Messages

Dear Mr. Liviu,

First of all, I would like to thank you once again for your continuous efforts in developing FET. It is an outstanding and highly reliable timetabling software that has become an essential tool for many educational institutions around the world.

I would like to suggest a feature that I believe would be extremely useful for many FET users: native Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) export and printing.

Currently, FET provides excellent output formats such as HTML and PDF, which are very useful. However, many schools and administrators still rely heavily on Microsoft Excel to review, customize, format, and print timetables before distributing them.

Therefore, I suggest adding Excel (.xlsx) as an additional output format alongside HTML and PDF.

Ideally, this option could be integrated directly into both:

the Timetable View window,

and the Print/Export window,


where the user could simply choose the desired output format:

HTML

PDF

Excel (.xlsx)


The generated Excel files could preserve the current timetable layout, including merged cells, colors, borders, fonts, and page formatting as much as possible, making them immediately ready for printing or further editing.

This feature would provide several important advantages:

Allow users to make final formatting adjustments directly in Excel.

Simplify the preparation of printed timetables according to each institution's preferences.

Enable easy integration with existing Excel-based administrative workflows.

Save users a significant amount of time, since many currently convert HTML files into Excel manually.


I believe that native Excel export would be a valuable addition to FET and would be appreciated by a large number of users worldwide, especially in educational institutions where Excel is the standard tool for document preparation.

Thank you once again for your excellent work and for your dedication to continuously improving FET.

With my highest respect and best regards,

Mohammed Alami

Dear Mr. Liviu,

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for the tremendous effort you have put into developing FET. It has become an indispensable tool for many educational institutions around the world. I have been using it for several years, and I truly appreciate the quality of its algorithm and the flexibility it offers.

I would like to suggest a new feature for both Time Constraints and Space Constraints, which could be called Constraint Group.

The idea is to introduce a new type of constraint that acts as a container or group, allowing users to combine two or more existing constraints into a single logical group. Instead of requiring every constraint in the group to be satisfied independently, the user could define the logical relationship between them.

For example, if a group contains two constraints, the group could be considered satisfied if either one of the constraints is satisfied, or if both are satisfied, depending on the option selected by the user.

For groups containing several constraints (four, five, or more), I suggest providing different grouping modes, such as:

All constraints must be satisfied (AND).

At least one constraint must be satisfied (OR).

Exactly N constraints must be satisfied, where N is chosen by the user.

At least N constraints must be satisfied.

At most N constraints may be satisfied.


I also believe the most user-friendly implementation would be to add a "Group Constraints" button in the constraints list window.

The user would simply select multiple existing constraints, click the Group Constraints button, and a dialog would appear asking how these constraints should be combined. The dialog would allow the user to choose the grouping mode (AND, OR, Exactly N, At Least N, At Most N, etc.).

This approach would eliminate the need to recreate constraints, since users would only group existing ones. It would also integrate naturally with FET's current interface and workflow.

I believe this feature would significantly increase the flexibility and expressive power of FET, making it possible to model many real-world scheduling situations that are currently difficult or impossible to represent using the existing constraint system alone.

Thank you once again for creating and continuously improving this outstanding software. I hope you will find this suggestion useful, and I sincerely appreciate your consideration.

With my highest respect and best regards,

Mohammed Alami

Hello Mr. Lalescu,

Thank you very much for your continuous work and dedication to improving FET. I truly appreciate your ongoing updates and your openness to new suggestions.

I would like to propose a new possible constraint named:
"Preferred room for a teacher in a specific time interval."

This constraint would allow assigning a preferred room to a particular teacher during defined time periods.

It would be especially useful in situations such as:

When a teacher needs to stay in the same room from Monday to Friday for better stability and organization.

While on Saturday, teachers can freely change their rooms or be assigned randomly, depending on the schedule.


This feature would bring more flexibility and realism to timetables, particularly in institutions where teachers have fixed rooms most of the week but variable rooms on certain days.

Thank you again for your great effort and for continuously enhancing FET!

Best regards,
Mohammed Alami

Hello Mr. Lalescu,

Thank you very much for your great work and for adding the suggested shortcuts.
I've just checked them in the latest snapshot (FET-7.5.4-snapshot), and everything looks perfect.
I really appreciate your constant effort and responsiveness!

Best regards,
Mohammed Alami

Hello Mr. Liviu,

First, thank you for your continuous work on improving FET.

I would like to suggest adding a new feature related to XML export compatibility.

In some countries, there are several external tools and applications that assist after timetable generation (for example, tools for printing, formatting, or data analysis).
However, many of these tools were developed based on older XML structures — mainly from FET versions 5.x or 6.x — and they no longer work correctly with the current version 7 XML format.

My suggestion is to add a "Save / Export XML as older version" option after generating the timetable.
For example:

Export XML as FET 5.x format

Export XML as FET 6.x format

Export XML as current version (default)


This feature would make FET more flexible and backward-compatible, allowing users to continue using older tools and scripts while still benefiting from the newest FET improvements.

