the real situation.

138---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

If you close and reopen FET, the central tab widget remain on the tab it
was when you terminated the program.
When FET start, the focus should be always on the File tab.

139---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

Please consider to implement a shortcut (Alt+C ?) to popup the comment area...

140---------------------------------------------------------
From arivasm (on forum):

When you set the constraints of the times in which the teachers are not available,
maybe you don't know how many teachers wil be finally available for each time slot
(unless you count them manually). So, my suggestion is to include a new statistic
to show that information, in order to correct impossible constraints before start
the timetable generation. Of course, an authomatic detection (less teachers
available than needed) would be better!.

Liviu Lalescu: Sorry, but I do not understand. I already do a check on the number
of activities for each teacher, versus his not available times.

Volker Dirr: Your suggestion isn't that easy as you might think now. It's easy if
teacher/students have full timetables (all timeslots are used), but it's complicated
if the tables are not full.

Liviu already include common checks like that. The checks also need to care about
timetables that are not full (not all timeslots are used). Maybe the checks can be
improved if the timetables are full, but that mean: a) you must code a check that
check if the timetables are full. b) it will help only a few datasets, because most
datasets (compare examples) don't have full timetables.

arivasm: Excuse me if my previous post wasn't clear!

Of course, Volker is right: it will be a weak information know how many teachers are
available for each time slot if the timetable isn't full. Furthermore, the fact to
have for each of all time slots more teachers than groups don't will guarantee that
the whole problem will be solvable. But if the timetable is full, and this condition
fails at some time slot, it will be certain that the problem will be impossible to solve.

The idea arose when I was entering the preferences of my workmates and I suspected that
too many of them were requesting be free at some times, i.e. last class of friday
(of course!). Then I missed to have a simple account as an alternative in order to avoid
passing sheet after sheet, looking for the petition and count them.

141---------------------------------------------------------
From AZ (on forum):

I would appreciate a statistical feature that tells the user which constraint(s) is (are)
causing the greatest number of rejects; if a user could see, during computation, a counter
that tells him the top 10 blocking constraints, maybe the debugging could be easier.
I don't know if it's possible, though.

Liviu Lalescu: Unfortunately, it is probably impossible or it would give wrong results.
But someone should study this suggestion, so I'm adding it in the TODO.

142---------------------------------------------------------
From Etlau (on forum):

Maximum delta in time for day per week per group. For example 7-7-3-4-5 is unacceptable,
better will be 5-5-5-5-6. And same for teacher. Yes, you can set max and min activities
per day, but number need to calculate manualy for every class and teacher, not really
comfortable.

143---------------------------------------------------------
From Etlau (on forum):

Will be nice to click-and-drop and lock activities in shedule directly.

144---------------------------------------------------------
From Etlau (on forum):

Add "start student day" for activity, like "end student day"

Liviu Lalescu: I'll add this in the TODO. But if students begin at first hour,
add preferred times for the activities in the first hours.

145---------------------------------------------------------
From Pietro (on forum):

Do you think it is possible to have a "MIN hours daily with activity tag" constraint?

It would be very useful for me because I have pseudo activities and I want to avoid to
have teachers with only one real hour per day followed or preceeded by one pseudo-activity.

146---------------------------------------------------------
From Frans (on forum):

I just wonder how the following can be done.

Let say I set a timetable for a specific term with constraints. The timetable is accepted by everyone and published.

What I do now for the next term is to export the information, I am interested in the activities, as csv files. These files are send to the people in charge to make changes for the second term for example. What I want to do now is to import the activity files using Fet to set the timetable for the specific term.

I do have a problem now. If I import the activities then I must add the constraints from scratch, hundreds of them.

If there are only one or two constraints and a few changes to the activities that is ot a problem.
Is there not a way that the existing constraints can be inported withou entering them again.  I know that I can save the timetable with data, including constraints, but this is of no help to me.

Is there a solution?

147---------------------------------------------------------
From y (on forum):

y: Teacher S has to leave early either on Thursday or Friday. This means that in one out of these two days he has to finish at the 4th hour the latest. How can I do that?

Liviu: Say slots are Thu 5,6,7 and Fri 5,6,7. Add occupy max 1 slot from selection for each pair, starting with selection Thu 5 + Fri 5, then Thu 5 + Fri 6, ..., Thu 7 + Fri 7 (3x3=9 constraints). Should work, right? Because you cannot have valid any pair of hours from different days.

y: Yes, I think it should work. I'll try this!

Thanks a lot!

Maybe, in a future version of FET, you could add an extension of the constraint "a teacher works in a hour interval max days per week", to allow to pick which days we want to apply this constraint, and not necessarily the whole week. It could be renamed to "a teacher works in a hour interval, max days from a days set" or something similar. Do you think something like this is feasible?

148---------------------------------------------------------
From Christian Kemmer (on forum):

For the next timetable at our school, I need the following:

Hours 5 and 6 at one day have the same activity.

So I could decide by myself to add an activity 2+1+1 and give the subactivity with "2" hours a special activity-tag "2h" or something like that. I can do this for many activities and then only allow activities with tag "2h" to be placed in hour 5.
But if I do this, I have to decide, which acitivity should be placed there. If I choose too much activities, there will also be activities lasting two hours during other times of the day, which is not wanted in many cases.

I could also use constraint "consecutive if same day", but then an activity 1+1+1+1 may become 2+2. But I only want 2+1+1 or 1+1+1+1 for that kind of activities. I am also not sure, how to ensure that "consecutive if same day" is only used for hours 5 and 6.

So, what would be the best solution to let FET decide which activities to use, so that for every student and every teacher for every day I have the following:
If the student / the teachers has an activity in hour 5, he also has this activity in hour 6. Each activity may only have one two hour lesson (like 2, 2+1, 2+1+1, 2+1+1+1), but no activity is allowed to have more than one two hour lesson (like 2+2, 2+2+1).

I hope that I have explained it clearly.

Thanks for your help.

...

The reason is the following: Between 1st and 2nd hour there is a small break for students and teachers to change rooms. Between 3rd and 4th hour, there is also this small break. Between 5th and 6th hour, there is no break. So the teacher and the students must stay in the room without any break.

So I want to avoid those two hour lessons for all 1+1+1+1 and 1+1+1 and 1+1 activities if possible, but during 5th and 6th hour, I need them.

Liviu Lalescu: I think the best is a new constraint, students/teachers max building changes in a time interval, and each room is in a different building in your case.

