Messages

Minor fix.
Please help testing:
https://www.volker-dirr.de/fet-7.9.2_EXPORT_CSV5.exe

I implemented this csv import export.
If anyone want to help testing, please get the following windows binary:
!!! DELETED. below is a newer link !!!

You are welcome.
A feature that probably needed in several countries because of data privacy laws:
The admin must be able to set different users/rules.
Not only "edit" and "view" mode. That is fine for the staff and teachers.
But for students it must be stricter.
So the admin must be able to set a login / password for each students set (or at least for the year). So the students can see only their timetable. Not the timetable of rooms, teacher or other students.

I guess that is not what he want to do. (By the way he could do it with TiTiTo also.)
I think he want to "design" his tables his self and/or he want to write a letter an add the timetable in that letter. So he probably want to have a paragraph before and after the table where he can write some stuff about the new school year. Well, in fact all that can be done in TiTiTo. You can write custom html text before and after the timetables and you can even sent this tables to teachers, students (parents), "room" (of course you add teacher emails there), ... by email, print on paper or export as html file and publish in the web.
So in fact that is much better than "designing" a letter for each table individual.
But I will code the html style optional fixed in the html head, so other tools can import it easier. Sadly I was interrupted this night. I will code tomorrow.

But maybe FETViewer might be a tool for Cyrus Ireri. see https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6871.0

Well, I am not a lawyer. So far I know:

1) In my opinion a link is already fine. The "only" problem might be that in worst case you want to (or need to) to check/prove if you really didn't modify the FET source. It will be easier if guys know the exact version so they can check easier. So far we luckily stored nearly all released versions, but they are not all public available anymore. Many are still available on source forge. Nearly all version from the last ~20 Years are stored on my webserver (public available, but i remove the link some time ago, since I saw some guys always downloaded old versions. But in fact, if you know the link, you can still see all files). And as far as I know Liviu has also all versions stored private (like me). So for "safety" I think it is better to add such an download to the used version. That is only ~15 MB, so no big problem.

2) See 1). We will be glad if we are "supported" by a link (even without the version number). If you want to check / need to prove that the source is unmodified, then is much easier if you know the version. So a version will help much. In my opinion it is even clever for those guys to print the version number, since users can see that the software is up to date and not an old one. (even i think there is no "law" to print the version. But I am not 100% sure.)

3) Well in that case the AGPL is clear: If you modify the source, so even if you just add a single " " (space) in a comment, that doesn't effect the binary file, even then you modified the source and then you need to publish it.

I just played some more and tried to import.
I must admit, that I have currently only a 2,5 years old LibreOffice version. I will update my OS in 2 weeks and retry with LibreOffice (since I read they improved the import filter).

Result: Possible to import, but it looks a bit ugly.

But then I tried with Google docs. Import into Google docs is possible and very nice. See attached picture. (But you need to know how to do it, since there a 2 small tricks needed how to do it. It will look ugly if you just copy and paste.)

I don't have Word at home, so I can't test that.

So if you need a nice Google docs import, I can explain it.

@Liviu: One of the needed tricks is to save the css style not as an extra file, but place it in the html head. Advantage: Better import possible by other software. Disadvantage: More memory on hard disk needed. That is bad for guys that want to publish it with html.
What do you think? Should be make it optional to add the style in the html head instead of a css file?

hmm... I read about variants how to make it. There are different variants:

All sheet programs (like Excel, LibreOffice sheet) are difficult. They do not support several activities in a single cell. So the structure of the table must be changes or you can export only single activities in a cell. The first one is a very big task (I fear much more then 2 weeks full time work), the second one is easier, but it will be impossible to improve that code if sheet software doesn't support that feature.

What about LibreOffice Writer or Word? Is that also "ok" for your task? That software supports tables in tabels. That will probably easier to code. I just tried the default Qt exportfilter for odt documents. Easy too implement, but sadly also buggy and tables are wrong :-( Qt won't update that soon. It is a feature that was introduce many years ago already, and many guys complained already about the incorrect output for more complex documents. But the Qt guys will not fix it, since it is a much too large project for to less guys that need this feature.

So there are 2 variants left:
1. Export it with a library that support Libre Offcie Writer output. Sadly all libraries that I found doesn't support several activities in a single cell. So this doesn't work also.

2. Write an own LibreOffice Writer output. ... Hmm... I read about it. I think I can do that, but I am pretty sure that I need at least also 2 weeks or more full time coding.

Sadly groups timetables have in most countries/schools more then a single activity per cell.

So max teachers, rooms and subgroups is "possible" (even those can also have multiple activities in a single cell).

