Beta test changes 5/29

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This release involves some significant changes to Homeschool Planet.  The programming for the new Grading feature is fairly complicated, and required some extensive changes, so even with our thorough testing we still expect that you will find a few new problems.  Also, because of the nature of the changes, you may find problems in other parts of Homeschool Planet as well.  Please be sure to let us know right away if anything seems wrong, even in small ways, and even if you are not quite sure if there really is a problem.  If anything seems odd, just send us a note.  Thanks!

 

Updates and improvements

  • Grading and Transcripts (see important Note below)
  • Ability to change subject of class after it is created
  • More assignment text shown in calendar view, especially when zoomed
  • Faster loading, calender refreshing
  • Option to avoid sending empty Daily or Weekly digests
  • Option to set your “daytime hours” and limit calendar display to those hours
  • Choose the first day of your week (so weekends appear together on left or right)
  • Choose the day on which weekly digests get sent
  • Choose the time at which digests get sent

Fixes

  • The behavior of the zoom slider is much improved
  • Only refreshes when necessary when switching between day/week/month views
  • Fixed problem where class subject was getting copied into title field
  • Fixed problem where deleted holidays were still being displayed
  • Fixed problem where marking days off messed up assignment schedule

Other changes

  • The mobile version, for phones and tablets, has been updated.  On the plus side, it is now MUCH more usable and touch-screen-friendly.  On the minus side, it is now limited to a single day at a time view, and you cannot edit your schedule from your phone or tablet.  You can still mark attendance and mark assignments as complete, but other changes will require you to use the desktop version.

Note regarding Grading

The new Grading feature allows you to group your assignments into categories, and to specify what percent of the final grade is contributed by each category.  Since many of you have existing assignments that you may want to grade, we have put all of your assignments in the special category “Unassigned”.  This category is not normally available, and you will not be able to place assignments into it yourself.  It exists only so that when you set up grading for a class with existing assignments, we can give you an easier way to select categories than having to scroll through and set each one individually.