149---------------------------------------------------------
From uni_instructor (on forum):

Finding a good optimized timetable means playing around with the parameters and constraints.

In my opinion an UNDO (button) would be a helpful feature, since I could add / or modify some constraints and test the feasibility of the new timetable. Otherwise I can undo my last modifications and retry the timetable generation with other settings.
I conceive an UNDO function as it can be seen e.g. in MS-office showing a history of my last n modifications, where n ist the number of undoable steps.
The "history" of modification-steps would give me a good hint on what steps I could try otherwise.

150---------------------------------------------------------
From Nemo (on forum):

Issue is I am always having to make changes as teachers leave, swap etc. I of course have the timetable 'fixed' but it is quite laborious to make changes to rooms etc.

What it really needs now is a front end any one can use for room changes/teacher changes for a fixed timetable. I have plenty of programming experience (from a  long time ago though) so using FET no issue for me. But even the ICT teachers can't understand it easily.

The other major issues we face is cover - would be fantastic to have a cover generator. That takes up a lot of time practically as teachers are off sick and the time taken to check their timetable and find others free is a job that would be nice at a click of a button. I know these are "nice to haves" but I bet a lot of FET users have the same practical issues day to day.

151---------------------------------------------------------
From Anton Anthofer:

- modify the IDs of (sub)activities.
- possibility to remove subactivities.
- multicore generation for multiple timetables generation.

152---------------------------------------------------------
From yasin dehghan:

can you add excel export to software
this is so useful for view and share

153---------------------------------------------------------
From Leandro Bueno:

I have another question to you. If you open the file, you may have seen that the schedule of our school has 3 turns (morning, afternoon and evening),
but, the activity hours are of one clock hour for the evening and 50 minutes (clock) for the morning and afternoon turns. I can generate the timetable,
but the statistics only considers FET hours, but the FET hour to clock hour relationship is not defined. This relationship would help generate the work
hours of the teachers (in clock hours). Today, I take the statistics and make a spreadsheet applying the relationship between FET hours and clock hours.

I think that something like a relationship between FET and clock hours should be interesting to add in future versions, so the teachers statistics could
be shown in terms of number of activities (as it is today) and clock hours in a quick way, right from the FET interface.

154---------------------------------------------------------
From Leandro Bueno:

Always (or never) use span in the HTML timetables if an activity has
duration larger than 1.

155---------------------------------------------------------
From Leandro Bueno:

Another suggestion for a future release is the option to only
"print" to HTML the hours that the students have. In my case, I have
students divided in turns (morning, afternoon and evening) and each
turn only have activities in that specific turn. When I generate the
tables, the morning students' table have the afternoon and evening
hours as not available (there are restrictions for this in the .fet
file). The same occurs in the afternoon and evening students. I
suggest that these not available hours of the students don't end up
in the final HTML table.

Amendment by Volker Dirr:

Should be generalised from "hours" to "hours or days or both".

156---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

It would be cool if there could be an interactive way to do the timetable
generation. For example, in the middle of the generation, I can remove
some constraints on the fly, un-allocate allocated activities, move
activities in different order, ... etc. The work flow might be something
like this:

- hit the pause button
- select activities to be free
- inactivate any constraints
- move some activities to the front
- hit the re-start button

I suppose it will only benefit some crazy hard timetable like my school.
Even that, the timetable is probably plain impossible, but such interactive
approach would make it easier to remove key constraints that makes things
difficult.

157---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

Is it possible that FET could be
customized to do the following:

- Have most of the activities with preferred time and space initially
- but once being placed, it will be treated as if the time and space
allocated was not "preferred" so will be free to float

I am hoping that this way, I can obtain better solution by using a
completed version, unlock some year, then let the program to run again.

Liviu: I did such a custom version for Yush, but it turns out not to work
as needed, because of broken soft constraints.

158---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

It would be great if the list of "all time constraints" could be a
multiple select box. Currently, the way I unlock allocated time is by going
to the "all time constraints" list, filter out the years that I want to
open, then remove them one at a time. Actually, before that, I go to the
student view of the generated timetable, select all, then click unlock time.

It would be nice if I can just do multiple selection and click the "remove"
or deactivate button just once.

159---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

FET -> Data -> Time Constraints -> Activities -> A set of subactivities
have a set of preferred starting times / time slots.
Need also the value to select all activities with the same duration.
(because activities with duration 2 should start only in 1., 3. and 5. hour).
With this constraint a user would need only to set a single constraint instead
of adding a lot of constraints or activity tags.

160---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

get rid of some "unneeded" tags in the xml file.
"unneeded" means: they contain redundant data. this data can be used to
assert the dataset, but is unneeded.
for example:
<Number> in hours list, days list, ...

161---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

if fet can't generate the data ("Cannot generate - please modify your
data"), then the "view difficult activities" pushbutton is disabled. So a
user can't search the bug. so a) enable the pushbutton or (maybe even
better (but only if you use only 100% constraints?)), display the
difficult activities in that textedit with the "Cannot generate - please
modify your data" string.

162---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

generation_pre request: warn if activities has 100% same starting time and
100% preferred room in the same room.

163---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

do an other check in generation_pre.cpp:
if an activity has only 100% one room possible (by one or more
constraints), then sum all hours of the same room and check if (number of
available time slots for room) >= (number of 100% needed slots for this
room by activities).

164---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

name of constraints isn't always the same:
fet has for example: "teacher not available times" constraint.
but it also has :"A set of activities has preferred times"
But are these times preferred? The opposite times are not available.
So this constraint should be called "A set of activities has not
allowed/available times".

maybe even the "activity prefferd time" is also bad, because it is not
only preffered. that is a 100% constraint. even the fet interface call it
"locked". So this constraint should be "An activity has a locked time".

so we get rid of all "preferred" stuff by that. (using instead only
"locked" or "not available").

165---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

if a constraint doesn't refer to an activity, then generating shouldn't
refuse generating. that constraint should be just skipped. Like inactive
things are skipped. it can warn, but not refuse generating.

(this is highly useful, because someone hunt bugs in his dataset, he can
just delete for example some years; just to check if this smaller stuff is
solveable, but some constraints might now refer to no activity anymore,
because the activities are deleted.)

166---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

I made a custom version for myself with a "remove all" button
in the "all constraints" dialog box. I found it necessary for me when I
want to unlock the time constraint for a whole year after a timetable is
generated. The "remove all" button in combination with the filter function
make it very easy to remove a large set of constraints. I was trying to
change the selection box to a multi-select and have a "remove all selected"
button, but I couldn't figure out how to do that easily (hard to manage the
index of array after each removal), so I did the simple remove all instead.
It worked great for me. So, maybe you can consider something similar for
your official release.

