0.5--------------------------------------------------------
From different old custom FET-MA users, for the Mornings-Afternoons mode, on the forum:

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4519.0

- Max days per week for a room (Thai Chi Phuong also suggested, see below, max real days per week for a room, but (in Liviu's opinion), other tricks should work,
since relying on rooms' constraints might be higly inefficient),
- Max hours daily (half day) for a room,
- Max hours daily (real day) for a room (suggested by bachiri401).

Also suggested by Thai Chi Phuong (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6112.msg35039#msg35039):
- Can you add a constraint for a certain classroom to only study n days/(actual days)/1 actual week?
Liviu Lalescu:
Could you please tell me the reason for adding the constraints room max days/real days per week?
Thai Chi Phuong:
I have two teachers A and B, and I want teacher A to teach teacher B's hours as well or vice versa, and they also have holidays together, so I want to create
a classroom for these two teachers and have a constraint on the maximum number of days/actual days of the classroom.

- Default 100% or saving the value of min days between activities constraints when adding a split activity (suggested by Mohamed Ait Ichou).

- Drag and drop manual timetabling in the time horizontal view timetables (suggested by Abdeljalil Elghazoui).

- Suggested by BOUHADEF (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4501.msg25467#msg25467):
There is an important constraints if it can be added
Max resting hours between morning and afternoon. With the possibility of setting it 0.
This restriction is important for schools that provide food as students cannot be discharged at the end of the morning or the first hour in the evening.
Also important for teachers who live far from the institution. Breaks between morning and evening are tiring for the teacher as he cannot move home.
Also if it is possible to space constraint
 As set of activities are in the same room if they are consecutive
with a weight less than 100%.
Also, please add it in space constraint
My important place if possible is
a set of activities occupies minimum different rooms

- Suggested by nguyenhuuduyet (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4501.msg25772#msg25772):
Can you help me. I want when entering the teacher's name will be displayed immediately like the official version.
Example: 1. Enter the teacher's name
2. Add
3. OK
Then the teacher's name will appear in item 4

From mohammed, on forum (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4805.0):
- Teacher(s)/students (set) activity tag min hours continuously.

From bachiri401:
-> In general every constraint referring to days should have a corresponding constraint for real days,
and every constraint referring to mornings should have a corresponding one referring to afternoons.

From Ziani Ben Alia: Please add the following condition: Maximum rest periods between morning and evening for teachers.
Liviu Lalescu: I am sorry, but this is too difficult. But maybe you could use max gaps per real day and max span per real day.
Also suggested by saidmechri: Max resting hours between morning and afternoon for teacher (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4951.0).

From Elbouche Mourad, on Facebook: Just a note, can't you improve the feature of printing individual and group tables?

From Smail Smail, on Facebook: We would only like if you improve the output of tables in your program, especially to Excel.

From Abdelhakim Zoumar, on Facebook: We would be very pleased if you make the output manipulable : to make minor changes such as to replace , add , or delete... .

See also item #729.

0.75-------------------------------------------------------
From Thành Nam:

Vietnam K-12 schools have some constraints such as: max (min) hours per morning; max (min) sessions (morning/afternoon) per week, max gaps between
morning vs afternoon. Some schools also work at night, so they need the mode of mornings-afternoons-nights. Are you going to implement new version
of FET to adapt that ?

Note from Liviu: Some suggested constraints are already implemented.

1----------------------------------------------------------
From Liviu Lalescu:

These are some rather technical problems, for developers, referring to some possible improvements in the generation code:

- In the initial order, in nIncompatible, consider also teachers(students)IntervalMaxDaysPerWeek, like in teacherMaxDaysPerWeek

- Make students max gaps per day perfect. This is very difficult/complicated. Any bug/mistake would be critical.

- Instead of if-else, use switch in rules.cpp when there are many alternatives (like in modify teacher or read time/space constraints).
Also in the all time/space constraints dialogs in the interface. -> PARTIALLY DONE, only remaining is reading constraints, where
we compare strings.

1.5--------------------------------------------------------
From Liviu Lalescu and Volker Dirr:

- The generate code could use QVarLengthArray instead of QList in some places, for a possible slightly better speed. About QVarLengthArray, Volker Dirr said:

Maybe it will be clever to count some useful init values for default size in generate_pre. So I think, depending on the constraint, different default size might be
useful, like:
- max number of activities of a teacher.
- max number of activities of a subgroup.
- max number of activities for a room.
...

2----------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Disable menus and shortcuts (in FET main form) if they are currently not
usable. For example: Disable teacher constraints, if there is no teacher
in the dataset. Disable space constraints if there is no room in the
dataset. (Disable means: Just make them unavailable/gray. Don't hide
them. Do it like OpenOffice.org, Firefox, etc.)

3----------------------------------------------------------
From Horatiu Halmajan:

Max gaps constraints with weight under 100%

Liviu: This is very difficult.

4---------------------DONE---------------------------------

5----------------------------------------------------------
From daviodan:

I will refer to sample_Brazil_more_difficult_max_2_gaps_for_teachers.fet

1. In the FET activities dialog there exist more filters after the teacher, group, etc.
If we choose for instance the subject "Math" and we do the filtering also after the name of
the teacher, then the list of the filter should contain only the name: Bruna,Silvania,Wellington,
because only these teach Maths. In the present moment the filter contains the list of all teachers.
The same for all the other filters.

2. In the teachers' statistics dialog, when we click a teacher, there should appear in the right
in a box all the constraints for this teacher inputted by that moment.

6----------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

for code cleanup always use the same style:
some constraint c have
c->teacher_ID
others have
c->teacher_Index

7----------------------------------------------------------
From Azu Boba (modified/updated by Liviu Lalescu):

About timetable view teachers: ... I propose is to 
have fixed cell height and width so it would be easier to comprehend and 
pinpoint what you see when switching between teachers. 
We have a 3D table (teachers/days/hours). I propose to 
add a new view named e.g. "View (day for teachers)" (of course you keep 
the "View (teachers)" too). This view will be similar to "View 
(teachers)" but it will have all the days as selectable tabs on the top. 
The 2D table it will display below the tabs would be the Teachers/Hours 
view for the day selected. The buttons and functionality will be the 
same as in the case of "View (teachers)". ...
The best part though is that with this 
new View you will be able to better comprehend/modify the schedule in a 
day by day base...
You might also want to consider adding an additional flag when locking 
an activity. This flag might be called "Save data and timetable flag" 
and would be set when an activity is locked automatically during the 
"Save data+timetable as..." procedure. Why? Mainly, because when you 
want to unlock e.g. a specific day in a "Save data+timetable as..." 
saved timetable you do not want to unlock all the activities of the day; 
you want unlocked only the ones that were locked by the "Save 
data+timetable as..." process. There are activities that the schedule 
creator manually locked them before FET generated the table (e.g. a 
specific lesson needs to happen only on a specific day and time). By 
selecting and unlocking a whole day as things are now you unlock these 
activities too! This means that if the schedule creator doesn't pay 
enough attention he might mistakenly create a schedule with activities 
set at undesired hours. The solution I propose to this is to toggle 
between locked/unlocked only the activities that have the "Save data and 
timetable flag" set. To unlock the manually locked ones the user would 
have to do it in a different/manual way (see the paragraph below about 
the editable "Details" box) or even better be asked with a message box 
if he wants to unlock the manually locked activities too.
I also mentioned that in order to remove a teacher from a specific day 
(because he is ill or on a leave) I have to go to "View (teachers)" and 
pinpoint all the activities assigned to the teacher for this day 
(checking their IDs from the "Details" text box and then writing them 
down in notepad). Then I close this view and go to the "Activities" 
list, find the specific activities and uncheck "Active" for them. This 
is a little annoying and a prone to errors procedure especially if there 
are more than one teachers missing. What I thought as a solution for 
this has to do with the "Details" text box on the "View (teachers)". It 
would be great if it wasn't just a simple text box but an editable 
interface for every changeable value. What I have in mind is to split 
the "Details" into two parts; the upper part would include all the non 
editable values while the lower part all the editable ones. Right now 
for me, only the "Active" and "locked time" values are worth of being 
editable, so simple check boxes would suffice but someone else might 
want other values editable too (e.g. Total number of students, duration) 
or new values worth being editable might be added in the future, so it's 
a good thing to have.
Last but not least (and certainly the most difficult modification) it 
would be great if you could drag and drop activities in the "View 
(teachers)" and "View (day for teachers)" GUIs. Of course by doing so 
you create conflicts and this will need handling. But I think all the 
before mentioned changes are enough work for you now and I need to think 
this a little more to come up with a viable solution.

8----------------------------------------------------------
From Marco Barsotti:

The only thing that I would like to find in a future version of FET is the
ability 1) to find when a combination of constraints is impossible to
respect. 2) to recognize which constraints generate a bottleneck, where FET
stand by searching the little hole where to pass and go on, placing
activities.

9----------------------------------------------------------
From Saad (on forum):

Manual improvements of the timetable.

10---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Change remove redundant to deactivate redundant.

11---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr

I got reports from a user that he had trouble to find the correct
output files today, because there were so many files in the directory.

just maybe:
maybe write only the index file into the result directory. then make 3
subdirectories. one subdirectory with all html files, one with all xml
files and one with all csv files. so we don't need the export menu
anymore, because it is exported always by default and the directory is a
little bit more tidy.

12---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr

We have:

1. category: 3-4 classes
2. category: 5 courses
3. category: 4 religions (always same time, so i didn't enter it)
4. category: several working groups (afternoon lesson, so i add them
manually)

Now have a closer look:
4 classes * 5 courses * 4 religion is already 80 subgroups.
so if i also add working groups (lets say 5, but there are more!)
then we have total 400 subgroups.

that is absurd, because i have only around 100 students in a year!

i think in that case it is wise to enter data not in groups, add
students
individual.

that is like high school do it.

- add a year.
- add groups (NOT with split year, but same names)
- add a group ALL STUDENTS.
- add subgroup with all students names into ALL STUDENTS.

- now we need a table to every year:
	- horizontal are the division names (must not be group names, but
	can)
	- vertical must be the student names
	- every cell is a bool checkbox

no the timetablemaker can check every single student. of course by
checking the studentsname must be added as subgroup into that group.

13-------------------------DONE----------------------------

14-------------------------DONE in FET-6.0.0---------------

15---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr

how about displaying "minimum home
room hours" and maybe also "maximum special room hours" in the teacher
statistics? because a timetable maker (maybe) need that for his
planning.

16---------------------------------------------------------
From Danail Traichev:

You see, this division in subgroups is very complicated - to understand 
and to add by hand. And at the end you came with a lot of subgroups that 
have only formal sense, for the algorithm, but are visible in dialogs, 
in the final chart and everywhere. It should not be like this. One will 
have to divide years in wizard-like dialog, with questions:
1. How many classes you have for this year?
2. Define courses for which students from this year study together
3. Which of these curses start at same time. Group them by this criteria
4. Define from which classes came students for these courses. Whole 
class is caming, or only part of it? Where other part goes - have rest, 
or has another activity, and if yes - which one?
5. Define teacher that is teaching in every course.

This is a draft, but some wizard like this will save *a lot of* 
mistakes, and will make program much more user friendly. Then you can 
add internal groups, but not show them to users, or at least show if 
they set some option. Show them only groups and subgroups that they need 
to put in activities, and show these same in final html output.

This is my opinion of user in trouble :-)

Second set:
1. DONE - Ability to select more than one constraint and delete it, or set its 
weight
2. Ability to disable all informative and warning messages, or to display 
them in status bar or in another log window.
3. Option to remember last focused control in dialogs - very useful if 
you want by keyboard to open many constraints and change their weight
4. Constraint "longest gap is n hours"
5. DONE? - A way to save last generated timetable and reopen it again (for example 
for printing it with different html level, or for viewing it.
6. Ability to show free teachers for every position in students and 
teachers timetable - very useful if you want to find somebody to replace you

17---------------------------------------------------------
From my80s:

also in program we have
a matrix with days x hours = n x n
if this is allocated from some activity it should get error in
precomputing in real time
if we put another activity 100% in same cell

that would take less time to find mistakes

18---------------------------------------------------------
From my80s:

export as odt (OpenOffice.org) table (spreadsheet)

See also item #310

19---------------------------------------------------------
From Danail Traichev:

If you make it how it is now with years, groups and subgroups, it will not
be complicated for entering and even will not need change in most
constraint dialogs. What I mean - define "groups of subjects", and allow
"group of subjects" name to be used in every place where subject can be
used. Much like it is now with student sets - both student years, groups
and subgroups are placed in one control and added from one place.

But of course, I don't know how this will fit with FET internals. And FET
is fine even without this. It simple will make entering constraints a bit
easy. The other posibility is if every activity constraint dialog has a
posibility to select multiple activities, and to filter them by "subject
group", or at least by "selected subjects". That will make entering
constraints like in my case easy.

20---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

maybe it's possible to do Form::setLayoutDirection(Form::LeftToRight) only to the filename or language in menu.
(bracket bug in Arabic translation)

21---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

I saw at Les's timetable, that he called hour==period.
also at Wikipedia it´s called period. (see School_timetables chapter, terminology)

I am not sure about that. in German we have the also the word "periode",
but we don´t use it for timetables. we say hour.
but maybe that´s just colloquial language. this colloquial language is ok,
because the schools have 1 schoolhour (45 minutes) or 2 schoolhours (90
minutes).

but maybe it´s better to use also the word periode, because by this
schools with 60 minutes activities (2 periods) and 90 minutes activities
(3 periods) don´t get trouble with the word hour (because it entrap /
ensnare /
inveigle so write 1 hour and 1,5 hour. but "hour" is an integer value!

but on the other hand people (maybe) will not understand immediately the
word period.

so maybe we should write "period (hour)".

22---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

maybe change "current constraint" into "description", "constraint
information", "description of the selected constraint", ... (very very low
priority, maybe one day)

23---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr, regarding translation:

1. maybe it's better to be more exact. example: phrases "min hour" better "min hour per day"

2. sometimes the english version isn't always the same.

sometimes you wrote "add current activity"
sometimes you wrote "add activity"
sometimes you wrote "add current"
sometimes you wrote "add"
i think it should always be the same.

also sentence like: "You have to know that this constraint ..."
should only be: "This contraint ..."

3. maybe "start" should be "generate" in the generateform.

4.	- if you wrote one or more sentences, please always end with ., ! or ?.
	- sometimes you wrote "students subgroups", i think you just need to write
	"subgroups", because teachers have no subgroups.
	- all "add", "modify", and "remove", "close" phrases should only contain
	this word. no more words like "current" or "group". maybe wrote them with
	QObject, because nearly every dialog have this 4 phrases.

5. i think we should think and write a small definition note for english
phrases.

it looks like in a few times this terms are not always used same/correct:
hour
duration
period
lesson
activity

when we write a small definition note, then we have to care about this:
words must also be correct for schools that don't use "hours" as one time
hour.
in Germany one school hour is 45 minutes. but that's no problem. we use the
same words for that.
but i remember a letter, a user wrote that he has 60
minutes hours and 90 minutes hours. so he defined 30 minutes "hours" and
set duration == 2 or duration == 3 to the activities.
so the definition and use of hour, duration, period and lesson must also
match to this.

please let us first a small definition not for this terms:
hour, duration, periode, lesson, activity
this will help if we add new or modify old english phrases and it will
also help translators.

6. - DONE in FET-6.22.1.

7. and it looks like we shouldn't use the word "lesson".
in the most phases it's better to replace "lessons" by "subactivities"

8. that is also why i already asked you to change english translations,
because some phrases can be shorten.
for example all sentences with "you", "current" or "that mean" can be
shorten (in english and german).
example:
"If you insert current group to current year, that means that some years
share the same group (overlap)"

shorten version:
"Some years share this group if it's inserted."

9. and a maybe other thing. example:
view in fet-mainform.
there is "Time contraints (teachers)".
and in this folder is for example "Teachers max gaps per Week".
i recommend to write just "Max gaps per Week".
Reason:
- it's shorter
- it's clear that it "teachers" contraint, because it´s in that folder

the English version looks fine, because you are always possible to write
first "teachers". (except on min days between activities. You
are not able to write Activities first.)
In German translation it is much more difficult the write "teacher" always
first. even including the word teacher is a much longer phrases than in
english. it will be much easier and nice, if we don't write teacher here.
maybe the same problem in other languages.

24-------------------------DONE----------------------------

25---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

For multiple generation:

Maybe add a checkbox "shutdown after job is done".

See also item #475

26---------------------------------------------------------
(see also entry #194)
From Volker Dirr:

long time goal: code cover planning.

27--------------------------------------------------------
From bmlahcen13:

for that i advice to start thinking from now to
- enhance the UI
- use Database
- add web client
- use UML models

and also for the structure, use "int id", this will
enhance both runtime and will reduce the storage,
because in the FET xml files, for example to store and
activity, you have to write again the name of the
subject, teacher, students and also the day and time
slot in a solution. the same happens in time and space
constraints, these 3 entities represent a big
percentage of the size of the file, so you use int IDs
and not names you will certainly gain a lot of space
and also a better execution time, i know, as you said,
that the internal structure uses int id but for
loading and saving xml files and searching, the usage
of strings delays them.

Liviu: maybe it would be better to compress the input file

28--------------------------------------------------------
From more users:

Improve the user interface - add help and wizard.

29--------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Towers:

What about a rewrite of the front end in a scripting language - e.g. Python? It might speed 
development and help debugging. It could also make maintenance of the code easier.

Is there some way of doing "interactive" timetable development? The human would make 
suggestions, or place some items, run the program, maybe move a few things around, run the 
program again ...

A clear and clean interface to your engine as an entity separate from the 
input/output might be useful.

It seems to me, it should be possible (but of course only after a lot of work!) to have 
a beautiful manual timetable editor (which can also print the various timetables, and 
perhaps save the data sets and results in a database) with an interface to an automatic 
timetable scheduler which can be used to speed up the work."

30--------------------------------------------------------
From TheStar:

A constraint to think about is that some activities, and I suspect 'normal school management'
talks about teachers as in "One teacher per x students".

In the HSC year here, it's about one teacher per 26 students (or something like that).
At a recent excursion, it was one teacher per 10 students.  Hope that helps :)

Liviu Lalescu: Of course, you can add each student. I could have implemented this solution.
But I doubt that the user has such patience.

You could always autogenerate the students...
"Quick-Build Students"
[Properties]
[Number]
(Build)

And it will generate students with name: AutoGen-11231, ID: 11231, and the like.

The user could then 'select' groups of these students... and... (Just an idea)

31--------------------------------------------------------
From Abdul Hadi Kamel:

Do you have a plan in mind to upgrade the existing fet from standalone
application to a client-server/web-based database oriented type of
application in the future. This is because the current fet is quite limited
especially in terms of timetable data which cannot be keyed-in /view s
amongs several users at the same time. This will cause hardship because the
people involved in making the class timetable in universities normally
consist of several key persons from different departments. Using standalone
application by several persons sometimes make data consolidation process
among departments become difficult and error-prone

I think it will be better if the FET can support a single timetable data
repository (using client-server model) in a database that can be input/view
by several users simultaneously.

32---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

If you think that other people don't like this default constraint how about
making a menu "default settings". there you can add "language" and my
default wish. maybe there are other parameters, that can be set in this
settings. I guess that there a people who want set duration to 2 or 4 by
default.

33---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang:

I would like to see FET generate the time table in

1. certain amount of time for each time table
2. with some setting about the remaining weight soft conflicts
3. generate multiple variants

For example
(A) rules are
(i) the user select to generate 10 minutes time limit for each time table
(ii) user set 0 for remaining weight soft conflicts
(iii) the user select 10 variants

the outcome
(B)
(i) the time table finished and it has generate 10 time table that concur with 0 remaining soft conflicts for each time table
(ii) the time table finish and it only manage to get 5 variants from 0 remaining weight soft conflicts
(iii) the time table finish BUT it don't manage to generate any variants with 0 remaining weight soft conflicts

refer to (B)(iii)

the user can change
(i) longer run time to generate time table (with crossing finger) hehe... Others setting is not change
(ii) longer run time to generate time table with increasing value for remaining soft conflicts (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 etc)

As you can see in timetable --> generate multiple variants, features in (A)(i) and (A)(iii) are already there. I hope that you
can figure it out on how to implement the feature in (A)(ii). It would be marvelous.

34---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang:

If a user want to add "an activity have a set of preferred rooms", the user will need to click one
by one to add right???... So, I would like to suggest that we group them like when user want to add
an "activity". There (activity), we can select by years, groups and subgroup for students. Instead of
clicking all the student groups in years 1, user can just click year 1 to include them all into students....

For example for rooms (room group then room subgroup)

HALL
Hall A
Hall B
Hall C

TUTORIAL
A-A1
A-A2
B-A1

COMPUTER LAB
Lab 1
Lab 2
Lab 3

So when user want to add "an activity have a set of preferred rooms" for all the tutorial room, instead
of clicking 20 tutorial room one by one, user just click the group that is Tutorial. Easy right???

35---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang:

What I meant is in Data --> Time Constraints --> Teacher Time Constraints --> A Teachers not available time,
1. If you double clicked Afida,
2. It will show Afida not available time right.
3. Then if you want to change Sambilan not available time by choosing Teacher drop down menu, nothing happen. In fact, It still shows Afida not available time.
4. So, if you want to change Sambilan not available time, you have to clicked Cancel button first,
5. then double clicked Sambilan.
6. Now you can see that Sambilan not available time is updated.

My suggestion is that It will be better If FET can update to Sambilan from Afida in Step no 3.

36---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang:

I have some other suggestion.

1. It will be GREAT if FET can be turn to tree structure. We can show/hide the structure
2. In the tree structure, we can use the copy, cut and paste to edit the subject, activities, etc in the tree structure

37-DONE for teachers? Teachers-not available time horizontal views--
From kdsayang:

If I want to change many teacher not available time, I need to add one by one although the teacher not available time is the SAME.

So, I suggest that you can add a set of teachers not available time. Same as rooms not available time feature.

38---------------------------------------------------------
From kdsayang:

On current version, there is no group for subject and teacher. It is quite annoying if you have to look for certain subject X and teacher Y in that list. When the list grows bigger (let say 100), it's kinda hard because you have to find that lecture and subject in that 100 lists. Although the sorting is a good way to find the subject and teacher, IMHO maybe we can make groups in that teacher and subject section

For example I want to find teacher X and subject X. Teacher X is a teacher that teach Diploma IT student. So, I just search that teacher in Diploma IT group rather than searching 100 other list. Same as subject X.

This feature is needed if my/our/your university/school is a big one where teacher and subject are hundreds.

39---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari:

We've created a timetable but the rooms aren't. So we do it by hand.
How can I change in FET the rooms simpler in a generated timetable?
The times are locked.
It would be the most simplier when I open e.g. the teachers timetable,
click on a activities and I can add room to this.

Liviu Lalescu:
I'm sorry, but you'll have to add manually constraints activity preferred
room for each of the activities.
I am not sure I understood correctly the problem, if not, please excuse me
and explain more detailed.

Zsolt Udvari:
Yes, imho you understand my problem. I hoped that there is a simpler
solution. So, maybe in the next releases would be nice: when a
timetable is generated, user can changes/sets the rooms (only the
activities without rooms of course) from the timetable (Timetable ->
Show teachers/students): you select an activity, you click a button
with "Assign room" and choose a room.

40---------------------------------------------------------
From Naji:

Hopefully, FET's team can enhanced it to be able to export the xml data to database, that will facilitates the
output of the data and enables programmers to engage it with their programs.

41------------------------DONE-----------------------------

42---------------------------------------------------------
From jaspal:

INSTRUCTION FOR ALLOTMENT OF SUBSITUTION/ ARANGEMENT PERIODS

On a particular day, faculty can be on leave, or may be busy with some 
other work hence unable to take the assigned classes. Thus, the classes 
taken by those faculty members are to be assigned to some other faculty 
members.

Facility of keeping track of back log periods due to absence or 
unavailability are to be recorded year and group wise in the software. 
Also extra periods taken by the faculty has to be recorded year and group 
wise.

43---------------------------------------------------------
From ßingen:

For the internal organization of my school, it's convenient to have a general timetable for each
group, A and B, and our timetabling software gives it. But as you observed, the footnote legend
style it's not probably the best, as it's a little bit difficult to understand. I think in FET a good
solution could be to be able to define a group of activities for a group (for example A, or even the whole
year A and B), and then subdivide this group of activities in many subactivities, each of them
with its own teacher and classroom (I have read the term "subactivity" in the manual, but I
can't find a definition of it, nor find it in FET menus). So a group would be attending many
activities at a time, which is not possible right now in FET. Maybe if it represents a structural
problem FET could define internally subgroups, but being transparent for the user. This activity
group should have a user defined name to identify (for example "Optative 1"). And then inside,
each subactivity would have the real subject ("French language", "Arts", etc.). In this way the
user would avoid to define such a great number of subgoups, and in the teacher's timetable
everything would appear right and clear, with no reference to the activity group, just to his own
subactivity, and with information of room besides of the group (opposed to the pseudoactivity
solution to book the room).

In the group timetable, the common activities would appear as always, and the others would appear
with the activity group name. Then parallel timetables with blanks in the common activities and
one of the subactivities for the rest could be printed . So we would need as much timetables as
the maximum number of subactivities of the largest activity group. Maybe the subactivities could
be diplayed in couples to avoid many timetables, as it happens now with group timetables and
"same day+hour" activities.

These parallel timetables could be hanged up on the classroom board, and, of course, each pupil
should know which of the subactivities has to attend. I think this display should be clearer than
the footnote legend style. I don't know if I have explained it clear enough, but if not I could
send a spreadsheet with an example.

Also, with this solution, if no activity group are defined all works as before, so we would avoid
the problem commented by Liviu of people not needing it.

44-------DONE since FET-5.19.0-(10 January 2013)-----------

45---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

SUGGESTION BY: Massimo Mancini

WHERE: add activity form

WHAT: a check box to lock the total duration of activity

WHY: to introduce an automatic check and alert on the sum of durations of
single subactivities (currently the total duration reflect always the sum,
so if you alter the single duration, FET recompute the total, this can be
what you want or maybe not)

WHEN: all new future are always ASAP :-D (the programmer says...)

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS: a templates system for automatic generation of activity based
on year and subjects expected for a class of that year (normal Italian
situation, abroad I don't know ;-)

46---------------------------------------------------------
From ßingen:

- In my school the timetable is divided in morning (from 8:00 to 14:30h) and afternoon (15:00 to 17:00h). In the morning there's a break from 11:00 to 11:30h.
I have defined this break as an hour of the timetable, but not allowing activities for any set of students in this slot. The reason is to plan the surveillance
of the teachers in this slot. There must be always 2 teachers looking after the pupils during this period, so I define activities without students.
The problem is that if a teacher does not have surveillance at break time, it should not count as a gap. If I define this slot as break in "Misc time constraints"
then I can not define the surveillance activities.
- We try that all the teachers work maximum 2 afternoons per week. This has been easy to define with "All teachers work in an hourly interval max days per week".
But we try also that teachers who work two days per week in the afternoon to have a free morning. I don't know how to define this situation.

47------------PARTIALLY DONE IN FET-6.11.0 on 23 October 2023 (done for activities and time/space constraints)
From T. Renganathan:

You can include a provision for multiple selection of subjects, teachers,
activities, etc., for example using Ctrl or Shift key. This will especially be useful for deleting
multiple entries.

48---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Volker:
if i am in FET->Data->Subjects
i can't see at the right side all constraints.

in my latest sample files for example the "a set of subactivities has a
set of preferred time slots" is missing to that subject.

also in FET->Data->Activity Tags are not all constraints displayed.

Liviu:
Yes, I know, because these are related to activities. I chose not to show them.

Volker:
please add in TODO. i think this is a nice feature we should not forgot.

Liviu:
I thought about your proposal. I think it cannot be done and I know the reasons why I didn't do that: 
a constraint activities preferred starting times has subject "" or specified. If it is "", then it is for 
all subjects. So, I should write all constraints of this type with subject "" for each subject. But this 
is not correct. A constraint might have a teacher who doesn't have this subject.

49---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

by the way we should add a new tests before generating a timetable:
if 2 activities are grouped, then turn of min n day constraint of that
activities.
if 2 activities are consecutive, turn of min n day.
if 2 activitives have same starting time, turn of min n day.

or the opposite, depending on what has a higher weight.

maybe instead of turning of maybe just warn the user that this two
constraints are not acceptable at the same time and tell him he should
care about that problem first of all (by removing or reducing weight to
0%).

50---------------------------------------------------------
From Les W. Johnstone:

Hi Liviu,

I'm into the thick of it again scheduling...
now working on two different schools...

Sacred Heart College is not a problem since they use a five day blocked
schedule. Saint John's College though is a slightly different problem...

They have a five day AB schedule...

which means I entered two activity groups... one for week one and one for
week two and used different activity tags... w1 and w2 to keep things
separate, with specific rules of placement of w1 in Week1 and w2 in week
2...

However, your spacing feature doesn't work ... not on more than five
days.... not sure it would be possible to extend your logic or not... (what
do you think?)

51---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer:

Liviu:
There is no easy way to remove a component.

Chafik Graiguer:
well
to re-use last year .fet file,
what about
- removing all activities at once, so Data keeps only subjects, teachers and groups ?
or
- removing all teachers from all activities (because teachers don't teach the same groups every year)
or
- removing all groups from all activities

Liviu:
I just looked in the sources and it seems that in statistics I only count active activities. Please verify that, though.

Chafik Graiguer:
yes !
and I spend nearly ONE hour counting periods for teacher  Eng1!!
in Statistics, teacher  Eng1 has only 20 hours
in Data  ---> activities, I count 21 hours :-))  for him
finaly, I realised that I have deactivated one hour component by mistake

so, is it possible to add this line into activity window:
Quote:
Activity:
Teacher=fr4
Subject=fr
Students=2Lg -1
Id=1
Activity group id=1
Duration=1
Total duration=5
Total active: XX
Active: yes
Total number of students=0 

-----------addition:
Chafik Graiguer:
- removing all groups from all activities
sorry, removing groups does not make sense, because, activities should keep group's information
Groups have the same set of activities every year

So the most important is:
-removing all activities at once, so Data keeps only subjects, teachers and groups ?
but this is not so good, as we will lost time and space constraints related to those activities
So, the best of the best is:
- removing all teachers from all activities (because teachers don't teach the same groups every year)
so we can re-assign new teachers to groups

52---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

Consider this:
1. I inspect the activities of a teacher (via filter on teacher)
2. I see the lack of an activity (or I delete one or more filtered
activities because I want redefine them)
3. I push the add buttom... why the subjects aren't
only those that teacher teach?

A more general question... why not associate in advance the teacher with
his students and with the subject he teaches? In this way I could obtain some
type of automatic filter.
If I add an activities of mines I select MANC but MANC teach MAT in GEO_1B,
GEO_2B, GEO_3B and IGE_1A. The program should be aware of this.

53---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

When I review generated timetable with view (teachers) menu option I can lock/unlock
the placed activities and this is ok. But why I cannot do the same for
empty cell? The meaning of locking an empty cell should be to add/modify a
Teacher not available constraint or something that have the
same effect... so a new generation leaves those positions untouched.

A I said I would to lock/unlock some students or some teacher and
recalculate the rest.

54---------------------------------------------------------
From Frans Cilliers:

About campuses: What I thought is the following. Currently you have min
gaps between buildings and maximum building changes per day. If this can
also be done for campuses, for example minimum gaps between campuses for
teachers. (An extra constraint but it will probably be to difficult as
you mentioned)

55---------------------------------------------------------
From K:

Maybe you remember my post from April (many teachers – many groups). Since
than in our team we’ve been trying to adapt our internal solutions to use
FET (it is really your great success).
We tried to use FET to solve timetable for a pretty big plan and by the
way we had to solve a few problems and got some experiences as an
end-users. Maybe it would be interesting also for you.
...
    The third problem was to export data from the program we use for planning
(a database application) to FET and than import data back. I pre-assumed I must
enter data to the FET automatically as the number of activities and
constraints is too high to handle them manually. Also a plan generated by
FET had to be automatically imported to our database. I used FET
procedures to import teachers, students and rooms. I also tried to use
FET import procedure for activities too but I had a problem with IDs. FET
generate its own ids but I needed to use my own ones to keep link between
data in the database with those in the FET so finally I decided to
generate input file instead. Fortunately FET doesn’t change ids and
generate perfect XML file with generated plan and
thanks to known ids I could import data from FET to our database with no
problem.
    The next point. Due to number of constraints we have in our database I
used similar procedure to generate a part of FET input file with teacher
time constraints and room time constraints. Hence I have a question.
Would it be possible to include file path into FET input file to keep
data in a couple of separate files as working with 100 000 lines file is
not fun?
    We prepared the whole procedure for timetabling with FET. First we
planned (in the database program) activities for VIPs manually. To use FET
we also had to put into the timetable all activities where students from
one group could choose one activity from a several ones (languages and
some lectures) at the same time. That is why in the input files are so
many “permanently locked” activities and activities with many groups and
only 10 students to avoid conflicts with room capability (I used
<Activity_Tag>UL to mark them). Together with these activities we locked
a room by preferred_room constraint. After that I included prepared data
to the FET input file and after all we started to generate
the plan. Fortunately FET is smart enough to find mistakes in locked
activities (room and time conflicts) so than we removed conflicts for
already planned activities.
    By the way – during reading the input file I noticed the error
that rises when the number between tags:
<Number_of_Not_Available_Times>NUMBER</Number_of_Not_Available_Times>
was  not exactly the same as the number of constraints in the file. Of
course it is not a bug. It never happens if user use FET to input
constraints. But it forced me to count constraints during generating data
and shows that program is rather “sensitive”.
The first hint for other users is to start with minimum number of
constraints and if FET would generate the plan than thinking about adding
the next ones. In TODO file I found the suggestion of “possibility to
disable constraint without removing it. Such 'Active' checkbox like on
activities dialog”. I admit – it would be nice. Moreover finding a good
plan is just like using 10 knobs increasing one constraint and decreasing
the other so fast access to the constraints window is crucial. I suggest
to put “Time constraints” and “Room constraints” buttons also in the main
menu (or creating any other shortcuts) as these constraints are rather
deep in the menu.
The next suggestion is to change the interface for some constraints
(particularly wherever there is a long list). For instance for the
constraint Max day for a teacher per week if we have many teachers a
simple table like:

| Teacher Name | Max days|
| teacher 1    |     n   |
| teacher n    |         |

with a button “Save all changes” would be great. Now we have to enter
value for every teacher one by one in separate windows.
    After setting constraints we tried to generate the next version of the
plan. We added more and more constraints (for instance WOLNE – dump
activities - free day for student or increasing max day for teacher) and
I was really surprised when FET coped with that. It took from about 1,5
minutes (almost no constraint) to over 20 minutes (with many constraints).
With too many constrains after
about 10 minutes when I saw no change in the number of placed activities
(neither up nor down) I cut simulation, removed some constraints and
started it over.
    The second hint is not to change too many constraints in one simulation
as it may lead to impossible timetable and than it is difficult to say
which particular constraint was too much.
    Of course there is a lot of work to do. For instance even when two
consecutive activities are placed at one day (the same group and the same
teacher) sometimes there are placed at different rooms what would force
them to needless changing room. I guess that FET is focused on fulfilling
constrains but not on optimizing timetable. Sometimes simple changing of
two activities makes plan better both for students and teachers. I think
that manually improving generated plan is faster than creating many many
more constraints and repeating simulations. And this is the third hint.

