News ::.
10 May 2012, FET 5.18.0 released
- Very serious old bug fix. This was found trying to implement the new constraint (see below) in such a way to solve a more complicated file by Yush Yuen. Since nobody complained, it seems that until now the bug was not critical (but might have slowed down some timetables which have rooms and preferred/home rooms constraints). Bug exists from the start of the implementation of the space allocation in FET, probably. A big 'Thank you!' to Yush Yuen, who was very helpful in finding the problem.
- Added a new constraint, activities occupy max different rooms (which can, for example, constrain some activities to be in the same room (in different time slots, of course) if max different rooms = 1). Suggested by Yush Yuen, nomad, Volker Dirr and maybe others.
- Safe saving of .fet files (save with .fet.tmp name, then remove old .fet file, then rename .fet.tmp to .fet).
- Saving of the random seed after the end of the generation (in addition to saving it at the beginning).
- Added an Uzbek translation, by Orzubek Eraliyev.
18 April 2012, FET 5.17.0 released
- Printing of the timetables (directly from the interface), by Volker Dirr (suggested by Bobby Wise, Anwarul Alam, daviodan and maybe other users).
- Updated to Qt 4.8.1.
- Minor interface improvements and bug fixes.
- Added a new Greek sample file, by Petros Nouvakis.
6 March 2012, FET 5.16.1 released
- Updated to Qt 4.8.0.
- Bug fix: command line interface now accepts native file separator characters (reported by Sarwan Bangar).
- When using command line with a time limit, and the time limit is exceeded, FET will save the highest stage and the current timetable. Suggestion and code by Ian Holden.
- Exporting of the timetable as a CSV file now saves also the activities comments (suggested by m, implemented by Volker Dirr).
- Minor bug fix in HTML timetables, by Volker Dirr.
- Minor interface bug fixes.
12 December 2011, FET 5.16.0 released
- Each constraint can be activated/deactivated and also each constraint may have an optional comment. The user can sort the constraints based on their comment. These special functions can only be accessed from all time/space constraints dialogs (suggested by George Miliotis, Davide G. M. Salvetti and maybe other users).
- Each activity may have an optional comment (suggested by K, m and maybe other users).
- The command line version now saves the current timetable and the highest stage timetable if it receives SIGTERM from the user, then exits (suggested by Davide G. M. Salvetti and maybe other users).
- Added a Vietnamese translation, by Nguyen Truong Thang.
- Minor interface bug fixes.
- Updated the Saudi Arabia examination timetable file, by Silver.
28 October 2011, FET 5.15.0 released
- Added two new constraints:
1) Activities occupy max time slots from selection. This is useful in more cases, for instance to force some teachers to have activities in certain time slots. (For example, if in a 5 days week with 6 hours per day, teacher T has 20 hours of activities and needs to have activities in the first 3 hours of Monday: add a constraint with all the teacher's activities, all time slots minus these 3 (so 5*6-3=27 slots selected in the constraint), and specify the maximum number of selected time slots occupied by the selected activities to be 17.) Suggested by Zsolt Udvari, Christian Kemmer, Davide G. M. Salvetti, lalloso, Silver, and maybe other users.
2) Activities max simultaneous in selected time slots. User chooses a set of activities, a set of time slots, and specifies that in each time slot there should be an upper limit on the activities from the chosen set. Useful for example if you want each slot to have say at least 3 free teachers, for substitution or supervision.
- Updated to Qt 4.7.4.
- Removed dependence of Qt3Support classes. Many dialogs were changed. This is to improve FET and to prepare it for the future Qt 5.
- The program is now storing the geometry of most dialogs (suggested by more users. Zsolt Udvari suggested to store also the Activity planning dialog settings).
- The activity tags, students, teachers, subjects, rooms, buildings, activities, subactivities, all time constraints and all space constraints dialogs contain a draggable splitter, for better viewing (suggested by daviodan).
- Taking care of when a file was modified. When it was not modified, the user can quit FET directly (suggested by Horatiu Halmajan and maybe other users).
- Recently used files list (suggested by daviodan, Silver and maybe other users).
- Activities rooms statistics - it shows the list of activities which will certainly or possibly be scheduled in an unspecified room (suggested by Volker Dirr, who also did a part of the coding, Corfiot, Fabio Piedimonte).
- Removed the upper limit on the number of time and space constraints.
- When modifying the days or hours, the affected constraints will be modified or removed, after confirmation from the user.
- Language change is activated without restarting.
- Many other interface improvements.
- Added a new sample file, by Silver.
- Improved the Morocco sample file and the Morocco instructions (by Liviu Lalescu and Chafik Graiguer).
27 May 2011, FET 5.14.5 released
- Updated to Qt 4.7.3.
- The generate multiple timetable dialog now shows max placed activities for the current timetable and for each timetable with time limit exceeded (suggested by Yush Yuen).
- Non-critical interface bug fix under Mac OS X: in the add and modify activity dialogs, the tab widget for the subactivities was too large, showing all the 35 possible components. Bug reported by Yush Yuen.