167---------------------------------------------------------
From karim (forum personal message to Liviu Lalescu):

max gaps (hours) between a set of activities

Within :
time constraints -->activities
 -min gaps (hours) between a set of activities
+max gaps (hours) between a set of activities

168---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

I would suggest a new simple constraint for teacher:
In Italy, the work contract for a teacher is often tethered to a specific number of workdays so, to achieve the desired result, is necessary to insert two constraint:
"Max days per week for a teacher" and "Min days per week for a teacher" that have to set the same value.
Why not add a "Number of workdays per week for a teacher"?
In the interface I am glad to see a button that add all teacher and set every single-type constraint to the same value so to be individually modified later.

169-------------------------DONE----------------------------
DONE ---> From agemagician (on forum):

I have small problem now.

Each student group contains about 250 students so if we having two consecutive lectures it's very hard to move 250 student from one room to another.

Is there any constrain to make consecutive activity tag for any student set should be placed in the same room ?


My current solution :-
1- generate the schedule and look the time.
2- check every and each consecutive lectures for each students set and make a new constrain for those from "A set of activities occupies max different room" and set to to "1".


I can't mark all subjects for each student set to be placed in 1 room because we have limited lectures because after many hours the program only placed tiny fraction of the activities. I don't need student group to study all their subjects in a fixed room.

So is there any automated solution ?

Liviu: So, a constraint: a set of activities, if consecutive, get same room. Maybe, ConstraintActivitiesSameRoomIfConsecutive? <--- DONE

170---------------------------------------------------------
From agemagician (on forum):

1- Print the name of the year, group and class under the institute name.
2- Print the schedule from right to left rather than left to right "very useful for Arabic countries like our academy". - Qt bug (Liviu)
3- Make a bold line between each day in the printing and light line between periods.
4- Make a bold line between groups in the printing.
5- Change the font in the printing.
6- Export the schedule to excel.

171---------------------------------------------------------
From Vlăduţ Frăţiman (personal email to Liviu Lalescu):

He suggests to drop activities ids and use instead the teacher, students and subject, because ids might puzzle the new user.

Also, he suggests to add icons to the buttons.

172---------------------------------------------------------
From vlad2005 (on forum):

For gaps constraints (and others, maybe) specify the interval for which the constraint should action. Useful for instance
if the user wants teachers to have zero gaps in the morning and in the afternoon, but can have gaps in between these two
periods.

173---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

I don't know if comments constraint is a widely spread practice but when I add or modify a constraint I often use these, so add a "comments" button in these dialogs it would be greatly appreciated. Also ad enable/disable constraint button would be useful.
I often use comments to group same constraints but alphabetic sort and group by constraint-type, comments and insert order I think would be useful; could you add a preference dialog for these and others future settings?

174---------------------------------------------------------
From liquid (on forum):

I'd suggest to move print command from Timetable menu to File menu. IMHO, It's more common to have print command there than anywhere else. It may be worth to implement inside Print command some kind of radio button to choose what to print. Overall, it's good to have Print command anyway.

175---------------------------------------------------------
From mouiata (on forum) (regarding the custom Algeria version)

I suggest that the constraint is added under distinguishes between unloading the morning or evening, especially for a professor in the Algerian version of the program
The program is currently the constraint
a teacher works in an hourly interval max days per week
This is what allows unloading of several periods of morning and evening for the professor without distinguishing between the morning and evening.
In Algeria, a lot of professors in favor of unloading the evening than the morning
I propose to add the the constraint
The least possible number of evening periods that can be discharged to Professor
The least possible number of mornings that can be discharged to Professor

Liviu: Do you mean maximum number, not "least"?

mouiata: I mean, the minimum number if possible
If it is not possible The maximum number

176---------------------------------------------------------
From clouds (on forum):

Topic: teachers for hour

What do you think about a function that shows for each hour of the day how many teachers can be assigned at every hour (under the constraints set).
In this way it's possible to see what are the most problematic hours

177---------------------------------------------------------
From MarioMic (on forum):

When I create multiple timetables with fet, to eliminate the bad results (with a high number of conflicts), I have to manually select and
remove the folders of the bad timetables in the output path. This is especially annoying if I have many timetables since the names of the
folders do not show the level of conflict (it also would be useful to have this, too), and moreover occupy disk space unnecessarily.

It would be useful (for the gui and the command line version) to have an option to save only timetables below a configurable threshold of
maximum level of conflict.

Liviu Lalescu: since version 5.20.2 we added a detailed report for multiple generation of timetables.

178---------------------------------------------------------
From Silver (on forum):

I suggest you add new window (interface or small editor) for css .
for hide and view rooms and subject in "teachers_time_horizontal.html" and other timetables.

179---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis (on forum):

Min hours per day, max hours per day:

I use these constraints but there is a problem.
If I set
min_hours = 3 and
max hours = 5
and a teacher should work 21 hours per week we could have combination: 5 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 3
but a better one should be: 5 + 5 + 4 + 4 + 3

So, I recommend a new constraint like "frequency of max hours per day"
For my example this new parameter would be 2 (5+5)

180---------------------------------------------------------
From Pietro (on forum):

I would like to suggest some improvements for the html timetables files.
In detail, DONE since FET 5.21.0---> in "teachers_time_horizontal" it would be very nice if the teacher names was
repeated to the right side of the plan <---DONE
and if the border between different days was thicker.

181------DONE since FET-5.21.0 - 3 December 2013------------
From Bobby Wise:

DONE --> The suggestion/requirement that I would have is perhaps a list to be
printed out directly from FET which lists the Activities.

I know it can be exported into a CSV file and that is great, but I suggest a
friendlier report similar to the time tables that can be printed directly
out of FET.

Something along these lines:

Teacher Name		Subject Description		Student Group		Periods		Total Periods
Amakutuwa			BIS						6a					1
											6b					1
											6c					1
											6d					1			4

					Social Studies			5b					5			5

					RME						5a					1
											5b					1
											5c					1
											5d					1			4
											6a					1
											6b					1
											6c					1
											6d					1			4

					Agriculture				5d					3			3

					Arts					5a					2
											5d					2			4
											6c					2
											6d					2			4
											7c					2
											7d					2			4
	
Total		32

Nangombe			English					5a					6
											5b					6
											5c					6
											5d					6			24

					Arts					5b					2			2
											6a					2
											6b					2			4
											7a					2
											7b					2			4
	
Total		34

<-- DONE

182---------------------------------------------------------
From Bobby Wise (on forum):

I think it would be a good idea if the printing of All Activities could be in consecutive order from the lowest grade to the highest, or in alphabetical order. Similar to the Activity Planning.

