What's New in Plus Edition
The current version of Homeschool Tracker Plus Edition is Version 5.3 Release 1
For additional details about any of these features, please refer to the Help File (F1) or User Manual.
5.2 Release 1 - January 19, 2008
New
·
Agenda
o Changed entry form for appointments and
chores with End date field disabled.
§
This
means that each item, by default, will begin and end on the start date.
§
To make
multiple copies for an item that appears on multiple days, you’ll continue to
use the Copy button.
§
If you
wish to have a single appointment or chore that will continue without
interruption for more than one day, you can choose to check the End box and enter
the date of your choice. The Appointment or Chore will then appear stretched
across the dates indicated at the top of the Agenda window.
§
This
was done to remove confusion about creating multi-occurrence events. The actual
process of creating multiple copies has not changed in any way.
·
Attendance
o Changed appearance of non-school days
(according to your Maintenance: School Info settings) to a darker gray in the
Student: Attendance calendar display.
o Added ability to mark ½ day present either
manually or via Auto-Attendance
§
Manual – simply choose the ½ day option when adding attendance for one or more
students for any single date or range of dates.
§
Auto-Attendance – in Tools: Options (F3) under the
Attendance tab you will check the box to set ½ days and then also set the
limits for Time Spent and/or Sessions that will determine whether a day is half
or full.
·
The
limit determines that any completed assignments on a date, whose collective
Time Spent or Sessions are greater than or equal to zero and less than the limit set, will cause the date to be
marked as ½ day present.
·
If you
are using both Time Spent and Sessions, the higher limit will prevail.
·
After
setting your limits, you can run “Recalculate Attendance” to have previous
dates marked as ½ days based on those limits.
§
Display:
·
In
Attendance calendar - present: ½ day or present (0.00): ½ day if tracking hours,
time spent or sessions
·
In
Attendance report: grid style - half days will be represented with a slash -
‘/’
·
In
Attendance report: list style – half days will be listed separately from full
days
·
Days
present totals in reports and on the Main Menu will include one decimal point
to accommodate half days as part of the count.
o If you use Auto-Attendance you’ll want to
check your Tools: Options (F3) settings to make sure it is still selected as
these changes required a resetting of the Attendance Option defaults.
o Changed the Attendance Calendar display to
show “Auto Attendance is On” or “Auto Attendance is Off” based on your
settings.
o Made the “Auto Attendance” status a
hyperlink to the Recalculate Attendance tool.
·
Confirm windows
o Added Collapse; Expand; Choose Columns; and
Reset Columns icons to all Confirmation windows: Assignment Copy; Appointment
and Chore Copy; Lesson Plan Submit; Weekly Planner Submit; and Reschedule
o Column location; size and inclusion – as
well as grouping and sorting settings – will be retained on exit.
o The Lesson Plan Submit and Weekly Planner
submit confirmation windows will share
settings. Changes to one affect the appearance of the other. The other
confirmation windows settings are maintained separately.
o Student Colors are incorporated into the
confirm windows for Attendance: Copy; Lesson Plan: Submit; Weekly Planner:
Submit; and Reschedule.
·
Filter Panel Location
o Choose location of Filter Panel to be across the top (the previous
location) or down the left side
(the new location since Version 5.0).
o This will change the placement for Student:
Assignments; Teacher: Lesson Plans; and Teacher: Weekly Planner grids.
·
Goals
o Added Group Edit feature to make it easier
to change the Goal Set; Area/Discipline; or attachment availability status to
two or more goals at the same time.
·
Journal: Student and Teacher
o Made the default selected date be “Today’s
Date” rather than highlight the current week. Now when you click the Add
button, the date of the entry will default to “Today” – your computer system
date.
·
Reports: General
o The Report Preview window will now retain
the size setting from one use to another.
·
Reports: Daily Task List
o Added an option to choose to include/exclude
non-school days in the report.
§
Now,
when you have Reading Log; Memorization and Chore items which continue through
non-school days, you can choose whether or not to have those dates included in
the report.
§
Please
note, this is an exclusion of non-school days only – it has no
effect on Holiday/Vacation/Other days and if you have items assigned on those
dates they will be included in the report if they fall on or within your
selected date range.
§
This
option works the same as the All days/School days only option in the Assignment
Calendar report.
·
Report: Transcript
o There are now two report formats: the
previous columnar format and a
new full page format which
uses the full page width.
§
Column format
·
The
“Combined” format is only available in the original columnar form
§
Full Page format uses full page width
·
This
format allows for the option to include percentage as well as letter grades
·
This
format will display grades, credits and grade point for each subject/course
displayed.
o Increased the number of
optional/supplementary items to include:
§
GPA/Credit
Summary (brand new feature)
§
Schools
Attended
§
Activities
& Achievements
§
Standardized
Tests
§
Signature
Line
§
Title
(of signatory)
§
Notary
Line (generic) (brand new feature)
§
By
adding the option to include/exclude Schools, Activities, and Standardized
tests in the options window, we’ve removed the need to go into the Maintenance:
Student record and disable each item in order to exclude one or more of these
categories altogether. You still have the
ability to enter as many items in those areas as you like and choose which to
include in any given Transcript created.
o GPA/Credit
Summary: Credits earned are
listed by subject for each school year included in the report. A total for each
subject is also provided. GPA is listed by school year, along with the final
GPA for all years reported.