56---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer:

When a user clicks on Data ---> activities
he is presented with a list of all activities because filter fields are empty
all activities are listed based on Activity Id
Now, is it possible to a add sort feature like this
Sort by:
	Teachers
	Students
	Duration
	Subject
	Act Id
	
So for example, if you select teachers, all activities will be listed alphabetically in a ascendent order

57---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

In advanced lock/unlock I would lock/unlock on teachers basis (with pick up
the teacher from list of teachers) or on students groups basis (always from
a list) The lists are mentained from subsequent generations and saved with
data.

58---PARTIALLY-DONE in FET-6.12.0 on 3 November 2023--------
(see also items #149, #368, and #396)
From Massimo Mancini:

I have another suggestion: a history file where you record all the actions
of the timetabler and theirs effects. If the history was visible in a frame
in the View timetable forms, I would see scroll the messages without interruption
and with the opportunity to review them (please don't answer that is too
complicated... you can use a tab widget, a tab for the current situation
another for history... the right answer is: GREAT! I add it in TODO! ;-))).
In general an history file should be a great thing and the base for
undo/rollup features.

59---------------------------------------------------------
From George Milliotis:

I propose the ability to sort constraints by:
1. Type [so single ones - ones that you can't add twice - go to the top]
2. ID of activity
3. room / day
and so on

This could also be done for activities. If I add two activities for the
same subject, why do I need to have one at the bottom (id 200) and the
other at the top (id 5)?

BTW, I haven't used the menu once since I got this new version. I like
the basic concept of the shortcuts. If the dialogs were not modal I'd be
opening all sorts of windows and working much faster. If I could HIDE
buttons selectively I'd even be able to get the secretaries to do the
schedule and save ALL my time.

60--------------------------------------------------------
From Frans:

I refer to the Data menu, space constraints and say students, set of home rooms and then add.
In this box I select the students and then the individual venues.

If I for example already defined an activity tag for Large rooms, I want to add the activity tag
instead of the individual venues.

Now that I think again I doubt if it will be possible, because FET has to make a distiction between
general activity tags and "room" activity tags as the room activity tags must also appear in the rooms
list so that it can be selected. How will FET know this.

61--------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

an other useful feature is:
modifying in settings the default min days constraint (for add activity).

because we nearly always use 100%, not 95%.

modifing later all to 100% isn't the best, because there are a few
activities with min days = 0%.

62------------------------DONE-----------------------------

63------------------------DONE-----------------------------

64---------------------------------------------------------
From aliponte:

An activity tag can be assigned the property not to count the underlying activities.

Please consider also this flag to affect the constraints with "days". A pseudo activity should not increase the number of days (if it is the only
activity of a day). A pseudo activity should be "invisible" for all countings concerning constraints, and for countings concerning statistics (teachers, students, subjects).

65---------------------------------------------------------
From aliponte:

There are many suggestions from FET users to improve FET's UI. It will be nearly impossible to find a UI that meets everybody's needs, I know. But let me just present, what was confusing me for a while. Maybe I'm not the only one.

Dialog "Modify activity":
Changing the state of the check box "Active" does not change the active/passive state of all subactivities that belong to the same activity. It affects only the single subactivity that shows in the tab (= the one that has been highlighted bevor the dialog was opened). If I want to activate the whole activity I have to click through all of the tabs. (It took some time until I understood this.)

Since there are two dialogs, one for activities and one for subactivities the (novice) user does not expect the possibility of editing individual subactivity properties in the activities dialog (because individual activation and individual duration of subactivities can be chosen in the subactivities dialog).

By the way, is it really necessary to have two dialogs? I could imagine a check box "subactivity only" in a common dialog for both, activities and subactivities. This would make this comment obsolete.

66---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer and Pietro (see also items #145 and #248):

DONE since FET-5.41.0 - 2019-11-20 --> ... <-- DONE

-Min hours continuously with an activity tag

67---------------------------------------------------------
From Gert Veltink:

I would be very pleased, if in a future version it would be possible to specify the number of students for an activity as an extra column in the activities.csv.

Rationale: I mainly use FET for planning examinations. In this setting the number of calculated participants and actual participants differs significantly, because students have to repeat examinations or do not register for examinations.

68---------------------------------------------------------
From Mr Robo:

In the Time tab, Break button, leading to the dialog to set up break times... At the moment, I set up one break time constraint that has
morning breaks and lunch breaks combined.

If I set up two (one for break and one for lunch) and I could attach a label that would be displayed in the unavailable slots in the
finished timetable, such as 'Break' or 'Lunch', it would save me having to edit each Student, Teacher and Room timetable before they
can be printed, etc. It's quite manual at the moment because '-X-' is used throughout and I can't do a global search and replace.

Also suggested by S Chandrasekar, on forum:

It is important to display a text like "LUNCH INTERVAL" or "SHORT INTERVAL" or "ASSEMBLY" in the break slots rather than an
"-X-" symbol. Is it possible?

Also suggested by Nagendra, on forum:

You can consider including this in settings -> timetables -> "Mark break slots with custom text". Let the user decide, whether s/he wants
to use the default '-X-' or any custom text. Similarly for 'uniting' the cells.

69---------------------------------------------------------
From George Miliotis:

About the "Years", "Groups", "Subgroups" check boxes in add/modify activity and
modify subactivity dialogs:

I'd be more interested in FET actually remembering these settings
globally (not even per form) for each session, no need to actually store
to disk.

70---------------------------------------------------------
From Frans (on forum):

Frans:

I came across the following, it is possible that you know about this:

I generate a timetable with constraints such as minimum hours daily for a students set

Next from the data, students, groups or subgroup menu I deactivate all activities for one group. This group has the constraint minimum hours.

I generate again and then Fet- gives an error message and stops, namely you have too little activities to respect the constraint minimum hours ....

In other words I must go to minimum hours and delete the constraint. It is not deactivated automatically.

As said I do not know if it must be like this. Other constraints such as same starting time are automatically de-activated.

Liviu:

It is normal to be like that, because it is hard to take care of such constraints, and because you don't deactivate a students set, but a set of activities. The constraint min hours daily is for a students set, not for a set of activities.

Frans:

I understand what you say, but I am not talking about deactivating activities.  In my case however I had to deactivate a complete studens set and this one can only do from the data menu. In other words everything for a students set must be deactivated.

Studens go out to work in private practice for a few months. During that period they are not on campus and everything must therefore be deactivated as another students set takes their place and must be scheduled.

If it was possible to deactivate everything only when one uses the data menu.

Liviu:

Yes, you are right in a way, but there are many problems which may appear if I do like you say, and the things are complicated.

For instance, user deactivates a students set's activities, then activates only one activity for this user. Or if there is an activity with more students sets, of which some are deactivated and some are activated. Or there might be a global constraint min hours daily for all students.

The perfect approach might be to add a flag to each teacher, subject, activity tag, students set -> active or not active.
It would be kind of tedious and difficult to change now, as it was not designed from the beginning.

71---------------------------------------------------------
From Jason (on guestbook):

Ask for new feature:

- Auto generated after allow user to manual adjust timetable (Drag and Drop in view timetable)

72---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

If I de-activity all activities of a whole year (student set), FET will not ignore "min hours daily" constraint.
So I've two suggestion immedi:
- when FET checks this (and similar) constraints, would tolerate this
- can deactivate the students set (and related activities, constraints, etc.)

73---------------------------DONE--------------------------

74---------------------------DONE--------------------------

75---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

Clone activities or constraints:

Is it possible to clone activities for one student set to another?
Last year, Year 1S had 3 student sets
Now Two new student sets have been added
Student sets from same year have same activities and of course same time constraints
So how it is possible to do an activities Clone from 1S03 to both 1S04 and 1S05 with or without assigned teachers ? 

76---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

Default settings per subject:

Is there any chance to make it? In my school the all "English" subject is 4 per week (and there are more similar subjects). So it would be nice, when I don't should set these settings (activities per week, tags).

77---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

Save button on Activity Planing Window:

For users working with activity planning window, they will probably spend most of the time on it
But this window is lacking a save button, so users have to close it from time to time to get access to FET main window to save work
Can a save button be added to activity planning window?

78---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

About constraint min gaps between a set of activities:

Now, how about applying this contraint globally? I mean every activities with subject (or tag) Math sould be 2 hours apart from an activity with subject (or tag) Physics?
Entering all activities, one by one is tedious
How it is easy/possible to add: min gaps between a set of activities with a tag?

or better:
Min gaps between two subjects/tag

79---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

Filter for modify multiple constraints at once:

In the min days between activities window
there is an option for: Modify multiple constraints at once
Is it possible to add a standard filter: teacher, student set, subject, tag ?
So I can multi-change only those activities with a given subject or teacher... etc?

80---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

Filter teachers:

Students are easily filtered because they are grouped using years then groups
So at Students set not available time window, we can, for example, apply unvailability to only one year, thus affecting groups under that year
We can also apply unvailability to group, thus affecting subgroups under that group.

Unfortunately, teachers are treated either individually or totally (constraints for ALL teachers): ONE or ALL
Zsolt Udvari already wrote:
Quote:
It would be nice when can pair teachers with his/her subjects and can filter in the activity dialog.
So, what do I think? I'm teaching Math and Phisycs. So to my name can add these subjects and when I add a new activity and select Literature, my name will not shown, only those teachers who teaches Literature.

So it would be very practical, less time consuming, to treat teachers per groups based on
- Home subject
or
- any other artificial tag like :
-part_time_teachers,
- team teachers,
-..etc

81----------------------------DONE-------------------------

82-----PARTIALLY-DONE in FET-6.11.0 22 October 2023--------
From Valdo (on forum):

Conclusion: he has many teachers, and almost all should have max 2 gaps per week, with 2 exceptions, who may have more gaps. He
does not want to add manually that many constraints. So, he suggests that FET should add constraints for all teachers,
with a selected number of max gaps per week, and then the user can modify each one by hand.

(Suggested indirectly also by Julio González Gil, on the forum.)

Added on 2017-07-31, by Valdo, on the forum: He wanted to add teachers' max hours daily 4 for all teachers, with an exception to allow max 5 hours daily for
a single teacher. There were too many constraints to add.

Suggested also by utismetis, on the forum, on 2017-08-07.

Suggested also by Davide Cottignoli, on the forum, on 2017-08-18.

Suggested also by mercurialuser, on the forum, on 2017-09-05.

Suggested also by auriolar and Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes, on the forum, on 2018-04-15 (they suggest to add exceptions to the general constraint).
Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes: I don't think it needs to change the constraint names. Just add the 'exception' field.

Suggested also by pg788, on the forum, on 2018-07-02

Suggested also by satellite2, on the forum, on 19 December 2018 (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3996.0):
	There are very useful time constraints for me concerning teachers (or students) such as "max days per week for a teacher (or for all teachers)".
I want to use this constraint for the majority of teachers but not all of them. We have some teachers that have to teach 5 days a week because their
course load is impossible for less days. I wonder whether there is a way to adapt this constraint like "max days per week for the selected teachers"
or "max days per week except these teachers" instead of entering all of the teachers one by one. Is this difficult to implement? (Because there are
lots of teachers in the university).

Suggested also by Zafar Allah Askar (on forum), on 26 October 2019 (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4313.0):
	Create lists of teachers to be added to a constraint.

Suggested also by nouvakis, mbarsan, and pgsrihr, here: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=1110.msg28848#msg28848

See also TODO items #84, #455, and #476.

83----------DONE in FET-7.3.2 on 18 July 2025--------------

84-----PARTIALLY-DONE in FET-6.11.0 22 October 2023--------
From Massimo Mancini and Chafik Graiguer:

Consider this:

1. the max num of hours for day is 5 for ALL teachers, the max num for teacher X is 3: this
works

2. the max num of hours for day is 4 for ALL teachers, the max num for teacher X is 5: this
NOT works as expected. FET simply refuse the exception. The exception does
not override the global in any case.

I remember we discussed this "strange" logic (imho an exception is an
exception and always override a global condition) last year, it seems that
the workaround is to manage this scenario using only individual constraints
(isn't it?), very tedious. If so I suggest a button in the form of global
constraint to automatically generate all the individual constraints one
needs.

From Chafik Graiguer (same subject):

My suggestion was not only about adding a teacher one by one
It is about get rid of double menu entries
For example, for Teachers and students, and for every constaint, FET has double entry like this:
-Max days per week for a teacher
-Max days per week for all teachers
-Min days per week for a teacher
-Main days per week for all teachers
...etc
My idea is to make a single entry for any constraint like this :
-Max days per week for teacher (s)

-Min days per week for teacher (s)

This has another advantage:
user will be presented by a window like described in my screenshot, where he can press Add all button
Now suppose, like user X, that I have 50 teachers or 50 student sets
I can easily add them all into Min days per week =5
then on the right pan double click on 5 teachers to deselect them before clicking Add constraint
Then add another Min days per week =3 for those 5 teachers !!
If we have tags for teachers (and rooms) it will even more easier

This concept is already used in FET in two places:
- Set all available, set all not available
- subject has a set of prefered rooms

See also TODO items #82, #455, and #476.

85---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

Consider the form that lists the constraint "teacher non available":
change the line format from DESC CONSTRAINT + TEACHER'S NAME to
TEACHER+CONSTRAINT or, better, codify description of constraint using some string of
fixed size like so:

HTNA - NAME .....

I know the problem of translation (you may omit the description at all, it is
useful only when you display ALL constraints), but I think that a code is less boring
than a long and incomplete description repeated at beginning of all lines.

86---------------------------------------------------------
From Andres Chandia (on forum):

Is there a way to tag teachers, for different purposes like, a group of teachers can only work in the morning, or an activity can only be given by a
teacher of certain group, etc.

87---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

a problem that we discussed in the past is about the description of
constraints (specially in the list of constraints or in the list of
conflicts): they are too long.
You must well understand that the unlucky timetable maker need to see the
troubles at a glance: reading long sentences with absolutely redundant
parts is very difficult and time consuming.
This is a problem in English but the solution can be achieved also and only in
translations... (a buon intenditor...;-)

So in the following you will find an example of that I think is a good list.
Of course is only my opinion. But, trust me, is a useful one

----- NOW --------------------------------------------------

Conflitti lievi totali: 13.7
Elenco dei conflitti leggeri (in ordine decrescente):
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 290 (I:PANS, M:FRA, S:AMM_1 B) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 289 (I:PANS, M:FRA, S:AMM_1 B), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Martedì e Martedì, incremento dei conflitti= 0.99. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante DIRU il giorno Mercoledì durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante GADO il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante MALG il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante MESS il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante OSIO il giorno Lunedì durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante POLE il giorno Venerdì durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante PULI il giorno Mercoledì durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante RAPE il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo numero massimo 4 ore consecutive infranto per l'insegnante xAZ1 il giorno Sabato durata=5.  Questo incrementa la conflittualità di 0.99
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 416 (I:LUCH, M:DIR, S:IGE_2 C) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 415 (I:LUCH, M:DIR, S:IGE_2 C), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Sabato e Sabato, incremento dei conflitti= 0.95. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 521 (I:LUZZ, M:EAZ, S:IGE_5 A) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 517 (I:LUZZ, M:EAZ, S:IGE_5 A), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Martedì e Martedì, incremento dei conflitti= 0.95. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 617 (I:xAZ2, M:EAZ, S:IGE_3 B) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 615 (I:xAZ2, M:EAZ, S:IGE_3 B), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Sabato e Sabato, incremento dei conflitti= 0.95. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno
Vincolo di tempo infranto Numero minimo di giorni tra attività: l'attività con id= 718 (I:CARU, M:COS_DIS, S:GEO_3 A) è in conflitto con l'attività con id= 715 (I:CARU, M:COS_DIS, ChA:info4, S:GEO_3 A), essendo 1 giorni troppo vicine, nei giorni Sabato e Sabato, incremento dei conflitti= 0.95. Le attività sono collocate consecutive nell'orario, perchè hai scelto questa opzione nel caso che esse capitassero nello stesso giorno

----TOMORROW I HOPE ()IMHO)-------------------------------------------------

Conflitti lievi totali: 13.7
Elenco dei conflitti leggeri (in ordine decrescente):
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: AttID= 290 (I:PANS, M:FRA, S:AMM_1 B) vs. AttID= 289 (I:PANS, M:FRA, S:AMM_1 B): +1 Mar -Mar : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  DIRU : Mer : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  GADO : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  MALG : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  MESS : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  OSIO : Lun : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  POLE : Ven : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  PULI : Mer : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  RAPE : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.max. 4 h consec. :  xAZ1 : Sab : 5 : +0.99
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: id.416 (I:LUCH, M:DIR, S:IGE_2 C) / id.415 (I:LUCH, M:DIR, S:IGE_2 C): +1 Sab-Sab : +0.95
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: id.521 (I:LUZZ, M:EAZ, S:IGE_5 A) / id.517 (I:LUZZ, M:EAZ, S:IGE_5 A): +1 Mar-Mar : +0.95
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: id.617 (I:xAZ2, M:EAZ, S:IGE_3 B) / id.615 (I:xAZ2, M:EAZ, S:IGE_3 B): +1 Sab-Sab : +0.95
VT: Num.min.gg, tra attiv.: id.718 (I:CARU, M:COS_DIS, S:GEO_3 A) / id.715 (I:CARU, M:COS_DIS, ChA:info4, S:GEO_3 A): +1 Sab-Sab : +0.95

88---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Liviu, 2024-01-21: Maybe partially done a long time ago, with the setting "Show subgroups in combo boxes".

students set max gaps per week
and
students set begins early

need a filter/checkbox show only O year O group O subgroup
because there are so many students (subgroups) and it is useful to add
that counstraints for lower years. but the list is so long, so it is very
difficult to find the years.

that filter is also useful for students set not available.

89--------------------------DONE---------------------------

90---------------------------------------------------------
From daviodan:

Possibility to edit the timetable after generation, drag-drop of activities.

91---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

Sometimes we have 3 teachers available to teach the same "kind" of
class. For example, Teacher A, B C may teach either one of Math for
7A, 7B, and 7C. It is possible that one combination may yield a
timetable that is easier than another. So, it would be nice if we can
have an option to generate "alternative" scenarios with the different
combination.

A possible way to do that may be:
- adding a "teachers-activities pool" dialogue.
- activities of the same pool may swap teacher
- each pool may be enabled or disabled at timetable generating time
(you may not need all combination all the time)
- all generation time, make an option for "generating alternatives"
and save each alternative in a different folder or something

Or:
- activities are created without teachers
- adding a "teacher can teach: activity tag" dialogue
- at generation time, teachers are assigned to activities based on
which teacher has the right "teacher can teach tag"

Or, another way of doing this (perhaps a more elegant way) is to make
a "preferred teacher" constraint like the preferred room constraint.
However, also add an "same room/teacher" option. That is, room/teacher
may be selected from list of preferred rooms/teachers, however, the
same room/teachers must be assigned to the same activities.

92---------------------------------------------------------
From Silver (on forum):

Constraint "Min gaps between activities in the day for teacher".
I mean like this :
when I select Min gaps = 2
Saturday: activity - gap - gap - activity - gap - gap - activity

93---------------------------------------------------------
From George Miliotis (on forum):

I think the ability to renumber the IDs of the activities starting from a specific ID would be very useful in other XML-related work, too.

An advanced option: "renumber activities" with a dialog asking for "new lowest ID" would be ideal for these merge-split issues.

In this case we could renumber the first FET file from 1, the second from 1000, then copy paste directly into the XML file.

This would get all rules and activities, wouldn't it?

But maybe we could use XSL for this.

94---------------------------------------------------------
From aang (on forum):

I have a problem though in the formatting of the html files and consequently the printing. Now, an activity will be printed with six subgroups on the timetable
making it unusually wide (or tall) and the subgroup names do not actually reflect the student set that should be displayed e.g Mwaniki-CRE-4 E BIOCRE1, 4 E PHYCRE1,
4 W BIOCRE1, 4 W PHYCRE1, 4 N BIOCRE1, 4 N PHYCRE1, 4 S BIOCRE1, 4 S PHYCRE1
instead of Mwaniki-CRE-4 CRE1 or Mwaniki-CRE-4. This means i edit the timetable manually after every generation to make this changes. I suggest adding a displayname
tag to the activity which defaults to the current display name (without the activityID) and using this to determine what is displayed for the activity.

Another thing, for activities with same starting time, is it possible to have them in one column/row so that the number of rows/columns is fixed to the either the number
of days or lessons (depending on the selected timetable)? This way it is easier to print.

95--------------------------DONE---------------------------

96--------------------------DONE---------------------------

97--------------------------DONE---------------------------

98--------------------------DONE---------------------------

99--------------------------DONE---------------------------

100---------------------------------------------------------
From Chafik Graiguer (on forum):

I spent much time striving to solve an impossible timetable
I wonder if FET can automatically report it impossible then abort
-First case: a teacher having only 5 hours per week: 1+1+1+2 (Min days between activities=1)
With Min hours per day for teachers = 2
This lead for an impossible timetable, but FET desperately trying to solve it for hours and hours

-Second case:
A teacher has 15 hours

With a maximum of 4 hours per day, given a 6 days week, this would allow him 1 free day or even 2 free days (4+4+4+4)
But activities were split in a rather strange fashion
Group G1: 3+3
Group G2: 2+2+2+3 (Min days between activities = 1)
Activities from G1 alone would occupy him for 2 days
Then come activities form G2 which require additional 4 days
Total is 6 days !!
I set Max days per week = 5
This leads to yet another impossible timetable

My question: can FET automatically report it impossible then abort?

101---------------------------------------------------------
From drew:

Actually the biggest problem was with teacher T1, who was mistakenly scheduled for 7 activities with activity AT1. But, there are only 6 timeslots available for AT1. FET needs a way to detect and report on this kind of error. This is not the first time I made that kind of mistake.

After I deactivated activity id 1, a problem with teacher T2's not available times. Instead of marking him not available for the first two AT1 time slots on Saturday afternoon. After I relaxed it to him just being not available for the 1st time slot FET was able to create a schedule.

I'm not sure how you in on T2's not available time slot as the cause of the problem. I think you need to try to find a way to automate that process and generate warnings about which constraints need to be relaxed.

The problem with activity id 2 was a variation on this problem. T2 had 5 activities for tag AT1, AT1 has 6 preferred time slots, but T2 was unavailable for 2 of them.

You do similar checking for student groups which have too many activities for the available time slots.

102------------------------DONE-----------------------------

103---------------------------------------------------------
From Silver (on forum):

He needs a constraint to ensure that all activities of each teacher are hosted in different rooms (for exam scheduling).

104---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide G. M. Salvetti (on forum):

Would it be possible to sort on comments the activities list (like sorting the constraints)?

105---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide G. M. Salvetti (on forum):

I wonder if it's sensible to write a .fet file with all placed activities time and space constraints spelled out (i.e., just like the usual
_data_and_timetable.fet, where each activity is (non permanently) blocked in time and space) even when FET gets interrupted, rather than only
if it completes succesfully.  I think it could be useful, because that file could then be reused as a start, maybe manually deleting or adding
some constraint.

106---------------------------------------------------------
From Silver (on forum):

He needs "teachers_rooms.html" in the statistics folder, he thinks it would be useful for the examination timetable.

107-partially DONE in FET-6.8.0, then finally DONE in FET-6.11.0, released on 25 October 2023-

108---------------------------------------------------------
From skinkone (on forum):

What I realized is that FET won't allocate your students for you, so I will do that by hand. I can only suspect that such a problem increases the
complexity exponentially. However, if you are thinking of going down this road in future developments, I would vote in favor of having such a
feature where students can have "tag preferences". The user would set "minimum or maximum number of tags a student group must have". This would
then be an optimization problem to try to get the most students with their preferences. Essentially FET would form student groups as an output
rather than as an input.

109---------------------------------------------------------
From Jonathan Block (on forum):

It would be nice to have a fourth dimension.

Explanation from Liviu Lalescu: He considers students (1), teachers (2) and rooms (3) as three dimensions. He would like to allocate activities
to teachers (4) (and these teachers should be the fourth dimension, different in concept from the second dimension, but similar to the third dimension).

110-------------------------DONE----------------------------

111-------DONE since FET-5.35.0-(21 December 2017)----------

112---------------------------------------------------------
From murad:

Create please, in QComboBox, auto-complete. With a large number of students and teachers it is very difficult to find the necessary students or teachers.

113---------------------------------------------------------
From kdrosos:

In FET there is "School's name", where the school's name appears in the final .html files.

Maybe the text "School's name" can be parametric and thus to allow changing to "Department's name" or "Institution's name" etc.

This can also allow a "School's name field" as:

"Faculty of FET: Department of FET"

Liviu Lalescu's note: I think that kdrosos refers to the Greek FET. In the English FET, the string is "Institution name".

114-------DONE since FET-5.40.0-(20 September 2019)--------

115---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis:

I've seen that with html files you save a "xyz_data_and_timetable.fet" file.
In this xml file, you save
<Time_Constraints_List> element which contains many <ConstraintActivityPreferredStartingTime>.

These <ConstraintActivityPreferredStartingTime> elements are the generated timetable data (Activity_Id, Preferred_Day, Preferred_Hour).

So, you could add an option (for example autosave) saving each generated timetable with a unique name (for example name_year_month_day_hour_minute.fet)

This file could easily be loaded from a user just to be able to preview the generated timetable inside FET.

116---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis:

I would like to suggest an extra optional field to entities of FET program.

For example:
Teachers_List: name, [id]
Students_List: name, [id]
Subjects_List: name, [id]
Hours_List: Name, [id]
Days_List: Name, [id]

etc

When someone (like me) would like to import FET generated timetable data to another program,
there should be a more accurate way to associate an FET entity with my database records beside the name ...

If you add the id field (as an optional field) there should be no problem to users already using FET ...

117---------------------------------------------------------
From mma:

When adding a constraint, a useful feature would be to check if an identical constraint exists already, and thus not adding the constraint. I just tried to add the same constraint repeatedly (just kept pressing 'Add'), and it kept adding. When there are many constraints it can be difficult to keep track of them all.

Removing identical constraints reduces the clutter, and perhaps also speeds up the timetable generation?

118------------------------DONE-----------------------------

119---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

For printing: It would nice if I can specify a custom css file for the style.

120---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

I find that while the fixed max-room contraint works well, I notice
something with my situation:

I have a teacher, teacher A, uses room A and teaches year 6 classes. Unlike
the more senior years, which are heavily blocked (lots of constraints with
activities with same start time), year 6 classes are pretty free floating.
Therefore, the year 6 classes always appear at the end of the order of
allocation.

I have included room A as one of the available rooms for the preferred room
list for another teacher. room A is almost always chosen. But the problem
is, teacher A and room A become very difficult toward the end of the
allocation. My timetable has about 1280 activities, and most of the year 6
classes are toward the end of the list. The generation always got stuck
toward the end, like 1250, with teacher A not being able to get the right
allocation.

I don't think this is a bug. This is easily solved by removing room A from
the preferredRooms list for that other teacher. But I just want to point
that out to you.

Answer Liviu Lalescu:

I could improve the algorithm to take care of situations like that. So
it will know that in room A there can be only one type of activity
(one type of look-ahead). Or that in room A there can be only teacher A
(another type of look-ahead). But there are contrary reasons:

1) Will make other timetables slower, by the additional look-ahead.

2) Each look-ahead is to be avoided, because of possible new critical
bugs and general slowdown. There are many look-aheads in FET, but they
are necessary and not very time-consuming.

3) The user is advised to help FET towards a solution. The user needs
to collaborate with FET. (Of course, not necessarily us. We want to
push its limits )

4) This is the most important reason. Say I solve this problem for a
single preferred room for teacher A. But this is not everything. A user
may invent two preferred rooms for teacher A and go into the same
situation, which now becomes more complicated to manage. I cannot
forecast all situations similar to yours.

Please tell me what you think, I might need to treat situation like
these - I am still thinking. Because I did many look-aheads which are
necessary.

121---------------------------------------------------------
From Andres Chandia:

He has a custom version, developed by Liviu Lalescu, which among other things
ensures that if more people open the same file (on a common server), only the first
one who opened it will be able to save it, and the others will see that their file
is read-only. He suggests to add this into official FET. But it might be tricky and
potential bugs might be critical.

122---------------------------------------------------------
From Robert Sutcliffe:

I need to print out all the rules and constraints to document the settings to supply to another system, and for peer review.
Staff availability, activities, room allocation rules, not-overlapping activity selections - everything!
Is there any way to do this?

---Answer Liviu Lalescu: no, there is no direct way in FET---

If not, another web report that details all these settings would be ideal.

Liviu Lalescu, 2024-04-05: You could use this trick: select all the activities/constraints, click Remove (but don't remove), and select the text
in the confirmation text. This is a nice formatted text.

123---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari:

I think the following feature would be nice: when I deactivate a year FET should deactivate some time constraints, e.g. min hours daily for a student set.
When I deactivate a year and I want to generate timetable, FET says that some groups don't have enough activities to respect this constraint.

And when I activate a whole year these constraints will again be activated.

Answer Liviu Lalescu:

The best would be other buttons: "Activate/deactivate all constraints for selected students year" and so on, for groups, teachers, etc.
Because the button says "Activate/deactivate all activities for selected students year" (it refers only to activities).

124---------------------------------------------------------
From rjmillett (on guestbook):

there are many things i would like to have in FET:

1. when adding activities there should be a choice list similar to the new print option now included in 5.18
to add multiple classes (sub-groups) with the same choice of periods and teacher in one click i.e. all same

2. there should be a similar option in the preview to choose a class and teacher preview both at the same time so as to make changes without having to go back and every time i.e. side by side view at one time click in drop down box

3. to right click in the preview and change the position ot LT or PLT activities and not having to go back every time to time > all > search > etc to make changes

4. print preview choice button on main panel

5. un/lock button on main panel

6. an import and export to EXCEL or txt other than CSV file

7. print option of teachers statistics on preview not from HTML

In addition to (6.), when Liviu said that Excel was not free software, rjmillett replied:

Another option would be to export as a Google sheet that's open source and
free for all other than Microsoft's excel

125----------------------DONE-------------------------------

126---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

1)
>> i just want to tell you this and ask you if we maybe need that also
>> in FET.
>>
>> i am currently coding on an other small tool.
>>
>> i saved settings with QSettings and i reload that settings on an other
>> function.
>> the strange thing was this:
>> i saved QSettings in the destructor ~xyz and reload it in an other
>> function/file again, but it looks like QSettings didn't save. the
>> strange things was that visible/correct as soon as i restarted that
>> reload function a bit later.
>> first of all i tried a QSettings.sync(), but it doesn't help.
>> i also tried with a global variable, but it also doen't help.
>> it look like my "update"-function already run before the destructor
>> source was done.
>>
>> now i removed the destructor ~xyz and replaced it by a protected: void
>> closeEvent(QCloseEvent *event);
>>
>> now all work fine. it look like the protected: void
>> closeEvent(QCloseEvent *event); wait long enough.
>>
>> so a destructor run simultaneously? so it is critical to use
>> destructors with qt, because they might be to slow? (for example if
>> you clear variables, reload variables or something like that.)

2)
i am not sure if it is a problem.

it was more an information to you.

i was able to proove that the destructor is doing his job, but too slow. the
destructor isn't ready if the function go back to the main programm.
if i add a delay in the main programm and check if the destructor have
done his work, then it is ok. but without that delay it isn't ok. so
destructor is slow (i guess it simply run in a second thread
simultaniously).

so the solution is:
a) adding a delay in main code. (but that is a bad style, especialy because
i don't know how long it must be)
b) coding it with an closeEvent. (like in qt book). i coded it with
closeEvent and it run very fine now.

i just didn't check if this is maybe also critical for fet. that is why i
just want to warn you, because it took several hours to find this bug.

Liviu:

I think I understood.