I think that the print order now is in Activity sequence.

183---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis (on forum):

The Min days between activities constraint has a weight percentage which I set to 95%.

I think that there should be another weight percentage for the option "if activities in same day, force activities consecutive" (when checked) because you handle it as a 100%.

If this is possible, then the word force should be replaced by something else.

184---------------------------------------------------------
From Tonny Chan:

Please add a multiple select and then add to FET, then I need not to click the students one by one to a course.

185---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

There should be comment to the teachers, rooms, students and activities.
(Maybe even instead of using the activity constraints). These comments
should be visible (or accessible by a pushbutton) in the constraints
dialogs.

186---------------------------------------------------------
From plaldw (on forum):

Max building changes in a time interval.

187---------------------------------------------------------
From llbuenoo (on forum):

I would like to generate a report that show the teachers and theirs restrictions (mainly the "Teachers not available times") and Activities related to the years (with its Groups and subgroups), in a way that I can better manage the distribution of the teachers activities according to their availability.

I have been making this by hand, but it generates a lot of work on each manual iteration on the timetable. As the data is stored on the FET database, it could be generated directly by the program.

I think in a pair of tables per year, one with the teachers and their activities in that year and another with the "teachers not available time" for that year.

With this table it could be simpler to redistribute Activities or teachers.

188---------------------------------------------------------
From Frans (on forum):

In the data and timetable fet file the sizes for subjects are indicated. Is it not possible when export to csv file to also export the group and/or subject sizes.

In some institutions the group and subject size are important in calculating workloads and ftes for lecturers.

The groups with the respective sizes are already exported but this is not always the same for all subjects as the number of students can be changed on the add activities page and this is not exported.

189--------------------------DONE---------------------------
DONE --> From Yush Yuen:

I am finally getting some solution for my timetable. And I must thank you
for making the custom version for me. Without it, it wouldn't have been
possible. So, I think there is great value in being able to place certain
activities with finer control.

I was thinking about the customization you did for me and I realized that
you may want to do it in another way, not binding it to set of activities
occupy max time slot, but as a standalone constraint.

What I mean is, you can add another constraint, call it something like
"activities placed together". It will group the activities together, and
place it in the earliest order out of the group. This way, you don't change
the ordering logic for the activities occupy max timeslots constraint. It
also provide a way for user to customize the placing order with great
flexibility.

(He talks about his particular case, in which his constraints activities
occupy max time slots from selection force logically these activities
to be placed in adjacent positions in the initial order).

---

Liviu: I will add this in the TODO, right now. It is a good suggestion.

The problems:

- For same starting time / two activities grouped/consecutive
  constraints I already take care of this. So it is not needed in this
  case, but needed in the case of occupy max constraints. It is not
  uniform treatment.

- Few users might understand what is about it (advanced users, like
  you). Maybe some will use it incorrectly.

Do you think we should also take care of customizing the order as with
##order## or how was it we did it?

---

Yush: I think it can replace the ##order## customization as it is actually easier
to use and more flexible. All I need to do is the generate once, see the
order, then pick the activities at which I want to "insert" the custom
order.

The activities that I group together does not even need to have anything to
do with each other. Say I have an activity that was originally placed
toward to end of the order, but always cause trouble in the end, I can
lookup the original order, find an activity that is placed earlier, apply
this new constraint to force these activities to be placed together. Now,
the activity causing trouble will be placed earlier.

I sounds like a very good way to allow for custom ordering.

---

Liviu: also make a way to inform the user of the groups of activities (either
output nIncompatible for each activity, or output a line after the same group).

I would prefer to add an advanced feature, not a constraint. Locked by
default. What name to give it? Group activities in initial order? <-- DONE

190---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

most users use the split year automaticly feature only.
some need more categories, but that will produce to many subgroups.

so how about this feature:
a user can disable the "year-group-subgroup" fet and enable only a
"year-group" one.
so he can't modify, add, delete, ... subgroups anymore. subgroups will be
only used and gererated automaticly in the pregeneration and generation
part.

split year automaticly will look the same, but it won't produce subgroups.
instead of this it still store an integer number with the catagory number
to each group.

now only one new basic time constraint is needed:
(i will explain in 2 steps, but i think it can be imporved by storing that
value.)

if you place an activity into a timeslot, then:
1. step: it need to check if there is already an activity of the same year
stored.
no: -> place activity
yes: -> 2. step

2. step: check if that activities (same year) (in fact it need to check
only the first one, because others are already the same) have the same
category.
no: -> impossible to place activity
yes: -> place activity


i am not 100% sure, but i think with this kind of timetabling we can save
space and maybe also improve speed.

the problem is:
how to implement both features ("year-group-subgroup" fet and enable only
a "year-group" one.) at the same time without confusing a user?

191---------------------------------------------------------
From Boubker (on forum):

Je tente de générer un emploi  du temps pour mon collège  et je  bute sur un petit problème est le suivant :
Pour un enseignant  donné  « T »  j’ai affecté des classes répartis sur 3 niveaux (N1, N2 et N3) et je désire que cet enseignant  se voie attribuer  des classes de deux niveaux max par jour :
C’est-à-dire que  cet enseignant  aura dans un jour de travail des classes des niveaux (N1 et N2) ou bien (N1 et N3)  ou bien (N2 et  N3).
Es ce que vous pouvez me dire comment faire ?

192---------------------------------------------------------
From mbarsan (on forum):

We have a school with 8 periods per day, with a short break every 2 hours. 
There are 3 buildings.
Teacher may change building during those short breaks.
So we  haven't to say to FET any duration to change buildings. This may be done at beginning of hours nn. 3, 5 and 7.
If a teacher works in a building at first and second periods, he may change building and work at third period.

We may chose to insert breaks times (students and teachers not available) between periods 2 and 3, 4 and 5, 6 and 7 to allow building change in a period. But now we can handle 3 hours lessons only with the constraint "two activities are grouped", using the same teacher and same class with (sub)activities of 1 and 2 hours. We have also problems with subactivities with duration 2 that FET may not put with a break inside (so we have to use the same trick as above).

Do you think that we may define a grid of hours to allow building changes only at specific periods?

