Updates and improvements

• Support for the iPhone
• Separate widget area for iPad, so you can have different layouts on the iPad and on your computer
• Checked to-do and shopping-list items are removed from the list after 24 hours
• Recipe search in Lookup widget

Note: the iPad and iPhone support is still for online use only at this point. We are planning an offline version which will let you view your schedule even when you can’t get on the internet, but for now you must be connected.

Fixes

• Eliminated slowdown in drawing the calendar that was introduced in 12/1 update
• Added scrollbar to Progess tab for very long tables
• Shift assignments without “doubling up” days when marking vacation time

This update changes the way in which assignment progress is displayed. When an assignment is marked as partially completed or as completed on a day that is earlier than the day on which it is scheduled, we no longer show an additional entry for it on the calendar. For example, an assignment is scheduled for Monday, and the student partially completes it and marks it that way. On Tuesday, the parent carries that assignment forward, so that it is now scheduled for Tuesday but with work done on Monday. Previously, we would show the assignment on Monday as partially complete, and on Tuesday as not done at all.

With this update, we would instead show the assignment only on Tuesday. The checkbox would show that the assignment is partially complete, but in a lighter shade to indicate that the status comes from a previous day.

Similarly, if an assignment scheduled for Friday was completed ahead of time, say on Tuesday, the assignment would still appear on the calendar on Friday, marked as complete, but the color of the checkbox would be lighter, to show that it was completed on an earlier day.

It’s been a while since our last update, but that’s because we were making some major changes to the way that assignments are handled. In particular, for those of you who have multiple students in the same course, you’ll find that it is much easier to manage the schedules for each student separately, should they get out of sync in their progress.

New assignments interface

While under the covers it is very different, in most ways the new interface for assignments looks much as it did before. The most notable changes are:

• A checkbox at the top of each student’s tab lets you choose to see the shared assignments right on that student’s list, together with the assignments specific to that student. Now you can see a given student’s entire list of assignments in one place.
• Another checkbox lets you see the repeating assignments listed out, too.
• You can make changes to the text of one student’s copy of a shared assignment, to make adjustments specific to that student. You can also move that student’s copy to a different day.
• You can make changes to a single-day’s instance of a repeating assignment, in case the assignment is different on that one day, or needs additional information, or whatever.
• You can more easily re-order the assignments on a given day. The repeating assignments will always appear first, but you can drag the other assignments around to change their order.

Updates and improvements

• Improved control for selecting times, easier to type into, easier to select quarter hours
• Daily Digest email is now sent at 3AM local time, not 3AM Eastern US time
• Ability to specify different times for different days of the same class
• Ability to schedule for every 3rd, 4th, etc., week, month, or year
• Ability to have a series of different schedules for a class (improving on the “Every day going forward” feature)
• Support for the iPad

Note: the iPad support is for online use only at this point. We are planning an offline version which will let you view your schedule even when you can’t get on the internet, but for now you must be connected.

Fixes

• Completed and partially completed assignments now display correctly in printouts
• Corrected a problem by which, under some circumstances, the “No end date” checkbox was getting unchecked
• Assignments are now being included for all days in the weekly digest
• Corrected various problems with resizing widgets
• Changing the Start date or the selected days for an activity updates the dates in the assignment list immediately
• Checked to-do and shopping-list items are no longer being unchecked
• To-do list items no longer being occasionally blanked out
• To-do and shopping lists stay in sync when there are multiple lists on the page
• Corrected a problem whereby adding a reminder prevented future updates from being saved in that session, in some cases
• Checking the completion box for an assignment in the pop-up window immediately updates the calendar view

Marking progress for assignments

This update brings a significant change to the way assignments are marked complete. Now, clicking on an assignment checkbox immediately marks the assignment complete; clicking again changes that to partially complete, and a third click will reset it to unmarked. If you need to mark an assignment as completed on a different day (if, say, your student gets ahead on work), you can click on the calendar icon next to the checkbox (in the planner view, and in the pop-up details on the calendar views). This will bring up the calendar for marking selected dates.

All changes in this update

Updates and improvements

• The Homeschool Helper now automatically checks for overdue assignments each morning, even if you do not log out or refresh the page
• Mark assignments complete with one click, two for partially complete. New calendar icon opens date picker for marking them complete on other dates
• The “Send” option of the To-do and Shopping list widgets can be collapsed if not needed

Fixes

• Eliminated cases where printing weekly/daily calendar views would print an empty calendar
• Eliminated cases where drag-and-drop of events would incorrectly make them all-day events
• Menus now appear in correct place even if you change the default browser font size
• List menu (in to-do and shopping lists) updates properly when you add or edit a list
• To-do and shopping lists no longer have extra space around items when first displayed

Updates and improvements

• Printing of the Planner view now breaks pages cleanly between activities
• Printing of the Calendar view is cleaner

Fixes

• To Do and Shopping Lists now remember which list was showing after a refresh
• Eliminated problem whereby some completion statuses for shared assignments were being lost

Fixes

• Removed extra lines some people were seeing in the Daily Digest email
• Restored Ctrl-Enter feature for assignments that had been removed with last release
• No longer need to refresh to see changes after editing same activity twice in a row