Hi,
Could we have a wizard for generating Timetable, so that users can just do next-next-next? It will only be a UI change, and not in the generation, mainly to help new users get up and running quickly.
I've been evaluating FET for a couple of months now, and I am pretty pleased with the results. But the lack of simple UI is a big deterrent for people to start using this software.
Thanks.
i agree that the gui can be optimised (much). we already have this in our TODO list.
but i don't agree with the "next-next"-wizard, because:
1. normaly you "need" this wizard only the first time. the next time you do a timetable you just need to modify your current one. so many steps are unneeded if you just modify.
2. the "next-next" is very dangarous, especialy to unexperianced users, because if they do an critical mistake at the beginning, (for example incorrect students structure), they will notice this bug much to late. so it is espiacialy for a new user highly recommended to generate a timetable after each step to check what the current dataset do. is it is possible and what is missing. so i recommend every beginner not to go only "next-next" though the menues. always generate and learn!
3. schools have different needs. so many schools can skip a lot of settings. do you like to have a wizard where you must press "skip" a lot of times?
4. in my opinion there is already a "next-next" wizard included. just start with fet->data first row. then second row, then third row, then ... until last row. (so from up to down). then go an from left to right. so next is fet->statistics. so start again from first option/row. then second row, then third row, ...
so it is already build in. start from left to right and from up to down throug the menu.
so overall i can't think about a good wizard. in my opinion the current style is already good.
i agree that many dialogs/form can be improved very much but that is independend from a wizard.
can youo give us suggestion how we can/should do it? i just have ideas like in other timetabling programms and i don't like them, because the risk to detect misstakes to late is much to high.
so give us useful information how to do it
a) without detecting bugs to late
b) care about different school forms correct
c) allow the normal timetables work, so just modifing current dataset.
i work in spare time on the project and i want to have fun. fun to us is optimising the algorithm, not coding a gui. that is pretty boring and i am also not good in that. As far as i know it is similar with liviu.
anyone want to help us with that?