193---------------------------------------------------------
From _indianajones (on forum):

I think it would be useful, in case of difficult generation, to save the incomplete timetable in a .fet file without stopping the process,
so I could convert this file with "Excel FET file import 2010 Marco Albano ver 2.0" and try to solve it manually.

---

Liviu Lalescu: Generate, stop, advanced lock -> lock all activities of current timetable -> save file.

---

_indianajones: ...but in this way the generation is definitively stopped.... am I wrong?

After hours of elaboration I wish to save the best timetable found and let FET goes ahead...
is it possible?

---

Liviu Lalescu: Oh, sorry, I did not see that you wanted generation to continue.

I'll add your suggestion in the TODO, but it is not very nice, because I prefer FET to save .fet timetable files only when they are complete.

Meanwhile, you can do this, for only one interruption (if you have a multiple core computer): start two generations on the same timetable, with the same FET version, with the same initial random seed state, then interrupt one of them after a few hours, and leave the other one running.

194---------------------------------------------------------
(see also entry #26)
From russell (on forum):

I hope FET could plan courses soon.

195---------------------------------------------------------
From russell (on forum):

I have a teacher come to school in Monday and Wednesday OR in Tuesday and Friday. How to implement this constraint in FET? (I have some other constraint related to that teacher and his activities)

---

Liviu Lalescu:

It would be easy to make a change in the code for this. But I don't know how to make it a general constraint with FET-style-name.

These tricks might work:

- Teacher not available on Thursday;

- Max days per week for this teacher = 4;

- Add two dummy activities for this teacher, duration = number of hours per day. Not allowed on Thursday (not really needed, because the teacher is not available). Then min+max 3 days between them;

I hope I got all the details. Please correct me if I am wrong.

---

russell:

Thanks for your reply.

Can you please explain to me about "min+max 3"?  Dose it mean exactly 3 days distance (Tuesday to Friday)?

Dose your solution work for days with different hours (Monday has 8 hours and others 6)?

---

Liviu Lalescu:

The constraint min, then max days between activities.

If the teacher cannot have more than 6 working hours on Monday, use a constraint activities occupy max time slots from selection for his activities, so he has no more than 6 working hours on Monday (less work for you).

If he can have 7 or 8 real working hours on Monday, a lot of work for you: constrain each pair dummy - real activity pair for this teacher to not be on the same day (min 1 days between activities).

Please think of other solutions, if you want.

---

russell:

Most of the “select a day’s group from a set of the day’s group for a teacher” constraints can implement by other FET constraints. But if FET has a specific constraint for that it would be better.

---

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe better "Teacher works in a days group from a set of days groups".

196---------------------------------------------------------
From russell:

Maybe adding a Pause/Resume to "Generate new timetable" window (changing Start button after press to Pause).

197---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis (on forum):

If I set
min_hours = 3 and
max hours = 5
and a teacher should work 21 hours per week we could have combination: 5 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 3
but a better one should be: 5 + 5 + 4 + 4 + 3

So, I recommend a new constraint like "frequency of max hours per day"
For my example this new parameter would be 2 (5+5)

---

Liviu:

I am thinking of making it a separate constraint. And put it before max hours daily in the menu, because it might be better than the old existing constraint. Only 100% weight percentage allowed. How to name it? "Teacher(s)/Students (set) max hours daily max occurences per week"?

---

Liviu:

I thought about this. I looked over the present code (official FET-5.23.3, src/engine/generate.cpp).

1) The changes are very difficult in generate.cpp. There are many possibilities to consider, and maybe a perfect treatment is impossible.

See for instance generate.cpp, lines 7543-7572. These are for a unique limit per day. But if you want two possible limits (5 two times per week, the rest maximum 4), the things become much more difficult.

(I care in these lines above about the gaps.)

2) The changes are critical in generate.cpp. New timetables might become impossible.

Anyway, I'll keep this suggestion in my mind. But for now I do not have the courage/possibility to do it.

I hope that by using some tricks you can overcome the problems.

See also fet-v.v.v/doc/algorithm/improve-todo-item-197.txt.

198---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

new useful constraint:
time constraints -> teachers -> max total sum of teachers gaps per week

199---------------------------------------------------------
From liquid (on forum):

I think it would be useful to introduce aliases for years, groups and subgroups. Their names sound kind of technical, particularly when one lets FET automatic year divide. It's OK when you work with schedule but it would be more readable when aliases were shown (of course if present) on the timetable.

Volker:

Maybe i missunderstood, but it sound to me like you are talking about the names that are generated automatilcy. You can simply rename them (by "modify") if you want (no problems with years and groups. be carefull with subgroups, because you must do it several times!)

liquid:

I exactly thought about what Volker had understood. E.g. if you had groups and subgroups automatically generated the name for resulting subgroup would come from names of groups and a year. It would be desirably sometimes to give the generated subgroup a more descriptive name. As the example:
year - 1
group division: 1. by a and b 2. by i1 and i2 (i for computer science)
you will get the following groups: 1 a, 1 b, 1 i1, 1 i2
and subgroups: 1 a i1, 1 a i2, 1 b i1, 1 b i2
For generation purposes it's OK thanks short names but if you wanted to make a timetable for all the students and teachers they would like maybe 1a comp.sci. group 1. That's what I think about.

Liviu:

But why not simply divide by a,b then comp.sci. group 1,comp.sci group 2?

liquid:

...just for simplicity's sake. Aliases almost always serve as more descriptive names. If I tried to give more descriptive names for groups they might not fit into boxes at activity setting window or elsewhere. Particularly when group division is not trivial. Short names are good while designing a schedule.

Volker:

I can recommend using short names. I use everywhere shortcuts (subjects has only 1-2 characters. Teacher names 3 chacaters. Students only around 1 to 4 characters.)
Of course new students "wonder" the first day about that shortcuts, but they are clever enough to understand it very fast.

liquid:

Oh, maybe that's the right way. I was afraid that schedule could be misunderstood with many short and cryptic names but your experience tells the opposite. OK then, thanks for suggestions.

---

liquid suggests also aliases for rooms.

200---------------------------------------------------------
(Added on 2014-10-12)
From fromturkey (on forum):

I think the program should be able to use multiple CPUs/cores. Especially when trying to generate difficult timetables it takes a lot of time processing. If the program could use multiple CPUs, it would take much more shorter.
Is it possible with the current algorithm?

Liviu:

Unfortunately, I cannot think of how to adapt the FET algorithm to multiple cores.