I hope you can understand my request for backward export compatibility, as it would really help many users who rely on older XML-based applications.

Thank you very much for considering this idea!

Best regards,
Alami Mohammed

Hello Mr. Liviu,

I hope you're well.
In the new FET 7.5.2, were the keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+H, Delete, Ctrl+Shift+T/S/R, and "+" for adding) included?
And is there now an option in Settings > Interface to enable or disable them?

Best regards,
Alami Mohammed

Thank you, I appreciate it

Hello Mr. Liviu,

Thank you again for your reply and for adding my suggestion to the TODO list.
I would like to clarify my idea in more detail, so that the goal of this new constraint becomes clearer.

The main objective of "Activities available to multiple teachers" is not to make two teachers teach the same activity simultaneously, but rather to define an alternative teacher for the same activity in a flexible and conflict-free way.

For example:

Suppose "Math – Class 2A – Monday 10:00" is normally assigned to Teacher A.

In the same activity, we could also specify Teacher B as an "available alternative teacher."


This means:

FET would still treat the activity as belonging to Teacher A in the generated timetable.

However, in the data structure, the system would recognize that Teacher B is also compatible with that same activity, and can replace Teacher A if necessary (for example, in case of absence or substitution).


The advantage of this approach compared to using "dummy" simultaneous activities is:

1. No duplicate room usage – the activity only occupies one room.


2. No artificial load increase for Teacher B – the program knows it's an optional link, not a real assignment.


3. Simpler data structure – no need to create extra activities or multiple constraints manually.


4. Better flexibility for real schools, where substitution is common.



Technically, this new constraint could act as a "link" or "secondary teacher option" associated with a specific activity or group of activities, without affecting the rest of the timetable generation process.

I believe this feature could be a powerful improvement, especially for schools that need automatic flexibility in case of teacher absence or activity sharing between teachers.

Best regards,
Alami Mohammed

Ok fine i resolve the problem by swaping in the code of fet file the name of day for all activities

I want to swap between activities within the same day only between morning and afternoon

Hello Mr. Liviu,

I would like to ask about a technical question regarding an already completed and valid FET timetable.

Once I have generated a final timetable, how can I keep the exact same order of activities, but simply swap morning sessions with afternoon sessions (for example, moving 8:00–12:00 activities to 14:00–18:00, and vice versa)?

Is there a way to achieve this by editing the XML file or any other configuration file directly, so that I don't need to regenerate the timetable from scratch?

Thank you in advance for your help and for your continuous efforts to improve FET!

Best regards,
Alami Mohammed

But in this way we will exhaust the halls theoretically because every activity, whether real or fake, must be provided with a specific place for it. However, if the matter is done through registration, the place will be reserved for only one activity.

Hello Mr. Liviu,

Thank you very much for adding my suggestion to the TODO list.

Regarding the constraint activities min simultaneous in selected time slots: I have already tried to use it in one of my timetables. The difficulty is that the user needs to manually select all the time slots for each teacher's activity, and also add other constraints like no gaps, minimum hours, and many more. This makes the process complicated.

In the new constraint I suggested, the program itself would handle the distribution more effectively. The user only defines that an activity is available to two teachers, and FET would automatically decide the placement of the activities and the possible substitution for the second teacher in case of absence. This would be much simpler and more efficient.

Best regards,
Alami Mohammed

Hello Mr. Liviu,

Thank you for your reply. I understand that the current constraint teacher room not available times already exists, but what I am suggesting is slightly different.

The new proposed constraint is about directly assigning one or more specific rooms to a teacher in certain time slots, not just forbidding rooms.

For example:

I want to assign Room 1 to a teacher during the first days of the week,

and Room 2 to the same teacher during the last days.


With the current constraint, I would have to forbid many rooms for the teacher, which is less practical. It would be better to have a direct assignment of specific rooms to a teacher in chosen time slots.

Thank you for considering this clarification.

Best regards,
Alami Mohammed

Subject: Suggestion: New Constraint "Activities Available to Multiple Teachers"

Hello Mr. Liviu,

Thank you for your continuous improvements in FET. I would like to suggest a new type of guide/constraint regarding time restrictions for activities.

Constraint: "Activities available to different teachers"

This would allow an activity to be initially assigned to a first teacher, as usual.

After the timetable generation, it would give the possibility to link the same activity to a second teacher, without causing conflicts or errors for students or other teachers.

The main goal is to provide flexibility: if the first teacher is absent, the activity can be assigned to the second teacher directly.

I am aware that we cannot use tags for this purpose, but using tags might complicate the process later. Therefore, it would be better to have a specific constraint directed at one activity or a group of activities, allowing them to be assigned to two different teachers in a controlled way.


This feature would be very helpful for schools where certain activities can be taught by more than one teacher or in cases of temporary teacher absence.

Thank you very much for considering this suggestion!

Best regards,
Alami Mohammed