You are right: "The readSettings() and writeSettings() functions must
be called from the main window's constructor and close event handler as
follows:" (from http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/qsettings.html#details)

I wanted to say: "For efficiency, the changes may not be saved to
permanent storage immediately. (You can always call sync() to commit
your changes.)", but looks like you already checked that.

I think that if the control goes to user interface (like waiting for
user to click), the critical time is gone. So, I hope your situation
will not appear.

I really cannot do all perfectly with closeEvent. There are too many
files. Maybe in the future.

127--------------------partially done-----------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Lift the limits for the generation algorithm, like MAX_TEACHERS and
MAX_TOTAL_SUBGROUPS.

128---------------------------------------------------------
From yasin dehghan:

1- show warning message when enter 2 same activity
2- add exam date with subject in subject form
3- add list for teacher to show allow subject for each teacher in teacher form

Liviu Lalescu:

I will add your suggestions in the TODO, but please explain to us more
detailed:

1 - When the user adds two same SPLIT activities?
2 - I do not understand.
3 - I think you mean each teacher has his own subjects list?

yasin dehghan:

1- no, don't split. when the user add 2 same activity show warning msg and
don't save 2nd activity

2- user able to add date of exam for each subject and print exam date with
subject name, just it, no exam planing and etc

3- yes, user able select list of allow subject for teacher, when add
activity, only allow subject show for teacher or show warning msg if select
don't allow subject

and other sugestion

4- user able enter min and max hour of each teacher per week and show this
min and max hour in teacher statistics for compare

129---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

do following speed check:

check all connections of radio buttons.
check if they use singnal toggled.

if you can see 2 times the same slot, then it is bad to use toggled.
example:
this is bad:
connect(radioButton1, SIGNAL(toggled(bool)), this, SLOT(something(bool)));
connect(radioButton2, SIGNAL(toggled(bool)), this, SLOT(something(bool)));

this is ok:
connect(radioButton1, SIGNAL(toggled(bool)), this, SLOT(something1(bool)));
connect(radioButton2, SIGNAL(toggled(bool)), this, SLOT(something2(bool)));

if you can find a bad version, then it should be converted into this:
connect(radioButton1, SIGNAL(clicked(bool)), this, SLOT(something(bool)));
connect(radioButton2, SIGNAL(clicked(bool)), this, SLOT(something(bool)));

reason:
if you click a button in bad example, then something is called twice!
(once, because one RB is checked and a second time, because the other RB
is unchecked).
if you use click, then something is called only once.

130---------------------------------------------------------
From Daniel (on forum: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=1224.0):

Allow activities to span over breaks. (For the moment, a solution is to split activities
and add constraints two (or three) activities grouped. Another solution is to not
consider explicitly the breaks in the timetable, but this way the constraints of
type max hours continuously may not work as needed.)

131---------------------------------------------------------
From daviodan:

After clicking 'Add' in the add activity dialog, he suggests that the students list
widget should be cleared, because usually the user adds activities for a specific
teacher (with all his students), then goes to another teacher.

132---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

Display the total number of hours of an activity: when I divide an activity
I would see the total of durations of all defined subactivities.
This total must be updated changing the number/duration of subactivities.

A good place for this changing label could be near number of sub in
group *divide*:

In my mind (Italian one) I know that a teacher have 6 hours of a subject,
only then I think about how divide them.
See the total expedite and reduce input errors.

---

comment by Liviu Lalescu:

I added this in the TODO. But there is so little space in the dialog there.

---

comment by Massimo Mancini:

I think the space is pretty enough. There are two suitable places:

1. at the side of the field *divide* (too long, what is the max number of
subactivities? 9, 99, 999?)

2. below the check *consecutive*

the format of the label can be as little as T:xyz (5 chars).

Just this afternoon I spent 2 hours correcting mistakes that I would have
avoided if such counter was in place. Consider the input of a sequence of activities with
similar number of subactivities  but different duration of some sub, consider also that the
tab widget remember the past durations when you reduce and then re
increases the number of subs... so. it's easy (too easy) to insert a wrong total
duration, for a real check you must tab all the subs and add: very boring.

133---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

First, consider this situation...
1. I'm working on teachers not available (TNA) constraint
2. I filter on MANC, fet shows a blank window: the constraint on MANC not
exist.
3. Good. I add it but the dialog not inherit MANC as selected teacher :-(
why? In general the dialog add/modify is not linked with existing constraints. Fet
prevents, of course,  multiple TNA about the same teacher, but I ask you, is it
possible to link the dialog with existing data?  in this manner the
add/modify functions would be the same. With the wheel of the mouse I can
scroll the list of teachers and quick view/modify the existing constraint!

Second, the comment area. I use it to note some info about the
contents of fet file. I would like to access the comment
space more quickly. My suggestion is "reduce the RECENT button and put near
a COMMENT button"

NEW	OPEN
RECENT	COMMENT
SAVE	AS

good! isn'it? ;-)

The best would be if you could show the first line of the comments along with
the file name in the recents list... so I would avoid to remember...

134--------------------------DONE---------------------------

135---------------------DONE in FET-7.5.4-------------------

136---------------------------------------------------------
From arivasm (on forum):

I think it would be good if the activities dialog would be actualized every
time you enter a new one. That could allow to verify the last entered, and
prevent mistakes, without the need to close the new activity dialog.

137---------------------------------------------------------
From Pietro (on forum):

I think the "pseudo activities" shouldn't be shown in the teacher statistics, or
should be shown in a separate column. In fact, with actual situation the user can
confuse real activity with pseudo one and don't know the real situation.

138-------------------------DONE----------------------------

139---------------------------------------------------------
From Massimo Mancini:

Please consider to implement a shortcut (Alt+C ?) to popup the comment area...

140---------------------------------------------------------
From arivasm (on forum):

When you set the constraints of the times in which the teachers are not available,
maybe you don't know how many teachers wil be finally available for each time slot
(unless you count them manually). So, my suggestion is to include a new statistic
to show that information, in order to correct impossible constraints before start
the timetable generation. Of course, an automatic detection (less teachers
available than needed) would be better!.

Liviu Lalescu: Sorry, but I do not understand. I already do a check on the number
of activities for each teacher, versus his not available times.

Volker Dirr: Your suggestion isn't that easy as you might think now. It's easy if
teacher/students have full timetables (all timeslots are used), but it's complicated
if the tables are not full.

Liviu already include common checks like that. The checks also need to care about
timetables that are not full (not all timeslots are used). Maybe the checks can be
improved if the timetables are full, but that mean: a) you must code a check that
check if the timetables are full. b) it will help only a few datasets, because most
datasets (compare examples) don't have full timetables.

arivasm: Excuse me if my previous post wasn't clear!

Of course, Volker is right: it will be a weak information know how many teachers are
available for each time slot if the timetable isn't full. Furthermore, the fact to
have for each of all time slots more teachers than groups don't will guarantee that
the whole problem will be solvable. But if the timetable is full, and this condition
fails at some time slot, it will be certain that the problem will be impossible to solve.

The idea arose when I was entering the preferences of my workmates and I suspected that
too many of them were requesting be free at some times, i.e. last class of friday
(of course!). Then I missed to have a simple account as an alternative in order to avoid
passing sheet after sheet, looking for the petition and count them.

141---------------------------------------------------------
From AZ (on forum):

I would appreciate a statistical feature that tells the user which constraint(s) is (are)
causing the greatest number of rejects; if a user could see, during computation, a counter
that tells him the top 10 blocking constraints, maybe the debugging could be easier.
I don't know if it's possible, though.

Liviu Lalescu: Unfortunately, it is probably impossible or it would give wrong results.
But someone should study this suggestion, so I'm adding it in the TODO.

142---------------------------------------------------------
From Etlau (on forum):

Maximum delta in time for day per week per group. For example 7-7-3-4-5 is unacceptable,
better will be 5-5-5-5-6. And same for teacher. Yes, you can set max and min activities
per day, but number need to calculate manually for every class and teacher, not really
comfortable.

143---------------------------------------------------------
From Etlau (on forum):

Will be nice to drag-and-drop and lock activities in schedule directly.

144------------------------DONE-----------------------------

145------------DONE since FET-5.41.0 - 2019-11-20-----------

146---------------------------------------------------------
From Frans (on forum):

I just wonder how the following can be done.

Let's say I set a timetable for a specific term with constraints. The timetable is accepted by everyone and published.

What I do now for the next term is to export the information, I am interested in the activities, as csv files. These files are send to the people in charge to make changes for the second term for example. What I want to do now is to import the activity files using Fet to set the timetable for the specific term.

I do have a problem now. If I import the activities then I must add the constraints from scratch, hundreds of them.

If there are only one or two constraints and a few changes to the activities that is not a problem.
Is there not a way that the existing constraints can be inported without entering them again.  I know that I can save the timetable with data, including constraints, but this is of no help to me.

Is there a solution?

147---------------------------------------------------------
From y (on forum):

y: Teacher S has to leave early either on Thursday or Friday. This means that in one out of these two days he has to finish at the 4th hour the latest. How can I do that?

Liviu: Say slots are Thu 5,6,7 and Fri 5,6,7. Add occupy max 1 slot from selection for each pair, starting with selection Thu 5 + Fri 5, then Thu 5 + Fri 6, ..., Thu 7 + Fri 7 (3x3=9 constraints). Should work, right? Because you cannot have valid any pair of hours from different days.

y: Yes, I think it should work. I'll try this!

Thanks a lot!

Maybe, in a future version of FET, you could add an extension of the constraint "a teacher works in a hour interval max days per week", to allow to pick which days we want to apply this constraint, and not necessarily the whole week. It could be renamed to "a teacher works in a hour interval, max days from a days set" or something similar. Do you think something like this is feasible?

148---------------------------------------------------------
(DONE? Liviu Lalescu: in FET-6.17.0 (February 2024) we added the constraint teacher(s)/students (set) max building changes per (real) day in hourly interval. Is this item solved?)

From Christian Kemmer (on forum):

For the next timetable at our school, I need the following:

Hours 5 and 6 at one day have the same activity.

So I could decide by myself to add an activity 2+1+1 and give the subactivity with "2" hours a special activity-tag "2h" or something like that. I can do this for many activities and then only allow activities with tag "2h" to be placed in hour 5.
But if I do this, I have to decide, which activity should be placed there. If I choose too much activities, there will also be activities lasting two hours during other times of the day, which is not wanted in many cases.

I could also use constraint "consecutive if same day", but then an activity 1+1+1+1 may become 2+2. But I only want 2+1+1 or 1+1+1+1 for that kind of activities. I am also not sure, how to ensure that "consecutive if same day" is only used for hours 5 and 6.

So, what would be the best solution to let FET decide which activities to use, so that for every student and every teacher for every day I have the following:
If the student / the teachers has an activity in hour 5, he also has this activity in hour 6. Each activity may only have one two hour lesson (like 2, 2+1, 2+1+1, 2+1+1+1), but no activity is allowed to have more than one two hour lesson (like 2+2, 2+2+1).

I hope that I have explained it clearly.

Thanks for your help.

...

The reason is the following: Between 1st and 2nd hour there is a small break for students and teachers to change rooms. Between 3rd and 4th hour, there is also this small break. Between 5th and 6th hour, there is no break. So the teacher and the students must stay in the room without any break.

So I want to avoid those two hour lessons for all 1+1+1+1 and 1+1+1 and 1+1 activities if possible, but during 5th and 6th hour, I need them.

Liviu Lalescu: I think the best is a new constraint, students/teachers max building changes in a time interval, and each room is in a different building in your case.

149---------DONE in FET-6.12.0 on 3 November 2023-----------

150---------------------------------------------------------
From Nemo (on forum):

Issue is I am always having to make changes as teachers leave, swap etc. I of course have the timetable 'fixed' but it is quite laborious to make changes to rooms etc.

What it really needs now is a front end any one can use for room changes/teacher changes for a fixed timetable. I have plenty of programming experience (from a long time ago though) so using FET no issue for me. But even the ICT teachers can't understand it easily.

The other major issues we face is cover - would be fantastic to have a cover generator. That takes up a lot of time practically as teachers are off sick and the time taken to check their timetable and find others free is a job that would be nice at a click of a button. I know these are "nice to haves" but I bet a lot of FET users have the same practical issues day to day.

151---------------------------------------------------------
From Anton Anthofer (see also item #275):

- modify the IDs of (sub)activities.
- possibility to remove subactivities.

Liviu: DONE in FET-6.0.0?
- multicore generation for multiple timetables generation.

Also suggested by Thaneswer Patel, on forum:

Is it possible to edit a split option in activity once we entered the data in FET?

152---------------------------------------------------------
From yasin dehghan:

can you add excel export to software
this is so useful for view and share

153---------------------------------------------------------
From Leandro Bueno:

I have another question to you. If you open the file, you may have seen that the schedule of our school has 3 turns (morning, afternoon and evening),
but, the activity hours are of one clock hour for the evening and 50 minutes (clock) for the morning and afternoon turns. I can generate the timetable,
but the statistics only considers FET hours, but the FET hour to clock hour relationship is not defined. This relationship would help generate the work
hours of the teachers (in clock hours). Today, I take the statistics and make a spreadsheet applying the relationship between FET hours and clock hours.

I think that something like a relationship between FET and clock hours should be interesting to add in future versions, so the teachers statistics could
be shown in terms of number of activities (as it is today) and clock hours in a quick way, right from the FET interface.

154---------------------------------------------------------
From Leandro Bueno:

Always (or never) use span in the HTML timetables if an activity has
duration larger than 1.

155---------------------------------------------------------
From Leandro Bueno:

Another suggestion for a future release is the option to only
"print" to HTML the hours that the students have. In my case, I have
students divided in turns (morning, afternoon and evening) and each
turn only have activities in that specific turn. When I generate the
tables, the morning students' table have the afternoon and evening
hours as not available (there are restrictions for this in the .fet
file). The same occurs in the afternoon and evening students. I
suggest that these not available hours of the students don't end up
in the final HTML table.

Amendment by Volker Dirr:

Should be generalised from "hours" to "hours or days or both".

156---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

It would be cool if there could be an interactive way to do the timetable
generation. For example, in the middle of the generation, I can remove
some constraints on the fly, un-allocate allocated activities, move
activities in different order, ... etc. The work flow might be something
like this:

- hit the pause button
- select activities to be free
- inactivate any constraints
- move some activities to the front
- hit the re-start button

I suppose it will only benefit some crazy hard timetable like my school.
Even that, the timetable is probably plain impossible, but such interactive
approach would make it easier to remove key constraints that makes things
difficult.

157---------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

Is it possible that FET could be
customized to do the following:

- Have most of the activities with preferred time and space initially
- but once being placed, it will be treated as if the time and space
allocated was not "preferred" so will be free to float

I am hoping that this way, I can obtain better solution by using a
completed version, unlock some year, then let the program to run again.

Liviu: I did such a custom version for Yush, but it turns out not to work
as needed, because of broken soft constraints.

158----DONE in FET-6.8.0 and FET-6.11.0 on 23 October 2023--

159--------------------------DONE---------------------------

160---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

get rid of some "unneeded" tags in the xml file.
"unneeded" means: they contain redundant data. this data can be used to
assert the dataset, but is unneeded.
for example:
<Number> in hours list, days list, ...

161---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

if fet can't generate the data ("Cannot generate - please modify your
data"), then the "view difficult activities" push button is disabled. So a
user can't search the bug. so a) enable the push button or (maybe even
better (but only if you use only 100% constraints?)), display the
difficult activities in that text edit with the "Cannot generate - please
modify your data" string.

162---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

generation_pre request: warn if activities has 100% same starting time and
100% preferred room in the same room.

163---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

do another check in generation_pre.cpp:
if an activity has only 100% one room possible (by one or more
constraints), then sum all hours of the same room and check if (number of
available time slots for room) >= (number of 100% needed slots for this
room by activities).

164---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

name of constraints isn't always the same:
fet has for example: "teacher not available times" constraint.
but it also has: "A set of activities has preferred times"
But are these times preferred? The opposite times are not available.
So this constraint should be called "A set of activities has not
allowed/available times".

maybe even the "activity preferred time" is also bad, because it is not
only preffered. that is a 100% constraint. even the fet interface call it
"locked". So this constraint should be "An activity has a locked time".

so we get rid of all "preferred" stuff by that. (using instead only
"locked" or "not available").

165---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

if a constraint doesn't refer to an activity, then generating shouldn't
refuse generating. that constraint should be just skipped. Like inactive
things are skipped. it can warn, but not refuse generating.

(this is highly useful, because someone hunt bugs in his dataset, he can
just delete for example some years; just to check if this smaller stuff is
solveable, but some constraints might now refer to no activity anymore,
because the activities are deleted.)

166----------------------DONE-------------------------------

167---------------------------------------------------------
Liviu: maybe done in FET-6.9.4, constraint max hourly span between a set of activities?

From karim:

max gaps (hours) between a set of activities

Within :
time constraints -->activities
 -min gaps (hours) between a set of activities
+max gaps (hours) between a set of activities

168---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

I would suggest a new simple constraint for teacher:
In Italy, the work contract for a teacher is often tethered to a specific number of workdays so, to achieve the desired result, is necessary to insert two constraint:
"Max days per week for a teacher" and "Min days per week for a teacher" that have to set the same value.
Why not add a "Number of workdays per week for a teacher"?
In the interface I am glad to see a button that add all teacher and set every single-type constraint to the same value so to be individually modified later.

169-------------------------DONE----------------------------

170---------------------------------------------------------
From agemagician (on forum):

1- Print the name of the year, group and class under the institute name.
2- Print the schedule from right to left rather than left to right "very useful for Arabic countries like our academy". - Qt bug (Liviu) -> DONE
3- Make a bold line between each day in the printing and light line between periods.
4- Make a bold line between groups in the printing.
5- Change the font in the printing. -> DONE on 31 January 2022 in FET-6.2.7.
6- Export the schedule to excel.

171---------------------------------------------------------
From Vlăduț Frățiman:

He suggests to drop activities ids and use instead the teacher, students and subject, because ids might puzzle the new user.

Also, he suggests to add icons to the buttons.

172---------------------------------------------------------
From vlad2005 (on forum):

For gaps constraints (and others, maybe) specify the interval for which the constraint should action. Useful for instance
if the user wants teachers to have zero gaps in the morning and in the afternoon, but can have gaps in between these two
periods.

173---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

I don't know if comments constraint is a widely spread practice but when I add or modify a constraint I often use these, so add a "comments" button in these dialogs it would be greatly appreciated. Also ad enable/disable constraint button would be useful.
I often use comments to group same constraints but alphabetic sort and group by constraint-type, comments and insert order I think would be useful; could you add a preference dialog for these and others future settings?

174---------------------------------------------------------
From liquid (on forum):

I'd suggest to move print command from Timetable menu to File menu. IMHO, It's more common to have print command there than anywhere else. It may be worth to implement inside Print command some kind of radio button to choose what to print. Overall, it's good to have Print command anyway.

175---------------------------------------------------------
From mouiata (on forum) (regarding the custom Algeria version)

I suggest that the constraint is added under distinguishes between unloading the morning or evening, especially for a professor in the Algerian version of the program
The program is currently the constraint
a teacher works in an hourly interval max days per week
This is what allows unloading of several periods of morning and evening for the professor without distinguishing between the morning and evening.
In Algeria, a lot of professors in favor of unloading the evening than the morning
I propose to add the the constraint
The least possible number of evening periods that can be discharged to Professor
The least possible number of mornings that can be discharged to Professor

Liviu: Do you mean maximum number, not "least"?

mouiata: I mean, the minimum number if possible
If it is not possible The maximum number

176---------------------------------------------------------
From clouds (on forum):

Topic: teachers for hour

What do you think about a function that shows for each hour of the day how many teachers can be assigned at every hour (under the constraints set).
In this way it's possible to see what are the most problematic hours

177---------------------------------------------------------
From MarioMic (on forum):

When I create multiple timetables with fet, to eliminate the bad results (with a high number of conflicts), I have to manually select and
remove the folders of the bad timetables in the output path. This is especially annoying if I have many timetables since the names of the
folders do not show the level of conflict (it also would be useful to have this, too), and moreover occupy disk space unnecessarily.

It would be useful (for the gui and the command line version) to have an option to save only timetables below a configurable threshold of
maximum level of conflict.

Liviu Lalescu: since version 5.20.2 we added a detailed report for multiple generation of timetables.

178----------DONE in FET-6.10.0-17-October-2023-------------

179---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis (on forum):

Min hours per day, max hours per day:

I use these constraints but there is a problem.
If I set
min_hours = 3 and
max hours = 5
and a teacher should work 21 hours per week we could have combination: 5 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 3
but a better one should be: 5 + 5 + 4 + 4 + 3

So, I recommend a new constraint like "frequency of max hours per day"
For my example this new parameter would be 2 (5+5)

180------DONE since FET-7.0.4 - 19 February 2025------------

181------DONE since FET-5.21.0 - 3 December 2013------------

182---------------------------------------------------------
From Bobby Wise (on forum):

I think it would be a good idea if the printing of All Activities could be in consecutive order from the lowest grade to the highest, or in alphabetical order. Similar to the Activity Planning.

I think that the print order now is in Activity sequence.

183---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis (on forum):

The Min days between activities constraint has a weight percentage which I set to 95%.

I think that there should be another weight percentage for the option "if two activities are on the same day, make them consecutive" (when checked) because you handle it as a 100%.

184---------------------------------------------------------
From Tonny Chan:

Please add a multiple select and then add to FET, then I need not to click the students one by one to a course.

185------------------------DONE-----------------------------

186------------------------DONE-----------------------------

187---------------------------------------------------------
From llbuenoo (on forum):

I would like to generate a report that show the teachers and theirs restrictions (mainly the "Teachers not available times") and Activities related to the years (with its Groups and subgroups), in a way that I can better manage the distribution of the teachers activities according to their availability.

I have been making this by hand, but it generates a lot of work on each manual iteration on the timetable. As the data is stored on the FET database, it could be generated directly by the program.

I think in a pair of tables per year, one with the teachers and their activities in that year and another with the "teachers not available time" for that year.

With this table it could be simpler to redistribute Activities or teachers.

188---------------------------------------------------------
From Frans (on forum):

In the data and timetable fet file the sizes for subjects are indicated. Is it not possible when export to csv file to also export the group and/or subject sizes.

In some institutions the group and subject size are important in calculating workloads and ftes for lecturers.

The groups with the respective sizes are already exported but this is not always the same for all subjects as the number of students can be changed on the add activities page and this is not exported.

189--------------------------DONE---------------------------

190---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

most users use the split year automaticly feature only.
some need more categories, but that will produce to many subgroups.

so how about this feature:
a user can disable the "year-group-subgroup" fet and enable only a
"year-group" one.
so he can't modify, add, delete, ... subgroups anymore. subgroups will be
only used and gererated automaticly in the pregeneration and generation
part.

split year automaticly will look the same, but it won't produce subgroups.
instead of this it still store an integer number with the catagory number
to each group.

now only one new basic time constraint is needed:
(i will explain in 2 steps, but i think it can be imporved by storing that
value.)

if you place an activity into a timeslot, then:
1. step: it need to check if there is already an activity of the same year
stored.
no: -> place activity
yes: -> 2. step

2. step: check if that activities (same year) (in fact it need to check
only the first one, because others are already the same) have the same
category.
no: -> impossible to place activity
yes: -> place activity

i am not 100% sure, but i think with this kind of timetabling we can save
space and maybe also improve speed.

the problem is:
how to implement both features ("year-group-subgroup" fet and enable only
a "year-group" one.) at the same time without confusing a user?

191------------------------DONE-----------------------------

192---------------------------------------------------------
(DONE? Liviu Lalescu: in FET-6.17.0 (February 2024) we added the constraint teacher(s)/students (set) max building changes per (real) day in hourly interval. Is this item solved?)
From mbarsan (on forum):

We have a school with 8 periods per day, with a short break every 2 hours.
There are 3 buildings.
Teacher may change building during those short breaks.
So we haven't to say to FET any duration to change buildings. This may be done at beginning of hours nn. 3, 5 and 7.
If a teacher works in a building at first and second periods, he may change building and work at third period.

We may chose to insert breaks times (students and teachers not available) between periods 2 and 3, 4 and 5, 6 and 7 to allow building change in a period. But now we can handle 3 hours lessons only with the constraint "two activities are grouped", using the same teacher and same class with (sub)activities of 1 and 2 hours. We have also problems with subactivities with duration 2 that FET may not put with a break inside (so we have to use the same trick as above).

Do you think that we may define a grid of hours to allow building changes only at specific periods?

193---------------------------------------------------------
From _indianajones (on forum):

I think it would be useful, in case of difficult generation, to save the incomplete timetable in a .fet file without stopping the process,
so I could convert this file with "Excel FET file import 2010 Marco Albano ver 2.0" and try to solve it manually.

---

Liviu Lalescu: Generate, stop, advanced lock -> lock all activities of current timetable -> save file.

---

_indianajones: ...but in this way the generation is definitively stopped.... am I wrong?

After hours of elaboration I wish to save the best timetable found and let FET goes ahead...
is it possible?

---

Liviu Lalescu: Oh, sorry, I did not see that you wanted generation to continue.

I'll add your suggestion in the TODO, but it is not very nice, because I prefer FET to save .fet timetable files only when they are complete.

Meanwhile, you can do this, for only one interruption (if you have a multiple core computer): start two generations on the same timetable, with the same FET version, with the same initial random seed state, then interrupt one of them after a few hours, and leave the other one running.

194---------------------------------------------------------
(see also entry #26)
From russell (on forum):

I hope FET could plan courses soon.

195---------------------------------------------------------
From russell (on forum):

I have a teacher come to school in Monday and Wednesday OR in Tuesday and Friday. How to implement this constraint in FET? (I have some other constraint related to that teacher and his activities)

---

Liviu Lalescu:

It would be easy to make a change in the code for this. But I don't know how to make it a general constraint with FET-style-name.

These tricks might work:

- Teacher not available on Thursday;

- Max days per week for this teacher = 4;

- Add two dummy activities for this teacher, duration = number of hours per day. Not allowed on Thursday (not really needed, because the teacher is not available). Then min+max 3 days between them;

I hope I got all the details. Please correct me if I am wrong.

---

russell:

Thanks for your reply.

Can you please explain to me about "min+max 3"?  Dose it mean exactly 3 days distance (Tuesday to Friday)?

Dose your solution work for days with different hours (Monday has 8 hours and others 6)?

---

Liviu Lalescu:

The constraint min, then max days between activities.

If the teacher cannot have more than 6 working hours on Monday, use a constraint activities occupy max time slots from selection for his activities, so he has no more than 6 working hours on Monday (less work for you).

If he can have 7 or 8 real working hours on Monday, a lot of work for you: constrain each pair dummy - real activity pair for this teacher to not be on the same day (min 1 days between activities).

Please think of other solutions, if you want.

---

russell:

Most of the “select a day’s group from a set of the day’s group for a teacher” constraints can implement by other FET constraints. But if FET has a specific constraint for that it would be better.

---

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe better "Teacher works in a days group from a set of days groups".

196-------------DONE in FET-7.3.1 on 14 July 2025----------

197---------------------------------------------------------
From nouvakis (on forum, also from mercurialuser, also on forum):

If I set
min_hours = 3 and
max hours = 5
and a teacher should work 21 hours per week we could have combination: 5 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 3
but a better one should be: 5 + 5 + 4 + 4 + 3

So, I recommend a new constraint like "frequency of max hours per day"
For my example this new parameter would be 2 (5+5)

---

Liviu:

I am thinking of making it a separate constraint. And put it before max hours daily in the menu, because it might be better than the old existing constraint. Only 100% weight percentage allowed. How to name it? "Teacher(s)/Students (set) max hours daily max occurences per week"?

---

Liviu:

I thought about this. I looked over the present code (official FET-5.23.3, src/engine/generate.cpp).

1) The changes are very difficult in generate.cpp. There are many possibilities to consider, and maybe a perfect treatment is impossible.

See for instance generate.cpp, lines 7543-7572. These are for a unique limit per day. But if you want two possible limits (5 two times per week, the rest maximum 4), the things become much more difficult.

(I care in these lines above about the gaps.)

2) The changes are critical in generate.cpp. New timetables might become impossible.

Anyway, I'll keep this suggestion in my mind. But for now I do not have the courage/possibility to do it.

I hope that by using some tricks you can overcome the problems.

See also fet-v.v.v/doc/algorithm/improve-todo-item-197.txt.

---

From mercurialuser:

Italian school, students have 5 days, 6 periods each.
Teachers teach 18 periods.

I have a min hours per day set to 2, and some teachers have 2 days with 2 hours and unfortunately 2 days with 5 teaching hours...

Is it possible to tell FET that teachers may teach 2 periods and 5 periods only once in a week ?

I'm testing with minimum hours per day set to 3 but I feel it is a too strict requirements...

198---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr (also from mouiata, on the forum):

new useful constraint:
time constraints -> teachers -> max total sum of teachers gaps per week

199---------------------------------------------------------
From liquid (on forum):

I think it would be useful to introduce aliases for years, groups and subgroups. Their names sound kind of technical, particularly when one lets FET automatic year divide. It's OK when you work with schedule but it would be more readable when aliases were shown (of course if present) on the timetable.

Volker:

Maybe i missunderstood, but it sound to me like you are talking about the names that are generated automatically. You can simply rename them (by "modify") if you want (no problems with years and groups. be carefull with subgroups, because you must do it several times!)

liquid:

I exactly thought about what Volker had understood. E.g. if you had groups and subgroups automatically generated the name for resulting subgroup would come from names of groups and a year. It would be desirably sometimes to give the generated subgroup a more descriptive name. As the example:
year - 1
group division: 1. by a and b 2. by i1 and i2 (i for computer science)
you will get the following groups: 1 a, 1 b, 1 i1, 1 i2
and subgroups: 1 a i1, 1 a i2, 1 b i1, 1 b i2
For generation purposes it's OK thanks short names but if you wanted to make a timetable for all the students and teachers they would like maybe 1a comp.sci. group 1. That's what I think about.

Liviu:

But why not simply divide by a,b then comp.sci. group 1,comp.sci group 2?

liquid:

...just for simplicity's sake. Aliases almost always serve as more descriptive names. If I tried to give more descriptive names for groups they might not fit into boxes at activity setting window or elsewhere. Particularly when group division is not trivial. Short names are good while designing a schedule.

Volker:

I can recommend using short names. I use everywhere shortcuts (subjects has only 1-2 characters. Teacher names 3 characters. Students only around 1 to 4 characters.)
Of course new students "wonder" the first day about that shortcuts, but they are clever enough to understand it very fast.

liquid:

Oh, maybe that's the right way. I was afraid that schedule could be misunderstood with many short and cryptic names but your experience tells the opposite. OK then, thanks for suggestions.

---

liquid suggests also aliases for rooms.

Also from abautu, on forum: Could you add an extra field for subjects and teachers to allow for a short name/abbreviation of it?
For example, for a subject called "Classical literature" a short name could be "CL" or "C-101". Then the print timetable features
would allow to print the short names (i.e. compact timetable) or long names (i.e. normal timetable).

See also item #324

200---------------------------------------------------------
(Added on 2014-10-12)
From fromturkey (on forum):

I think the program should be able to use multiple CPUs/cores. Especially when trying to generate difficult timetables it takes a lot
of time processing. If the program could use multiple CPUs, it would take much more shorter.

Is it possible with the current algorithm?

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, I cannot think of how to adapt the FET algorithm to multiple cores.

Also suggested by Benahmed Abdelkrim on the forum (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=2420.0)

201-------------------------DONE----------------------------

202---------------------------------------------------------
From Vanyo Georgiev (on forum):

The last opened FET XML file is opened again on startup.

(Vanyo Georgiev provided the necessary code changes to do this.)

203---------------------------------------------------------
From Vanyo Georgiev (on forum):

One more place to check for a language .qm file - the work path.

(Vanyo Georgiev provided the necessary code changes to do this:
translation_loaded=translator.load("fet_"+FET_LANGUAGE, QDir::currentPath());
in fet.cpp.)

This change makes possible by setting the Working directory of the exe file in QtCreator to test the current translation without copying the .qm file to another directory.

204---------------------------------------------------------
From Vanyo Georgiev (on forum):

Save and restore tabWidget current page at start up.

(Vanyo Georgiev provided the necessary code changes to do this.)

Liviu: See the ChangeLog for FET-5.19.0: "- When starting FET, the first shortcuts tab section (File) is selected (suggested by a user)." Previously, I saved the main tab widget position (as you do), but a user suggested that it is better to start always with the File tab selected.

Anyway, I'll add this in the TODO, as your suggestion.

Vanyo Georgiev: May be there must be a setting: 'Remember current page' and each user to choose his own preference. I'll try to do so.

(Vanyo Georgiev provided the necessary code changes to do this.)

205---------------------------------------------------------
From bharatstank (on forum): ( https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=1826.0 )

bharatstank:

I have below created a Student structure (having 60 students):-

(Student) Year - Group - Sub Group

Year                    Group                    Sub Group
MBACPM (60)       MBA CPM L (60)     MBACPM G1 (30)
                                                       MBACPM G2 (30)
Activity Tags:
Lecture
Tutorial
Practical

Activities created are as follows:-
1. MBA CPM L (Lecture) of a SUBJECT1 for 2 hours duration is conducted by a FACULTY1 for all the 60 students
2. MBA CPM G1 (Tutorial) of a SAME SUBJECT1 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY1 for 30 students
3. MBA CPM G2 (Tutorial) of a SAME SUBJECT1 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY1 for 30 students
4. MBA CPM G1 (Practical) of a SAME SUBJECT1 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY1 for 30 students
5. MBA CPM G2 (Practical) of a SAME SUBJECT1 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY1 for 30 students

6. MBA CPM L (Lecture) of a SUBJECT2 for 2 hours duration is conducted by a FACULTY2 for all the 60 students
7. MBA CPM G1 (Tutorial) of a SAME SUBJECT2 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY2 for 30 students
8. MBA CPM G2 (Tutorial) of a SAME SUBJECT2 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY2 for 30 students
9. MBA CPM G1 (Practical) of a SAME SUBJECT2 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY2 for 30 students
10. MBA CPM G2 (Practical) of a SAME SUBJECT2 for 2 hours is conducted by SAME FACULTY2 for 30 students

and so on...

