Automatic saving in generation time table

[Chafik Graiguer]

make it for also partial timetables might be deceiving for the user and I do not want that

Actually this is not a problem !!
FET is genius enough! I can acheive the same thing by the following trick:
1-while generating, stoping FET at partial timetable, say 292 out of 435 activities
2- Locking the partial timetable, from Timetable -->Lock all activities from current timetable
3- save .fet file
4- re-open it later,
5- re-generate it in less than 2 seconds!!. Because placed activites ae locked, FET will instantely stop at 292 placed, complaining about "FET could not find a timetable"
6- Finally browse partial timetable

I allways did this trick to  have multiple .fet files, keep track of difficult activities, comparing constraints changes from file to file.. etc

So, when you added Sav highest timetable" feature, I was tinking FET will save it in .fet format for later browsing timetable

Browsing  within FET is more practical, data is displayed in a compact way
In the future, Maybe you can add : display unplaced activities below each timetable within FET
for example: say TEacher T1 has two unplaced acticities. it is better to disply informations about those activites
in the "Viewing timetables for teachers" window, bellow the timetable itself
This way, I am veiwing teacher's timetable, so I can think about possibilities to plce the two remaining activities by deducing what constraint to lower..etc, I can go to related student timetable to see if it possible..etc

[Liviu Lalescu]

What about this: I make 2 buttons:

"Stop and browse current timetable" (instead of "Stop and see impossible activities")
"Stop and browse highest stage timetable"

What do you think?

[Chafik Graiguer]

Well,
With those two buttons, I think it would be more convenient

[Volker Dirr]

I just wonder why you (want to) do it with the highest stage timetable.
In my opinion it is much easier to think/understand the problem with an timetable that has less activities placed.

[Chafik Graiguer]

Hello Volker

I just wonder why you (want to) do it with the highest stage timetable.
In my opinion it is much easier to think/understand the problem with an timetable that has less activities placed.

Well, IMHO there are many reasons:
1- It is much easier to manualy place 2 , 3 or maybe 5 activities, by breaking some constraints, than to place +100 activities
2- If you see that two unplaced activities could be placed if you had have allowed a techer ONE gap per week, then you allow him a gap and re-genrate.
How could you do this lowering with 50 or more unmplced activities

[Volker Dirr]

to point 1: my experience is different from yours. i am faster in modifing all to 100%, i don't need to care about my soft conflicts list, because it is empty. so totaly i am faster, because i thought and deside before and i don't need to generate several tables, because normaly one is enough. i also don't need to manualy move activities by this. but it might be more difficult with your dataset. it is easy with my one, even there are very many constraints now in my current dataset. but maybe it isn't so easy with your dataset.

to point 2: a) if it is only a gap problem then fet will (mostly) only need to set the activities of that teacher. so in "best" case fet set only around 28 periods of that teacher (i know, in real it is higher) and i can see the problem in his/her timetable. i don't need to see all the other activities for that. they just "hide" the real problem. so it's more difficult to think/find that problem. that is also one reason why i am so fast with using only 100% constraint, because i can see the problem faster by less activities.
b) if it is not only a gap problem, then fet will not abort so fast, so the number of activities will not reduce so much. but that mean you can't solve it only by allowing a gap. so that is an important information to me, because i can think about two (or more) alternative solutions that are mayne better then just allowing a gap to a special teacher.

[Liviu Lalescu]

OK, alfaromeo, please get the latest snapshot and tell me if now it is OK. Tell me also if the menu for timetable generate is understandable by the average user.

[Chafik Graiguer]

Downloaded
New entries in menus are clear and well separated
Because I am not an english native, I dont now if sentence "highest stage" is clear enough

To test I clicked "Highest stage timetable"
However, I couldnot find any inforamtions about unplaced activities
Did FET produce such a list ?

Can you point me to a difficult timetable in example folder?
because I tested many , but all are aesy,
I want a file where FET stuck at a stage and go down for long time

[Liviu Lalescu]

Downloaded
New entries in menus are clear and well separated
Because I am not an english native, I dont now if sentence "highest stage" is clear enough

You have to read like that: "Stop and view..."+"Highest stage timetable"

To test I clicked "Highest stage timetable"
However, I couldnot find any inforamtions about unplaced activities
Did FET produce such a list ?

See soft conflicts list.

Can you point me to a difficult timetable in example folder?
because I tested many , but all are aesy,
I want a file where FET stuck at a stage and go down for long time

Maybe Romania/Oradea/FS or Italy/2007/difficult. But you can also test if it goes down 2-3 activities.

[Chafik Graiguer]

You have to read like that: "Stop and view..."+"Highest stage timetable"

Ok
I know, I was talking about word "stage" itself..

See soft conflicts list.

Is it too difficult to place remaining activities related to say Teacher T1  somewhere on "view T1 timetable" window ?

Maybe Romania/Oradea/FS or Italy/2007/difficult. But you can also test if it goes down 2-3 activities.

I will do

[Liviu Lalescu]

Is it too difficult to place remaining activities related to say Teacher T1  somewhere on "view T1 timetable" window ?

Not too difficult, but it would mix things up. And I am thinking of a problem now and have little time. I am thinking of how to make the activity tag max hours daily perfect, but it is very hard.

[Volker Dirr]

Can you point me to a difficult timetable in example folder?
because I tested many , but all are aesy,
I want a file where FET stuck at a stage and go down for long time

I think you should simulate that situation by adding a bug into your sampleset.

because why do need this feature if the timetable is solveable?

if you add a bug in your sampleset, you:
- will understand the new feature better and find bugs faster (i mean bugs of livius new code.)
- you will see if it is realy an advantage to see the "higest" stage timetable instead of the current (with less placed activities) timetable to find and understand bugs in your daataset.