Topics

On Thursday, 9 July 2026, FET-7.9.1 was released. From the ChangeLog:

  - Bug fixes when saving/restoring the settings to/from an ini file (discovered with the help of Andrea Primiani). The bugs appeared when saving the settings to an ini file, in which case the settings were not the current ones, but the ones from the previous FET session, and when restoring the settings from an ini file, in which case the user could have met useless warnings for some options, like checking for updates on startup or enabling the option 'group activities in the initial order'; also, in these situations, when restoring the settings from an ini file and meeting these warnings, the settings might have been retrieved/set incorrectly if the user clicked 'No' or 'Cancel' in the respective message boxes.
  - Corrected a compilation warning, for a variable set but not used (reported by Andrea Primiani).
  - Minor interface improvements.
  - Updated the Russian translation, by Alexey Chernous.

On Friday, 3 July 2026, we released FET-7.9.0. From the ChangeLog:

  - Added a new type of constraint, activities max activity tags from set in selected time slots (suggested by Vinicius Rocha).
  - Added the option to enable/disable the use of span in the HTML timetables (suggested by Marinho Medeiros).
  - Minor improvements.
  - Updated the Italian translation, by Andrea Primiani.

So grateful to our team!

We have put a snapshot. From the ChangeLog:

  - Added a new type of constraint, activities max activity tags from set in selected time slots (suggested by Vinicius Rocha).
  - Added the option to enable/disable the use of span in the HTML timetables (suggested by Marinho Medeiros).
  - Minor improvements.

Link: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download/test/

I hope to release on 1 July early morning Romania time.

On Monday, 15 June 2026, we released FET-7.8.7. From the ChangeLog:

  - Critical interface bug fixes: When removing an activity tag in the constraints of type teachers/students max activity tags per day/real day from set or modifying/removing an activity tag in the constraints of type room(s) max activity tags per day/real day/week from set, the constraints were not correctly updated (reported by Yush Yuen).
  - Improved the English text - instead of 'he', 'his', and 'him' pronouns when referring to a teacher, we use 'he/she', 'his/her', and 'him/her' (suggested by Alexandre R. Soares and Andrea Primiani).
  - Improved the symbol for the 'not available' cells in the constraints of type 'not available' or 'preferred times' - it is now '✗' instead of 'X'. Also, the description of the deactivated activities and constraints now begins with '✗' instead of 'X'.
  - Added a Help button in the days and hours dialogs, for guidance; this is useful in modes other than the Official one (suggested by LEOBASSARTS).
  - Added the option to order the activities in the timetables by the tags, if a table cell contains more than one activity (suggested by Benahmed Abdelkrim; Volker Dirr suggested to consider only the printable tags).
  - Minor fixes.
  - Updated the Spanish translation, by Li Chong, who is the newly assigned translator. The Spanish translation is now nearly complete.
  - Added a new example file, by Benahmed Abdelkrim.

Thanking Li Chong, and welcoming him in the team of translators!

I have put a test version. From the ChangeLog:

  - Critical interface bug fixes: When removing an activity tag in the constraints of type teachers/students max activity tags per day/real day from set or modifying/removing an activity tag in the constraints of type room(s) max activity tags per day/real day/week from set, the constraints were not correctly updated (reported by Yush Yuen).
  - Improved the English text - instead of 'he', 'his', and 'him' pronouns when referring to a teacher, we use 'he/she', 'his/her', and 'him/her' (suggested by Alexandre R. Soares and Andrea Primiani).
  - Improved the symbol for the 'not available' cells in the constraints of type 'not available' or 'preferred times' - it is now '✗' instead of 'X'. Also, the description of the deactivated activities and constraints now begins with '✗' instead of 'X'.
  - Updated the Spanish translation, by Li Chong, who is the newly assigned translator. The Spanish translation is now complete.

The download link, as usual: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download/test/

As reported by yush, here: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6844.0 , he discovered some ugly bugs if you rename or modify an activity tag (the constraints of type max activity tags per day/real day/week are not correctly updated), and I fixed them.

Unfortunately, I cannot release too soon, I am waiting for the active translators to finish their work. Hopefully on Monday morning, in about 5 days from now (on 2026-06-15) we'll have FET-7.8.7 to fix these bugs. Until then, on https://lalescu.ro/liviu/Backup-fet/ you can find the fixed version, in sources form.

I deeply apologize!

On Wednesday, 3 June 2026, we released FET-7.8.6. From the ChangeLog:

  - Updated to Qt 6.11.1.
  - Rare crash bug fixes and other bug fixes (the program crashed in the constraints' dialogs if the filter was enabled and the user changed a constraint's comments and the new constraint was filtered out; also, in the activities/subactivities/group activities in the initial order dialogs, when changing an item's comments and the new item should have been filtered out, it was still shown until the user filtered the list again). Reported by mrtvillaret.
  - Improved the instructions for the constraints of type max terms between activities (suggested by mikkojoo).
  - Corrected the Arabic translation, by Benahmed Abdelkrim.
  - Added a new example file, by Benahmed Abdelkrim.