§
Up to six years can be displayed in the GPA/Credits Earned area. If you have
created your Transcript to include more than six years, the latest six will be
displayed.
·
For
example – for a transcript displaying work for 7th through 12th
grades – all years would display in this area. However for a transcript
covering 5th through 12th grade, only 7-12 would display
in GPA/Credit area. Tracker makes the determination of “latest” based on school
year start/end dates.
o Year
display:
§
In the
grades section, each division will show the grade
level as well as the school year
name. For example:
Freshman ** 2006-2007; or
12th Grade ** 2008-2009.
§
If no
grade level is provided in Maintenance: Students: Grade Level, then just the
school year name will appear.
§
In the
Credits/GPA section, only the grade level will appear. If no grade level has
been designated then the school year name will display instead.
§
Please
Note: The Grade Level designation
is limited to 11 characters total – you may need to adjust Grade Level names to
display appropriately in this section
Fixes
·
Assignment Calendar Report
o Options window now properly retains All Days/School
Days Only selection upon closing program.
·
Attendance
o Fixed an error in reporting when the date
completed is changed on an already-complete assignment
o Fixed an issue in marking a day as Present
that was previously marked as Absent. You no longer need to change it to None,
Save, then remark as Present.
·
Resources
o When the Course field is disabled any Course
designations for Resources are ignored as well, making those items available to
all Assignments, Lesson Plan or Weekly Planner items for the designated
Subject.
·
Report: Assignments
o Fixed an issue with directions not printing
completely when only one word appears on the last line.
·
Report: Lesson Plan
o When Plan Objectives and Goals are not
selected for inclusion in the report, that heading no longer shows in the
report itself.
·
Report: Report Card
o Now properly accepts changes to the top
margin in Page Setup
·
Report: Transcript
o Fixed an issue with multiple display of
Course names when you have identical courses in the same school year with
different codes (to accommodate for different weightings for different
semesters).
·
Sessions Field
o In all iterations of that field, it now
properly records an entry of a decimal point followed by a number. A leading
zero is no longer required to be typed in manually.
·
Students: Ancillary information
o When adding an item in the Activities and
Achievements; Schools Attended; and Standardized Tests areas, the default start
date will be “today” – your computer’s system date.
·
Weekly Planner
o Fixed issue with Start/End Time fields not
sorting properly in grid.
o Fixed Group Edit form so it picks up
Start/End Time fields from first item in selection.
o Fixed an issue where the pattern End With
was not being limited properly in the grid display.
·
Windows Vista
oddity
o Programmed a work around to avoid the “blank
screen” appearance of Subjects/Courses; Weekly Planner; and Years/Terms grids
in Windows Vista where there appears to be nothing on the screen until you run
your mouse over it to refresh. This should no longer be an issue (only affected
Vista users).
5.2 Release 2 - January 19, 2008
·
Lesson Plan Import/Export
o Fixed an issue introduced in 5.2 R1 with the import/export utility
5.2 Release 3 - January 28, 2008
New
·
Report: Transcript
o Added a Total line for the Credit Unit
Summary
Fixes
·
Goals
o Fixed an issue when adding a new goal after
others have already been selected for a specific item. Previously, adding a new
goal in the Choose Goals window would cause the previously selected goals to
become deselected.
·
Reports: Report Card
o Fixed error in reporting when report cards
were generated for more than one student at a time.
·
Reports: Transcript
o Fixed issue with Credit Summary repeating
final value in Columns: Combined format
·
Weekly Planner
o Fixed issue where start/end times were
reverting to start of school day times.
o Fixed issue where Sessions were appearing to
revert to zero in add/edit window.
·
Welcome Screen
o Added reminder to run Check for Updates upon
installing from CD.
5.2 Release 4 - February 3, 2008
Fixes
·
Reports: Report Card
o Fixed issue with display of attendance totals on report card.
5.3 Release 1 - March 22, 2008
New
·
Agenda
o Added Subject; Course; Activity; and
Resource filters to the Agenda screen
§
Allows
you to further limit items displayed in the Agenda view
§
These
filters coincide with the Report filters of the same name and will retain those
settings until changed – and vice versa.
·
Reschedule
o Added additional features to provide more
customization when rescheduling.
§
You can
now choose to specify an LP Schedule for Tracker to follow when moving items.
§
You can
now choose specific days of the week to be used when moving items.
§
Old
Date Due and New Date Due fields in the Preview window now display the day of
the week, in addition to the date.
Fixes
·
Assignments
o Copy feature now retains the Order field
value of the copied item
·
Goals
o Fixed an issue where “orphaned” goals could
not be deleted even though the items they were attached to no longer existed.
·
Lesson Plan
o Fixed an issue where using the “Reclassify”
Maintenance feature changed the status of Lesson Plan items from shareable to
protected.
o Fixed an issue in the Submit process to
insure submitted items are assigned to the expected dates when using LP
Schedule.
o When submitting via LP schedule, if there is
no match items will:
§
Display
a blue background
§
Have
the OK field unchecked and disabled
§
Display
on Date Due
·
Reports – Assignment Calendar Report
o Fixed an issue where the report was ignoring
the Resource filter settings.
·
Reports – Attendance Report
o The List format of the report now displays the
correct values for manual hours entered.
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