- Minor interface bug fix under Mac OS X: the dialogs now show minimize/maximize buttons. Bug reported by Yush Yuen.
- Minor improvement in the HTML exported timetables (multi-line comments look better), by Volker Dirr.
- Added a Galician translation, by Juan Marcos Filgueira Gomis (based on the Spanish translation, as of April 2011, by Jose Cesar Fernandez Lopez).
- Added a Spanish secondary school example file, by llantones.
24 March 2011, FET 5.14.4 released
- Upgraded to Qt 4.7.2.
- Updated the French translation, by Regis Bouguin (it is now complete).
- Added a complete Serbian translation, by Ivan Starchevicy and Radan Putnik.
- Minor improvements.
- Added 3 new sample files, by waleed, M K Lohumi and Asti Widayanti.
2 November 2010, FET 5.14.3 released
- Upgraded to Qt 4.7.0.
- Improved the Greek translation, by Dimitris Kanatas.
- Minor interface improvements.
- Added two new sample files, by Massimo Mancini and Dimitris Kanatas.
24 September 2010, FET 5.14.2 released
- A rare possible problem is improved (not completely solved). This problem was reported by Marco Barsotti: for some fixed timetables the generation may report incorrectly an impossible timetable. This problem cannot be solved perfectly, only patched, and this will hopefully solve the problem in all practical situations.
- An activity can now be split into 35 (it was previously only 10) - suggested by mohd on the forum.
- Improved a bit the add/modify activity dialogs (inactive tabs for the components of a subactivity are disabled).
- Updated the Slovak translation, by Ondrej Gregor.
- Added a new sample file, by Marco Barsotti.
12 August 2010, FET 5.14.1 released
- Speed improvement in the generation algorithm (this speed improvement is better observable as the number of hours per week is larger).
- Added a partial Hebrew translation, by Yotam Medini (only the main menu).
19 July 2010, FET 5.14.0 released
- Improved the random number generator, so that potential cycling problems are avoided (though probably nobody met such problems). The new random number generator has a much longer period and is better. The command line parameters for specifying the random seed are changed and you need to change your script if you use FET command line and if you want to specify the random seed. See the README file for the new command line parameters for specifying the random seed.
- Improved memory consumption on constraints activity/activities/subactivities preferred starting times/preferred time slots.
- Minor interface improvements.
- Updates in the Arabic translation, by Silver.
22 June 2010, FET 5.13.5 released
- Corrected a bug, under newer versions of GNOME (the locked/unlocked icons for the special constraints were not shown in the menus).
- Very rare bug fix (crash in import if some fields in a line are missing, reported by murad).
- Other minor bug fixes in import (if an imported line was incorrect, the report message didn't specify this line number, in some cases).
- Updated the Indonesian translation, by Nirwan Yus.
- Updated the Spanish translation, by Jose Cesar Fernandez Lopez.
- Code cleanup
13 June 2010, FET 5.13.4 released
- Added a Slovak translation, by Ondrej Gregor.
14 May 2010, FET 5.13.3 released
- Updated the Indonesian translation, by Nirwan Yus.
- Rare minor bug fixed, reported by Frans on the forum.
- Code cleanup.
4 May 2010, FET 5.13.2 released
- Increased max activities from 15,000 to 30,000 (suggested by murad). Also, increased max time constraints from 30,000 to 60,000 and max space constraints from 30,000 to 60,000.
- Added a partial Sinhala translation (only the main menu), by Achini Duisna.
- Updated the Indonesian translation, by Nirwan Yus.
- Very rare crash bugs fixed.
- Code cleanup.
1 April 2010, FET 5.13.1 released
- Corrected a generation bug (probably very rare, it gave impossible timetable). Bug may have appeared if using constraints students (set) early with max beginnings at second hour >= 1 and generating on a locked file.
- Increased maximum number of teachers, subjects, rooms and buildings to 6000 (they were 3000 previously).
- Corrected some HTML minor problems, by Volker Dirr.
- Added a new sample file, by Chafik Graiguer (from Morocco). This user also describes tricks to use official FET for Moroccan schools.
21 March 2010, FET 5.13.0 released
- Updated to Qt 4.6.2.
- For constraints students (set) min hours daily is now possible to allow empty days (in advanced usage) - suggested by Horatiu Halmajan and Catalin Maican.
- Added a simple activity planning form, by Volker Dirr (see Advanced menu).
- Now it is allowed to have 3 constraints of type interval max days per week for each students subgroup or teacher (it was maximum 2 previously).
- Added export of active activities, by Volker Dirr.
- Added Brazilian Portuguese translation (partial, incomplete yet), by Werner Bruns and Frank Martin.
- Added Danish translation (partial, only the main form and a few other forms), by David Lamhauge.
- Improved a bit the memory consumption.
- The tables contain now an -x- (lowercase) if the teacher/students set/room is not available and -X- (uppercase) for a break (suggested by George Miliotis). Also, you can configure separately if you want breaks displayed and/or not available displayed.