201-------------------------DONE----------------------------
From liquid (on forum):

DONE since FET-5.24.0 on 23 November 2014, constraints preferred/home rooms allow a single room -->

Generally, constraints have the two forms:
item has preferred other item
item has preferred set of other items

I experience that during data preparation for a timetable the things are often changing or are caused by planning progress in the way it's necessary to add to a constraint of first form some other item, making the constraint of the second form. In this case, I must delete the former constraint and create a new one, to respect a set of other items. It would be simpler to just add other item to previously set up one, making therefore a set of preferred other items automatically. I'm not sure if the set of preferred other items is equivalent to many constraints of the first form (with one other item). If it were I think it would be possible to abandon this distinction in a future "big" update of FET program.
I wonder whether the reason for this rather technical (a matter of development) and difficult to change or may be not so difficult.

Liviu:

Are you referring to preferred times?

An -X- means rejected with the corresponding weight. If there are more constraints, the maximum weight wins. This constraint applies as rejecting a (some) slot(s) (rather than accepting some).

Preferred starting time is a locking constraint, you can play with it in the generated timetable.

liquid:

Thanks for your answer. I'll try to be more specific below.
I used to work with schedules incrementally. This means for example that I don't specify at the beginning all existing rooms suitable for a subject as a set of preferred rooms. Only one at the beginning and then by the next group I'd like to add one or more rooms for the subject. I have two ways:
Add the second constraint that assigns a subject for the new room
Remove previously set constraint "one room for one subject" and introduce a new one "set of rooms for one subject"
That's what I meant starting this thread. I'm sorry if the first post was misunderstood. I guess it would be more convenient to simply add the second room to previously set constraint rather than use of two described ways above. It would be, however, possible if I could add a constraint of form "set of rooms for one subject" with only one room at the beginning, predicting that in the future I'll add some more rooms to that. FET disables this though.

Liviu:

Variant 1 is wrong. You should use 2. Yes, I'll add this in the TODO.

<-- DONE

202---------------------------------------------------------
From Vanyo Georgiev (on forum):

The last opened FET XML file is opened again at start up.

(Vanyo Georgiev provided the necessary code changes to do this.)

203---------------------------------------------------------
From Vanyo Georgiev (on forum):

One more place to check for a language .qm file - the work path.

(Vanyo Georgiev provided the necessary code changes to do this:
	translation_loaded=translator.load("fet_"+FET_LANGUAGE, QDir::currentPath());
in fet.cpp.)

This change makes possible by setting the Working directory of the exe file in QtCreator to test the current translation without copying the .qm file to another directory.

204---------------------------------------------------------
From Vanyo Georgiev (on forum):

Save and restore tabWidget current page at start up.

(Vanyo Georgiev provided the necessary code changes to do this.)

Liviu: See the ChangeLog for FET-5.19.0: "- When starting FET, the first shortcuts tab section (File) is selected (suggested by a user)." Previously, I saved the main tab widget position (as you do), but a user suggested that it is better to start always with the File tab selected.

Anyway, I'll add this in the TODO, as your suggestion.

Vanyo Georgiev: May be there must be a setting: 'Remember current page' and each user to choose his own preference. I'll try to do so.

(Vanyo Georgiev provided the necessary code changes to do this.)

205---------------------------------------------------------
From bharatstank (on forum): ( http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=1826 )

bharatstank:

I have below created a Student structure (having 60 students):-

(Student) Year - Group - Sub Group

Year                    Group                    Sub Group
MBACPM (60)       MBA CPM L (60)     MBACPM G1 (30)
                                                       MBACPM G2 (30)
Activity Tags:
Lecture
Tutorial
Practical

Activities created are as follows:-
1. MBA CPM L (Lecture) of a SUBJECT1 for 2 hours duration is conducted by a FACULTY1 for all the 60 students
2. MBA CPM G1 (Tutorial) of a SAME SUBJECT1 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY1 for 30 students
3. MBA CPM G2 (Tutorial) of a SAME SUBJECT1 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY1 for 30 students
4. MBA CPM G1 (Practical) of a SAME SUBJECT1 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY1 for 30 students
5. MBA CPM G2 (Practical) of a SAME SUBJECT1 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY1 for 30 students

6. MBA CPM L (Lecture) of a SUBJECT2 for 2 hours duration is conducted by a FACULTY2 for all the 60 students
7. MBA CPM G1 (Tutorial) of a SAME SUBJECT2 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY2 for 30 students
8. MBA CPM G2 (Tutorial) of a SAME SUBJECT2 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY2 for 30 students
9. MBA CPM G1 (Practical) of a SAME SUBJECT2 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY2 for 30 students
10. MBA CPM G2 (Practical) of a SAME SUBJECT2 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY2 for 30 students

and so on...

How to place the activities - so that:-
1. For Subject1 - Lecture followed by Tutorial followed by Practical is conducted in sequence in a day and FET do NOT place tutorial or practical before Lecture

I want to use this process as a template for every subject (Lecture -> Tutorial -> Practical). So that FET places all the possible activities according to this template.  and constraints are only applied in case of specific activities or exceptions.

How to achieve this scenario.

---

Liviu:

I am not sure I understand well, but I think you can use a constraint three activities grouped and two constraints two activities ordered.

---

bharatstank:

using "constraint three activities grouped and two constraints two activities ordered." - here I need to create manual constraints for all the approx. 200 activities.

is there a way - where I can create a Standardised constraints using Activity Tag.
I have defined 3 activity tag (which needs to follow the below sequence):-
1. Lecture
2. Tutorial
3. Practical

As per the guideline - for subject1 - First lecture is conducted, Then its Tutorial is conducted and then its Practical is conducted.

In my case FET does not places activity like (Subject1 lecture -> Subject1 Tutorial -> Subject1 Practical) in sequence but most of the time it places the activity like (Subject1 Lecture -> Subject2 Tutorial -> Subject3 Practical or vice versa)

how to resolve this issue.
I have also attached the timetable screenshot:-

1. Correctly placed activity shown in Green circle
2. Wrongly placed activity shown in Red Circle

Here it is not important that Subject1 (lecture, Tutorial, Practical) should be consecutive but has to follow activity tag order (for a particular subject). otherwise timetable starts with Tutorial or Practical without Lecture - which is not feasible.

---

Liviu:

I do not understand the picture in your attachment.

If it is not important that the three kinds of activities are grouped, you might need to add only two constraints two activities ordered. You might want to add also a constraint activities same starting day.

