schooltool-developers team mailing list archive

[Tom Hoffman <tom.hoffman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Here's what I have so far.  I don't think there's that much to say
since it quickly devolves into "and then we made the report sheet
system way better, and also we made the intervention system clearer,
and then..." which isn't much more helpful than saying "we made
everything better."

Justas can probably improve and perhaps make more accurate the timetabling part.

Is there anything else that will be necessary other than whatever bugs
get fixed in it?

--Tom

SchoolTool 2.0 Release Notes
============================

User Interface
--------------

SchoolTool 2.0 represents a complete rethinking of SchoolTool's web
interface from the organization of the application as a whole to the
layout of each form and button.

The staring point for the redesign was the Ubuntu Web Design
Guidelines and the free Ubuntu font, both created by Canonical Design.
 We developed a new color scheme and logo with Schwadesign.  This gave
us a clear, attractive and consistent foundation for all our web
assets across our homepage, documentation, and the SchoolTool
application itself.

We standardized the design of forms used throughout the application,
including an attractive grid design used in both the gradebook and
attendance journal.  The judicious use of Javascript in dynamic
dialogs, sliders and menus has streamlined the user experience at key
points.  Explanatory text has been added to many rarely-used pages.

Administrative views were a particular focus.  They have been divided
into technical/server and school oriented tasks and re-organized for
clarity and efficiency.

Thanks to a clean separation of model and view in SchoolTool, we were
able to make these changes with minimal changes to the underlying
database and application logic.

Timetable Model
---------------

The school timetable model used for scheduling class sections was
completely rewritten for this release to be more flexible and in tune
with the realities of schools around the world.  Classes can now start
and stop at different points throughout a term and can be edited
during the term to reflect ongoing changes.