Updates and improvements

• Assignment generator – automatically create a series of numbered assignments

Fixes

• More reliable text messaging
• Eliminated double-adding of To-Do and Shopping List items
• Uploading photo for newly created student works again

Note regarding Printing

Getting the layout for printing to be just right on all browsers and operating systems continues to be a challenge.  We have completely replaced the system we use for Color Print, which eliminates some of the existing problems, but probably introduces new ones.  Please let us know of any printing problems (or any other problem, really) by sending an email to betatest@homeschool-planner.com.

Updates and improvements

• Choice of grading scale for classes (Standard, Standard with +/-, and Pass/No Credit)
• Ability to edit cutoffs for grading scale (i.e., “83” and up for a B, “87” and up for a B+, etc.)
• Add, edit, and display letter grades on transcripts.
• Choose which courses are included in GPA calculations on transcripts.
• New “Compressed” view for daily and weekly Calendar views – looks like monthly calendar view, but for a day or a week at a time.
• Option for Notes to control whether or not they are displayed on the calendar.

Fixes

• Eliminated the irritating delay that happened when you updated a completion status.
• iPad/iPhone version no longer gets occasionally out of alignment when swiping from day to day.
• Printing improvements (see below)

Note regarding Printing

Getting the layout for printing to be just right on all browsers and operating systems continues to be a challenge.  This release makes some improvements, but there will still be times where things do not come out right for some folks.  Please let us know any time your printout looks odd.  If you can also tell us what you were trying to print (e.g., weekly calendar view, in color), and what browser (IE, Chrome, etc.) and operating system (Windows 7, Windows 8, OS X, etc) you are using, it would help us eliminate those problems.  Thanks!

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.

Updates and improvements

• Attendance tracking
• School years, with holidays
• Ability to print to-do and shopping lists
• Description field for classes (e.g. allows “English – vocabulary”, and “English – creative writing”, etc.)
• Support for non-US date formats (e.g., 24 February 2013, 24/2/2013, etc.)
• Red/Yellow/Green colors for assignment completion boxes
• Added a favicon to appear in browser tabs and bookmarks

Fixes

• Correctly delete “every day going forward” for activities with custom schedules
• Homeschool Helper remembers when you select “Always do it this way and stop asking”
• Homeschool Helper now skips assignments with no text (i.e., assignments created just to attach a reminder)
• Eliminated unnecessary question about shared assignments for activities with only one student

Other changes

• The “Mark Vacation Days” has been replaced with the ability to mark days off in the new “School Years” feature

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