How to place the activities - so that:-
1. For Subject1 - Lecture followed by Tutorial followed by Practical is conducted in sequence in a day and FET do NOT place tutorial or practical before Lecture

I want to use this process as a template for every subject (Lecture -> Tutorial -> Practical). So that FET places all the possible activities according to this template.  and constraints are only applied in case of specific activities or exceptions.

How to achieve this scenario.

---

Liviu:

I am not sure I understand well, but I think you can use a constraint three activities grouped and two constraints two activities ordered.

---

bharatstank:

using "constraint three activities grouped and two constraints two activities ordered." - here I need to create manual constraints for all the approx. 200 activities.

is there a way - where I can create a Standardised constraints using Activity Tag.
I have defined 3 activity tag (which needs to follow the below sequence):-
1. Lecture
2. Tutorial
3. Practical

As per the guideline - for subject1 - First lecture is conducted, Then its Tutorial is conducted and then its Practical is conducted.

In my case FET does not places activity like (Subject1 lecture -> Subject1 Tutorial -> Subject1 Practical) in sequence but most of the time it places the activity like (Subject1 Lecture -> Subject2 Tutorial -> Subject3 Practical or vice versa)

how to resolve this issue.
I have also attached the timetable screenshot:-

1. Correctly placed activity shown in Green circle
2. Wrongly placed activity shown in Red Circle

Here it is not important that Subject1 (lecture, Tutorial, Practical) should be consecutive but has to follow activity tag order (for a particular subject). otherwise timetable starts with Tutorial or Practical without Lecture - which is not feasible.

---

Liviu:

I do not understand the picture in your attachment.

If it is not important that the three kinds of activities are grouped, you might need to add only two constraints two activities ordered. You might want to add also a constraint activities same starting day.

About making this automatic for activity tags - I have added this in the TODO list.

206---------------------------------------------------------
From Vanyo Georgiev (on forum):

There are translations of the FET User manual in several languages https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/doc/

I think it would be nice, when there is an User manual in the currently set language of the FET interface, by clicking on the Help -> Online -> Help contents the User manual in the  language of the FET interface is opened.

207---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

someone used split year automatically.

this year he doesn't need all classes again. class / group "5 d" is not
needed.
so he deletes group "5 d".
but in fact that doesn't improve speed (much), because the number of
subgroups stays the same.

but if there will be a question after removing a group (or year) like "do
you also want to remove all subgroups of this group in all other groups?",
then the number of subgroups will be reduced and it will be easier to
generate.

(Yes, instead of removing a group he could simply use the split year
automatically once again, but maybe he forgot, he has got a new computer, he
already changed "presettings" because of other years or the simply fear
that he will do it incorrect; so he like to use delete group only, because
it is easier.)

Volker wrote code for this, but it is not perfectly optimized for speed.
Below is his code for file fet-v.v.v/src/interface/groupsform.cpp (see
the string Volker Dirr start/end):

old file groupsform.cpp - last modified on 8 February 2015 (FET-5.28.0)
new Volker Dirr's code: 5 October 2015

---
//
//
// Description: This file is part of FET
//
//
// Author: Lalescu Liviu <Please see https://lalescu.ro/liviu/ for details about contacting Liviu Lalescu (in particular, you can find here the email address)>
// Copyright (C) 2003 Liviu Lalescu <https://lalescu.ro/liviu/>
//
/***************************************************************************
 *                                                                         *
 *   This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify  *
 *   it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as        *
 *   published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the    *
 *   License, or (at your option) any later version.                       *
 *                                                                         *
 ***************************************************************************/

#include "addstudentsgroupform.h"
#include "modifystudentsgroupform.h"
#include "groupsform.h"
#include "timetable_defs.h"
#include "timetable.h"
#include "fet.h"
#include "studentsset.h"

#include "longtextmessagebox.h"

#include <QMessageBox>

#include <QListWidget>
#include <QScrollBar>
#include <QAbstractItemView>

#include <QSplitter>
#include <QSettings>
#include <QObject>
#include <QMetaObject>

extern const QString COMPANY;
extern const QString PROGRAM;

struct subgroupItem{
	QString yearName;
	QString groupName;
	QString subgroupName;
};

GroupsForm::GroupsForm(QWidget* parent): QDialog(parent)
{
	setupUi(this);
	
	groupTextEdit->setReadOnly(true);
	
	modifyGroupPushButton->setDefault(true);

	yearsListWidget->setSelectionMode(QAbstractItemView::SingleSelection);
	groupsListWidget->setSelectionMode(QAbstractItemView::SingleSelection);

	connect(yearsListWidget, SIGNAL(currentTextChanged(const QString&)), this, SLOT(yearChanged(const QString&)));
	connect(addGroupPushButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(addGroup()));
	connect(removeGroupPushButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(removeGroup()));
	connect(purgeGroupPushButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(purgeGroup()));
	connect(closePushButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(close()));
	connect(groupsListWidget, SIGNAL(currentTextChanged(const QString&)), this, SLOT(groupChanged(const QString&)));
	connect(modifyGroupPushButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(modifyGroup()));
	connect(sortGroupsPushButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(sortGroups()));
	connect(activateStudentsPushButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(activateStudents()));
	connect(deactivateStudentsPushButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(deactivateStudents()));
	connect(groupsListWidget, SIGNAL(itemDoubleClicked(QListWidgetItem*)), this, SLOT(modifyGroup()));

	centerWidgetOnScreen(this);
	restoreFETDialogGeometry(this);
	//restore splitter state
	QSettings settings(COMPANY, PROGRAM);
	if(settings.contains(this->metaObject()->className()+QString("/splitter-state")))
		splitter->restoreState(settings.value(this->metaObject()->className()+QString("/splitter-state")).toByteArray());
	
	yearsListWidget->clear();
	for(int i=0; i<gt.rules.yearsList.size(); i++){
		StudentsYear* year=gt.rules.yearsList[i];
		yearsListWidget->addItem(year->name);
	}

	if(yearsListWidget->count()>0)
		yearsListWidget->setCurrentRow(0);
	else
		groupsListWidget->clear();
}


GroupsForm::~GroupsForm()
{
	saveFETDialogGeometry(this);
	//save splitter state
	QSettings settings(COMPANY, PROGRAM);
	settings.setValue(this->metaObject()->className()+QString("/splitter-state"), splitter->saveState());
}

void GroupsForm::addGroup()
{
	if(yearsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected year"));
		return;
	}
	QString yearName=yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text();
	int yearIndex=gt.rules.searchYear(yearName);
	assert(yearIndex>=0);

	AddStudentsGroupForm form(this, yearName);
	setParentAndOtherThings(&form, this);
	form.exec();

	yearChanged(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	
	int i=groupsListWidget->count()-1;
	if(i>=0)
		groupsListWidget->setCurrentRow(i);
}

void GroupsForm::removeGroup()
{
	if(yearsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected year"));
		return;
	}
	int yearIndex=gt.rules.searchYear(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	assert(yearIndex>=0);

	if(groupsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected group"));
		return;
	}

	QString groupName=groupsListWidget->currentItem()->text();
	int groupIndex=gt.rules.searchGroup(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text(), groupName);
	assert(groupIndex>=0);

	QList<QString> yearsContainingGroup_List;
	QSet<QString> subgroupsList;
	//QSet<QString> yearsContainingGroup_Set;
	foreach(StudentsYear* year, gt.rules.yearsList)
		foreach(StudentsGroup* group, year->groupsList)
			if(group->name==groupName){
				yearsContainingGroup_List.append(year->name);
				foreach(StudentsSubgroup* subgroup, group->subgroupsList)
					subgroupsList<<subgroup->name;
			}
			
	assert(yearsContainingGroup_List.count()>=1);
	QString s;
	if(yearsContainingGroup_List.count()==1)
		s=tr("This group exists only in year %1. This means that"
		 " all the related activities and constraints will be removed. Do you want to continue?").arg(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	else{
		s=tr("This group exists in more places, listed below. It will only be removed from the current year,"
		 " and the related activities and constraints will not be removed. Do you want to continue?");
		s+="\n";
		foreach(QString str, yearsContainingGroup_List)
			s+=QString("\n")+str;
	}
	
	int t=LongTextMessageBox::mediumConfirmation(this, tr("FET confirmation"), s,
		tr("Yes"), tr("No"), QString(), 0, 1);
	if(t==1)
		return;
	
	//by Volker Dirr (start)
	QList<subgroupItem> removeSubgroups;
	QString removeSubgroupsStringForGUI;
	foreach(StudentsYear* year, gt.rules.yearsList){
		foreach(StudentsGroup* group, year->groupsList){
			if(group->name!=groupName){
				foreach(StudentsSubgroup* subgroup, group->subgroupsList){
					if(subgroupsList.contains(subgroup->name)){
						subgroupItem tmpItem;
						tmpItem.yearName=year->name;
						tmpItem.groupName=group->name;
						tmpItem.subgroupName=subgroup->name;
						removeSubgroups<<tmpItem;
						removeSubgroupsStringForGUI+=tr("%1 - %2 - %3").arg(year->name).arg(group->name).arg(subgroup->name)+"\n";
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
	
	if(removeSubgroups.count()>0){
		s=tr("Subgroups of this group are also used in other groups. They might be needles now. In particular if you used FETs automatic split year feature."
		 " Should the following subgroups be removed also?");
		s+="\n"+removeSubgroupsStringForGUI;
	
		int t=LongTextMessageBox::mediumConfirmation(this, tr("FET confirmation"), s,
			tr("Yes"), tr("No"), QString(), 0, 1);
		if(t==0){
			foreach(subgroupItem tmpItem, removeSubgroups){
				bool tmp=gt.rules.removeSubgroup(tmpItem.yearName, tmpItem.groupName, tmpItem.subgroupName);
				assert(tmp);
			}
		}
	}
	//by Volker Dirr (end)

	/*if(QMessageBox::warning( this, tr("FET"),
		tr("Are you sure you want to delete group %1 and all related subgroups, activities and constraints?").arg(groupName),
		tr("Yes"), tr("No"), 0, 0, 1 ) == 1)
		return;*/

	bool tmp=gt.rules.removeGroup(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text(), groupName);
	assert(tmp);
	if(tmp){
		int q=groupsListWidget->currentRow();
		
		groupsListWidget->setCurrentRow(-1);
		QListWidgetItem* item;
		item=groupsListWidget->takeItem(q);
		delete item;
		
		if(q>=groupsListWidget->count())
			q=groupsListWidget->count()-1;
		if(q>=0)
			groupsListWidget->setCurrentRow(q);
		else
			groupTextEdit->setPlainText(QString(""));
	}

	/*if(gt.rules.searchStudentsSet(groupName)!=nullptr)
		QMessageBox::information( this, tr("FET"), tr("This group still exists into another year. "
			"The related subgroups, activities and constraints were not removed"));*/
}

void GroupsForm::purgeGroup()
{
	if(yearsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected year"));
		return;
	}
	int yearIndex=gt.rules.searchYear(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	assert(yearIndex>=0);

	if(groupsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected group"));
		return;
	}

	QString groupName=groupsListWidget->currentItem()->text();
	int groupIndex=gt.rules.searchGroup(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text(), groupName);
	assert(groupIndex>=0);

	QList<QString> yearsContainingGroup_List;
	QSet<QString> subgroupsList;
	//QSet<QString> yearsContainingGroup_Set;
	foreach(StudentsYear* year, gt.rules.yearsList)
		foreach(StudentsGroup* group, year->groupsList)
			if(group->name==groupName){
				yearsContainingGroup_List.append(year->name);
				foreach(StudentsSubgroup* subgroup, group->subgroupsList)
					subgroupsList<<subgroup->name;
			}
		
	assert(yearsContainingGroup_List.count()>=1);
	QString s;
	if(yearsContainingGroup_List.count()==1)
		s=tr("This group exists only in year %1. All the related activities and constraints "
		 "will be removed. Do you want to continue?").arg(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	else{
		s=tr("This group exists in more places, listed below. It will be removed from all these places."
		 " All the related activities and constraints will be removed. Do you want to continue?");
		s+="\n";
		foreach(QString str, yearsContainingGroup_List)
			s+=QString("\n")+str;
	}
	
	int t=LongTextMessageBox::mediumConfirmation(this, tr("FET confirmation"), s,
		tr("Yes"), tr("No"), QString(), 0, 1);
	if(t==1)
		return;
	
	//by Volker Dirr (start)
	QSet<QString> removeSubgroups;
	QString removeSubgroupsStringForGUI;
	foreach(StudentsYear* year, gt.rules.yearsList){
		foreach(StudentsGroup* group, year->groupsList){
			if(group->name!=groupName){
				foreach(StudentsSubgroup* subgroup, group->subgroupsList){
					if(subgroupsList.contains(subgroup->name)){
						if(!removeSubgroups.contains(subgroup->name)){
							removeSubgroups<<subgroup->name;
						}
						removeSubgroupsStringForGUI+=tr("%1 - %2 - %3").arg(year->name).arg(group->name).arg(subgroup->name)+"\n";
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
	
	if(removeSubgroups.count()>0){
		s=tr("Subgroups of this group are also used in other groups. They might be needles now. In particular if you used FETs automatic split year feature."
		 " Should the following subgroups be removed also?");
		s+="\n"+removeSubgroupsStringForGUI;
	
		int t=LongTextMessageBox::mediumConfirmation(this, tr("FET confirmation"), s,
			tr("Yes"), tr("No"), QString(), 0, 1);
		if(t==0){
			foreach(QString tmpItem, removeSubgroups){
				bool tmp=gt.rules.purgeSubgroup(tmpItem);
				assert(tmp);
			}
		}
	}
	//by Volker Dirr (end)
	

	/*if(QMessageBox::warning( this, tr("FET"),
		tr("Are you sure you want to delete group %1 and all related subgroups, activities and constraints?").arg(groupName),
		tr("Yes"), tr("No"), 0, 0, 1 ) == 1)
		return;*/

	bool tmp=gt.rules.purgeGroup(groupName);
	assert(tmp);
	if(tmp){
		int q=groupsListWidget->currentRow();
		
		groupsListWidget->setCurrentRow(-1);
		QListWidgetItem* item;
		item=groupsListWidget->takeItem(q);
		delete item;
		
		if(q>=groupsListWidget->count())
			q=groupsListWidget->count()-1;
		if(q>=0)
			groupsListWidget->setCurrentRow(q);
		else
			groupTextEdit->setPlainText(QString(""));
	}

	/*if(gt.rules.searchStudentsSet(groupName)!=nullptr)
		QMessageBox::information( this, tr("FET"), tr("This group still exists into another year. "
			"The related subgroups, activities and constraints were not removed"));*/
}

void GroupsForm::yearChanged(const QString &yearName)
{
	int yearIndex=gt.rules.searchYear(yearName);
	if(yearIndex<0){
		groupsListWidget->clear();
		groupTextEdit->setPlainText(QString(""));
		return;
	}

	groupsListWidget->clear();

	StudentsYear* sty=gt.rules.yearsList.at(yearIndex);
	for(int i=0; i<sty->groupsList.size(); i++){
		StudentsGroup* stg=sty->groupsList[i];
		groupsListWidget->addItem(stg->name);
	}

	if(groupsListWidget->count()>0)
		groupsListWidget->setCurrentRow(0);
	else
		groupTextEdit->setPlainText(QString(""));
}

void GroupsForm::groupChanged(const QString &groupName)
{
	StudentsSet* ss=gt.rules.searchStudentsSet(groupName);
	if(ss==nullptr){
		groupTextEdit->setPlainText(QString(""));
		return;
	}
	StudentsGroup* sg=(StudentsGroup*)ss;
	groupTextEdit->setPlainText(sg->getDetailedDescriptionWithConstraints(gt.rules));
}

void GroupsForm::sortGroups()
{
	if(yearsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected year"));
		return;
	}
	int yearIndex=gt.rules.searchYear(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	assert(yearIndex>=0);
	
	gt.rules.sortGroupsAlphabetically(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());

	yearChanged(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
}

void GroupsForm::modifyGroup()
{
	if(yearsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected year"));
		return;
	}
	
	QString yearName=yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text();
	
	int yearIndex=gt.rules.searchYear(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	assert(yearIndex>=0);
	
	int q=groupsListWidget->currentRow();
	int valv=groupsListWidget->verticalScrollBar()->value();
	int valh=groupsListWidget->horizontalScrollBar()->value();

	if(groupsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected group"));
		return;
	}

	QString groupName=groupsListWidget->currentItem()->text();
	int groupIndex=gt.rules.searchGroup(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text(), groupName);
	assert(groupIndex>=0);

	StudentsSet* sset=gt.rules.searchStudentsSet(groupName);
	assert(sset!=nullptr);
	int numberOfStudents=sset->numberOfStudents;
	
	ModifyStudentsGroupForm form(this, yearName, groupName, numberOfStudents);
	setParentAndOtherThings(&form, this);
	form.exec();

	yearChanged(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	
	groupsListWidget->verticalScrollBar()->setValue(valv);
	groupsListWidget->horizontalScrollBar()->setValue(valh);
	
	if(q>=groupsListWidget->count())
		q=groupsListWidget->count()-1;
	if(q>=0)
		groupsListWidget->setCurrentRow(q);
	else
		groupTextEdit->setPlainText(QString(""));
}

void GroupsForm::activateStudents()
{
	if(yearsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected year"));
		return;
	}
	int yearIndex=gt.rules.searchYear(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	assert(yearIndex>=0);

	if(groupsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected group"));
		return;
	}

	QString groupName=groupsListWidget->currentItem()->text();
	int count=gt.rules.activateStudents(groupName);
	QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Activated a number of %1 activities").arg(count));
}

void GroupsForm::deactivateStudents()
{
	if(yearsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected year"));
		return;
	}
	int yearIndex=gt.rules.searchYear(yearsListWidget->currentItem()->text());
	assert(yearIndex>=0);

	if(groupsListWidget->currentRow()<0){
		QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("Invalid selected group"));
		return;
	}

	QString groupName=groupsListWidget->currentItem()->text();
	int count=gt.rules.deactivateStudents(groupName);
	QMessageBox::information(this, tr("FET information"), tr("De-activated a number of %1 activities").arg(count));
}
---

208---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Code more checks to warn users about conflicting constraints before generating. For example:
min days between activities and consecutive/grouped activities constraints.

209---------------------------------------------------------
From andrealva:

He is referring to the facility to sort constraints by comments, which was dropped (being considered useless) in FET-5.25.0 and subsequent versions:

One use though, which can be given to sorting the comments, is to arrange together all the constraints related to a teacher(s) or a class(es) ...
it would help to quickly identify them without using the filter ....

210--------------------------DONE---------------------------

211---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

FET asks if the user is sure he wants to add an activity without students. Maybe the question must also
include something like "it is correct if you want to add a teacher meeting."

So that the user is not deterred by the warning in situations in which an activity without students is OK.

212---------------------------------------------------------
From Bob Hairgrove (on forum):

Colors can be enabled for highlighting the cells. However, looking at this function in the FET source code, it is clear that these are hard-coded values:

Code:

void AddConstraintStudentsSetNotAvailableTimesForm::colorItem(QTableWidgetItem* item)
{
	if(USE_GUI_COLORS){
		if(item->text()==NO)
			item->setBackground(QBrush(Qt::darkGreen));
		else
			item->setBackground(QBrush(Qt::darkRed));
		item->setForeground(QBrush(Qt::lightGray));
	}
}

I think the colors should be configurable. For example, I would like to use a light green background for available times and white for not available times in the "student set not available" dialog, whereas for the corresponding teacher dialog, perhaps different colors could be used (white = available; dark grey = not available). In case the colors are used, you could hide the "X" by setting the foreground color to the same as the background color since it would be superfluous. That way, you could keep the rest of the functionality the way it is.

213-------------------------DONE----------------------------

214---------------------------------------------------------
From Khalilullah Yosufi:

... we expect from software to generate a timetable that we could separate some border or jointed gaps for some teachers
but there is no any place to define/plan to the software about separating the jointed gaps during a day. Hopefully
someday we would receive an update version of the FET software that has ability to separate joint gaps we want maybe
by the name of continuously gaps per day for a teacher. ...

---

Further clarification:

... Hope one day we could plan or tell to the FET software to add Maximum continuously gaps per day for a teacher = 01 ...

---

Further clarification:

I need a gap to be maximum 1 hour continuously.

215---------------------------------------------------------
From mercurialuser (on forum):

To better study the code I'd like to clean generate.cpp:
- removing all the commented code
- adding comments to illustrate the algo
- check to see if I can use some macros for code
- in randomswap try to remove all that ok* variables that can be reduced to a couple (since they are not used outside their block)
- remove the #if 1/#endif and if(1) { ... }  blocks

216---------------------------------------------------------
From mercurialuser (on forum):

I'd just like to report some thing that may give a little speedup to the code and to avoid duplicates.

For example in ::generate several matrices are reset first and then assigned. The exact same code is used for loading teachersTimetable and newTeachersTimetable but they could be compacted in one loop. There may be probably less cache hits for accessing these 2 matrixes but I think that the multiple loops and retrieving act variable multiple times are more cpu expensive anyway.

For assigning these matrixes and some others the code loops (there are 2 variants with different variable names):
for(int j=0; j<gt.rules.nInternalActivities/*added_act*/; j++){

The code in the loop does some checks that are replicated in several other loops but they check on data that, as far as I understand, can't change between consecutive checks. So it seems to me that they are redundant.

217-----------------------DONE------------------------------

218-----------------------DONE------------------------------

219-------------------------DONE----------------------------

220---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr (on forum):

When the user clicks "Toggle lock/unlock" with zero selected cells in the
"Timetable view" dialogs, maybe it would be better to inform more verbosely
the user: "No activities were locked/unlocked, because no activities were
selected".

221---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

in years dialog should be an option: increase all years.

now pseudo code: (mixing strings and int. so real code is a bit more
complicated)

foreach(year, yearsList){
 if(year = int){
    newYearsList<<year
 } else {
   warning = "unchanged"
}

sort newYearsList from high to low

foreach(year, newYearsList){
  newIntYear=year++;
  search that year.
  foreach(group, year){
     foreach(subgroup, group){
       if(subgroup.left(year){
         subgroup.replace.left(newIntYear)
       else
         warning = "impossible to rename. maybe modified manually?"
      }
     if(group.left(year){
       group.replace.left(newIntYear)
     else
       warning = "impossible to rename. maybe modified manually?"
    }
    if(year.left(year){
       year.replace.left(newIntYear)
     else
       warning = "critical bug!"
   }
}


222---------------------------------------------------------
From Mohamed NAJARI:

1) Can you add a command to move the teachers, students, materials and activities during entry?
2) Why not put weight as the 100% value by default instead of 95% during the addition of an activity?

223---------------------------------------------------------
From youssouf (on forum):

My suggestion is : activating the partition button when modifying the teacher's task.
because :
1. We enter the teacher's tasks ( choice - subject - Partition - period - etc.)
2. When we want to edit the task of a teacher, we find that the division button is not enabled and we will be forced to delete that task and we retype spot again.

224------------------------DONE-----------------------------

225---------------------------------------------------------
From abdeljalil elghazoui (on forum):

abdeljalil:
At the end of the production time table
we sometimes want to change instead of an activity
But if we follow the normal route of fet its currency fully all activities
Is there is a way to change the place of this activity specifically
Without major changes in the other activities

Liviu:

Either:

1) Open from ~/fet-results/data_and_timetable.fet, then unlock a specific activity and regenerate;

or

2) After generating, select Advanced lock -> lock all activities of the current timetable. Then unlock a specific activity and regenerate.

But you may obtain an impossible timetable.

abdeljalil:

You're right, we can not get what we wanted
Is it possible for this to work  a new property under the name:

"a teacher's not available times with the current  timetable"

as "not available times" are "the free hours withe the current  timetable"
And it will save in "a teacher's not available times"
And when we want to produce a new table we change a table for one teacher

---

We also ask you for a similar property in Students set
It seems that these characteristics would be more effective
You can set the blank time
Although it is possible to move Activitys
For a teacher or more
Or for one Student set or for more

226---------------------------------------------------------
From AlexL (on forum):

My proposal is to use transifex for translations: https://www.transifex.com
It works fine with .ts files, has suggestions for translations, .etc.

227---------------------------------------------------------
From MilesM (on forum):

I think it would be helpful to be able to assign time lengths to periods (even if the actual periods are multiples of that as suggested above) in order to be able to generate statistics on time per subject, per grade etc. It would allow another level of validation to make sure everything works.

228---------------------------------------------------------
From adso (on forum):

It would be useful in the best timetable processed (highest html) (but unfinished) to have at the top of the table for each teacher and each class the number of hours included and not included in order to understand where the problems are.
And have a file fet also not complete to import into Excel to be able to work manually.

229-----------------------DONE?-----------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

About adding constraints students/teachers interval max days per week:

I think you should clarify it in the interface: In FET you call it only
"interval start hour" and "interval end hour", but you might say better
"start at beginning of hour" and "end at end of hour" (or "until end of hour").

230---------------------------DONE--------------------------

231---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

I often need to input many activities with fixed time in working hours and I find the user interface very tedious.
It would be more simple if the dialog is divided in two parts a follow:
On the left a list of activities (not the combo-box or drop-down box).
On the right a table grid with hours and day and the permission to mark only a square of the grid.

In many other dialogs with the same scheme (for example in "add teacher not available times") it would be useful to have the list instead of the drop down box.

232---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

Implement lock/unlock of activities from a specific building.

233---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr and Liviu Lalescu:

About coloring the three timetable view dialogs:

Volker:
A combobox with "disabled" as first item should be perfect for that task.

Coloring produces sadly pretty many very similar colors. That should be
fixed. (for example by skipping similar colors or calculating a fixed
difference between colors.)

Liviu:
The user can wish to choose the coloring of each view, in a settings menu:
Color teachers view by: Students, Subject, Tag, etc., or disabled, etc.

234---------------------------------------------------------
From Luigi Valbonesi:

When fet generates timetables, to run a parallel routine that saves
every new generated timetable (the best possible at the moment)
overwriting the previous and the most difficult activities with the one
that blocked the generation. If the computer crashes there will be some
data to think about and work with.

235---------------------------------------------------------
From fernandolordao and Volker Dirr (on forum):

fernandolordao:
By default, teachers time constraints are permanently shown at same sequence that we add.
It would be useful if we could sort them by teachers' name in order to reduce time wasting for systematic modifications in time restrictions for many teachers. By the proposed way we could do modifications teacher-by-teacher following the name sequence without having to apply filter for each of them.
Similar sort options could be designed to other restrictions.

Liviu Lalescu:
I'd suggest you to go to "All time constraints" dialog, filter "Contains" "Teacher not available", then "Sorted". Because the weight is always 100% and the teacher is after the weight in the constraint description, it works

Volker:
The request is to save time. You don't save time if you always need to click a filter, write some stuff and also click sort. Very unhandy.

In fact nearly all constraints and activities should be sorted. For TODO:

Add a new dialog in FET->advanced->sort

there should be checkboxes and a sort pushbutton.
the checkboxes should be:
sort teacher constraints by teacher names.
sort students constraints by students names.
sort room constraints by room name.
sort teacher names of all activities
sort students names of all activities
sort activity tags of all activities

236---------------------------------------------------------
From Wizard (on forum):

Wizard:

Is there a way to set a minimum distance between first teaching hour and last teaching hour?
I have set maximum hours continuously to be 4, but sometimes the generated timetable contains a teacher that teaches 4 hours in a day and they become consecutive. What I would like is for him to be at school for at least 5 hours even if he has a gap.

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, I think this is impossible. I am not sure it can be implemented in the FET algorithm.

237---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

maybe for the TODO:
simplify the FET interface.
it is currently much to confusing if you work with it.
There are many constraint for a single teacher and all teachers.
it's unhandy to always check 2 lists.
in fact there is normally only a single "all" constraint.
in fact this suggestion should be done similar to students and rooms.

but i explain now with a single example, so it's easier to explain:
there are 2 dialogs:
fet -> data -> time constraints -> teachers -> max gaps per week for a
teacher
fet -> data -> time constraints -> teachers -> max gaps per week for all
teachers

it should be only a single dialog:
fet -> data -> time constraints -> teachers -> max gaps per week
the dialog is similar to the current one. just ordered. first the "all"
constraints, then the "single" constraints.

that will help much, since you only need to check a single list now and
it is still ordered, because the "all" will be always the first.
this save a lot of space in the fet main window interface.

then there are 2 ideas how to implement it.
idea a)
fet -> data -> time constraints -> teachers -> max gaps per week
can stay as "fet -> data -> time constraints -> teachers -> max gaps per
week for a teacher" currently is.
the "add" button must be renamed to "add one". And a "add all"
pushbutton must be added.

idea b)
we can also remove a lot of dialogs. in this example:
remove
fet -> data -> time constraints -> teachers -> max gaps per week for all
teachers

then only modify
fet -> data -> time constraints -> teachers -> max gaps per week for a
teacher
the combobox of this dialog only need a "all teachers" as first item.

i prefer variant b, because it will save a lot of code, memory,
translations, ...

238-------------------------DONE----------------------------

239---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Shorten the strings in conflicts.txt. They are much too long. Very
confusing if you read that. (Maybe use shortcuts, sort them by type and
call the type only at the beginning of the list, ... There are many
variants to write it more clear.)

240---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

I have this simple suggestion that would, in my case, save a lot of time:

I have some teachers that bind their worktime to an already built timetable, so they look at various activities and decide to work in those hours.
Often this happens when teachers are in co-presence in laboratory or when teachers have students with disabilities and need to support them when specific subject are in time.
So, it is the best to "double click" on the subactivity, on the interface with the generated timetable, to show the dialog that modify the subactivity and add the new teacher.
Then regenerate all the timetable to obtain the new HTML even for these teachers.
Without this simple "double click" I need to write down the number of the sub-activity, go to Data->Activities then looking for that number, click "modify" then add the teacher.

Is it possible to do this and speed-up data enter?

241---------------------------------------------------------
From ant7 (on forum):

I do some tricks to make pair of activities to be
scheduled the same time but in two neighbouring days.
Because of that I need the constraint:
Fixed number of days between activities (with default value equal to 1).

To achive it I use:
Minimum number of days between activities (set to 1)
 and
Maximum number of days between activities (set to 1)
so

t1-t2>=1day   and   t1-t2<= 1day    give  t1=t2 + 1day

Could you add this constraint?
Fixed number of days between activities (with default value equal to 1).

When I have to click hundreds of times  Min and Max... constraints
I would save a lot of time if you add this constraint.

Also from abautu, on forum: A constraint "Exact N days between activities" would imply "Min N days between activities"
AND "Max N days between activities". I use these two constraints simultaneously in order to force two activities to be
scheduled in same week days (in an odd/even timetable).

242---------------------------------------------------------
From Lizio (on forum):

Lizio:

What about adding a new value to activities that is difficulty (let say 0=very easy like PE, 1=easy like art, 2= medium, 3=difficult and 4=very difficult like calculus), then it would be possible to add a constraint on maximum difficulties per day in order to avoid "impossible days" for students.

Liviu:

Maybe you could add activity tags to activities, and use the constraint students activity tag max hours per day?

Lizio:

Unfortunately it would not work. It is not a matter of a max number of hours per day of a subject or a group of subjects, but not to sum too many difficult subjects in a day and your suggestion would work only if you define subjects as difficult or not, but I think it is better to define them with more levels.

For example, you can have physical education that is easy and history that is harder but not so hard, math that is the hardest, so 2 hours of history is like one of math and so on, if you define a maximum difficulty of, let's say 7, you can plan 2 hours of math (3+3) and then you must plan 2 of physical education (0+0) and one o art (1), then you can plan a day with 2 hours of literature (2+2), one of history (2) and one of art (1) and so on and you don't risk to plan 2 hours of math (3+3) than 2 of literature (2+2) and one of history (2) and a day with 2 hours of PE (0+0), 2 of art (1+1) and one of history (2).

Probably to make this improvement is a matter of a lot of coding and the improvement is not worth the effort to do it, but I don't know.

Liviu:

I understand. Do you know that you can add more activity tags for an activity? Also, you could add more constraints students activity tag max hours daily for the same students. Maybe these can help.

To consider a sum of weights might be too difficult to implement.

243---------------------------------------------------------
From Lizio (on forum):

come posso fare a dire a FET che deve mettere due attività concomitanti, ma non fissate, bensì scelte da un insieme?

Facciamo un esempio:
La palestra deve essere occupata per forza da due classi contemporaneamente e per farlo l'ho dichiarata come due aule distinte, ora vorrei che una prima fosse in palestra con un'altra prima e non, magari, con una quinta.
Le ore di ginnastica sono tutte attività separate e ho messo il vincolo di spazio sulle due palestre fittizie, FET mi alloca bene le cose, ma le classi sono mescolate, ora vorrei provare ad avere prime con prime, seconde con seconde, ecc.