- Removed some useless messages, improving speed for some rare cases under GNU/Linux operating system and similar.
- Added a few new sample files (by Christoph Schilling, Horatiu Halmajan and aliponte).
- Changed default language/locale to en_US (instead of en_GB, which is non-standard).
5 February 2010, FET 5.12.3 released
- Crash bug fix for a rare situation, in which you have constraints (sub)activities preferred starting times or time slots and they refer to no activity (reported by George Miliotis).
29 January 2010, FET 5.12.2 released
- Updated to Qt 4.6.1 .
- Minor interface improvement: since a person reported he accidentally removed the basic constraints, it was added additional user confirmation for this, and more user information.
- Corrected a possible compiling crash bug under MinGW (this is not a FET bug, it is a MinGW bug). It was made a hack to overpass this bug.
- Improved export of timetable as CSV, by adding the id-s of the activities (suggested by m).
11 January 2010, FET 5.12.1 released
- Added Ukrainian translation (by Andriy Melnyk).
- Bug fix: when modifying the number of students in a students set, the related activities will show the correct number of students, but the generation will consider the old number of students until the user saves and loads again the file.
- Bug fix when adding/modifying a group's/subgroup's number of students, now all groups/subgroups with same name will have the same (new) number of students.
- Improved speed of loading for large files and blocked user input while loading a larger file, because otherwise the user could obtain an incomplete file (minor bug reported by Volker Dirr).
- Minor interface improvement: when exiting FET and choosing Save file, if you press Cancel, FET will not exit anymore - reported by Soyeb Aswat
- Minor interface improvement: added a shortcut button to advanced functions in Time shortcuts section.
- Minor leak fixed (when removing a group or subgroup).
- Other minor bug fixes, when removing a group or a year.
15 December 2009, FET 5.12.0 released
- Added shortcut buttons on the main form (suggested by more users, especially: daviodan, Massimo Mancini, Paolo Cataldi). They can be deactivated from Settings - Interface menu.
- Increased max activities to 15,000, max days per 'week' to 35, and other limits, and improved memory management. Now you don't need to have much virtual memory and memory usage is lower. This better memory management may bring a small slowdown of the generation, although in rare cases the new version may be faster. Speed variation depends also on the platform. More details about the possible slowdown: I compared times by starting parallel generations with the same random seed, which produces the same timetables in identical steps. I noticed usually less than 10% increased generating time, but in rare cases for some unusual files a bit more, maximum 17%. From the official examples, the worst situation is for the file Hungary/Bethlen/2007-2008-difficult/Bethlen_2007_2008.fet, with about 17% slowdown from FET version 5.11.0 to FET 5.12.0. I apologise for this "downgrade" of speed, but it is necessary.
- Updated to Qt 4.6.0
- Improved add activity dialog, by Volker Dirr: if in activities dialog, you select a filter and then try to add an activity, the values in this filter will be selected in the add activity dialog (this was also suggested by daviodan).
- Minor interface improvements.
- Changed help management (added links to online help).
- Corrected/updated translations.
- Code cleanup.
5 November 2009, FET 5.11.0 released
- Updated to Qt 4.5.2
- Converted all dialogs to Qt 4 Designer files - suggested by George Miliotis. Compilation time is now shorter and intermediary and executable files are smaller.
- Added constraint teacher(s) min days per week (suggested by several users).
- Added constraint teacher(s) or students (set) for an activity tag maximum hours daily (suggested by several users). It is not perfect and must be enabled from settings menu.
- Added constraint students (set) max gaps per day. It is not perfect and must be enabled from settings menu.
- Very rare crash bug fix (reported by Marco Barsotti).
- Constraint room not available times permits now multiple constraints for the same room (so, you can use multiple constraints with different weights and preferences for the same room).
- In add/modify activity and modify subactivity dialogs, the students are displayed in a tree-like structure (suggested by George Miliotis).
- In all constraints dialogs, added a nice filter (suggested by daviodan).
- Changed name of constraint: MinNDaysBetweenActivities becomes MinDaysBetweenActivities.
- Added a count for activities list and constraints list.
- The constraints with tables now contain an X (nicer look), also centered nicely, and they have colors (which can be enabled in settings)
- The timetables view forms now center text in cells.
- Many other minor interface improvements.
- Rewritten the Catalan translation by Silvia. It is very complete, check it out.
- Added a new Greek sample file, by George Miliotis.
- Updated and improved Persian translation by sally sat.
- Dropped !DOCTYPE FET tag in the .fet files - following general recommendations, and changed FET tag to fet tag. Of course you can open older files.
- Improved activities simple description (suggested by Massimo Mancini and Chafik Graiguer).
- Added possibility to save the highest stage timetable (suggested by Chafik Graiguer, pinco and Massimo Mancini).
- Added a new Romanian sample file, by Horatiu Halmajan.
- Updated translations: Russian, German, Romanian, Italian, Spanish.
- The timetable view dialogs now have resizeable widgets (you can drag the sections with the mouse) - suggested by Ben Bauer.