This version is dedicated to @mrtvillaret . Thank you for the bug report!

We have a recently reported rare crash bug in FET-7.8.5, reported by @mrtvillaret , to whom I thank for this. We fixed it, and we hope to release soon a new version, I hope in 1-3 days maximum.

The bug: FET crashes if you are in the constraints' dialogs, enable a filter, and change the comments of a constraint so that it will not be shown anymore because of the filter. FET then crashes with an assertion failed.

I apologize for this bug! I hope it did not bother you!

Thinking of Benahmed's suggestion: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6831.0 , I thought of a possible improvement, allowing to change the order of activities in the activities list; also, we could just remove or add one or more subactivities from a group of activities.

I am not sure if it is very difficult/complicated. I did not think thoroughly of the implementation. The reason is the lack of financial support for FET. If we have sponsorship offers, I will consider doing this.

FET-7.8.5 was released on 11 April 2026, and proved to be a stable version, available here for an unusual long period (today is 21 May 2026, so it lasted at least for 1 month and 10 days!).

Here are the current download statistics for FET-7.8.5 from the main server, lalescu.ro:

Number of different ip-s to download fet-7.8.5.tar.xz with code 200: 1315
Number of different ip-s to download fet-7.8.5.exe with code 200: 3149
Number of different ip-s to download fet-7.8.5-qt5.exe with code 200: 542
Number of different ip-s to download fet-7.8.5-qt5-32bit.exe with code 200: 410
Number of different ip-s to download fet-7.8.5-bin.tar.xz with code 200: 240
Number of different ip-s to download ANY fet-7.8.5 with code 200: 4282

Probably the most important statistic is the last line, "ANY", because some users download more versions.

There is also Volker's mirror site, timetabling.de, and I invite @Volker Dirr to write his statistics.

There is also Darren's compiled version for macOS, and I invite @Darren McDonald to write his statistics.

We also have other mirror sites, like SourceForge.net (currently 68 source downloads, 539 Windows exe downloads of FET-7.8.5).

So grateful to be part of the FET team! Thanking the dedicated translators (we have 6 complete and manually updated almost each time translations: Arabic (Benahmed, @Benahmed Abdelkrim ), Greek (Vangelis, @Vangelis Karafillidis ), French (Pascal, @cabsen ), Italian (Andrea, @flauta ), Brazilian Portuguese (Alexandre, @khemis ), and Romanian (by me)) and contributors! FET is a joint work success!

We currently have 501 total contributors listed in the THANKS section, and each one of them contributed something useful: a suggestion, a bug report, or a portion of code. Some contributed a lot of suggestions and feedback. I am thankful to each of them!

On Saturday, 11 April 2026, we released FET-7.8.5. From the ChangeLog:

  - When generating multiple timetables, there is now an additional report file which lists the timetables in ascending order of conflicts (suggested by Frank Rump).

Thanking Frank Rump @fjrump for his good suggestion and welcoming him to the contributors!

So proud of our great team: Volker Dirr @Volker Dirr , Darren McDonald @Darren McDonald  (who so kindly follows each release with his macOS version), the very dedicated translators who follow each of my new strings so patiently: Benahmed Abdelkrim @Benahmed Abdelkrim (Arabic), Vangelis Karafillidis @Vangelis Karafillidis (Greek), Pascal Cohen @cabsen (French), Andrea Primiani @flauta (Italian), and Alexandre R. Soares @khemis (Brazilian Portuguese), and the rest of our great team of collaborators!

We hope you will use this new version successfully!

We have put a new snapshot. From the ChangeLog:

  - For the multiple generation, there is now an additional report file which lists the timetables in increasing order of conflicts (suggested by Frank Rump).

The usual link: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download/test/

On Saturday, 4 April 2026, we released FET-7.8.4. From the ChangeLog:

  - Corrected and improved the instructions for the new constraints of type room(s) max activities per teacher and building(s) min one activity in each available slot.
  - Corrected the Arabic translation, by Benahmed Abdelkrim.
  - Updated the Brazilian Portuguese translation, by Alexandre R. Soares.
  - Updated the Italian translation, by Andrea Primiani.

Thanking again our great collaborators!

On Sunday, 29 March 2026, we released FET-7.8.3. From the ChangeLog:

  - Converted the constraints of type building(s) min one activity in each non-break time slot to the similar constraints of type building(s) min one activity in each available time slot (suggested by Benahmed Abdelkrim). Also, these constraints must no longer be applied to all the buildings, but can be applied to any selection of buildings (again, suggested by Benahmed Abdelkrim).
  - Added some tests before the generation, if the timetable is impossible because of the constraints of type building(s) min one activity in each available time slot (suggested by Benahmed Abdelkrim).
  - Minor code improvements.
  - Corrected the Arabic translation, by Benahmed Abdelkrim.

Thanking Benahmed for the collaboration!

