When I start preparing a new timetable for the next semester, I do not start from scratch but from some kind of base configuration file. This file contains general information about rooms, times of blocks, teachers, lecture titles, etc. So I can directly start with creating activities etc.
The list of teachers is quite long and encompasses both internal and external teachers. Internal teachers have a full contract with our university while external teachers are external experts that are hired only for one specific lecture, project or seminar in that particular semester. If somebody new is giving a lecture for the first time, I add him or her to this base configuration file, no matter if he/she will ever give a course in one of the following semesters. Hence, only a small subset of configured teachers is actually teaching within that semester. When printing timetables for teachers, I either have to create lots of empty timetables or I have to carefully select all the "active" teachers from the list. To be honest, I usually take the easier way.
So here's my suggestion: wouldn't it be possible to add another option to the settings dialog? (e.g. Settings -> Timetables -> Hide teachers without activities)
When this option is disabled (standard behaviour), FET acts like it currently does.
When this option is enabled, the list of teachers in the timetabling dialogs (Timetable -> Teachers -> ...) is filtered, so that it only contains teachers that actually have activities in their timetables. Also the teacher list in the printing dialog (Timetable -> Print -> Teachers) is filtered in this way.
There are very many possibilities to hide empty timetables. For students, for teachers, etc., in the GUI, in the printing, in the HTML. I prefer to add this in the TODO for now.
Thanks!
Thank you also for your suggestion, and I am sorry I cannot do more, at least now.
Actually, to hide empty teachers in the GUI view teachers timetable is a bit complicated. It is tricky.
I didn't expect that feature to be that tricky, sorry. How about this:
When selecting "Timetable -> Print" a dialog opens that has a dropdown list with potential printing types (e.g. rooms, teachers, subjects, ...). When selecting an item from that dropdown list, the listbox on the left hand side is filled with all items of that type, e.g. all rooms. Below that listbox there are two buttons "All" and "None". By pressing these buttons I can select/deselect all items of that list.
I thought of adding a third button (e.g. "used") here. When pressing that button only those items are selected that are actually used in the recently generated timetable. For example:
- if pressing the "used" button in "teacher" mode, only the teachers from the list are selected that have at least one activity planned (i.e. omitting all teachers with empty timetables)
- if pressing the "used" button in "room" mode, only rooms from the list are selected that are used for at least one activity
- if pressing the "used" button in "subgroup" mode, only student subgroups are selected where at least one activity is assigned (i.e. omitting all subgroups without activities, e.g. due to internship semesters)
OK, I also added this suggestion in your existing TODO item.
It is a bit unusual to have such a button there ("used"). Its use is unintuitive.
Absolutely, which makes it even more important to find a good caption for the button. The difference between the buttons is "all" and "all (used)" resp. "all if used". It's tricky. Unfortunately I'm not very talented in finding good captions.