I might code it, but it is a big task and I can't see big advantages for it. Out of my personal view it is even unneeded. It is easier and even more flexible to modify the html tables. You can simply add text before and after the tables, so that you can even print a nice letter for each timetable, even if cells contains more than a single activity.
I guess I need at least one week full time coding for this, but probably even more. So if anyone or several guys donate me for that work, then I might try code that.

So if anyone want to donate me for that task, you can use my paypal account ( see www.timetabling.de ). Please add comment "export spread sheet" so that I know why you sent me money.

About the use of the comments:
I think the comment should just be added as comment.

Asking/checking for special comments if it should be imported or not is, in my opinion, not good, since you also get problems with only want to modify 1st hour, but not 2nd hour.

In my opinion before importing such a csv file, we can max. ask for 3 situations:
a) keep old data and also add the new data from csv
b) delete all old constraints of that type (and import the new data)
c) only delete constraint of teachers that are in the csb file (and import all other data in the file and also keep the data of teachers that are not mention in the csv file)

Ah... Sorry. I was the guy who added the weight "wrong".

hmm...
Also a variant.
The small problem might be if you write different comments in different rows. In that case I need to a) add a second constraint or b) merge the comments.

Of course stuff like that could be done with every constraint, but it will be a lot of work to code it.

Or Variant 4:
teacher name, weight, Monday-1, Monday-2, Monday-3, ...
"Tom", 100, x, x, , ,

I guess this has the advantage that there is a nice matrix for editing in a sheet software.
The disadvantage is that need to read the header carefully and it must fit more or less (depending on how i code it) to day and hour names in FET.
So there might be problems like: What to do if there are more or less days/hours in fet?

I just got again a request by email for this feature.

hmmm... still the question how to write it.

There are different variants for this with different advantages/disadvantages.

Variant 1:
teacher name, weight, day, hour
"Tom", 100, "Monday", "1st"
"Tom", 100, "Monday", "2nd"
...

This is valid csv. A bit tricky will be the detection if this is only one constraint or more. Might not 100% valid without more information, but i think a good automatic algorithm will care about this in most situations fine without more information.


Variant 2:
teacher name, weight, day, hour, day, hour, ...
"Tom", 100, "Monday", "1st", "Monday", "2nd"
...

This is NOT valid csv. It doesn't has got the disadvantage of variant 1, but in fact this is not valid, since the number of columns is not fixed.



Variant 3:
teacher name, weight, day-hour-pairs
"Tom", 100, "Monday|1st|Monday|2nd"
...

This is valid csv if you check the header. But in fact it is a bit "bad", since it needs at least one more character to split the day and hour names.


So if anyone need a constraint like this: What do you think should we code? Variant 1,2 or 3. Please let me know why do you think these Variants are fine or bad. Maybe you know a better csv variant?

Thank you for suggestion. Not easy without support.

I guess it will be possible for teachers, rooms and subgroups timetables as long as there is only a single activity per html cell. It will be difficult (impossible?!) as soon as there are more then 1 activity in an html cell; like in groups and years timetables. So it will be hard/difficult to convert that into Excel.

Maybe you can also add some more words how to export the many timetable variants that FET supports. I guess each html file as an Excel file. But in a single file are a lot of tables. All tables into a single sheet OR each single table into an own sheet? How to care about cell with more than 1 activity?

Did you read and care about this:

Quote: "In order to bypass this warning on macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, you'll need to attempt to open the app first, then go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and scroll down where you'll find a note that the FET app was blocked, after which you can choose to Open Anyway. The dire warnings may make you uncomfortable (they make me uncomfortable!), and you can avoid these warnings if you download the source code and compile the app yourself. Of course, if you're here, you are probably looking to avoid that step! After choosing to Open Anyway, the app will open normally, and you won't need to do this again until you install a new version. (Of note, even if you compile the app yourself, as soon as you try to run the app on a computer different than the one that compiled it, you'll have to follow these steps to use the app.)

In order to bypass this warning on macOS versions prior to Sequoia (macOS 15), right click (or control-click) on the FET app and select "open" (you may need to do this a second time before the option to open the app is available). This step is only necessary the first time you run the app after downloading."

The other only variant is that we pay 99$ each year to apple. But there are much to less donations to FET to pay that.

@Liviu: Have a look at post #6 in this topic. there is a "link". in fact it is old the folder name. But if you click on that "link", then you will get to a strange app.

Thank you for asking.

Please write an e-mail to me:
u6m4@timetabling.de

Due to the small number of customers, I calculate the price individually, depending on the purchasing power of the country, the school size, and the desired features.

I will tell you more detailed by e-mail. Please let me also know if all is working fine so far or if there is a missing feature.