Qualche soluzione che non comporti il numero totale di classi al quadrato di vincoli da scrivere? (Ho 31 classi da piazzare e scrivere 900 e passa vincoli è proibitivo)

---

I have 4 1st grade classes, 4 2nd grade, 6 3rd grade, 4 4th grade and 2 5th,  I have 1 gymn and it must be used by 2 classes at the same time, so I created "palestra1" and "palestra2" and I have put the space constrain on each activity of physical education to be tought either in palestra1 or in palestra2.

Now I want in the gymn 2 classes of the same grade and not 2 of different grades.

The problem is that in my school we have 31 classes...

I don't want to put together 2 classes of my choice as this would be a real hard constrain to be managed.

244---------------------------------------------------------
From Arsenio Stabile:

He has a custom version, so that if he has minimum gaps between building changes = 1,
if a teacher name ends in " AB", if he changes buildings from hour 3 to 4 from
a building ending in " A" to a building ending in " B", the gap is no longer necessary.

Liviu Lalescu:

I am sorry, but this kind of constraint is too specialized. I cannot
think of a name and good implementation for everybody to use it. I
think I'll add your suggestion in the TODO list.

About you choosing the hours - this can made on your custom version,
but again I am not sure about a good way to present it to the user.

Arsenio:

In Italy it often happens that a school is divided into two buildings
one hour away for which is required a gap for the exchange and this
creates a major constraint. Some time ago I saw a commercial program
that provides the opportunity to do so now the gap is not attributed
to a teacher if the change takes place in the building at a certain time.

245---------------------------------------------------------
From ant7 (on forum):

After timetable generation
in timetable tab (teachers, students etc.)
I can see which activities are time or space locked ( I see LT or/and LS acronims)
and I can toggle these constraints for one or more activities whith mouse highlighting.
It would be very useful If I can see the same signature in HTML files.
When I updates timetable many times on website
I would like to tell people that some their activities are already fixed time or place.
It should be some general option in FET allowing user to decide wether show these tags or not in HTML files.
When timetable is finished it should be easy switched off visibility of the two tags in all timetable in HTML files.
I don't want to insert these tags manually in activity dialog because it is some cumbersome.

Note Liviu Lalescu: in FET-6.4.0 and subsequent versions the activities locked in time are shown in bold
and those locked in space are shown in italic.

246---------------DONE since FET-6.8.0----------------------

247---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

rethink about all used QList stuff in generate.cpp (in FET version 5.28.3)

examples:

Line 293: QList<int>& conflActivities
conflActivities is used only to check "contains". So isn't a QSet better/faster?

Line 1990:
QList<int> occupiedRoomsList;

it is only used for a foreach. So maybe a QStack or QQueue is better/faster?

So maybe all should be rechecked.

Liviu: You are right. The first part is more important, but I also need the
same order of the conflicting activities, as they are added. So I could
add a QSet and a QList together. But this will require more memory
allocation and operation. I am not sure.

248--------------DONE since FET-5.41.0 on 2019-11-20--------

249---------------------------------------------------------
From Handaya:

DONE since FET-5.29.0 on 15 March 2016 --> 1) <-- DONE
2) what if the colors be the same for the same teacher ?
3) what if the program allows marking a weekly meeting for all teachers
without printing every name in the cell of timetable result ?
4) what if the timetable result be printable or saveable in some diferent
formats like doc and pdf ?

Liviu:

DONE since FET-5.29.0 on 15 March 2016 --> (1) <-- DONE

(2) - In the interface, the colors are the same for the same
subject/subject+students set. This is what we came to after some
thinking.

(3) - This would be possible, but I would need to keep in the .fet data
file an attribute which does not belong to timetabling, and I prefer
not to.

(4) - .doc and .pdf - you could print the timetable to a pdf file, or
copy/paste the HTML code to a doc file.

250--------------------------DONE---------------------------

251---------------------------------------------------------
From Bobby Wise:

I suggest that perhaps an additional printout be added that displays
all the teachers that are not occupied in a particular period.

So it is basically a Free Teacher timetable printout, but it does not have
any comments like "Must come earlier" or "Single gap", it just displays the
names of all the teachers who are not working in that period.

252--------------------------DONE---------------------------

253----------------DONE in FET-6.27.0-----------------------

254---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

 j'ai deux suggestions:
            la première:
   pourquoi ne ajouter dans le dossier fet-results, un fichier qui permet de savoir les horaires des salles vide?
  ce fichier va aider a mieux contrôler l'énergie électrique en éteignant la lumière le temps que ces salles soit vides.
  la deuxième:
               cette opération qui ce fait maintenant de façon manuelle. peut on la rendre automatique via un logicielle lié a FET?

I have two suggestions:
  the first:
                why not add in the folder fet-results, file that lets you know the times of empty rooms? as the file: Teachers Free Periods
                This file will help better control the electric power by turning off the light as long as these rooms is empty.
  the second:
                   this operation that now done manually. can we make it automatic via a software related to FET?

Volker Dirr:

about first suggestion:
Rooms Free Periods: In my opinion only needed if you want to swap a room. I think i can add it if Liviu agree.
On the other hand you can already do it today with TiTiTo (selecting empty rooms; swap rooms; ...)
Also: in my opinion your suggestion doesn't help saving electric power. Only if you are able to control electric from distance or if there is a guy that always run through all rooms.
We save electric power very easy: We simply print the room table and put it on the door. So every teacher ans students can see if nobody will use the room in the next hour(s) and so they can turn off the light.

about second suggestion:
i am not sure about what exactly you are talking. about printing free rooms table? see previous answer. Or about swapping a room? see previous answer? Or do you talk about something different?

255---------------------------------------------------------
From math user (on forum):

It would be great if "teachers", "subjects", ... would be customizable (settings). For universities "lecturers" and so on.

256---------------------------------------------------------
From ChicagoPianoTuner:

I have a feature request for FET: in the timetables menu after a successful
generation, there is a button to "lock/unlock" all activities when I'm
looking at a particular subgroup or teacher or room. If I click it, all
activities lock, and clicking again unlocks. I would prefer two separate
buttons, one for lock and one for unlock. The reason is sometimes I have 4
subgroups where they share many activities (but not all activities), and I
want to lock all activities for that particular group (or year) but cannot
do it all at once.

Liviu:

Unfortunately, there is not enough space in that dialog. But you can use the
timetable view time horizontal views.

257----------DONE in FET-6.19.1, on 1 April 2024------------

258---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

FET can really import and export almost all data. except constraints. if this function can be done with FET, it will help save a lot of valuable time, and also allow a FET to communicate with other software..

Liviu: It is a bit weird to export the constraints - what format to choose?

Also suggested by Thaneswer Patel, on forum.

259---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

write directly into cells Activity planning, especially for the activities which are not divided (not split).
for the activities that are divided, we can momentarily kept the weight by default (95%), and later change it if we want.

260----------------------DONE-------------------------------

261---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

a second rooms statistic:

print all activities with the (maybe) used rooms.
but only an unordered list will be "bad" to read/check.
so there should be a not only a simple list.
there should be a filter to check faster.
so filter all activities by subject, teacher or students set.

262---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

add a new column in "fet -> Statistics -> Teachers Statistics"
the column get the name "teachers qualification".
so the user can see the data that he entered.

and:

add a new column in "fet -> Statistics -> Subjects Statistics"
the column get the name "teachers qualification".
so the user can see the the data that he entered (indirectly).

263---------------------------------------------------------
From math user (on forum):

math user: It would be great if components / subactivities always get the same room (option).

Liviu: You have the constraint activities occupy max 1 different rooms.

math user: Yes, that is exactly how I have solved it. But I have to enter a condition for each activity
(lots of conditions). Therefore a (global) setting "same room for all components of an activity" would be nice.

264---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

at the end of the generating algorithm, so after all activities are
placed (but before locking the activities?!) there should be a simple
algorithm that cares about rooms "bugs". this algorithm must not be
perfect, it should only fix "bad" stuff.
1) check if there is an activity without a room, even if it is got a space
constraint with weight less then 100%
2) if there is an activity with a room, it should check if it is
possible to place a smaller room to this activity
3) maybe repeat step 2 a few times to get a better result. (the result
might not be perfect, but it is ok.)

265---------------------------------------------------------
From math user (on forum):

It would be great if the user could change the default values for width and height (disabled and 8ex) in the settings: enable/disable and enter values (default: 8 and 8).
Like that, the user does not have to change the values manually after each generation.

266---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Generating a difficult timetable shows 28 h... . Should it show 1 d 4 h... ?

267---------------------------------------------------------
From Devrim Altınkurt (on forum):

A constraint min days between activities, with force consecutive if same day = true. Can (should) two activities if on the same day span over a break?

268--------------DONE?--------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

maybe we can add a check for this:

teacher max hours per day is lower than activity duration.

269-------DONE since FET-5.34.0-(26 October 2017)-----------

270---------------------------------------------------------
From auriolar (on forum):

It would be nice to be able to limit the time a teacher is in the school.

I mean, having, for instance, 5 days and 6 hours/day, I would like to have teachers no more than 25 hours each week in the school gaps included.
This asumes that the timetable is continuous each day, so if I have only class at the first hour and other at the last one, I've been 6 hours (not 2).

I don't think max gaps per week will work (30-25=5), because some teachers have to be less than 25 hours, and those should have more than 5 gaps.

Liviu Lalescu: It would be possible for the user to just consider the working hours for each teacher and add a corresponding max gaps per week
for each teacher (a solution which you partially imply).

271---------------------------------------------------------
From auriolar (on forum):

I think it would be a good idea to have tags for teachers, this way we could add constraints to groups of teachers instead of doing one by one.
Maybe it could be done for rooms too.

272---------------------------------------------------------
From Bob Hairgrove (on forum):

When I generate a timetable, I can successfully save it in CSV format. However, if I do not generate a timetable but open a .FET file from a previous session, it will export all of the data but without without any planned activities because "no timetable has been generated". So if I want to have CSV timetables, I have to remember to export them immediately after they have been generated.

This would be a nice feature to have since there is the schedule contained in the "{Name}_activities.xml" file, and the export routine would only have to read it.

Or is there a better way?

Liviu Lalescu: Did you notice that there is a file name_data_and_timetable.fet in the results? You can open this file and generate on it - it will go very fast, and after that you can export the CSV results.

273---------------------------DONE--------------------------

274---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

Sometimes you need to see the "Activity tags" in tables produced by FET, but the tables are becoming so large; then the idea that surprises us right now is: why not allow the user to select only the "Activity tags" that wants to print ?.

If this feature is created, the tables will be lightweight, and easy to read.

275---------------------------------------------------------
From Anton Anthofer (see also item #151):

- remove the "modify subactivity" menu and move that feature into the "normal" activity menu.
- modify the id
- recalculate the ids
- a complex calculation of the number of students.
- generate very similar timetables

276---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

a) Add also conflicting activities into
activitiesConflictingPercentage if there is a constraint with:
activities with min days between activities and weight 100%
two grouped activities with weight 100%
two consecutive activities with weight 100%
two ordered activities with weight 100%
min gaps between activities with weight 100%

b) Check if it speedups if there is a QList/QSet timetable[hours_per_week] and
checking the activitiesConflictingPercentage at the very beginning.
because activitiesConflictingPercentage contains a lot of constraints.

Liviu Lalescu: I think this is impossible/infeasible.

277---------------------------------------------------------
From mercurialuser (on forum) (and similar, from JBoss, also on forum):

In a few minutes I will have to stop FET and switch off my computer. I need to change some activity so it is not a problem but is it
possible to "pause" a run and "restart" it later, surviving a pc reboot?

From JBoss:

I was wondering if it was possible to stop and resume (at a later time) the generation of a timetable, for example if one needs badly
to switch off the PC but doesn't want to loose the N-hours of elaboration done so far.

(Related to item #196.)

278---------------------------------------------------------
From mercurialuser (on forum):

If you can't change a value (usually a 100% setting, or allow empty days) please disable the widget... it is misleading...

Rewording by mercurialuser:

There are some constraints that must have the % field set to 100. Unfortunately the field is editable and it causes confusion, expecially for newcomers.

I suggest to keep the field on screen but just disable it, make it not editable...

279---------------------------------------------------------
From mrtvillaret (on forum):

In the add constraint teacher not available dialog mark with "b" the slots in which there is a global break.

Liviu Lalescu: also in students set or room not available and activity(ies) preferred times?

280-----------------------DONE------------------------------

281--------PARTIALLY DONE IN FET-6.11.0 on 23 October 2023--
From Lizio (on forum):

I think it could be very helpful to let multiple selection in every window about data and constraints.

In this way you can select some of them to apply actions with buttons.

282---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Volker provided code for a faster generation if one uses constraints room not available times. But it is too risky for now.
Maybe in the future.

Volker: Disalow timeslots of activities if a room is not available.

Volker's code:

...
Matrix2D<double> notAllowedTimesPercentages;
Matrix2D<double> notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints;

//breaks are no gaps - I keep track of this
//bool breakTime[MAX_HOURS_PER_WEEK];
...

...
	t=computeActivitiesRoomsPreferences(parent);
	if(!t)
		return false;
	
	//Before computeFixedActivities(...)
	t=computeNotAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints(parent);
	if(!t)
		return false;
	//////////////////
	
	/////////buildings
	t=computeMaxBuildingChangesPerDayForStudents(parent);
	if(!t)
		return false;
...

...
bool computeNotAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints(QWidget* parent)
{
	Q_UNUSED(parent);

	//Speed improvement (start) by Volker Dirr
	notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints.resize(gt.rules.nInternalActivities, gt.rules.nHoursPerWeek);
	
	//TODO: check if this is correct
	for(int i=0; i<gt.rules.nInternalActivities; i++){
		for(int hour=0; hour<gt.rules.nHoursPerWeek; hour++){
			notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints[i][hour]=-1;
		}
	}

	for(int i=0; i<gt.rules.nInternalActivities; i++){
		if(!unspecifiedPreferredRoom[i]){
			bool roomsWithWeight100Found=false;
			QSet<int> allowedRoomsSet;
			for(int kk=0; kk<activitiesPreferredRoomsList[i].count(); kk++){
				PreferredRoomsItem& it=activitiesPreferredRoomsList[i][kk];
				if(it.percentage==100){
					if(!roomsWithWeight100Found){
						allowedRoomsSet=it.preferredRooms;
						roomsWithWeight100Found=true;
					}
					else{
						allowedRoomsSet.intersect(it.preferredRooms);
					}
				}
			}
			if(roomsWithWeight100Found){
				if(!allowedRoomsSet.isEmpty()){
					for(int hour=0; hour<gt.rules.nHoursPerWeek; hour++){
						bool noRoomAvailable=true;
						foreach(int room, allowedRoomsSet){
							if(notAllowedRoomTimePercentages[room][hour]!=100){
								noRoomAvailable=false;
								break;
							}
						}
						if(noRoomAvailable){
							if(notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints[i][hour]!=100){
								notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints[i][hour]=100;
							}
						}
					}
				} else {
					//TODO report a warning. There is no allowed slot at all
				}
			}
		}
		else{
			if(!unspecifiedHomeRoom[i]){
				if(activitiesHomeRoomsPercentage[i]==100){
					for(int hour=0; hour<gt.rules.nHoursPerWeek; hour++){
						bool noRoomAvailable=true;
						foreach(int room, activitiesHomeRoomsHomeRooms[i]){
							if(notAllowedRoomTimePercentages[room][hour]!=100){
								noRoomAvailable=false;
								break;
							}
						}
						if(noRoomAvailable){
							if(notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints[i][hour]!=100){
								notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints[i][hour]=100;
							}
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
	//Speed improvement (end) by Volker Dirr
	
	return true;
}

bool computeMinDays(QWidget* parent)
...

...
bool computeFixedActivities(QWidget* parent)
{
	bool ok=true;

	for(int ai=0; ai<gt.rules.nInternalActivities; ai++){
		int notAllowedSlots=0;
		for(int tim=0; tim<gt.rules.nHoursPerWeek; tim++)
			if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[ai][tim]==100 || notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints[ai][tim]==100)
				notAllowedSlots++;
		
		if(notAllowedSlots==gt.rules.nHoursPerWeek){
...

...
	s+=GeneratePreTranslate::tr("End - the order of activities (id-s)");
	s+="\n";
	initialOrderOfActivities=s;
	
	if(initialOrderStream!=nullptr){
		(*initialOrderStream)<<s;
		(*initialOrderStream).flush();
	}

	//After computing the initial order, because it is already taken care of.
	//Speed improvement (start) by Volker Dirr
	for(int i=0; i<gt.rules.nInternalActivities; i++)
		for(int t=0; t<gt.rules.nHoursPerWeek; t++)
			if(notAllowedTimesPercentagesFromSpaceConstraints[i][t]==100)
				notAllowedTimesPercentages[i][t]=100;
	//Speed improvement (end) by Volker Dirr
}
...

283--------------DONE since FET-5.41.0 (2019-11-16)---------

284---------------------------------------------------------
From alienglow (on forum):

Could you please add a setting to display the full file path of the data file in the title bar.
e.g. Instead of showing just "datafile.fet" if there can be a setting to display "D:\Data\FET\datafile.fet".
You can also think of doing this via a status bar, where if possible more info can be displayed.
For the statusbar you can have display options like - data file name, current output directory etc.

285---------------------------------------------------------
From mercurialuser (on forum):

In order to avoid that 3rd grade classes with 10h subject (3 2 2 1 1 1 or variants as we spoke in other thread) have more than 3 hours in one day I add a tag MAX3 to all that activities.

I then added a "TEACHER max hour per day with a tag" constraint set to 3.

All the test run with (where I disable the most strict constraints) completed the timetable.

When all the constraints were enabled, no way to go upper than a value, in all the runs.

I finally traced the problem to a teacher that has 2 10h subjects, so 20 hours... in a 5 days timetable it means at least 4 hours per day....

I moved the constraint to Students....

I think that this condition can be found at pre-compute... sum of the hours of all the splits with the tags / number of working days should be <= max daily hour with tag

286----------------------DONE since FET 6.8.0---------------

287---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

Is it possible to add a lock/unlock menu for all activities placed in a specific building and a lock/unlock menu for all activities with a specific key?
This can speed up manual adjustment when a timetable is generated and, virtually, can speed up the locks for any activities aggregation.

288---------------------------------------------------------
From Devrim Altınkurt (on forum):

think, maybe you can think about only place AN ACTIVITY (not two acts / subacts) over a break.
i know it is difficult problem. but i know there are other schools which want you do this in Turkey.
maybe you add an option ([ X ] can place over a break) for each activity (not subacts)
and the users can choice if the lesson place like this or not.

289---------------------------------------------------------
From Davide Cottignoli (on forum):

He suggests that it is possible for the user to change from locked time to permanently locked time and viceversa, and from
locked space to permanently locked space and viceversa, from the timetable view dialogs, by selecting cells.

290---------------------------------------------------------
From Devrim Altınkurt (on forum):

i think there is a bug about "Activity tag preferred room(s)" constraint.
i attached a fet file. you can take a look at it.

bug steps:

    time table: 1 day and 12 hours
    added some lessons, student groups, ...
    added 13 activities with 1 hour to different subgroups and subjects
    added a tag to all activities
    added an "Activity tag preferred room(s)" with this tag and one room.
    there is not enough room but FET don't detect this.

Liviu Lalescu:

It is not a bug, it is more like a suggestion.

291---------------------------------------------------------
From thanhnambkhn (on forum):

When investigating Fet command line source code, I see there are 2 types of return value: return 0 or 1 (fet.cpp), therein:
- Value "1" means error (can not generate time table) always.
- But value "0" somewhere mean success, but somewhere mean error (when time exceed or abort). (fet.cpp - line 1380)

I think, "0" should mean "success" only. In order to do that, we should add "return 2;" when time exceed or abort. (fet.cpp - if/else - line 1239)

Liviu: I consider that my way of treating this is better.

292---------------------------------------------------------
From Malamojka (on forum):

Notebook:

1. Could you add something like "Notepad" where you could write down various comments for yourself for current version of a timetable. It could be opened all the time and saved when you save the timetable.
2. I really like "comments" of each activity, but I miss a possibility to add a comment when you create an activity (you have to create it, then go to Data/Activities, find the activity and then add comment.
3. DONE? As I said, I really like comments, so I'm also missing a shortcut to create a comment on Time/Space constraints: I would like to be able to add comment, when I add a constraint (now I have to filter/find a constraint in Time/All or Space/All and then add a comment).

293----------------DONE?------------------------------------
From Malamojka (on forum):

I was looking for a way to "hide" some of tags in the timetable (I want some to be visible, but not all). As far as I can see you can do this by changing a certain file in program data folders. I was wondering if the same could be done by, say, naming tag "not wanted tag" in form "(*not wanted tag*)" (so basically adding (* in front of a tag name and *) at the end of tag name). So a tag of that form wouldn't be seen in timetable html. If a solution like that already exists, then I apologize (it didn't exist the last time I checked). Please let me know.

Liviu, 2024-01-21: Isn't it done a long time ago, not printable option of an activity tag?

294---------------------------------------------------------
From Malamojka (on forum):

When you generate a timetable, you have to select output directory in Settings/Select output directory. Could there be a possibility you could check/choose, so "Output directory" would automatically be directory, where your *.fet file is saved.

295---------------------------------------------------------
From Malamojka (on forum):

Four suggestions on constraints:
1. Would it be possible to add: space -> Activities -> An activity has a preferred building. It would help me a lot.
2. Could you add: time -> Activities -> An activity either starts or ends students day (for when they don't actually do the activity for the entire semester)?
3. Is it possible to have variable weight on teachers not available time (for their ideal time, set at maybe 99%)?
4. Could you add: space -> Activities -> A set of activities has a set of preferred rooms? (there are several subjects with a certain tag that I want in just a few rooms).

Liviu:

1. You can add a new tag, then constraint activity tag preferred rooms, then add this tag to all implied activities. It should be easy.
2. No. It is impossible to add in the algorithm. Maybe you could duplicate the students set and add all the activities which are taken the entire semester. This way, if the duplicated students set has max gaps 0, it will force what you want.
3. Please use constraint activities preferred time slots.
4. Activities preferred room(s) is not possible (the constraints are not correctly understood when you mix subject preferred room(s) with teacher preferred room(s)). But why don't you use subject+activity tag preferred room(s) or activity tag preferred room(s)? You can add more tags and constraints for an activity.

For point 2. please see also item #364.

296---------------------------------------------------------
From Malamojka (on forum):

My subjects have their own ID for the sake of our system (I'm talking about few activities with same subject and different teachers). Is it possible to import subject names and IDs? We sometime have two subjects with same name but different ID. Timetable for subjects puts those two in same timetable and adding an ID could solve that problem (subjects' timetable could be composed on the basis of subjects IDs and not name).

297---------------------------------------------------------
From thanhnambkhn (on forum):

From my point, I see that FET-cl is very compact (minify) compare to FET-desktop. Most of people care about FET-desktop only, I do not.
I think you should consider design Fet in the future in this way:
- FET-cl is core
    + With many options, apis,
    + Allow to extend or customize but keep work with the official
    + With standard output (xml, json ...)
- FET desktop (or any other App) is only front-end, calls to these Fet-cl 's api.
By this way, FET will able to more useful, and able to use in many cases, many projects. They can use Fet GUI or not. (it is my case)

298---------------------------------------------------------
From canhathuongnhau and Volker Dirr (on forum):

Volker:

The dataset is impossible.
It is very easy to prove that.
Please check teacher T.
That teacher is teaching 24 hours.
Now check his activities. All activities should be in the morning. In the morning are only 5*5=25 free time slots. But you set also 2 breaks in
the morning. So there are only 25-2=23 slots left.
It is impossible to set 24 hours into 23 free slots.

Could we add a test for this?

Liviu:

It is easy to add such a test for such a case, but there are many more other situations in which this test will not work. Like there are more "groups" of
activities, each one with its preferred time slots.

299---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

don't always break/disallow generating if there is a warning at the 
beginning. that is pretty bad. sometimes FET gives warnings, even if the 
dataset is solveable. (For example if you add an activity tag, but no 
activity is using that activity tag). i like that FET is reporting this 
potential bug. But the FET behavior is bad, since 
it shouldn't disallow generating.

also maybe rethink about printing all warnings into a single 
string/editor. since by this i can copy and paste those warnings and fix 
them all at one. at the moment i always need to read and fix it always 
step by step (because i can't remember always all reported bugs, especially 
if i check datasets from other users and or if i can't even read the 
characters (Arabic, Russian, ...)

300---------------------------------------------------------
From Jijo Jose:

1.  Export the result to Excel format
2.  Add xml dtds for xml display

301---------------------------------------------------------
From Julio González Gil (on forum):

Rephrased by Liviu Lalescu:

We need more preliminary tests for the constraint teacher(s) min hours daily, to avoid
unnecessary work to discover the bugs. For instance, if we have teacher(s) min 2 hours daily
with allow empty days, and:

- The teacher is only available one hour on a day, or
- The teacher has one activity divided into two components, 100% min 1 days between them,
each component having duration 1.

302---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

generate multiple: instead of a fixed max time use a more flexible max
time. "Calculate max X minutes longer than the time the last max
activity was placed" or "Countdown x minutes if no new max placed
activity was found"
so for example thre is a countdown timelimit with 5 minutes.
as soon as a new max placed activity was found the counter restarts at 5
minutes.
  so the time limit is 5 minutes.

303---------------------------------------------------------
From Julio González Gil (on forum):

If we are sure that nobody can teach less hours than the global constraint (for all teachers), another option is to mark as unavailable the days for the teacher(s) with problems.

For example if we have "min hours per day = 2" for all teachers, and TeacherA has Wednesday with only one free hour (time slot), it is clear we can mark the whole Wednesday as not available (as it won't be used anyway).

---

Liviu Lalescu: Maybe also for students?

---

Volker Dirr:

a) fet should show a "speed warning" only. so user can modify hisself
or
b) fet should automatically disallow those timeslots for related activities. but this is a bit critical. (i wrote similar stuff for rooms and same starting time constraints but we didn't added it yet, since there where small problems with other example file. i think they only happen since the free time slot check where done after the "set disallowed" even if it must be done before. but that mean we must split that in the source, since currently Liviu done both very close at the same time.)

---

Julio González Gil:

I would go with option A, with a warning for each problem found. In my opinion it's better to allow the user to fix it and least you are sending a warning to the user about the speed (I'd mention that in this case you can even have impossible timetables as it was in my case).

---

Liviu Lalescu:

The code could look like:

			for(int d=0; d<gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek; d++){
				int nFreeSlotsDay=0;
				for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
					if(!teacherNotAvailableDayHour[tc][d][h])
						nFreeSlotsDay++;
				}
				if(nFreeSlotsDay>0 && nFreeSlotsDay<teachersMinHoursDailyMinHours[tc]){
					ok=false;

					int t=GeneratePreIrreconcilableMessage::mediumConfirmation(parent, GeneratePreTranslate::tr("FET warning"),
					 GeneratePreTranslate::tr("For teacher %1, the constraint min %2 hours daily is useless on day %3. Please make this "
					 "teacher not available on this whole day, for performance and better correctness checking.")
					 .arg(gt.rules.internalTeachersList[tc]->name)
					 .arg(teachersMinHoursDailyMinHours[tc])
					 .arg(gt.rules.daysOfTheWeek[d])
					 ,
					 GeneratePreTranslate::tr("Skip rest"), GeneratePreTranslate::tr("See next"), QString(),
					 1, 0 );
			 	
					if(t==0)
						return false;
				}
			}

to be added at the end of the function "bool computeTeachersMinHoursDaily(QWidget* parent)" of file src/engine/generate_pre.cpp.

304-----------------------DONE------------------------------

305-----------------------DONE------------------------------

306---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr (on forum):

Teacher(s) max gaps continuously (a constraint that limits the number of continuous gaps).

Liviu Lalescu: seems difficult. But you may use a trick: add a dummy activity with duration 1 for each allowed gap for the teacher,
with activity tag "gaps", then make max gaps per week for that teacher 0, then use constraint teacher max hours continuously
with activity tag "gaps".

Volker Dirr:

The workaround is fine for the full time teachers at my school; but it is bad for part time teachers, since the workaround affects
also the min/max number of hours per day and also the number of days per week.

307---------------------------------------------------------
From math user (on forum):

The links to each table (#table_12) are great.
The only problem is that the link for a certain teacher changes when another teacher is added or removed.

---

Why not keep #table_12 and so on and just make them permanent (associated to a certain teacher, group, room, ...)?
Say #table_12 belongs to teacher Abc: The ID #table_12 is stored for this teacher. Suppose the last stored ID is #table_50.
Adding a new teacher will result in ID #table_51 being associated with that teacher, and so on.
Removing say teacher with ID #table_34 will make no changes, i.e. the next new teacher gets ID #table_52.

There should be a setting to change between consecutive IDs (default - as in the current version) and permenent IDs (my suggestion).
When switching from permanent to consecutive, all IDs are reallocated when the timetable is generated.

---

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, I think this is (very?) complicated.

---

Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes:

Maybe a hash of room name?
table_roomXYZ where XYZ is a hash?

---

Liviu Lalescu:

I thought of this, too. But there might appear conflicts, and solving them is not easy. Also, numbers are nicer than a hash value.

---

Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes:

Another option is to convert room/subject/teacher/etc. name to URL encoding? Like http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qurl.html#toPercentEncoding

---

Volker Dirr:

that will avoid duplicates.
advantage is the permanent link.
disadvantages are that Arabic (and other) users will have trouble to read it and the file size will grow.

---

Liviu Lalescu:

I think white spaces should also be encoded, which is not done by default?

But I would not like to implement this in the official version. I prefer the numbers, they are much shorter and nicer. And maybe safer.

I can add this in the TODO, and if more people ask, I will reconsider.

308---------------------------------------------------------
From math user (on forum):

He refers to the all time/space constraints dialogs:

What about CTRL+F to select Filter and CTRL+G to select Sorted? That would speed up usage (keyboard only - no mouse needed).

309---------------------------------------------------------
From Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes (on forum):

Constraint teacher(s) min continous gaps in window (for instance, the teachers should have 6 continuous gaps on a day, for lunch, when
the FET time slot corresponds in reality 10 minutes).

310---------------------------------------------------------
From Matsumoto (on forum):

Is LibreOffice exportation planned? Quite a lot of people I present FET to have little to no knowledge about HTML / CSS editing, so being able
to export the timetables in LibreOffice would really help spread FET around my area.

See also item #18

311---------------------------------------------------------
From Matsumoto (on forum):

To help see difficult days/times, FET could have a statistics that shows the amount of available teachers at every period of the timetable,
for example, if only teachers A, B, C and D are available at the first hour of every day, I imagine it should show something like:

	Day 1	Day 2 	Day 3
Hour 1	4	4 	4
Hour 2	6	2 	4

I filled in random values for hour 2 just to have more detail

This should allow the user to quickly spot times where more teachers could be needed before the generation starts. Maybe in addition to the
number of teachers also have the names?

From Volker Dirr:

we can skip this dialog, since it is still too much work to check; it
can be improved much more!

add a new (locked) feature:
"check min teachers per slots (except breaks)"
Here a user can enter the number of classes (or: if smaller: the number
of courses).

Than in generate_pre it is always checked by default if that minimum
number is fulfilled or not.

Advantage: you don't always need to check manual
number_of_slots_per_week every time you added/modified a constraint. You
only need to add that number one time and it will always check
automatically.

312---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

New constraints:

Teacher(s) max span per week;
Teacher(s) min span per day;
Teacher(s) min span per week;
Teacher(s) min gaps per day;
Teacher(s) min gaps per week;
A set of activities has min common time slots with another set of activities ( https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3101.msg16795#msg16795 )

Also suggested by auriolar, on forum: Teacher(s) max span per week.

313---------------------------------------------------------
From Silver (on forum):

I suggest you add the split and duration in subject window, why we add the split and duration when we add activity for 1st teacher, and for 2nd teacher ... .
With this suggestion, we add the splits and duration 1 time for the subject.
Exmple: Physics1 have 2 split in the week, so why I add this info in every activity for Physics1?!

314-------DONE in FET-6.0.0 and subsequent versions:--------

315------------------DONE-----------------------------------

316---------------------------------------------------------
From math (on forum):

I'm using FET for generating the timetable for the computer science departement of a mid-sized university. In this posting I would like to suggest something that
I call "collection of rooms". Since I'm not a native speaker, please feel free to change this term to whatever seems to be appropriate for you.

We have a wide variety of rooms in our university, ranging from small meeting rooms or seminar rooms up to large lecture halls for hundreds of students. But it's
not only the size of the rooms that is important, it's also the equippment in these rooms. A very important differentiation is the question whether a room is
equipped with a chalk board or a white board. While most lecturers prefer white boards, lecturers of math related courses usually prefer chalk boards.

At the moment I'm first adding all the activities, then usually selecting all appropriate rooms in "Space->Subjects->A Subject has a set of Preferred Rooms".
In case of activities with the same subject but different space requirements, I even have to specify them in "Space->Activities->An Activitiy has a set of
Preferred Rooms" for each of these activities. My problem is exactly the following process of assigning rooms.

When adding such a constraint in "Add subject preferred rooms", I select the subject on the top of the dialog. Below the subject there are two lists. The list
of all available rooms on the left and the list of selected rooms on the right. Now I have to go through the (looooooooong) list of available rooms, selecting
all appropriate rooms. Since I can't remember each and every room, I coded relevant information to the name of a room, e.g. "N3-106-C-SPW-50P" for "room 106
on third floor of building N", "managed by the Computer science department", "Seminar room equipped with Projector and Whiteboard", "capacity for 50 students".
So if I need a mid-sized seminar room, I have to go all through the list, selecting all matching rooms.