About making this automatic for activity tags - I have added this in the TODO list.

206---------------------------------------------------------
From Vanyo Georgiev (on forum):

There are translations of the FET User manual in several languages http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/doc/

I think it would be nice, when there is an User manual in the currently set language of the FET interface, by clicking on the Help -> Online -> Help contents the User manual in the  language of the FET interface is opened.

207---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

someone used split year automatically.

this year he doesn't need all classes again. class / group "5 d" is not
needed.
so he deletes group "5 d".
but in fact that doesn't improve speed (much), because the number of
subgroups stays the same.

but if there will be a question after removing a group (or year) like "do
you also want to remove all subgroups of this group in all other groups?",
then the number of subgroups will be reduced and it will be easier to
generate.

(Yes, instead of removing a group he could simply use the split year
automatically once again, but maybe he forgot, he has got a new computer, he
already changed "presettings" because of other years or the simply fear
that he will do it incorrect; so he like to use delete group only, because
it is easier.)

208---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Code more checks to warn users about conflicting constraints before generating. For example:
min days between activities and consecutive/grouped activities constraints.

209---------------------------------------------------------
From andrealva:

He is referring to the facility to sort constraints by comments, which was dropped (being considered useless) in FET-5.25.0 and subsequent versions:

One use though, which can be given to sorting the comments, is to arrange together all the constraints related to a teacher(s) or a class(es) ...
it would help to quickly identify them without using the filter ....

210--------------------------DONE---------------------------
From dotosouza:

DONE since FET-5.26.1 on 6 February 2015 --> Since a min days between activities constraints with consecutive if same day true cannot place
activities over a break, he suggests that the constraint of type break to be removed from FET. Also because activities with duration >=2 cannot
be split over a break. He had impossible timetable because he didn't know this.

Or add a warning about this in the break time constraint dialog. <-- DONE, it was added a warning in the break constraints dialog.

211---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

FET asks if the user is sure he wants to add an activity without students. Maybe the question must also
include something like "it is correct if you want to add a teacher meeting."

So that the user is not deterred by the warning in situations in which an activity without students is OK.

212---------------------------------------------------------
From Bob Hairgrove (on forum):

Colors can be enabled for highlighting the cells. However, looking at this function in the FET source code, it is clear that these are hard-coded values:

Code:

void AddConstraintStudentsSetNotAvailableTimesForm::colorItem(QTableWidgetItem* item)
{
	if(USE_GUI_COLORS){
		if(item->text()==NO)
			item->setBackground(QBrush(Qt::darkGreen));
		else
			item->setBackground(QBrush(Qt::darkRed));
		item->setForeground(QBrush(Qt::lightGray));
	}
}

I think the colors should be configurable. For example, I would like to use a light green background for available times and white for not available times in the "student set not available" dialog, whereas for the corresponding teacher dialog, perhaps different colors could be used (white = available; dark grey = not available). In case the colors are used, you could hide the "X" by setting the foreground color to the same as the background color since it would be superfluous. That way, you could keep the rest of the functionality the way it is.

213---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

if a user removes a subgroup FET should also ask if this subgroup should
be removed everywhere.

214---------------------------------------------------------
From Khalilullah Yosufi:

... we expect from software to generate a timetable that we could separate some border or jointed gaps for some teachers
but there is no any place to define/plan to the software about separating the jointed gaps during a day. Hopefully
someday we would receive an update version of the FET software that has ability to separate joint gaps we want maybe
by the name of continuously gaps per day for a teacher. ...

---

Further clarification:

... Hope one day we could plan or tell to the FET software to add Maximum continuously gaps per day for a teacher = 01 ...

---

Further clarification:

I need a gap to be maximum 1 hour continuously.

215---------------------------------------------------------
From mercurialuser (on forum):

To better study the code I'd like to clean generate.cpp:
- removing all the commented code
- adding comments to illustrate the algo
- check to see if I can use some macros for code
- in randomswap try to remove all that ok* variables that can be reduced to a couple (since they are not used outside their block)
- remove the #if 1/#endif and if(1) { ... }  blocks

216---------------------------------------------------------
From mercurialuser (on forum):

I'd just like to report some thing that may give a little speedup to the code and to avoid duplicates.

For example in ::generate several matrixes are reset first and then assigned. The exact same code is used for loading teachersTimetable and newTeachersTimetable but they could be compacted in one loop. There may be probably less cache hits for accessing these 2 matrixes but I think that the multiple loops and retrieving act variable multiple times are more cpu expensive anyway.

For assigning these matrixes and some others the code loops (there are 2 variants with different variable names):
for(int j=0; j<gt.rules.nInternalActivities/*added_act*/; j++){

The code in the loop does some checks that are replicated in several other loops but they check on data that, as far as I understand, can't change between consecutive checks. So it seems to me that they are redundant.

217---------------------------------------------------------
From Bob Hairgrove:

Liviu:

> > I wrote in the advice on how to translate to not translate the
> > large 5 fields in HelpAboutForm_template (which contain difficult
> > and large fields, subject to future changes). If you check now,
> > your translation of the About is lost (but it is inevitable).

---

Bob:

> Wouldn't it be better to have the strings in a separate file where
> they could be translated, then build the HTML text in a function
> which is not routed through the tr() macros? None of the HTML stuff
> should be in the .ts file, anyway ... IMHO.
> 
> Should be easy enough since (I assume) there is only one "About..."
> form. I wouldn't necessarily translate the list of translators, but
> the names of the languages could be translated and the HTML code built
> outside of the tr() function as described above.

---

Liviu:

Unfortunately, I see no easy way to do this. Using a separate file for
these is not good.

Even if I used simple text instead of HTML, for each new entry I add
all the previous translated text is lost, if I lupdate with -noobsolete.

I will add this correspondence, and your next email which I just
received, to the TODO list.

I am not sure what to do.

----

Part 2:

Bob:

Of course, if you don't want the HTML in this form to be translated,
there is a much easier way to get rid of it (see attached
screenshot). ;)

(Bob is referring to the property "translatable" of the string.)

---

Liviu:

:-) Yes, sure, I thought of this, but some people might really want to
translate in a hypothetical situation. All strings in FET should be
translatable, I think (I am not sure, though).

218---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

since FET is able to change split year automatically without losing
activities, it is useful to load and save the settings.
i don't talk about qsettings. it it already stored there and that is fine.
but the settings are different a bit. so year 5 and 6 have very similar
categories and divisions, but year 7-10 have got a bit different.
so it would be fine to save and load them into a file. so a user can save
settings for year 5-6 and save settings for year 7-10. i am not sure if
into the fet file or into a separate file. it has different advantages and
disadvantages. but i think into a new separate file is a bit better.

