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SchoolTool 1.6 Released

 

Hi all,

I'm happy to announce the release of SchoolTool 1.6.  As always, our
release is timed with the latest Ubuntu release.

The focus of this release was packaging and distribution.  This may
seem odd, but packaging is essential to SchoolTool -- our goal is to
make it as easy as possible to get a web server running in a school
anywhere in the world.  Good packaging on a solid OS is essential for
this and has already proven to be a valuable strategic asset.

SchoolTool is now included in the Ubuntu Universe repository, which is
enable by default, so on Natty a to install SchoolTool simply takes a
"sudo apt-get install schooltool" or a visit to the Ubuntu Software
Center.

Thanks to Gediminas Paulauskas for shepherding SchoolTool through this
politically and technically complex process.

One implication of the focus on the release process is we were very
conservative about adding new features this cycle to avoid last-minute
train-wrecks, so this release is more feature-light than we originally
planned.  We've already got some big changes completed or nearly
completed for the October release.

New features in 1.6:

New Manage > Reports view that links to all printable reports in the
system.  More uniform handling of contextual links to reports for
better findability.

Customizable data fields for resources.

Demographic fields can be limited to relevant groups -- teachers,
students, administrators.

Improved Javascript performance in the gradebook.

Several gradebook bugfixes.

Full release notes here:
http://book.schooltool.org/htmlhelp/1.6-release-notes.html

Thanks to Gediminas, Alan, Douglas and Justas for all their work on
this release!

--Tom


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