First, this manual selection of rooms is quite time consuming. Second, there's a good chance of missing an appropriate room. Second is much worse since we suffer
a general lack of rooms, so that generating a timetable usually fails due to a lack of rooms. So it would be highly helpful if FET could support me in not missing
appropriate rooms.

And I would like to suggest a way that should be easy to implement, not demanding any changes to the timetabling algorithm at all.

I would like to be able to specify collections, e.g. "Data->Space->Collections". When adding a collection, I would like to specify a name of the collection on
the top of the dialog. Below this edit field there could be two list fields (just like in the constraints dialog mentioned above). In the left list there are
all the available room, in the right list field there are all the rooms that are part of the collection. This way I would be abe to generate a collection
"mid-sized seminar room" with all appropriate rooms.

Coming back to the "Space->Subjects->A Subject has a set of Preferred Rooms" dialog. Here, in the left list there are all the available rooms. I beside this
list of rooms, I would like to see all collections at the top of the list. This way I could assign a collection to a subject instead of assigning room by room.
As a matter of fact, I could also select multiple collections or other rooms.

When generating a timetable, these collections could be dissolved by a pre-problem, as Volker called it. A collection is just replaced with the rooms it
contains. If multiple collections were selected and a specific room was listed in more than one of these collections, all duplicates are removed from the list.
This way the algorithm gets the very same input as before, not requiring any changes here.

I would be more than happy if you could add this collection feature to FET.

317---------------------------------------------------------
From math (on forum):

When preparing a timetable generation I specify a bunch of rooms that are appropriate for a given subject and/or activity. Based in this information FET assigns
one of the specified rooms at timetable generation time. However, even though I specify the rooms as appropriate, some of the given rooms are more appropriate
than others.

For instance lecture halls. Some of them are brand new, some of them not. Since both kinds of lecture halls are ok for a lecture, I specify both of them as space
constraint. At generation time FET assigns for room types to the activities since there is no difference from FET's point of view. But when I'm looking to the
generated schedule and see that the lecture is assigned to an old lecture hall while a new lecture hall is available at the same time, I would like to be able to
manually move the activity from the old lecture hall to the new.

I would highly appreciate if such "manual optimization" of rooms would be possible in FET. In fact, this is something that all commercial tools are able to do and
the feature that I miss most in FET.

In my naive way of looking to FET I don't expect this feature to be difficult in implementation. FET knows which rooms are appropriate for an activity and it
knows which of these rooms are already allocated (since the timetable has just been generated). So when right-clicking on an activity in the timetable, a menu
option "change room to..." could appear with a sub menu holding all the available alternative rooms.

I'd be really happy if you could integrate such functionality and I'm a bit afraid that you say something like "sorry dude, this is out of scope since FET does
not focus on post-generation optimization at all".

318-------------------DONE since FET-6.0.0------------------

319--------------DONE???------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Two activities are not consecutive. For example A1 and A2 are not consecutive means that FET forces the A2 activity not to be placed immediately after A1.
(But A1 may be placed immediately after A2).

Vangelis suggested that this can be solved by using a trick: It can be achieved indirectly with pseudo-activities. let's say A1 real activity,
P1 pseudo-activity, and A2 real activity. If you want A1 and A2 not to be consecutive, you can demand A1 and P1 to be consecutive and A2 not to overlap with P1.

Liviu, 2024-01-21: isn't this done a long time ago, min gaps between ordered pair of activity tags?

320--------------PARTIALLY DONE-----------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

get rid of max_days_per_week and max_hours_per_day.
one needed step for that is redesigning the interface, since the
interface use it.
it won't be too difficult to fix that.
just add hours per day and days per week as a QStringList (like teacher
names, subject names, ...)
this dialog should get buttons like in teachers, rooms, subjects, ...
so add a button with "up" and "down" to move the name.
"rename"
"clear all"
"delete"
"add"

the hours per day dialog should maybe also get a button with a spinbox
to add X names at once.
Like name "1", "2", ...
or "1.", "2.", ...
or ...

the days per week dialog should get 3 buttons like:
"add Monday to Friday" (so it add those 5 days. if you press that button
again, it should add once again. so there will be 10 days added (maybe
with an attached small string).
"add Monday to Saturday"
"add Monday to Sunday"
"add From a date To a date" So you can select 2 calender dates and it
just add all that dates.

321---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

These new views of FET (teachers/students time horizontal) for modifying an existing timetable seem to work very well. Some more suggestions mainly for facilitating
the modifications of an existing timetable... The code actually exists! Just to be "connected" to these windows (views).
Teachers view:
1) When right-clicking on the name of a teacher (left column), a menu opens. The options are the constraints (time, room, etc) for the specific teacher. For example,
teacher available times, max days per week, home room etc.
2) When right-clicking on an activity (in the timetable), a menu with two sub-menus opens. The first sub-menu has the options of modifying the specific activity.
The second sub-menu is actually all the of the time constraints for the specific activity (for example an activity has a preferred starting time, etc).
Students view: The corresponding options for the students, as mentioned above.

I think that the above are necessary. Of course ALL the existing options for the teachers, students etc might be displayed in these menus, when right-clicking.
For example, modifying the data (teacher name, etc). THIS WOULD BE MUCH BETTER, SO ONE COULD MAKE MODIFICATIONS ON ALL FET FIELDS WITHOUT EXISTING THESE WINDOWS.
But, I don't know how complicated this part is. I have no C++ programming skills, but it seems easy.
The above suggested options focus on MODIFYING AN EXISTING TIMETABLE WHICH IS A COMMON PRACTICE IN REAL LIFE SITUATIONS AT SCHOOLS. I KNOW AND I ACCEPT THAT
MATHEMATICALLY AND COMPUTATIONALLY MODIFYING AN EXISTING TIMETABLE IT'S NOT THE BEST APPROACH.

Liviu Lalescu:

Your suggestions are not so easy to implement.

322---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

After testing the new display (mainly teachers time horizontal) for partially modifying an existing timetable, I thought of a suggestion. Most likely, it's
similar to "remove redundant constraints". The suggestion is to add a (percentage) multiplication factor for each one of the "groups" or time constraints.
This means that the user should be able to add a different multiplication factor for each one of the following groups of constraints: Teachers' time constraints
(for example 98%) Students' time constraints (for example 90%) Activities time constraints (for example 20%) This would affect ONLY the constraints that can have
weight (percentage) less than 100%. For example, teachers not available times can have ONLY 100% as a percentage. These constraints are not going to be affected.
But, all the other constraints (for example: teachers max gaps per day, max hours continuously) are going to be affected since they are going to be multiplied
by this factor. For example if there is a constraint for the TEACHER_1 such as max hours continuously = 3, weight = 100%, it is going to be now 98%.
If there is a constraint teacher max gaps per day = 1, weight = 98%, the new weight would become 96,04% (98%x98%). This should (more or less) relax these
constraints, so a temporary timetable is going to be solvable, with roughly similar (to identical) characteristics to the initial one. I don't know if the
above can be easily coded... It might be difficult.... But this was what I thought for facilitating the generation of a temporary timetable by slightly
modifying the existing one.

Liviu Lalescu:

I do not agree with this idea. But I added it in the TODO.

Please note that max gaps per week/day for students/teachers constraints can only have 100% weight.

323------------DONE FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN FET-6.11.0-
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

He suggests that all the constraints teacher not available could be presented in a teachers time horizontal manner (teacher as row, day+hour as column).

Further suggestions:

Generally speaking, the interaction with the GUI is crucial. Most users need easiness in entering and modifying data and of course a good monitoring of them.
Under this perspective, I'm suggesting the following enhancements regarding the GUI of FET, which -in no case- have any connection with drag-and-drop-like features.
Teacher's not available times: The teachers time horizontal view would be much more flexible
a) The user could monitor at once all teachers
b) The user could easily modify this constraint for more than one teachers at once. For example, if a group of teachers (the mathematicians) should finish their
lessons the latest on the 4th hour on Monday, the user could easily select these "cells" (time slots) and enter his/her data. In the same way, when all teachers
are not available (for example) for the last hour of Monday (this happens at the beginning of the school year at Greek schools, because many teachers are "missing",
and therefore schools don't "expand" their timetables until the last hour of each day), the user could easily select the entire column at once and make all teachers
not available for this specific hour.
Student's not available times: For similar reasons the time horizontal view is by far more flexible.
Please bear in mind that with the existing FET GUI the user needs severely more time in order to complete these tasks. Also, it's really hard for the user to monitor
his/her data efficiently (with the existing GUI).

Interaction of the above "dialogues" with statistics: An example for the teachers: Let's suppose that a teacher teachers for 20 hours per week (this is the most
typical situation at Greek schools). The user might accidentally make this teacher available for a very small number of hours, and therefore the timetable generation
might become impossible. I suggest to add two columns (in this time horizontal view) right to the teachers' names. The first column should take the number of activities
(from the statistics) and the second column should display the number of available hour of this teacher. This (second column) should be "interactive", i.e. when the user
adds or removes an hour, this number should change.
An example for the students: The same for the students...

Similar interactions might be useful for the space constraints, but since I've never had such constraints in my timetables, I can't judge and suggest what would work
better than the existing displays of FET. Most likely, the room's not available times works better in the time horizontal view, so the user will have complete control
on his/her data.

For rooms not available times constraints, since a room may have weight <100%, Vangelis proposes this: By default, the cell should take the weight 100%, and if one
needs something different, right click and a dialogue with the new weight and instead of "X" for rooms you might display the percentage itself in red color.

324---------------------------------------------------------
From Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes (on forum):

Add short names for teachers (and maybe students, subjects, activity tags, rooms).

See also item #199.

325---------------------------------------------------------
From Darren McDonald (on forum):

I thought I'd make a few feature feature requests that may be useful (at least they would be useful to me!  :) ). This one is the more difficult of the two.

I've often got a group of activities that need to have the same starting time, for example

Mathematical Studies 1 (1+1+1)
Mathematical Studies 2 (1+1+1)
Mathematics SL 1 (1+1+1)
Mathematics SL 2 (1+1+1)
Mathematics HL (1+1+1+1)

I can use Time>Activities>A set of activities has same starting time (day+hour), but this requires three separate entries (one for the first subactivity of
each subject, one for the second subactivity, and one for the third, with the final Mathematics HL subactivity left free), where each constraint involves
a list of 5 subactivities (which increases the possibility of error).

Is it possible to introduce a new time constraint that would allow me to constrain, for example, the first n activities of a group of activities? Essentially,
I'd like to be able to specify the time constraint(s) above in a single step: providing FET with the relevant activity sets, and then specify that (in this case)
the first 3 subactivities should have the same start time (day+hour).

326---------------------------------------------------------
From Darren McDonald (on forum):

When creating timetables for students in the final two years of high school, I typically use student names as Groups. Within the first couple of months
(particularly in International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme schools), there are often a number of changes as students change subject choices.

It would be easier to find student names (to remove them from one activity group, then add them to another) if there were a button that would allow me to sort
the selected groups from the Modify Activity screen (perhaps below the Clear button?).

327---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

Add a subject tag for each subject (like: "easy" or "hard") and add time constraints for these subject tags.

328---------------------------------------------------------
From Valdo (on forum):

Export the resulted timetables in time horizontal form.

329-----------------------DONE------------------------------

330---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Maybe this is a good time to restart coding csv stuff.
my old csv stuff was very "powerful" and "compressed", but sadly also 
very bad "expandable"/(coded).
also other guys asked for exporting other time constraints. nearly 
impossible to add that into the old code.

so i suggest this:
- we keep the old csv stuff, so everyone can still use this "powerful" 
feature. it will be also stable (never change the file format anymore).
- we add a new csv export (and also import). maybe call it "version 2" 
or "beta" or "experimental" or ...
- the new code will NOT be able to select the order of the fields (and 
also not be able to select headers, textquotes and field separator; even 
i will do that maybe in the source)
- the first version will be similar to the current default export. so 
just code simplification.
- then i will have got the chance to add new features into that code 
(like exporting other constraints)

331---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

My days originally have had 7 hours. The school said a thing and I thought I should include a plus hour, before the original 7 hours.
I added it (0. hour) and I saw the hour of all time constraints updated: increased by 1.
I know many times it's a good feature but in my case (I've record all activities, time constraints) hasn't increase. My 0. hour is like a virtual hour.

Now I can manually rewrite the .fet file but I think it would be nice when user can disable this feature - maybe FET ask about it the user when add later
(means there are time constraints) a new hour.

332---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

Maybe a user error (PEBKAC) but I think I share it.

So I've a little complicated FET-file and it seems the "An activity has a preferred starting time" doesn't work.

I attached the file and try to generate and check:

    Nr. 895 and 896 activities (without any teacher and student)
    They have preferred starting time: "Szerda 1." (Wednesday) and "Hétfő 3." (Monday) with 100%
    They have same starting time (day+hour) with 7 other activities (for example 647 and 648)
    Generate (without success)
    Check the student's timetable, go to "11A" and the 647 is on "Péntek" (Friday)!

333---------------------------------------------------------
From Valdo (on forum):

A new addition to Spreading activities uniformly in the week for activities split in to 2 components:

Constraints max days between activities (2 components) with the possibility to select max days and weight.

334---------------------------------------------------------
From Zsolt Udvari (on forum):

I try to find the impossible constraint(s) in my FET-file and I think it's uncomfortable that only on "Time/All" dialog can activate/deactivate the constraints.
I think it would be nice when can activate/deactivate for example on "An activity has a preferred starting time" dialog (and on the others too).

335-------------PARTIALLY DONE?-----------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

There are not many variables to mutex in the generation.cpp. So it will
be faster to use std::atomic or QAtomic command instead of using mutex.
(The atomic commands will do a mutex if the cpu doesn't support atomic
operations. so cpus without atomic support won't generate faster, but
other cpus will.)

336---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

Constraint min working hours in an interval.

This constraint is very useful in many situations such as, for example, not bringing a teacher (or all teachers) for a single hour in a given interval.

337---------------------------------------------------------
From Fernando A F Lordão (on forum):

After testing the new feature (showing the number of assigned hours for teachers and students in the HTML statistics of the timetables) I figured out about
another situation that occurs in my institution.
Here we have a rule that recommends coordinators not to assign more than three different subjects to one teacher. Sometimes it occurs, but it's not the ideal scenario.
So, I thought about including two more columns in the statistics file:
* "Total of Activities"
* "Different Subjects" (counting different string description of the subjects assigned to the teacher)

338---------------------------------------------------------
From mercurialuser (on forum):

I'd like to have fet-cl write the highest timetable without stopping the program. I'm getting 63x out of 639 activity placed and so I'd like to see what it is
happening, which activity is blocked by which constraint, etc etc..

It would be nice to be able to load the saved partial timetable and restart the search from that point... of course, I'd modify the constraints to be able to
place the remaining activities...

Liviu Lalescu:

For part 1) It is difficult, because I cannot rely on more signals. I already use SIGTERM.

But I think you can safely interrupt the generation with SIGTERM and get the highest stage timetable. It would not be useful to continue the generation.
If you change a constraints, the whole procedure changes (see your second request and my answer, below). You can see the initial activities order in the
logs, and the maximum placed activities. The next one after the maximum placed is problematic.

For part 2) This would not be possible. If you modify the constraints, the whole thing is changed.

339---------------------------------------------------------
From Roberto Bergonzini:

Manual timetabling - drag and drop.

Just make a timetable view teachers, keeping only the free days and the not available constraints for the teachers.

Also suggested by mercurialuser.

Forum link: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3461.0

340---------------------------------------------------------
From Emiliano Llano Díaz:

Improvement suggestion: Is a nag that each time you open FET it does not "remember" the file it was working on (I know it is just 2 clicks away on
file->open recent, but... you know humans are lazy 😁  )

341--------DONE in FET-6.13.0 on 14 November 2023-----------

342---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

All students must respect the maximum number of span (in hours) per day -> better write:

All students must respect the maximum span (in number of hours) per day.

Circular -> better write: Circularly.

343------------------DONE-----------------------------------

344---------------------------------------------------------
From V Paul C Charlesraj (on forum):

Minimum number of days in a week for all students.

Liviu:

Or for a students set. This is very difficult to implement perfectly (to take care of combinations with the other constraints).

345---------------------------------------------------------
From Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes:

(referring to translation of plural forms)

I also saw this in daysform.cpp :

        if(cnt_rem>0){
            s+=tr("%1 constraints will be removed.", "%1 is the number
of constraints").arg(cnt_rem);
            s+=" ";
        }
        if(cnt_mod>0){
            s+=tr("%1 constraints will be modified.", "%1 is the
number of constraints").arg(cnt_mod);
            s+=" ";
        }
        s+=tr("Do you want to continue?");

Maybe this part could use %n too?

Liviu Lalescu:

Yes, it should, also in hoursform.cpp and also in
alltime/spaceconstraintsform.cpp.

But I think there are plenty of places to modify and it is really too
much. But I'll think of it.

Problem: see for instance alltimeconstraintsform.cpp:

	constraintsTextLabel->setText(tr("%1 / %2 time constraints",
	 "%1 represents the number of visible active time constraints, %2 represents the total number of visible time constraints")
	 .arg(n_active).arg(visibleTimeConstraintsList.count()));

Which is %n? %1 or %2?

Also advancedlockunlockform.cpp:

	QMessageBox::information(&lastConfirmationDialog, tr("FET information"), tr("There were removed %1 locking time constraints and"
		" %2 locking space constraints. There were not removed %3 locking time constraints and %4 locking space constraints, because"
		" these activities were permanently locked").arg(removedTime).arg(removedSpace).arg(notRemovedTime).arg(notRemovedSpace));

It is very difficult.

I am sorry, but the code is full of such mistakes. It is too late now
to correct.

Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes:

Difficult indeed.

The only way out I can see would be replace:

"There were removed %1 locking time constraints and %2 locking space
constraints. There were not removed %3 locking time constraints and %4
locking space constraints, because these activities were permanently
locked"

by:

"There were removed %1 and %2. There were not removed %3 and %4,
because these activities were permanently locked"
where %1 would be "%n locking time constraint(s)", etc.

346---------------------------------------------------------
From Taro Tada:

Either allow two or more users to work concurrently on a unique FET file, or allow the merging of two or more .fet files.

347------------------DONE-----------------------------------

348---------------------------------------------------------
From Fernando A F Lordão (on forum):

I would suggest the use of the current filter values as default values when the user presses the "Add" button for constraints.

For instance, I noticed the importance of this when I was inserting teachers time constraints (SCREEN "Constraints teacher not available times"). Let me explain...

As I had many constraints already set inherited from the previous semester, I was firstly filtering by name and modifying the preferences previously saved.
At this moment, when I was filtering by a given name and that name had NO constraints yet, I was forced to "Add" a new constraint to that teacher and several
times I included the constraint with the first name on the list, having so to step back and remove the wrong constraint.

I think this mistake happens because our brain thinks: "I have already chosen the name", but it does NOT take into account that it was on the previous screen.
So, how about we give a hand to the brain and inherit the values from filters to the next "Add" screen.

349----------------DONE-------------------------------------

350---------------------------------------------------------
From aisse (on forum):

I think the program can be improved better if the restrictions are in the form of buttons .. For example, the Algerian version of the middle schools we
need some restrictions only .. I think the format of the program in its Algerian version will be better and easier by buttons pre-programmed .. Where all
buttons are in one interface as long Their number will be small in the Algerian version

For example, we say the Algerian version.. but in reality there are many types of schools and every type what needs. There are middle schools, secondary
schools, primary schools, private schools ..and institutes of very different types. The constraints in the Algerian version are general to all. But when we
come to the privacy of each school, each one needs constraints and it does not need another .. I work in a middle school, I only need some constraints which
can all be put in one interface ..

Liviu Lalescu: So you need a customisable interface (where you can add/remove buttons from the interface)?

aisse: Not exactly .. I suggested reducing the version .. to become " FET for Algerian middle schools...The buttons are fixed.

351---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

in the list of conflicts why not specify the names of hours with the days
ex: ... activity (A1) is in conflict with activity (A2) in Tuesday (2) and Tuesday (4) ...

the numbers (2) and (4) are the names given by the user at the hours.

one of the advantages of this suggestion is to know if the activities are consecutive or not.

Volker Dirr: You also need to see the duration, because you can only know then if they are
consecutive or not.

352---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr (on forum):

There are constraints like max hours daily or interval max days per week which allow their data to be redundant (they allow n_hours_per_day or
n_days_per_week), and other constraints, like min days between activities, which don't allow their data to be redundant (they allow only
n_days_per_week-1).

Volker suggests to allow only non-redundant data (like min days between activities constraints).

353---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

add a warning before generating (generate_pre.cpp):
check min days between activities constraints:
if ((number_of_activities.count() > 2*days_per_week) && 
forceConsecutive.isEnabled()) => IMPOSSIBLE

354---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

If there are activities in a constraint activities same starting
time and an activity is forbidden a time slot, then all the others are
also forbidden this time slot.

Liviu: It might not be critical, as activities with same starting time constraints are placed one near the other in the initial order
(problems might arise only if the user uses the advanced option "Group activities in the initial order").

355---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

If an activity A has preferred room R and R is not available
on some time slots, make A not available on these time slots.

(See also item #356.)

356---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Take care of this potential problem: If an activity
A with duration >=2 has preferred two rooms, and in
the first hour R1 is available but R2 not, then in the second hour R2 is
available but R1 not, A is impossible to place.

(See also item #355.)

357---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

The order of the activities is not always good. Activities with a
very low number of available slots might be much too late in the order.
(For example pseudo activities "lunch".)

358---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Care about not available times if activities are consecutive.

Volker: the code might look like the attached (be careful: not tested much 
yet; so it might contain still bugs)
//NEW Variant (start)
	foundImprovement=0;	//TODO:delete
	bool addImprovement=true;
	//care about consecutive by Volker Dirr
	//TODO: same starting time and consecutive might effect each other. so 
repeat both as long as something changed?!
	//DO THIS AS LAST
	while(addImprovement){
		addImprovement=false;
		for(int i=0; i<gt.rules.nInternalTimeConstraints; i++){
			if(gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i]->type==CONSTRAINT_2_ACTIVITIES_CONSECUTIVE){
				Constraint2ActivitiesConsecutive* 
c2=(Constraint2ActivitiesConsecutive*)gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i];
				if(gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i]->weightPercentage==100.0){
					//if firstActivity or secondActivity has a same starting time, then 
it must be recheeckt?!
					int firstActivity=c2->firstActivityIndex;
					int secondActivity=c2->secondActivityIndex;
					for(int d=0; d<gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek; d++){
						//get times
						int firstPeriodOfFirstActivity=-1;
						int lastPeriodOfFirstActivity=gt.rules.nHoursPerDay-1;
						int firstPeriodOfSecondActivity=-1;
						int lastPeriodOfSecondActivity=gt.rules.nHoursPerDay-1;
						for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
							int currentTime=d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek;
							if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][currentTime]!=100){
								if(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity==-1)
									firstPeriodOfFirstActivity=h;
								lastPeriodOfFirstActivity=h;
							}
							if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][currentTime]!=100){
								if(firstPeriodOfSecondActivity==-1)
									firstPeriodOfSecondActivity=h;
								lastPeriodOfSecondActivity=h;
							}
						}
						assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay);
						assert(lastPeriodOfSecondActivity<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay);
						assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity>=firstPeriodOfFirstActivity);
						assert(lastPeriodOfSecondActivity>=firstPeriodOfSecondActivity);  

						int durationFirstActivity = 
gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[firstActivity].duration;

						if((firstPeriodOfFirstActivity>=0) && 
(firstPeriodOfSecondActivity>=0)){  
							if(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity==lastPeriodOfSecondActivity){
								lastPeriodOfFirstActivity--;
							} else
								if(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity>lastPeriodOfSecondActivity){  
									lastPeriodOfFirstActivity=lastPeriodOfSecondActivity-1;
								}
							else {
								int numberOfFollowingBreaks=0;
								for(int i=lastPeriodOfFirstActivity+1; 
i<=lastPeriodOfSecondActivity; i++){
									if(!breakDayHour[d][i]){
										break;
									}
									numberOfFollowingBreaks++;
								}
								if(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity+durationFirstActivity+numberOfFollowingBreaks>lastPeriodOfSecondActivity){  
									firstPeriodOfFirstActivity=-1;
									firstPeriodOfSecondActivity=-1;
								} else {
									if(lastPeriodOfSecondActivity>lastPeriodOfFirstActivity+durationFirstActivity+numberOfFollowingBreaks){  
										lastPeriodOfSecondActivity=lastPeriodOfFirstActivity+durationFirstActivity+numberOfFollowingBreaks;
										assert(!breakDayHour[d][lastPeriodOfSecondActivity]);
									}
								}
							}

							/*if(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<firstPeriodOfFirstActivity
							|| lastPeriodOfSecondActivity<firstPeriodOfSecondActivity
							|| firstPeriodOfFirstActivity>firstPeriodOfSecondActivity
							|| lastPeriodOfFirstActivity>lastPeriodOfSecondActivity){
							QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("F1=%1   L1=%2   F2=%3   
L2=%4").arg(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity).arg(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity).arg(firstPeriodOfSecondActivity).arg(lastPeriodOfSecondActivity));
							}*/

							assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay);
							assert(lastPeriodOfSecondActivity<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay);
							//assert(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity<=firstPeriodOfSecondActivity); 
// not correct that this position, correction is following now
							assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<=lastPeriodOfSecondActivity);

							if((firstPeriodOfFirstActivity>=0) && 
(firstPeriodOfSecondActivity>=0)){  
								if(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity==firstPeriodOfSecondActivity){
									firstPeriodOfSecondActivity+=durationFirstActivity;
									assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<=lastPeriodOfSecondActivity);
								} else
									if(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity>firstPeriodOfSecondActivity){  
										firstPeriodOfSecondActivity=firstPeriodOfFirstActivity+durationFirstActivity;
										assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<=lastPeriodOfSecondActivity);
									}
								else {
									int numberOfFollowingBreaks=0;
									for(int i=firstPeriodOfSecondActivity-1; 
i>=firstPeriodOfFirstActivity; i--){  
										if(!breakDayHour[d][i]){
											break;
										}
										numberOfFollowingBreaks++;
									}
									assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<=lastPeriodOfSecondActivity);
									if(lastPeriodOfSecondActivity-durationFirstActivity-numberOfFollowingBreaks<firstPeriodOfFirstActivity){
										firstPeriodOfFirstActivity=-1;
										firstPeriodOfSecondActivity=-1;
									} else {
										if(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity<firstPeriodOfSecondActivity-durationFirstActivity-numberOfFollowingBreaks){
											firstPeriodOfFirstActivity=firstPeriodOfSecondActivity-durationFirstActivity-numberOfFollowingBreaks;
											assert(!breakDayHour[d][firstPeriodOfFirstActivity]);
										}
									}
								}
							}
							assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay);
							assert(lastPeriodOfSecondActivity<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay);
							assert(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity<=firstPeriodOfSecondActivity);
							assert(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<=lastPeriodOfSecondActivity);
							if(	lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<firstPeriodOfFirstActivity
								|| lastPeriodOfSecondActivity<firstPeriodOfSecondActivity
								|| firstPeriodOfFirstActivity>=lastPeriodOfSecondActivity
								|| 
firstPeriodOfFirstActivity+durationFirstActivity>lastPeriodOfSecondActivity  
								|| 
lastPeriodOfSecondActivity-durationFirstActivity<firstPeriodOfFirstActivity){
									firstPeriodOfFirstActivity=-1;
									firstPeriodOfSecondActivity=-1;
							}
						}

						/*if(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity<firstPeriodOfFirstActivity
						|| lastPeriodOfSecondActivity<firstPeriodOfSecondActivity
						|| firstPeriodOfFirstActivity>firstPeriodOfSecondActivity
						|| lastPeriodOfFirstActivity>lastPeriodOfSecondActivity){
						QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("F1=%1   L1=%2   F2=%3   
L2=%4").arg(firstPeriodOfFirstActivity).arg(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity).arg(firstPeriodOfSecondActivity).arg(lastPeriodOfSecondActivity));
						}*/

//lastPeriodOfFirstActivity>firstPeriodOfSecondActivity  

						if((firstPeriodOfFirstActivity<0) || 
(firstPeriodOfSecondActivity<0)){
							for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
								int currentTime=d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek;
								if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][currentTime]!=100){
									notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][currentTime]=100;
									addImprovement=true;
									foundImprovement++;	//TODO delete this
								}
								if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][currentTime]!=100){
									notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][currentTime]=100;
									addImprovement=true;
									foundImprovement++;	//TODO delete this
								}
							}
							continue;
						}

						//TODO: only if this happen each day!!!
						/*if(lastPeriodOfFirstActivity + durationFirstActivity < 
firstPeriodOfSecondActivity){
							QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("Activity %1 and Activity %2 can't be 
consecutive.").arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[firstActivity].id).arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[secondActivity].id));
						}


						if(firstPeriodOfSecondActivity - durationFirstActivity < 0){
							QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("*Activity %1 and Activity %2 can't be 
consecutive.").arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[firstActivity].id).arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[secondActivity].id));
							QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("%1 - %2 < 
0").arg(firstPossiblePeriodForSecondActivity).arg(durationFirstActivity));
						}*/

						//lock times of first activity
						for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
							int currentTime=d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek;
							if(h<firstPeriodOfFirstActivity){
								if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][currentTime]!=100){
									notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][currentTime]=100;
									addImprovement=true;
									foundImprovement++;	//TODO delete this
									//QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("* Lock day %1 and hour %2 of activity 
%3.").arg(d).arg(h).arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[firstActivity].id));
								}
							} else if(h>lastPeriodOfFirstActivity){
								if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][currentTime]!=100){
									notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][currentTime]=100;
									addImprovement=true;
									foundImprovement++;	//TODO delete this
									//QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("* Lock day %1 and hour %2 of activity 
%3.").arg(d).arg(h).arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[firstActivity].id));
								}
							} else
								if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][currentTime]==100 
&& !breakDayHour[d][h]){
									if(h+1<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay){
										if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][d+(h+1)*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]!=100){
											notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][d+(h+1)*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
											addImprovement=true;
											foundImprovement++;	//TODO delete this
											//QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("*second* Lock day %1 and hour %2 of activity 
%3.").arg(d).arg(h-durationFirstActivity).arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[firstActivity].id));
										}
									}
								}
						}

						//lock times of second activity
						for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
							int currentTime=d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek;
							if(h<firstPeriodOfSecondActivity){
								if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][currentTime]!=100 
&& !breakDayHour[d][h-1]){
									notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][currentTime]=100;
									//QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("** Lock day %1 and hour %2 of activity 
%3.").arg(d).arg(h).arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[secondActivity].id));
									addImprovement=true;
									foundImprovement++;	//TODO delete this
								}
							} else if(h>lastPeriodOfSecondActivity){
								if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][currentTime]!=100){
									notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][currentTime]=100;
									//QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("*** Lock day %1 and hour %2 of activity 
%3.").arg(d).arg(h).arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[secondActivity].id));
									addImprovement=true;
									foundImprovement++;	//TODO delete this
								}
							} else
								if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[secondActivity][currentTime]==100 
&& !breakDayHour[d][h]){
									if(h-durationFirstActivity>=0){
										if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][d+(h-durationFirstActivity)*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]!=100){
											notAllowedTimesPercentages[firstActivity][d+(h-durationFirstActivity)*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
											addImprovement=true;
											foundImprovement++;	//TODO delete this
											//QMessageBox::warning(nullptr, QObject::tr("FET warning"), 
QObject::tr("*first* Lock day %1 and hour %2 of activity 
%3.").arg(d).arg(h+durationFirstActivity).arg(gt.rules.internalActivitiesList[secondActivity].id));
										}
									}
								}
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
	//end Volker

359---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Care about not available times if activities are grouped (2 or 3).

360---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Care about not available times if students early, no gaps and max hours per day.

361---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

The following code should be nearly perfect for CONSTRAINT_ACTIVITIES_SAME_STARTING_DAY and CONSTRAINT_ACTIVITIES_SAME_STARTING_HOUR.
(For example 2 activities with CONSTRAINT_ACTIVITIES_SAME_STARTING_DAY.
A1 only available at one day in the first hour and A2 is also available
at the same day also not the same hour and A1 is conflicting with A2,
then my code won't see that it is possible to disallow that hour also.

but I think that these are very very unlikely and special cases. I don't know
if something like that is in a real dataset and if it is useful to
search for such improvements, since those are more critical to detect.
This can be also improved if you care about duration.)

The code also includes simplified speedups for CONSTRAINT_TWO_ACTIVITIES_GROUPED, CONSTRAINT_TWO_ACTIVITIES_CONSECUTIVE and CONSTRAINT_THREE_ACTIVITIES_GROUPED.
These constraints can still be improved.