219---------------------------------------------------------
From chintu and Volker Dirr (on forum):

chintu: I have 80 teachers in school, in an academic year if one teacher
leaves the school the work load of the teacher is shared with 5 teachers
and say about 15 teacher in overall is effected. but remaining 65 teachers
time table is still the same. If i re generate the time table all 80 teachers
time table will be effected, i want to retain the time table same for 65
teachers and only change for 15 how can i achieve this?

Liviu: You can generate the timetable, then view the timetable for teachers,
and select all activities for a teacher and click "Toggle lock/unlock".

Volker: Maybe we should make the unlocking possible without generating the
timetable, as in the "Advanced lock/unlock" menus.

Liviu: In this case, do it also for students?

220---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr (on forum):

When the user clicks "Toggle lock/unlock" with zero selected cells in the
"Timetable view" dialogs, maybe it would be better to inform more verbosely
the user: "No activities were locked/unlocked, because no activities were
selected".

221---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

in years dialog should be an option: increase all years.

now pseudo code: (mixing strings and int. so real code is a bit more
complicated)

foreach(year, yearsList){
 if(year = int){
    newYearsList<<year
 } else {
   warning = "unchanged"
}

sort newYearsList from high to low

foreach(year, newYearsList){
  newIntYear=year++;
  search that year.
  foreach(group, year){
     foreach(subgroup, group){
       if(subgroup.left(year){
         subgroup.replace.left(newIntYear)
       else
         warning = "impossible to rename. maybe modified manualy?"
      }
     if(group.left(year){
       group.replace.left(newIntYear)
     else
       warning = "impossible to rename. maybe modified manualy?"
    }
    if(year.left(year){
       year.replace.left(newIntYear)
     else
       warning = "critical bug!"
   }
}

222---------------------------------------------------------
From Mohamed NAJARI:

1) Can you add a command to move the teachers, students, materials and activities during entry?
2) Why not put weight as the 100% value by default instead of 95% during the addition of an activity?

223---------------------------------------------------------
From youssouf (on forum):

My suggestion is : activating the partition button when modifying the teacher's task.
because :
1. We enter the teacher's tasks ( choice - subject - Partition - period - etc.)
2. When we want to edit the task of a teacher , we find that the division button is not enabled and we will be forced to delete that task and we retype spot again.

224---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

in modify/rename years form there should be a checkbox "Rename also groups
and subgroups".

Then add something like that (not ready yet, just an idea):

void ModifyStudentsYearForm::renameAlsoGroupsAndSubgroups(){
	QString warning;
	foreach(StudentsYear* year, gt.rules.yearsList){
		if(this->_initialYearName == year->name){
			//TODO: rename year
			foreach(StudentsGroup* group, year->groupsList){
				if(group->name.left(this->_initialYearName.count())==this->_initialYearName){
					//TODO rename: cut left old string and place the new one
				} else {
					warning+=tr("%1 in %2 not renamed.")+"\n";
				}
				foreach(StudentsSubgroup* subgroup, group->subgroupsList){
					if(subgroup->name.left(this->_initialYearName.count())==this->_initialYearName){
						//TODO rename: cut left old string and place the new one
					} else {
						warning+=tr("%1 in %2 not renamed.")+"\n";
					}
				}
			}
		} else {
			foreach(StudentsGroup* group, year->groupsList){
				if(group->name.left(this->_initialYearName.count())==this->_initialYearName){
					warning+=tr("Please check if %1 in %2 must be renamed.")+"\n"; 
//It's correct for example if there is year "1" and year "10"
				}
				foreach(StudentsSubgroup* subgroup, group->subgroupsList){
					if(subgroup->name.left(this->_initialYearName.count())==this->_initialYearName){
						warning+=tr("Please check if %1 in %2 must be renamed.")+"\n"; 
//It's correct for example if there is year "1" and year "10"
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

225---------------------------------------------------------
From jillali elghazoui (on forum):

jillali:
At the end of the production time table
we sometimes want to change instead of an activity
But if we follow the normal route of fet its currency fully all activities
Is there is a way to change the place of this activity specifically
Without major changes in the other activities

Liviu:

Either:

1) Open from ~/fet-results/data_and_timetable.fet, then unlock a specific activity and regenerate;

or

2) After generating, select Advanced lock -> lock all activities of the current timetable. Then unlock a specific activity and regenerate.

But you may obtain an impossible timetable.

jillali:

You're right, we can not get what we wanted
Is it possible for this to work  a new property under the name:

"a teacher's not available times with the current  timetable"

as "not available times" are "the free hours withe the current  timetable"
And it will save in "a teacher's not available times"
And when we want to produce a new table we change a table for one teacher

---

We also ask you for a similar property in Students set
It seems that these characteristics would be more effective
You can set the blank time
Although it is possible to move Activitys
For a teacher or more
Or for one Student set or for more

226---------------------------------------------------------
From AlexL (on forum):

My proposal is to use transifex for translations: https://www.transifex.com
It works fine with .ts files, has suggestions for translations, .etc.

227---------------------------------------------------------
From MilesM (on forum):

I think it would be helpful to be able to assign time lengths to periods (even if the actual periods are multiples of that as suggested above) in order to be able to generate statistics on time per subject, per grade etc. It would allow another level of validation to make sure everything works.

228---------------------------------------------------------
From adso (on forum):

It would be useful in the best timetable processed (highest html) (but unfinished) to have at the top of the table for each teacher and each class the number of hours included and not included in order to understand where the problems are.
And have a file fet also not complete to import into Excel to be able to work manually.

229---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

About adding constraints students/teachers interval max days per week:

I think you should clarify it in the interface: In FET you call it only
"interval start hour" and "interval end hour", but you might say better
"start at beginning of hour" and "end at end of hour" (or "until end of hour").

230---------------------------------------------------------
From Maouhoub:

Add an option to play a sound when a timetable was found.

231---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

I often need to input many activities with fixed time in working hours and I find the user interface very tedious.
It would be more simple if the dialog is divided in two parts a follow:
On the left a list of activities (not the combo-box or drop-down box).
On the right a table grid with hours and day and the permission to mark only a square of the grid.

In many other dialogs with the same scheme (for example in "add teacher not available times") it would be useful to have the list instead of the drop down box.