Also, I have a mystery about the source package size increase, I wrote about it here: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6807.0 .

I have an enigma: somewhere between FET-7.8.2 and FET-7.8.3, the size of the tar.xz package increased  from 11.9 MiB to 12.8 MiB. I checked and the difference appeared on 27 March 2026, out of nowhere, because the size of the files is nearly the same.

Could it be because of an update of the operating system programs?

I have put a snapshot. From the ChangeLog:

  - Converted the constraints of type building(s) min one activity in each non-break time slot to the similar constraints of type building(s) min one activity in each available time slot (suggested by Benahmed Abdelkrim). Also, these constraints must no longer be applied to all the buildings, but can be applied to any selection of buildings (again, suggested by Benahmed Abdelkrim).
  - Added some warnings before the generation, if the timetable is impossible because of the constraints of type building(s) min one activity in each available time slot (suggested by Benahmed Abdelkrim).
  - Minor code improvements.

Download link, as usual: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download/test/

On 24 March 2026, FET-7.8.2 was released. From the ChangeLog:

  - Updated to Qt 6.11.0.
  - Converted the recently introduced constraints of type room(s) max teachers repetitions to the constraints of type room(s) max activities per teacher (suggested by Andrea Primiani). The new constraint is clearer, and it is equivalent to the old one if we add 1 to the number of max repetitions per teacher to represent the number of max activities per teacher. Also, activities with several teachers are taken into consideration.
  - The export of statistics can now be configured to use long names and/or codes for the subjects, activity tags, teachers, and students (suggested by Cyrus Ireri).
  - Updated the Italian translation, by Andrea Primiani.

I am so proud to have such a team: Volker, my closest collaborator, Darren, who so patiently follows every release with his macOS version, the translators: Benahmed (Arabic), Vangelis (Greek), Pascal (French), Andrea (Italian), and Alexandre (Brazilian Portuguese), who answer each time I call for their work, and thanking Cyrus for his good suggestions! And we should not forget about the other great collaborators listed in the CONTRIBUTORS and in the THANKS sections, about 500 users who contributed great ideas or small portions of code.

This version is dedicated to Andrea, who suggested the new constraint's name change, which was a useful change.

We have put a snapshot. From the ChangeLog:

  - Converted the recently introduced constraints of type room(s) max teachers repetitions to the constraints of type room(s) max activities per teacher (suggested by Andrea Primiani). The new constraint is clearer, and it is equivalent to the old one if we add 1 to the number of max repetitions per teacher to represent the number of max activities per teacher.
  - The export of statistics can now be configured to use long names and/or codes for the subjects, activity tags, teachers, and students (suggested by Cyrus Ireri).
  - Updated the Italian translation, by Andrea Primiani.

The link, as usual: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download/test/

On Friday, 20 March 2026, we released FET-7.8.1. From the ChangeLog:

  - Added two new constraint types, for exams in Algeria, Morocco, and maybe other countries: room(s) max teachers repetitions and building(s) min one activity in each non-break time slot. These constraints were suggested and tested by Benahmed Abdelkrim (previously in the FET-NSRT custom version) and have some preconditions (listed in their dialogs) to be used successfully.
  - Added the options to select whether to print the names and/or long names of the days/hours and names and/or long names and/or codes of the teachers in the teachers' free periods timetables and names and/or long names and/or codes of the teachers/students in the teachers'/students' statistics timetables (suggested by Cyrus Ireri).
  - Added the option to have long names on multiple lines for the days, real days, hours, real hours, subjects, activity tags, teachers, students sets, buildings, and rooms (suggested by Cyrus Ireri). In this way, you can split the long names on multiple lines in the resulted timetables.
  - It is now possible to have the institution name on multiple lines.
  - The option to print detailed teachers' free periods timetables was changed: if selected, the behavior is the same as in the older versions, but, if not selected, the program will print all the free teachers in each corresponding time slot, but without printing any additional information, and in the global order of the teachers (suggested by Cyrus Ireri, and maybe other users in the past).
  - Minor interface bug fixes and improvements (an aesthetic improvement was suggested by Rodica Lalescu, in the 'Space' shortcuts tab).

So grateful to our team: Volker Dirr (my closest collaborator), Darren McDonald (each time patiently compiling FET for macOS for the users), Benahmed Abdelkrim (Arabic translator), Vangelis Karafillidis (Greek translator), Pascal Cohen (French translator), Andrea Primiani (Italian translator), Alexandre R. Soares (Brazilian Portuguese translator), and Cyrus Ireri, who had some great suggestions for this version.

This version is dedicated to our long-term collaborator, Benahmed Abdelkrim. Merci beaucoup!!!

We have put a snapshot. From the ChangeLog:

  - Added the options to select whether to print the names and/or long names of the days/hours and names and/or long names and/or codes of the teachers in the teachers' free periods timetables and names and/or long names and/or codes of the teachers/students in the    teachers'/students' statistics timetables (suggested by Cyrus Ireri).

The usual link: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download/test/