Before computeFixedActivities in generate_pre it is useful to disallow days and hours that can't be available:

QList<QSet<int>> activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet;
QList<QSet<int>> activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet;
for(int ai=0; ai<gt.rules.nInternalActivities; ai++){
	QSet<int> dayNotAvailable;
	activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet<<dayNotAvailable;
}
for(int ai=0; ai<gt.rules.nInternalActivities; ai++){
	QSet<int> hourNotAvailable;
	activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet<<hourNotAvailable;
}
bool notAvailableFound=computeDayOrHourNotAvailable(&activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet, &activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet);

while(notAvailableFound){
	setNotAvailable(&activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet, &activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet);
	notAvailableFound=computeDayOrHourNotAvailable(&activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet, &activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet);
}


bool computeDayOrHourNotAvailable(QList<QSet<int>> *activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet, QList<QSet<int>> *activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet){
	bool newImprovementFound=false;
	for(int ai=0; ai<gt.rules.nInternalActivities; ai++){
		for(int d=0; d<gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek; d++){
			bool wholeDayNotAvailable=true;
			for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
				if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[ai][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]!=100){
					wholeDayNotAvailable=false;
					break;
				}
			}
			if(wholeDayNotAvailable){
				if(!(*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(ai).contains(d)){
					(*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet)[ai]<<d;
					newImprovementFound=true;
				}
			}
		}
	}
	for(int ai=0; ai<gt.rules.nInternalActivities; ai++){
		for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
			bool wholeHourNotAvailable=true;
			for(int d=0; d<gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek; d++){
				if(notAllowedTimesPercentages[ai][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]!=100){
					wholeHourNotAvailable=false;
					break;
				}
			}
			if(wholeHourNotAvailable){
				if(!(*activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet).at(ai).contains(h)){
					(*activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet)[ai]<<h;
					newImprovementFound=true;
				}
			}
		}
	}
	return newImprovementFound;
	
}

void setNotAvailable(QList<QSet<int>> *activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet, QList<QSet<int>> *activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet){
	for(int i=0; i<gt.rules.nInternalTimeConstraints; i++){
		if(gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i]->type==CONSTRAINT_ACTIVITIES_SAME_STARTING_DAY){
			ConstraintActivitiesSameStartingDay* sst=(ConstraintActivitiesSameStartingDay*)gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i];
			if(sst->weightPercentage==100){
				for(int j=0; j<sst->_n_activities; j++){
					foreach(int d, (*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(j)){
						for(int ai=0; ai<sst->_n_activities; ai++){
							for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
								notAllowedTimesPercentages[ai][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
							}
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
		if(gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i]->type==CONSTRAINT_TWO_ACTIVITIES_GROUPED){
			ConstraintTwoActivitiesGrouped* c2=(ConstraintTwoActivitiesGrouped*)gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i];
			if(c2->weightPercentage==100){
				foreach(int d, (*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(c2->firstActivityIndex)){
					for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->secondActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
					}
				}
				foreach(int d, (*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(c2->secondActivityIndex)){
					for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->firstActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
					}
				}
			}
		}
		if(gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i]->type==CONSTRAINT_TWO_ACTIVITIES_CONSECUTIVE){
			ConstraintTwoActivitiesConsecutive* c2=(ConstraintTwoActivitiesConsecutive*)gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i];
			if(c2->weightPercentage==100){
				foreach(int d, (*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(c2->firstActivityIndex)){
					for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->secondActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
					}
				}
				foreach(int d, (*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(c2->secondActivityIndex)){
					for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->firstActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
					}
				}
			}
		}
		if(gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i]->type==CONSTRAINT_THREE_ACTIVITIES_GROUPED){
			ConstraintThreeActivitiesGrouped* c2=(ConstraintThreeActivitiesGrouped*)gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i];
			if(c2->weightPercentage==100){
				foreach(int d, (*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(c2->firstActivityIndex)){
					for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->secondActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->thirdActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
					}
				}
				foreach(int d, (*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(c2->secondActivityIndex)){
					for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->firstActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->thirdActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
					}
				}
				foreach(int d, (*activitiesListWithDayNotAvailableSet).at(c2->thirdActivityIndex)){
					for(int h=0; h<gt.rules.nHoursPerDay; h++){
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->firstActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
						notAllowedTimesPercentages[c2->secondActivityIndex][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
					}
				}
			}
		}
		if(gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i]->type==CONSTRAINT_ACTIVITIES_SAME_STARTING_HOUR){
			ConstraintActivitiesSameStartingHour* sst=(ConstraintActivitiesSameStartingHour*)gt.rules.internalTimeConstraintsList[i];
			if(sst->weightPercentage==100){
				for(int j=0; j<sst->_n_activities; j++){
					foreach(int h, (*activitiesListWithHourNotAvailableSet).at(j)){
						for(int ai=0; ai<sst->_n_activities; ai++){
							for(int d=0; d<gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek; d++){
								notAllowedTimesPercentages[ai][d+h*gt.rules.nDaysPerWeek]=100;
							}
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

362--------------------------------------------------------
From math (on forum):

When I start preparing a new timetable for the next semester, I do not start from scratch but from some kind of base configuration file. This file
contains general information about rooms, times of blocks, teachers, lecture titles, etc. So I can directly start with creating activities etc.

The list of teachers is quite long and encompasses both internal and external teachers. Internal teachers have a full contract with our university
while external teachers are external experts that are hired only for one specific lecture, project or seminar in that particular semester.
If somebody new is giving a lecture for the first time, I add him or her to this base configuration file, no matter if he/she will ever give a course
in one of the following semesters. Hence, only a small subset of configured teachers is actually teaching within that semester. When printing timetables
for teachers, I either have to create lots of empty timetables or I have to carefully select all the "active" teachers from the list. To be honest,
I usually take the easier way.

So here's my suggestion: wouldn't it be possible to add another option to the settings dialog? (e.g. Settings -> Timetables -> Hide teachers without activities)
When this option is disabled (standard behaviour), FET acts like it currently does.
When this option is enabled, the list of teachers in the timetabling dialogs (Timetable -> Teachers -> ...) is filtered, so that it only contains teachers
that actually have activities in their timetables. Also the teacher list in the printing dialog (Timetable -> Print -> Teachers) is filtered in this way.

---

Additional suggestion from math on this subject:

When selecting "Timetable -> Print" a dialog opens that has a dropdown list with potential printing types (e.g. rooms, teachers, subjects, ...). When selecting an
item from that dropdown list, the listbox on the left hand side is filled with all items of that type, e.g. all rooms. Below that listbox there are two buttons "All"
and "None". By pressing these buttons I can select/deselect all items of that list.

I thought of adding a third button (e.g. "used") here. When pressing that button only those items are selected that are actually used in the recently generated
timetable. For example:
- if pressing the "used" button in "teacher" mode, only the teachers from the list are selected that have at least one activity planned (i.e. omitting all teachers
with empty timetables)
- if pressing the "used" button in "room" mode, only rooms from the list are selected that are used for at least one activity
- if pressing the "used" button in "subgroup" mode, only student subgroups are selected where at least one activity is assigned (i.e. omitting all subgroups without
activities, e.g. due to internship semesters)

363---------------------------------------------------------
From pg788 (on forum):

I understand this might be restrictive, but a teacher doesn't want to begin in 3rd or 4th, since there is traffic.

364-----MUST BEGIN STUDENTS DAY IS DONE---------------------
From Dietmar Deuster and Volker Dirr:

Constraints:
- activity must start a students day
- activity must start or end a students day

Liviu: start may be possible, but start or end seems very difficult, maybe impossible. Please see also item #295, point 2.

365---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr and Liviu Lalescu:

Volker has a private file which sometimes is solvable, but sometimes may cycle. We tried to improve the code, but it runs much slower on other files.

366---------------DONE since FET-5.40.1 2019-11-14----------

367---------------partially DONE since FET-6.8.0------------
From Anthony Siaudeau:

Is there a possibility to have tags to constraints (for example to activate/inactivate a group of constraints with one click) ?

Is there a possibility to activate/inactivate activities with one click in the activities windows ?

Volker Dirr:

I fear a bit that adding such a constraint into official version might mislead several FET users to do hasty action. So I guess such a feature will make
it only much more complicated to users with low skills since they won't understand their bugs anymore if the enable/disable several constraint at once.

Anthony Siaudeau:

I understand the risks for soft users. Is it possible to add in advanced settings an unlock button for active check boxes ?

Liviu Lalescu: since FET-6.8.0 (2023-01-08) it is possible to activate/deactivate all the listed time/space constraints and activities. There is also
an advanced filter there (for the time/space constraints available since a long time now, for activities starting with this FET version).

368-----------DONE in FET-6.12.0 on 3 November 2023---------

369---------------------------------------------------------
From George Milliotis (Corfiot) - on forum:

I would like to be able to group activities (maybe via tags) and be able to save html only for one or more of those groups.

I generate schedules for undergrads, postgrads and some special course sets and I have to generate them together so the rooms/teachers work out.
Then I need to copy FET output to separate tables manually to distribute. I would like to have the ability to just output different schedules.

It would possibly be easier to be able to export a new FET file with only the rules and activities relevant to this group/tag. I could then
generate schedule html from those files. Although that would require some extra steps.

370---------------------------------------------------------
(DONE? Liviu Lalescu: in FET-6.17.0 (February 2024) we added constraint students (set) / teacher(s) max hours daily in hourly interval.)

From George Milliotis (Corfiot) - on forum:

I would like to have activities that do not count towards time or space rules. I have breaks that have to be within a specific time range so that
students can eat while the restaurant is open.

If I put an activity for that FET finds places for me, which is a great help but then rules like students max hours continuously trigger and my
schedule breaks.

What I'm after are "soft" breaks.

371---------------------------------------------------------
From George Milliotis (Corfiot) - on forum:

I make schedules and then save them locked in a new FET file. This leaves the general constraints in the file alongside the newly added specific
locking rules. If I later make a change to the placement of an activity (time or space) FET only says that it can't be placed.

I would like FET to list me all the rules conflicting with the two locked time/space rules for the activity so I can pinpoint which "general"
constraint is the problem. This would save me A LOT of time.

Eg:
Activity #111: Blah blah, teacher blah, students blah
  TIME LOCK (day X - time Y) PLACEMENT  FAILED BECAUSE:
      this rule
      that rule
  SPACE LOCK (room Z) PLACEMENT FAILED BECAUSE:
     this rule
     that rule

For example, it should be obvious that a rule max students hours daily that blocks a set of locked activities on the same day for that student set
is easily detectable as the culprit.

Or, a max teachers gaps per week rule when all other relevant activities to a teacher are placed, would also be easy to identify if we're placing
a time-locked activity.

372---------------------------------------------------------
From satellite2 - on forum:

FET has the option for selecting buildings of the rooms and assigning very useful constraints for the teachers/students such as min gaps
between building changes and max building changes per day/week. Our university has 3 different campuses in the city and they are really
far away from each other. Sometimes teachers and students need to visit more than one campus a week for different courses. So with the
current options, I am considering to use each campus name as a building and assign the max building changes per day to ZERO since it is
not that easy for teachers/students to change their campus in a day. However, this time I will not be able to use the actual building names
inside each campus. I will not be able to assign min gaps between building changes since building names are used for the campus names. Actual
buildings are also needed since some of the buildings also have some distance between them on foot and at least 1 period gap is needed.

What I want to ask is that is it difficult to add an additional hierarchical level above building variable to the current code and call it
"campus" or something else? Also similar space constraint for the campus variable such as max campus changes a day?

Liviu and satellite2: maybe add each building in its own campus.

373---------------------------------------------------------
From Jude G:

(the second part was done in FET-6.22.0)

  *   Importing comments to activities / students / teachers.

374---------------------------------------------------------
From bharatstank (on forum): (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3989.0)

Room not available constraint - wherein (X) crossing the specific slot means No activity is placed in that (X) slot.

Please suggest - if there is any option, wherein I can Define multiple type of Room not available constraints, so that Instead of (X) slot - we have better meaningful
Message to display.

There are few Activities, which are not time tabled and are communicated back to the concern department by simply (X) the Class rooms slot.

375---------------------------------------------------------
From satellite2 (on forum): (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3996.0)

The other constraint is "max hours per day for a teacher (or all teachers)". Is there a way to add another constraint like "max activities per day for a
teacher (or all teachers)" ? The hours of the activities change from 1 to 4 but teachers see them as an activity and let's say some of them don't want more
than two activities a day etc.

376---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Disable energy saving mode, because FET won't calculate anymore if
the computer falls into save mode after x minutes.

377----------------------DONE-------------------------------

378---------------------------------------------------------
From CarolStott and Volker Dirr (on forum):

- A teacher-subject matrix to enter teacher qualified subjects (so you
only need to enable/disable a cell in a table)

Another similar suggestion by CarolStott (on forum: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5408.0)

I've asked a similar question before, regarding whether there is a way of inserting a large group of teachers qualified subjects en masse without having to go
through each one individually. Still, I have a slightly different question - is there a way of importing a teacher's qualified subjects via CSV? If not, is there
no other way of inserting the teacher's qualified subjects apart from going through them one by one?

379---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

In the "Add activity" dialog:
Under the word "duration" (so left from the "active" checkbox) there is still
enough place to add some useful information.
I suggest to add the currently computed "Total duration".

380---------------------------------------------------------
From Christoph Voelker and math (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4068.0

They refer to the selection mark and the colors in the constraints activity(ies) preferred times and activities occupy max time slots from selection.

381---------------------------------------------------------
From Nagendra (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4085.0

Let us say a time table is generated with some constraints and locked. Now, If a faculty wants to re-schedule an activity, then if an interface as explained below
will be much more appealing.

Stage-1
Say, Teacher-1 wants his lecture scheduled on Monday Morning 8:30 to be shifted to any other possible day&timing of his own timetable. So, we go to the particular
teacher's timetable and click on the box. If by some means, all the possible positions (satisfying all the constraints) where this lecture could be relocated gets
highlighted, then it would be great. Just like we play chess on a computer, and all possible moves of a chesspiece gets highlighted upon selection. Then a simple
drag and drop kind of thing.

Stage-2
Teacher-1 wants his lecture scheduled on Monday Morning 8:30 (say Group A) to be swapped with some teacher-2 who is teaching the same student group (A), but
different subject. By showing both teachers timetable side-by-side and highlighting the boxes of teacher-2 upon clicking the lecture of Teacher-1.

This is just a suggestion, definitely not very important. But, it will be very easy this way to modify timetable without breaking constraints, if we get some
swap requests.

382-----------------------DONE------------------------------

383---------------------------------------------------------
From Nagendra (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4104.0

Add a constraint to limit the maximum number of subgroups (or number of students?) in any given time slot.

384---------------------------------------------------------
From Diego Froner (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4128.0

I use the import of CSV files too often because all my planning is made in Excel. One step of this planning is to choose a home room for some classes.
So, after all the imports, i have to set a home room for about 350~400 classes manually.

My suggestion is to add a "column" in CSV for import "years, groups and subgroups" named "home room" which would be optional. It would automatically
add the respective "A set of students has a home room" constraint.

Example:

Year ; Number of Students ; Home Room
ClassA ; 10 ; Room 01

This example will set "Room 01" as the home room for "classA" which has 10 students.

Volker Dirr:

a) we need to stay at the old csv file format, since several other projects already use it. So changes might be very critical in that file format
b) we should add all constraints in that files (not only home rooms). Similar to teachers and rooms.
c) Because a) and b) conflict each other we should add a second csv file format.

385---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Split year dialog: It should be possible to sort the group names. I think manual sort (by using "up" and "down" buttons)
will be better than only alphabetic sort.

386---------------------------------------------------------
From Ireri Venture:

I would suggest you to add the constraint minimum continuous hours for a teacher.

Advantages of min continuous would help a school like ours where there is sessions we do have where daily a teacher has minimum of 3 sessions
and we would wish one to have the capability of teaching 3 sessions continually and then rest or go home since the total sessions are 5.

387---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

there is a warning at the beginning if you generate about how to speed up by 
deleting subgroups.
in my opinion that is very useful, since guys that work with such a file 
can use it.

first of all i thought it is a nice idea if i just do that improvement 
in my source myself; so just not exporting those duplicated. but that 
idea is bad, because there is a disadvantage: it won't be possible 
to output a subgroup for every student. (only if you tell him: Mr. X, 
please use the table of Ms. Y, it is the same table.)
So what do you think about the following idea:
there should be a feature to disable those duplicates.
so FET can generate the table fast.
as soon as you get the results you just open the saved data from the 
results folder, enable the subgroups again and regenerate. By that they 
will look fine.

Liviu: It is a bit complicated, and also the constraints for these subgroups
should be the same (yes, in practice they will probably be the same).

388---------------------------------------------------------

Partially DONE in FET-5.40.0 (2019-09-25): the constraints of type teacher(s) max span per day allow one day exception.

From Luca (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4177.0

Allow a one day exception for the constraints of type teacher(s) max hours daily and teacher(s) max span per day, in which day the teacher(s)
can have +1 more hours/span.

Additional suggestions by bachiri401: Allow a number of n days of exception for the constraints of type teacher(s)/students (set) max/min hours daily.

Also suggested previously by totera:

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3915.0

Several teachers can work max 5 hours daily, but only once a week; in the other days the maximum is 4.
At the moment if in the generated timetable there is a teacher with two 5-hour days I add the constraint that all his activities occupy max 9 hours
in those days, but the problem presents again in other days or other teachers and it would be very laborious to add the constraints for all the
possible pairs of days. Is there any alternative solution?

Also suggested by astigol on forum:

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4284.0

389---------------------------------------------------------
From Ireri Venture:

Writing a custom text (like "Break") in the timetable instead of "-X-".

There might be more break periods in the timetable. The HTML output should have a whole row/column with the name of the corresponding break
(possibly more names in the same timetable, like: "Lunch", "Supper"), written only once, and if on a column, written vertically.

390---------------------------------------------------------
From Ireri Venture:

The hours' names may be numbered starting with 1, 2, ..., and next to them, smaller, their time.

391---------------------------------------------------------
From Aisse (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4283.0

Hello .. I have a suggestion and I hope that you will try to achieve it .. Some data in the tables would be better to arrange in descending order
so that we do not have to go down every time .. For example when I click on the constraints of time: "All" appear the latest constraints in the
bottom .. I think it would be better to arrange  it in descending order, the last constraint appears first directly under the constraint Primary.
I am sorry again because my English is not strong .. I hope you understand my idea .. Thank you for all your efforts .

392-------DONE----------------------------------------------

393-------DONE since FET-5.41.0 - 2019-11-18----------------

394---------------------------------------------------------
From math (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4343.0

I was wondering if it may be possible to introduce an active flag to teacher configuration (i.e. Data -> Teachers).

Background: beside a core team of permanent teachers we have a large team of external teachers and contracted students. If somebody participates
in teaching for the first time, I'm adding him/her to the fet configuration as teacher. For the sake of laziness I'm only adding, but never removing,
because it happens quite often that external teachers return in later semesters. Even permanent staff is inactive from time to time, e.g. during
sabbaticals or visiting reasearch at other universities. And in fact, I do not only have to enter the name to the FET configuration but also the
internal ID from our SAP system. So I just want to omit the overhead of adding this information each and every semester again.

But the downside of this approach is that my teacher listboxes grow in size quite fast. When defining activities or setting filters, I have to search
in a large list of teachers that might be significantly smaller, if only I would remove inactive teachers.

Having an active flag would allow me to quickly toggle the status of all teachers at the beginning of the semester. If a teacher is toggled inactive,
he/she would not be added to listboxes. He/she would be also omitted in the schedule generation, i.e. no schedule is generated for this person.

The only difficuly I see is how to handle this situation: what happens if a teachers gets toggled inactive while there are activities on his name?
I would suggest the following:
- When a teacher gets toggled inactive, FET checks whether there are activities for him/her. If yes, a warning dialog is displayed saying "There are
activities for this teacher. Are you sure?" If "no" is pressed, the teacher remains active. If "yes" is pressed, the teacher gets toggled inactive.
- If FET discoveres an inactive teacher at schedule generation time, it displays a warning ("Activity 1234 has been assigned to an inactive teachers),
but ignores the inactive teacher. (i.e. it schedules the activity as if the inactive teacher wouldn't have been assigned to the activiy).

This behaviour would be beneficial for community activities, e.g. jour fixe meetings. I simply add all relevant teachers to the activity, not caring
if they are actually teaching this semester or not. By analyzing the active flag, FET would only schedule active teachers to these activities.

The other option to handle this situation would be to reject toggling a teacher as inactive while he/she has activities.

395---------------------------------------------------------
From Nagendra (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4365.0

Say, activities are created with students and subjects (without teachers).

Currently, FET assigns these activities to rooms (subjected to the constraints).

Similarly, you can include an option to assign teachers automatically, if a user wants FET to do so. User may be given option to toggle/untoggle
the feature of assigning teachers automatically.

This way the official FET can be used for both regular as well as exam timetables.

396----------DONE in FET-6.12.0 and in FET-6.15.0-----------

397---------------------------------------------------------
From Corfiot (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4368.0

Corfiot:

Would it be possible to add rule groups that one could enable/disable? This would be a ui-side thing and groups could be stored in the XML file separately from rules, so the rule storage schema is not affected.

This would help a lot with creation of difficult timetables, you could group "easy"/"important" rules together, fiddle to get a schedule, then add more rules, fiddle, and repeat, adding more optional/nice to have restrictions.

The UI would be about creating a group (name it) and then in the filter dialog of any rule display dialog add an option to add these rules to a group. Finally, a small dialog to display/delete rules from a group.

How feasible is this?

Liviu Lalescu:

It is an interesting idea. The problem is that constraints do not have an ID, so you cannot specify exactly the constraints in a group.

But Anthony Siaudeau and I have better ideas (there is an older custom version created for Anthony Siaudeau based on his suggestion). He suggested that a constraint can have a weight or a weight name. Weight names have modifiable values. You can create more weight names and assign them to the constraints. Then with only a click you can change the value of a weight name and thus modify the weights of more constraints at once. My idea is to do this also to enable/disable constraints (add some Boolean variables to be attached as the "enabled" state of some constraints). This is because many constraints can have only 100% weight, and they need to be disabled if you want this - their weight cannot simply be made 0.

398-----DONE by Qt 6-(QList is as efficient as QVector)-----

399---------------------------------------------------------
From math (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4370.0

Meaning of colors:

When enabling "Settings -> Interface -> Use colors", activities in time table dialogs (e.g. Timetable -> Students -> Days horizontal) are colored.
Do these colors have any meaning or are they selected randomly?

Liviu Lalescu:

The coloring code for the timetables was contributed by Marco Vassura, and I think he said it was a classical routine. The colors for the students'
timetables compute the color from the subject, while for the teachers'/rooms' timetable compute the color from the subject+students' names. The color
is random, but the same for the same string (same subject or same subject+students names).

The HTML timetables with level 7 are similar, I think.

math:

Ah, ok, that's what I guessed.

The reason I was asking was because I would wish for a different coloring scheme. We have multiple activities for one course. Beside a lecture and
an exercise, we also have tutorials, lab hours or central exercises. Hence there are multiple subjects for one course with very similar names, e.g.
"Programming 1 VL" (lecture), "Programming 1 UE" (exercise), "Programming 1 LAB", etc. I would like to see that activities with similar subject names
would get similar colors, so that it is clear on the first sight how the different activities of the courses are distributed over the schedule.
For instance, one could use the Levenshtein distance for determining the level of similarity between two subjects.

Volker Dirr:

Sadly "Programming 1 VL" and "Programming 1 UE" are different names, so the colours will be different. You might set "VL" and "UE" as a tag name,
so the names will be the same.
You might also check TiTiTo. Just import the dataset and export the table again, since you can select different colours with that tool.

A second variant is that you colour yourself by the css file with html level 6.

Liviu Lalescu:

Yes, unfortunately the colors are based on a 24-bit hash, so they are (or should be) very different for even small changes. Unfortunately I cannot
do like you suggest. Maybe you can follow what Volker said.

400--------DONE in FET-6.17.0, February 2024----------------

401---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

(inspired by this paper: https://www.herrmann-online.info/documents/bachelorarbeit.pdf)

Write the rooms' free periods timetables in the HTML results. The rooms should be grouped by buildings.

402---------------------------------------------------------
From Eric de Quartel:

Is it possible to get the numbers of the activities in the HTML timetable. It makes it easier to communicate when changes have to be made.

(Eric refers to writing the id-s of the activities in the HTML timetables, and maybe adding a check box for this.)

Volker Dirr:

print it in the first line or the last line?

Eric de Quartel:

Second line I think. Is very helpful.

Volker Dirr:

hmmm...
that id's might help the timetablemaker who use the fet gui. but i guess
it will only do trouble for students and "normal" teachers. those guys
can always say "in table x, day y and hour z" (of course that are 3
numbers/names, but it 100% clear. no wasting space on sheet, no swapping
id number with room number or students year, no explaining need why
there is that strange number, ...)
so shouldn't it be in the GUI only, but not in html table?!

403---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus (on forum):
(see also entry #400)

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4391.0

I have used the constrain on 'a set of activities occupies max/min slots from selection' and its amazing though tedious more so when you
have putting all teachers and classes. Is it possible we have a general constrain for all teachers and students such that it will be easier
to put constrains revolving around all teachers and students? If it can be there, it can really help alot

404---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

(since i am currently doing again a very difficult timetable and i think it will be useful for those very difficult tables):

optional enable in the settings "write highest stage solution if running out of generation time".

405---------------DONE--------------------------------------

406---------------DONE in FET-6.4.0-------------------------

407---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

In the Timetable view dialogs: add a button, so the user can add an activity tag + a comment for the selected activities
and maybe add the option to modify a selected activity.

408---------------------------------------------------------
From Darren McDonald (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4151.msg24155#msg24155

Darren proposes different icons for the custom versions, and other things:

I've had some thoughts about the FET app icon (both the standard and custom versions).

What do you all think about a text-free icon? (So, perhaps just the box, with a different coloured box for the custom versions.)
In any event, it would be useful to have higher resolution icons (even if the icon design goes unchanged), so this might also be
an opportunity to refresh the icon design itself.

409---------------------------------------------------------
From Francesco Rizzo:

He proposes a filter teacher as a combo box in the all time constraints dialog (as opposed to writing the name of the teacher in the
advanced filter there) and a filter with the room name as a combo box in the all space constraints dialog.

410---------------------------------------------------------
From bachiri401:

The students should keep the same room for a selectable 1, 2, 3, or 4 hours in a row (he is using FET for Algeria, but suggests that
this might be useful also for the official FET and for other FET custom versions).

411---------------------------------------------------------
From Peter Johnson (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4463.0 (Posted on 22 May 2020)

When I was using an old version of FET, I could have a "student home room", "teacher home room" and for those activities that its
teacher and student has "home room" constraint, I could define an "activity preferred room'. In this way, FET was ignoring the student
and teacher's home room constraints and just consider the "activity preferred room". But now that I have switched to the new version,
it says "Cannot generate timetable, because for activity with id==1 you have no allowed home room (from constraints students set home
room(s) and teacher home room(s))".

What I need is that a teacher T1 has many classes, and they should be in his home room by default. The same holds for a student set S1,
but the teacher T1 has just one specific class with S1, and it can be in another room (maybe in T1's home room, or S1's home room or any
other room). Is there any solution to use the new version of FET and apply this, or I have to use the old version?

Liviu Lalescu:

I assume you have problems with a file like the attached one (teacher home room 100% to R1, students set home room 100% to R2, and preferred
rooms 100% for that subject to R1 and R2). But I tried with FET-5.27.3, release about 5 years ago, and it behaves like the current
FET-5.44.7, refusing to start the generation because of conflicting home rooms constraints. (FET-5.44.7 was released on 20 May 2020
and FET-5.27.3 was released on 9 June 2015.)

Yes, I admit, you are right. I don't remember exactly the reasons for this behavior, but I think there was a reason. I will think about
it, but for the moment I think it should remain like it is. It is risky to change old code.

412-----------------------DONE------------------------------

413---------------------------------------------------------
From math (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4524.0

In Time->Students it's possible to specify "Max gaps per day/week", but this applies to ALL activities. Since I do not care for gaps
between e-learning activities, I cannot use that constraint.

I'm thinking about something like Time->Tags->"Max gaps per day/week". This way I could tag all on-campus activities and define a
maximum of gaps (=0) between them.

Or maybe Time->Activities->"Max gaps per day/week for a set of activities". Here I would define the set of on-campus activities and
define a maximum of gaps (=0) between them.

414---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4552.0

i think we can see it also with algorithm, but it is a bit work. we need to run through all activities of an teacher. if all his activities are
not available in the same slot, then also the teacher is not available in that slot.

(Liviu: Volker refers to subsequently detecting that the teacher has too little free slots for all his activities, when the user added
a lot of constraints students set not available.)

415---------------------------------------------------------
From Henrique Belo (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4568.0

We have to change the teaching time and make sure that the class breaks are not met.
I divided the teaching time into 4, blocks of 15 min, and a class starts at 8:45 am and another at 9:00 am, so it is possible to find the breaks,
but I cannot use the Breaks constraint, because it is common for all students.

I used the constraint A Student’s set not available times, for each class, where I marked the desired breaks.

This constraint does not allow me to use the other constraint that I used a lot, two activities are consecutive, so that I can have one activity
before the break and another after the break.

Is it possible to create a new condition in Breaks to choose classes?

416---------------------------------------------------------
From samantha.goddard (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4571.0

When viewing the group timetables in the 'View timetables / View student timetables / day horizontal' tab, is it possible to hide the long list
of subgroups that appear in each time slot so that the timetable is easier to view?

I am spending a lot of time adjusting the size of the boxes to be able to check for distribution of activities.

417---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4601.0

Can be added this functionality: allow in dialog boxes to select multiple elements once and drag them to the adjacent field. It could save precious time.

418---------------------------------------------------------
From Marcus (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4636.0

I don't know if I am outdated or overlooked. If there is no such constraints mentioned below , may I suggest it.

Some time we may not want the students to move so far away even when the rooms are in the same building. I limited the choices of rooms of activities by manually .ark a set of suitable rooms in the space constraints. The choices are highly based on the distance between rooms but it may be difficult for the users to mention the distance in many ways in the program.
What if we introduce a coordinate system for the rooms so that the program can calculate the horizontal and vertical distance between rooms? And thus set the space constraints based on the calculated distances?

I don't know if this is a practical idea.

Liviu: Marcus also attached a picture to his suggestion, see the forum link.

419---------------------------------------------------------
From nguyenhuuduyet (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4501.msg25772#msg25772

About the FET-MA custom version:

I want when entering the teacher's name will be displayed immediately like the official version.
Example: 1. Enter the teacher's name
2. Add
3. OK
Then the teacher's name will appear in item 4

(meaning the teacher will appear immediately in the list of all the teachers).

---

About the official FET version:

I recommend adding functionality when importing activities in both official and custom versions.
I want the window on import to behave the same as the image I attached (combine the active dialog with the add activity)
For example:
1. Enter teacher, subject, class ... click Add
2. Click OK
3. The activity will appear immediately item 3
If you do this, it will be very easy for the user to observe.

420---------------------------------------------------------
From Fiorellino (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4653.0

Excel/Open Office/Libre Office export of the timetable after it was generated.

See also TODO items #18, #124, #152, #170, #300, #310.

421---------------------------------------------------------
From daviodan:

After you generate, you get a message box: "Timetable generated successfully", with a button "OK". Add another button, "See soft conflicts".

Liviu:

I do not like the idea, but I will write it down in the TODO.

422---------------------------------------------------------
From Nando (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4748.0

In Italian:

Al terzo anno di utilizzo riesco a gestire con una certa facilità le problematiche della mia scuola. L'unico problema sono i tempi lunghi di elaborazione che però credo dipendano dai tanti vincoli presenti, tre plessi, prescuola, docenti in comune con altre scuole, richieste giorni liberi concentrati al sabato e lunedì ecc. L'ultimo orario ha impiegato circa 70 ore ma l'importante è che sia stato fatto.

Nel chiedere se sono normali questi tempi di elaborazione, faccio notare delle cose che spererei fossero migliorate:

1) Perchè e possibile mettere delle eccezioni più restrittive e non estensive? Esempio num max ore buche per tutti i docenti (3), si può impostare un numero inferiore (2) ma non maggiore (4). Idem per numero giorni a settimana per tutti i docenti, si può mettere l'eccezione in meno ma non in più.
2) A mio parere alcune criticità del programma dipendono dal fatto di non avere sufficienti ore disponibili da collocare in alcune classi in determinati giorni (esemio il sabato con tanti docenti col giorno libero mi sono trovato a non avere la disponibilità oraria necessaria per coprire tutte le classi. 12 classi su tre plessi necessitavano di 12x5= 60 ore mentre  i docenti disponibili me ne potevano garantire 58) in questo caso il software non segnala niente, semplicemente non porta a termine l'elaborazione. Sarebbe opportuno avere un report che indichi il num. max di ore disponibile nei vari giorni in modo da evidenziare eventuali criticità prima dell'elaborazione.
3) La stampa per "classi", "tempo verticale per giorno"  dell'orario ha sempre la prima colonna molto stretta, c'e modo di modificarla?

423----------------DONE-------------------------------------

424---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Import not available constraints for teachers (DONE in FET-7.10.0) and students from CSV files.
Overall matrix view of not available times in the FET interface (DONE).

Also from Fritzlang, on the forum (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5010.0):

FET importa alcuni file con le impostazioni principali in formato CSV
E' possibile in qualche modo importare anche le ore di assenza degli insegnanti ossia le ore non disponibili per ogni singolo insegnante? (DONE in FET-7.10.0.)

425---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

1) Define custom sets of teachers and students, and apply constraints for them.

2) Output an HTML-like view of all the constraints. Vangelis also suggests the teachers not available to be displayed in a time horizontal view (DONE).

3) it might be useful.. to add a "locked" button.. in the generated timetables view...
for... "unlocking" advanced manipulations...
"manipulations"... I mean automated but controlled modifications...
and not manual adjustments....

after generating a timetable..
one can open the generated timetable view...
for locking/unlocking activities...

in this dialog... it might be useful to add a button...
(with a "locked" icon)
so the user can open an advanced manipulations dialog...
for example...
it would be useful for the user...
to be able to select a teacher...
and modify the "not available times" from this dialog...
and work with the generated timetable...
the same if selecting for example two activities... which are consecutive, without this being acceptable... in order to add a constraint... and make them not consecutive...
etc...
so.... if the user selects teachers... he should be able to modify the constraints concerning these specific teachers...
if the users selects students...
he should be able to... blabla...
if the user selects SETS OF TEACHERS (the new feature I mentioned)... he should be able to add constraints for the entire selected set...
and the same for activities...
complicated..
but...
I think it would be much more functional for modifying EXISTING (generated) timetables

426---------------------------------------------------------
From bachiri401:

The possibility of choosing the colors in the timetables, instead of arbitrarily assigning random ones.

427---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Add the possibility of generating multiple with multi-threading for fet-cl (FET command-line).

428-------5) and 6) are partiallly done---------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4795.msg26561#msg26561

4) I think that FET works very well for solving timetables which do not need to be changed/modified during the school year. In my country (Greece),
most of the time teachers are hired "incrementally". So, most Greek schools need to change/modify their timetables around 10-15 times even up until April!
This means that one needs to be able to easily change/modify an already existing timetable. Under this perspective, a new feature of adding/removing/modifying
constraints on a existing timetable (in addition to locking/unlocking activities) would be highly useful. What about other countries? Do you need to modify
existing (FET generated) timetables during the school/academic year or not?

5) Sometimes, I needed to add identical constraints for the vast majority of teachers (for example max hours continuously = 4), while at the same time
a couple of teachers were an exception. I think that a new feature for adding constraints for (predefined) groups of teachers/students/rooms would be highly useful.

6) The constraints teachers/students/rooms not available times sometimes cause problems. I think that adding a button for displaying a report for
all teachers / all students / all rooms not available times would simplify the monitoring of these constraints. Especially, I think that for
rooms not available times with a weight <100, displaying the weight percentage in each time slot would be very useful.

Other suggestions by Vangelis Karafillidis, with replies from Alex Chernous:
DONE in FET-6.4.0.

429---------------------------------------------------------
From bachiri401:

The idea of threads = many instances of fet on the same file

We used to run two (for example) instances of fet with the same file but this file is copied and renamed with a new name so as not to be confused
We run them to generate multiple timetables
One of them may generate 5 timtables whreas the second will genarate only 2 ……….

This new idea of threads is so useful but it should as the previous one:
Each thread is given the number of timtables to generate (should be optional to the user)
Each generated timtable will be given the name (thread number+timtable number) eg 1.1
1.2

2.1  2.2 ………………

430---------------------------------------------------------
From bachiri401:

He suggests that the constraints of type max room changes per week to consider the week as a whole. For instance, if the max room changes per week is 0,
we need to have the same room all over the week. Now the behavior is that on day 1 we can use room R1, on day 2 room R2, on day 3 again R1, and so on.

Liviu Lalescu: I think this is impossible to change now, and incorrect. You could use the constraint activities occupy max different rooms.

431---------------------------------------------------------
From ghani1990 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4795.msg26796#msg26796

1) I have a suggestion in the case of multiple timetables why I should delete the output folder every time, why the files are not output in new folders with
the same name with a number's suffix , 1,2,3 etc.

2) I suggest adding settings to choose the default mode of operation.

Meaning instead of choosing the The mode of operation every time through the menu New, just I go once to settings and i set my default option.

Why should this preferance exist? Because the Custom FET versions are basically each one belonging to a specific country or group, so I think it is better for
me to choose the mode once in the settings instead of choosing every time I create a new file!

Thus, your work is wonderful in the endeavor to collect all copies in one copy, and at the same time it is easy to use the program as if it is directed to a
specific mode.

Of course, these settings are optional, they can be edited by the user, or they can be left as they are now.

432-----------PARTIALLY DONE?-------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

In src/engine/generate.cpp and src/interface/timetablegenerateform.cpp and src/interface/timetablegeneratemultipleform.cpp, use std::atomic instead of
std::mutex on the Boolean variable testing if the generation was stopped, bool Generate::abortOptimization. And maybe use std::atomic instead of std::mutex
in other places.

433---------------------------------------------------------
From Khelifi Fouad Mohssen:

If I (Liviu) understood correctly, he suggests to make the overall timetable, but to see it separately for each department.

434---------------------------------------------------------
From Darren McDonald and samantha.goddard (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4839.0

For block planning mode:

1) Activities occupy max hours (blocks). For instance, if there are 3 sets of simultaneous activities, the user would like that they occupy at most 2 hours:
FET day 1 FET hours 2 and 3 and FET day 3 hour 3 (suggested by Darren McDonald and Samantha Goddard).

2) Activities not same hour (block) if in different days (suggested by Samantha Goddard).

I do have another suggestion that would help with block planning (that may also be useful more generally). When selecting a set of activities
(for time constraints, etc.) it would be very helpful if there were a way to select all activities that do not have a specific activity tag,
teacher, etc. Would it be possible to add something like a "not" checkbox, or equivalent, to use when filtering activities? Very often with block planning
I have restrictions that should apply to all courses except one, so this would be very useful.

435---------------------------------------------------------
From djm (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4874.0

He suggests the possibility to change the duration of all the activities multiplied/divided by a factor. For instance, if in reality the activities
have duration 50 minutes and they would like an activity to have 5 x 10 minutes duration. So all activities can be easily edited with a single click.

Liviu Lalescu: This would be unfortunately a probably very seldom used facility. The user could use find+replace on the .fet XML file instead.

436-----------DONE------------------------------------------

437---------------------------------------------------------
From Mohamed Ait Ichou (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4940.0

As for the relative weight, which is mandatory to be 100%, it is suggested to hide it from the user because it is not originally allowed to reduce it
to a lower percentage.

438---------------------------------------------------------
From Henrique Belo (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4942.0

He suggests to add in the timetable view dialogs, in the details for the activity in the current selected slot, also the constraints which are related
to this activity.

439---------------------------------------------------------
From uni_instructor (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4830.0

The most recent version of FET 6.0.2 does not support ALT-hotkeys for the menu bar.
I have attached two screenshots of version 6.0.2 and 5.49.1

As you can see, FET 5.49.1 supports ALT-hotkeys whereas FET 6.0.2 does not.
Applying ALT+F should open the file menu but there is no reaction.

Liviu: This is done by me. The reason is that on at least one platform, GNU/Linux with XFCE, my computer, the fields with accelerators appear shortened
in a bad way, like "&Institu ... mation" or something like that, when using the new Qt 6. So I decided to remove the Alt accelerators in FET version 6,
considering that they are not used by anybody, since anyway the mouse is much more important in the constraints, where there are no accelerators, and
the mouse is needed almost everywhere.

Also suggested by rjmillett (by email to Liviu Lalescu):

please consider keyboard shortcuts
Like
alt+f for file or similar
alt+d for data or similar

currently we use alt + down arrow, etc to navigate by the keyboard

it helps whenever the mouse gives trouble

440---------------------------------------------------------
From aroby (on forum and by email):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4960.0

Between each two uses of a room from two activities with at least one students set attached to them, leave a pause of 1 hour (or a selectable integer
number of hours). This is done to ensure room sanitation due to Covid-19.

441---------------------------------------------------------
From Khineche Kaddour (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4977.0

sometimes we need to change the weight of "constraint min days between a set of activities" for one teacher or one Subject in one time
so can you please add it in filter ?

(in the filter of changing multiple constraints min days between activities with a single click.)

Liviu: it would complicate the dialog. Instead, you could go to the all time constraints and apply a filter, then you can manually modify
the necessary constraints (I doubt there are too many for a single teacher - hmm, but for a subject there might be many).

442---------------------------------------------------------
From sasbland (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4988.0

I wonder if there is a way to set the colours so that for the same subject, it shows the same colour in both student's and teacher's timetable.
At the moment, we often view the student's and teacher's timetable at the same time when we need to move classes around. It would help very much
if the same subject is in the same colour.

Liviu:

Now the colors are based on subject for students and on subject+students for teachers. We did it like this because usually the teacher teaches the same subject.
I will add this in the TODO list (for the official FET): A selectable FET setting "Color the teachers' activities by subject versus by subject+students".

443---------------------------------------------------------
From ben bacha sami:

1-      J'ai  plus que 50 enseignants :  si je mets limite vide par
semaine (par exemple) pour tous les  enseignants =2h
et si je veux qu’un enseignant X a limit vide par semaine =1h , je
dois préciser à chaque enseignant apart  (limite vide par semaine=2h)
solution : les contraintes pour un enseignant doit être prioritaires
en face des contraintes pour tous les enseignants.

Même chose pour un groupe et tous les groupes

2-      Je suggère  -pour les salles d’ajouter :
  limite heure / semaine- / jour
  limites vide/jours -/semaine

3-      Problème d’optimisation :
une école qui  possède 12 classes dans un seul niveau
chaque classe possède 3 matières de base –M1-M2-M3

Pour M1 en a 6 enseignants
          M2 en a 4 enseignants
          M3 en a 3 enseignants
peut-on ajouter a fet une fonction qui peut optimiser l’affectation
des  enseignants au classes pour un emploi idéal.

Liviu:

1. If you have max gaps for all teachers = 2 and for a teacher max gaps
= 1, it will work correctly. Yes, you are right for min hours daily,
for instance; in this case you need to add individual constraints. It
is difficult to change now.

2. and 3. are unfortunately too difficult/impossible.

444---------------------------------------------------------
From fartoto_dz2004 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5003.0

i want to suggest a constraint for M-A mode that might be useful for me and others; i hope you can add a constraint that let two different teachers
start at same time (seance) or end at same time.

445---------------------------------------------------------
From ncabello (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5017.0

We work during the year on diferent projects with diferent groups/periods of students. We recently start managing our teachers shedule with FET.
In our case we create a "week" from day1 to day 100. Then on that period we add activities and diferent groups and projects as they come.
Since we  configure a period from  day1 to day100, we must translate (for example) day1=5/10,  day2 =6/10 and so on. It would we great if one could
set starting date and ending date, for example  5/oct/2021 - 12/jan/2022 and also to select wich days of the week to include that would be excelent.

446---------------------------------------------------------
From Phạm Văn Quyền Anh:

Add an ordering number scheme for the constraints list in the main form (for instance:
1.1 Max days per week for a teacher
1.2 Min days per week for a teacher
)

447---------------------------------------------------------
From Thaneswer Patel (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5056.0

Can we give an option while generating a timetable not to print virtual rooms and other empty rooms where no class is assigned?

448----------DONE part 2.-----------------------------------
From Arvind Kumar Agarwal (on guestbook):

1. In set of activities we should be able to add or replace a teacher for a particular class. Presently it changes for whole set. It will help to
assign two teacher for particular class like practical. Also when teacher is on leave, we can assign another teacher for that particular class.

449---------------------------------------------------------
From Bachir Sayah (on guestbook):

If you can add a filter that allows you to manipulate the order of different matters .. for exemple mathematics and physics .. i want them to be
separated by english or french for example !

450---------------------------------------------------------
From Prof info (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5064.0

On the contrary with the constraint "A set of activities occupies max different rooms".

Is it possible to add a constraint
"A set of activities occupies min different rooms"
That allows the activities of a teacher occupies at least in 2 or 3... different rooms from a list of rooms

And if the number of teacher's activities equals the minimum number given as a parameter, each activity will have a different room from the other.

451---------------------------------------------------------
From uni_instructor (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5097.0

Yesterday I had an idea concerning the activity-tags:
When I create new activities I have to add some standard-tags in the majority of all cases.
That task causes many additional mouse clicking.  :(

It would be a real help if I could pre-define a set of default tags that will be added automatically when an new activity is opened for editing.
At least a kind of "Add default tags"-button in the "Add activity"-dialog would be helpful. The default-tags to be added can be defined/changed
in the "Activity tags" dialog.
As I see there already exist two "Printable/Not printable" buttons for activity-tags.
Adding two "Set as default / Set as no-default"-buttons would fit well into the "Activity tags" dialog window.

452---------------------------------------------------------
From rjmillett:

it would be helpful if you introduce an import/export option in the
activities dialog so whenever we are setting up teaching periods
we could use this to quickly setup

currently one has to close then go to file -> import/export

453---------------------------------------------------------
From wcmvusd (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5141.msg28550#msg28550

One thing I found is it would be great if there was an 'A Set of Activities has minimum simultaneous in selected time slots' constraint so that
I could group all students into gender groups and set each gender group to have a minimum per period instead of assigning each activity to the
constraint individually. Something like the 'A Set of Activities has a Set of Preferred Time Slots' constraint, but for Min/Max?

Also, on https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5141.msg28554#msg28554 :

A constraint of 'A set of activities occupies X time slots from selection' would be great.

Liviu: wcmvusd's suggestions refer to adding a filter like in activities preferred times instead of listing all the activities. And the second
suggestions also combines min+max in a single constraint.

454---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5143.0

Sometimes, the user needs to modify the timetable of a single day because a couple of teachers are absent. It would be really useful, if the user
could export a new .fet file (from the generated timetable) for a selected day. For example, if the user needs to modify his timetable for Monday,
because two teachers are absent, he could extract a new .fet file with
days = 1
teachers the same as the original file
students the same as the original file
and activities the activities of this specific day.
Most of the time constraints should be removed, but some constraints such as teacher not available times, teacher max hour continuously,
teacher max gaps per day, etc could be selected by the user in order to be extracted to the new (generated) .fet file. Then the user could add some
constraints in order to avoid the gaps for the students groups, and generate a new timetable.

455-----PARTIALLY-DONE in FET-6.11.0 22 October 2023--------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5142.0

Some constraints (such as teacher max hours continuously) need much time to be added. The reason is that the user has to add one by one the constraint
of each teacher (in this example). I was thinking of a different approach. The user could select the teachers for whom the constraint should be
applied/added. For example, if the user has 60 teachers and need to add the constraint max hours continuously to 40 of them, he could just select
these 40 names and add this constraint at once.

See also TODO items #82, #84, and #476.

456---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim:

He refers to the constraints max two activity tags out of N1, N2, N3 in the Mornings-Afternoons mode.

Is it possible to add this constraint for the following general situation: max 2 activity tags from a set of activity tags(?)

457---------------------------------------------------------
From mikkojoo (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4387.msg28616#msg28616

mikkojoo refers to the Terms mode:

About statistics, it would be nice to see sums of activities in a term:
1. per teacher
2. per group
even 3. per teacher and subject but this could end up being not very easy to read.

458----------DONE since version 6.5.6 on 2 August 2022------

459---------------------------------------------------------
From Christian (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5203.0

As you know, and as I've seen, printing the tables to paper is a discussed topic through the years.
I'm fine with editing the css. I have a table which keeps the same geometry with colorcoded teachers etc.
But if I generate multiple tables, do I really have to copy my custom css into every folder?
Unfortunately the css has a different name in every folder, so this won't work, I think.
Wouldn't it be nice, to adress a custom css-File or include custom css-commands as a matter of fet project preferences?

460---------------------------------------------------------
From jza3 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5217.0

For the Mornings-Afternoons mode:

We would like to limit the number of activities on a real day based on whether there is a certain tag among these activities or not.
For example, I have tagged certain activities with "tagX". I want the number of activities to be 6 or less during a real day if one of them is tagged with "tagx".
Let's say I tagged math activities with tag "ma". So, whenever there is a math activity (1 hour) on a certain day, I want 5 hours maximum from other subjects to go with that math activity, so the whole number of activities does not exceed 6 hours.

Let me explain better. The Moroccan students normally study maximum 7 hours per real day, not more. What I want is an additional contraint to make students study only 6 hours per real day when one of the hours is a sports activity. In other words, when students have sports, they should study 5 hours + the sports hour, which limits the number to 6 hours only, not the normal 7 hours. I hope I have been clearer.

Liviu, explaining a possible trick (but not perfect):

Add n_activities_of_sport dummy activities for the students set (no teacher, a dummy subject), and then max (real) days between each such dummy activity and an activity of sport = 0. Then I am not sure it works perfectly for the other constraints like gaps, but you might force the dummy activities to be at the beginning or at the end of the day with preferred times, or end students (half) day.

Otherwise it is difficult to implement exactly what you suggest and I cannot think of a good name for a new constraint.

461---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

when the user generates multiple timetables...
(for example 30 timetables)
there is no way to find which one is each one of them... when viewing the html file... for example... if the one the user has opened is the 4th or the 25th...

Liviu:
you can see the report.txt file or the list of generating, and the number of the directory on the disk is the timetable number.

Vangelis:
what I mean is...
it would be very helpful...
if the user could find INSIDE the html file this information...

let's say...
an indication...
"generated with FET" blabla... multiple timetables no.17
or...
"generated with FET" blabla...
single timetable

Liviu:
I will add this in the TODO

Vangelis:
or... some kind of heading in the html file...
above the Educational Institution...

Liviu:
but not everybody might want this

Vangelis:
at the beginning of each html file...
look...
let's say that a user... has generated 50 timetables..
he opens the html files
in order to compare them and... choose the best for his needs...
he finds the best one...
but...
doesn't know which one of them is the one he has chosen...
for example... let's say that the user has opened 50 files at the teachers time horizontal view...
(this is that I actually used to do....)

Liviu:
OK, I understood
I will add this in the TODO
but the user might want to add the timetable to the web
and he needs to remove this info

Vangelis:
maybe... a dialog in the generation menu could be a solution?
something like "embed detailed info"...

Some more from Vangelis:
I could just batch rename the files
I think that there are some tools that automatically rename files...

when generating multiple timetables..
the directories are named 1,2,3 etc, aren't they?
could they be named (for two digit generations, for example 32 timetables) 01, 02, 03, etc
or for three digit multiple generations 001, 002, 003 etc?
an option in the multiple generation dialogue?
is it possible to implement it?

Liviu: It could be implemented, but also the timetables are not 1, 2, ..., n, n+1, but some numbers
will be missing.

462-------------DONE----------------------------------------

463---------------------------------------------------------
From Mohamed Ait Ichou (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5240.0

Is there a possibility to add a maximum real day restriction for teachers that does not exceed a certain number of hours, meaning that
the user determines the number of hours to which the restriction will be applied.

YOUSSEF HOUIET:
We need something like this:
automatically add constraints "Max days per week for teacher" from number of teacher hours
Nbr days= roundup(Nbr hrs modulo 4)

If
16< nbr of theacher's hours <=20
Then
Max half days: 5
12< nbr of theacher's hours <=16
Then
Max half days: 4
...

464---------------------------------------------------------
From ngoctp29121982:

In the teachers dialog, add the possibility of seeing and modifying the constraints of each teacher.

465---------------------------------------------------------
From Mohamed Ait Ichou (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5252.0

Is it possible for teachers to be grouped according to subjects?

466---------------------------------------------------------
From Phạm Văn Quyền Anh:

Suggestion to add constraints: "Max span per day for a/all teacher"
for Morning-Afternoon mode

The goal is that if there is a lecture at the beginning of the day,
there is no class at the end of the day, and vice versa

467---------------------------------------------------------
From ngoctp29121982 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5264.0

I have a proposal to add subject groups to have the teachers divided into different groups. For example: Math, physics, chemistry, biology teacher,
he belongs to the Science and History group, Geography, civics belongs to the Social Sciences group... The purpose of dividing into groups is to add
Constraints or view the constraints of the group. It's easier for teachers in specialized groups.

468---------------------------------------------------------
From muhmath2023 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5284.0

suggestion for update fet gui :
in some screens buttons up and down are missing please add this
enable crtl and shift to delete more than one item at once or select more than one item

other suggestion
we need option to print double lessons in html results as singles

469---------------------------------------------------------
From ayreon (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4801.msg29273#msg29273

In the past I had the need to modify the split of some activities so I created a small program to do so, maybe you can do something similar in FET?
Removing a subactivity is easy, just delete it and change the total duration of the owner, when I need to increase it I create a new subactivity
with a new ID that is computed as the maximum ID+1, this way ID are preserved and all works well. Optionally, I recompute all the IDs (to make them increasing)
preserving constraints links

470---------------------------------------------------------
From YOUSSEF HOUIET (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5304.0

In the window of multiple generation of tables, is it possible to add a text field or label to display in real time the maximum of the activities placed
among all the generations started, and also the id of the generation concerned, to know which is the best generation, without perusing each time the tab
of generations.

471---------------------------------------------------------
From Amine Bouhmad:

In the Add activity dialog, add two buttons: add (select) all teachers and add all students sets.

472---------------------------------------------------------
From attaciro (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5325.0

Italian:

Avrei una domanda, una volta generato l'orario è possibile stampare per ogni classe tutti i docenti inseriti per quella classe?

English translation by Google Translate:

I have a question, once the timetable has been generated is it possible to print all the teachers entered for that class for each class?

473---------------------------------------------------------
From Moissa213 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5258.msg29410#msg29410

French:

Je demande à Monsieur Livio de faire quelque chose pour faciliter  le diagnostic des erreurs qu'on commis nous les utilisateurs surtout dans la phase finale
souvent le travail est bien fait mais le logiciel ne produit l'emploi du temps.parce que on souffre dans la phase finale on teste beaucoup de choses pour
trouver la cause du blocage.

English translation by Google Translate:

I ask Mr. Livio to do something to facilitate the diagnosis of the errors that we the users made especially in the final phase often the work is well done
but the software does not produces the schedule. because we suffer in the final phase we test many things to find the cause of the blockage.

474---------------------------------------------------------
From Salvo2 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5334.0

Italian:

E' possibile ricavare (vedere, stampare) una statistica dei giorni liberi: vedere per ogni giorno della settimana quali insegnati sono liberi, non disponibili?
Non riesco a trovare la funzione nel menù.

English translation by Google Translate:

Is it possible to obtain (see, print) a statistic of the days off: see for each day of the week which teachers are free, not available? I can't find the
function in the menu.

Liviu:

Maybe in the timetables, Teachers' Free Periods.

Salvo2:

Italian:

E' possibile invece vedere l'elenco dei giorni liberi, prima di generare l'orario? Quando non si riesce a generarlo?

English translation by Google Translate:

Is it possible to see the list of free days instead, before generating the timetable? When can it not be generated?

475---------------------------------------------------------
From Sauro (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5333.msg29443#msg29443

Since sometimes the software runs over nighttime or unattended anyhow, expecially when runs multiple timetables, it would be nice to have the option
to turn-off PC when done.

See also item #25.

476---------------DONE in FET-6.11.0 22 October 2023--------

477---------------------------------------------------------
From Dao Anh Van (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5349.0

For example, after block A, there are classrooms from A1, A2, A3, A4, A5.
To constrain a teacher X who has no Friday lessons in block A.
Then must be bound in turn:
 Teacher X does not have class on Friday in classroom A1.
 Teacher X does not have class on Friday in classroom A2.
 Teacher X does not have class on Friday in classroom A3.
 Teacher X doesn't have class on Friday in classroom A4.
 Teacher X does not have class on Friday in classroom A5.
All five of the above constraints can be replaced by one as follows:
Teacher X doesn't have class on Friday at block A.
(So in the process of creating constraints scheduling will be faster)

(Liviu: I think Dao Anh Van refers to space constraints of type "a teacher+a room's not available times".)

478---------------------------------------------------------
From fartoto_dz2004 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5364.0

Thanks for the constraint "min resting hours between morning and afternoon for teacher(s)" in M-A mode but if you can modify the weight to be
between 0 and 100 like that the program will test if it can achieve the condition otherwise the program will not give any or less resting hours
(meaning let the constraint be crashable).

Liviu: Unfortunately, this is probably very difficult or impossible to make, but I'll write down your suggestion.

479---------------------------------------------------------
From Phạm Văn Quyền Anh (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5366.0

I have a problem
After arranging the timetable

fixed schedule on Monday, rearranged schedule from Tuesday to Friday (the school is adding teachers). I used the lock and unlock function in the FET.
However, when adding teachers and activities, I cannot see the timetable (which days are locked and which are not). This caused me to use sketches
(pen and paper) to record actions, which I did wrong and had to redo many times.

Checking in the "All time contraints" section is difficult when the number of activities locked in a day is large but sorted by list (up to 50)

On the other hand, many people who don't understand FET well will also have difficulty when some activities are locked but cannot be viewed in the
teacher/student interface, affecting the binding resulting can't create new timetable

Suggestion: Can view/check locked activities (no need to Generate new timetable) in teacher/student interface or any other way can easily view and
check locked activities easy way by matrix

480---------------------------------------------------------
From Abidine Premier (on Facebook):

We ask you to add a button to know the number of teachers who will be present in the institution every day, morning and evening (after producing the class schedule)

481---------------------------------------------------------
From Phạm Văn Quyền Anh (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5386.0

When adding the constraint "A student set's not available time" to each class I have to count the number of available spaces multiple times.

It is possible to add an automatic space (allowed) counting function available in the "student set's not available time" interface so that the user does
not have to re-count when the number of lessons is sporadic

482---------------------------------------------------------
From ngoctp29121982 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5413.0

Fet already has class card N1,N2,N3 so how can I add a teacher card.
For example, teachers 1,2,3,4,5,6 tag a few periods, teachers 7,8,9,10,11 tag full periods. Then I only need 1 constraint: the card for a few lessons teaches up to 4 days, and the card with full lessons teaches up to 5 days. That way it is much faster and more convenient.
If so, the binding for the teacher is much faster than if I go to create each binding, teacher 1 teaches up to 4 days, teacher 2 teaches up to 4 days, teacher 11 teaches up to 5 days,....

483-----------DONE since FET-6.7.4 on 2022-11-27------------

484-----------PARTIALLY SOLVED in FET-6.7.3 on 2022-11-23---
From math (on forum), bug report:

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5422.0

I have a weird problem here with FET that is reproducable with the currentmost version (6.7.2) of FET. I configured a relatively small timetable with only 23 activities which succeeds to compute after some minutes of compute time.
Then I selected "Timetable -> Advanced lock/unlock -> Lock all activities of current timetable" for locking all assignments of starting time and rooms to the activities.
Now the weird part is happening. I expected that the schedule now can be recomputed in an instant, since all time/space assignments are locked (at least this is my experience). But instead FET is displaying an error message saying that the current timetable cannot be computed.
If I remove the time/space locks of all activities, the schedule becomes computable again (after some minutes of runtime).

In my eyes this behavior is a little bit surprising. Shouldn't a schedule be computable if all activities are locked directly after a successful generation?

Liviu:

Thank you for the report!

I think I know where it comes from and I was hoping this will not show in the real life. Unfortunately it might be a feature and not a bug and remain like this in the future.

First of all, please send me both your input .fet files (here, archived, or to fet4 att lalescu.ro).

I think you have 2 impossible constraints with 99.9999%. Let me explain: in the fixed timetable, FET tries to put an affected activity in the fixed slot 400,000 times (this is a FET constant, chosen by compromise), each time trying to break the constraint. It will break the constraint in 0.0001% of cases on average. So again on average FET needs to try at level 0 a number of 1/0.000001=1,000,000 times. So, in some more cases it will fail and in some few cases it will succeed (you can try to generate multiple and check that indeed in some cases it will succeed).

I really don't know what to do for sure. I think keeping the current behavior is the best. Increasing that 400,000 1000 times (to care even for weights like 99.999999%, which is the maximum precision in FET) would be not good, because the program will seem to freeze for some really impossible timetables. Increasing this value maybe 10 times, so that it will solve your file, might not be too beneficial also.

The temporary solution is to decrease the weight from 99.9999% to 99.99%. This is also a very strong constraint. Or on the locked file you can disable these two impossible constraints.

Please send me both your files (unlocked and locked), I am very interested. And I'll think about it. Maybe it would be good to add your bug report in the TODO, what do you think?

More precise calculations: since FET needs to break a 99.9999% constraint and is trying 400,000 times, the probability to fail the generation is 0.999999^400,000~=0.67. So the probability to succeed the generation (breaking the constraint in at most 400,000 tries) is ~=0.33, or 33%.

math:

I just mailed the fet input file to the specified email address. In this file all activities are locked so that the schedule cannot be computed. If you unlock all activities and wait for some minutes, the schedule will be generated successfully.
You guessed correctly: I have some constraints with 99.9999% significance. I will change them to 99.99% and check if the problem still occurs.
Regarding the underlying problem:
If time and space is locked for all activities of a schedule, this means that the user wants to have the schedule in exactly this way. This means that there is nothing to compute for FET, but just to check the schedule against the specified constraints.
But since all activities have been locked for space and time, this is just a validation and not a computation. So can't all constraints with less than 100% significance simply be left out of consideration in this situation?

Liviu:

Yes, exactly as I imagined. If you try more times on your original locked file, it will generate, in the end. And if you go to 99.99% for all constraints, the time to generate the unlocked file will be much shorter and the results will be the same (those pesky two impossible constraints barrier - but not always the same two constraints or two activities).

You are right. A locked file/timetable should not be checked, theoretically. Unfortunately, when Volker came with the idea of locked activities, we used constraints activity preferred starting time constraints activity preferred room. We don't have a global parameter "This timetable is fixed and constraints with weight strictly <100% should be ignored".

Maybe such a global parameter would be a solution? But there are many problems with it, such as users locking partially generated timetables, or adding activities after locking a timetable, or... .

I'll think about it and add this problem in the TODO.

Liviu: I increased the retries at level 0 to 2000000000 and now the file is solvable (unfortunately, not instantly). I cannot see other solution.

485---------------------------------------------------------
From Darren McDonald:

I wonder whether it would be possible to make the Block Planning version of FET easier to use. In order to do this, I wonder whether it would make sense to separate the
"Block Planner” from the other FET versions.

I have two reasons for suggesting that a “Block Planner” be separated from FET.

Unlike the other FET modes, someone using the Block Planner is often going to then need to use one of the other FET modes as a second step (this is how I’ve been using
it). Making the transition from the Block Planning mode to (in my case) the Official mode requires quite a bit of manual work (much of which I accomplish using a Python
script to take the csv file output from the Block Planning mode to create a student csv file and an activities csv file that can then be imported into a file using the
Official mode). I’m sure it would be very helpful for other users to have an option within FET that would automate this process. Within this “Block Planner” it would
ideally be possible, for example, to specify that the course(s) assigned to Block A have a “2+1+1+1+1” structure, Block B courses have a “2+2+1+1” structure, etc.
This extra information wouldn’t be relevant to the other FET modes, and I don’t know whether or not it would be easy to add, say, another tab for entering this sort of
information that would be available only in the Block Planning mode.

On the other hand, this sort of Block Planning software would be useful for those who don’t need to generate a timetable as a second step. For example, in my school at
the start of our school year the Outdoor Education department organized several days of camp activities. Students fill out a Google Form (that yields a csv file) in which
they choose what they’d like to do (hiking, mountain biking, rafting, etc.) and then the Outdoor Education department has to assign them to groups and times like
“Morning Day 1”, “Afternoon Day 1”, etc. This is a task perfect for the Block Planning mode of FET, but, of course, the members of that department don’t know how to use
the regular version of FET, and it’s difficult to explain to someone how to use FET in this way because the language used in FET is written for the other versions
(“Days” are really teachers/events, “Activities” are really individual student choices, etc.). For those users who only need to create groups with students and teachers
assigned to a time slot, the Block Planning mode is challenging to learn, and a dedicated Block Planner could be written with language that matches the “real” meanings.
Thus would make it easier for a beginner to use if creating these sorts of groups is all they require.

486------DONE, Volker wrote TSC (translation source check)--

487---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

I am thinking if it's possible to add some buttons regarding already implemented features of FET in the window "View teachers time horizontal timetable"
in order to facilitate the modification of the already generated timetable.

Is it possible to add a button at this window... for deactivating/activating selected activities?

Liviu Lalescu:

It is possible, but it is bad to mix the data with the timetable.

488---------------------------------------------------------
From infoo_ (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5461.0

I was thinking about a little improvement. When FET is opened, a blank timetable is set by default (named Untitled on the top left corner).

I go to File > Open... > and select what FET file I want to continue working.

After I opened the file, the Print option is not available. It says "Please generate, firstly".

However, yesterday I have generated a timetable and in the timetable's folder it has all .html files. Everything is correct.

So I suggest that the Print option is enabled so that the print view can be accessed more quickly, instead of having to search for the containing folder on the computer.

I think this can prevent certain people who are sparse, not knowing that a folder is created on the computer, from regenerating the timetable and losing the distribution
they had achieved after closing FET.

Liviu Lalescu:

The suggestion is good, unfortunately it cannot be solved elegantly, because the input data is different from the timetable.

But: For each successfully generated timetable, you have in the results directory the file filename_data_and_timetable.fet. This file will be overwritten only
on successful generations. For partial timetables it will remain the same from the previous successful generation. So you can open it and generate with FET on it.
It should generate in an instant and provide the same timetable.

489-------------DONE in FET-6.11.0, on 25 October 2023------

490---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

A bug report, which is unfortunately a feature: say he wants to remove the day Monday (the first of the week). Then, if a teacher was not available at
some hours on Monday, he will now be not available at the same hours on Tuesday.

(He would like to remove 4 days and leave only 1, so that he can do substitutions for this day. But this is impossible with the current code.)

491---------------------------------------------------------
From castonepatha (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5469.0

castonepatha:

It would help us a lot at school if we could display the ID of the activity in the html page of the schedule.

Liviu Lalescu:

I implemented this as a custom version for him.

castonepatha:

It would be great if you will implemented this function in main version as well. Or with some possibility to turn it off and on.

Liviu Lalescu:

I will write down your suggestion in the TODO list. It is not at all difficult, but until now we did not consider it useful -- on the contrary, we considered that
it might clutter the timetables.

castonepatha:

It is really very useful. Mainly for the back check of activities and subsequent corrections. Imagine that someone sends you requests for changes. For me,
the ID is more important than the subject name (more repeated subjects and groups). It can be solved in a different way, but it will be great this way.

492---------------------------------------------------------
From ngoctp29121982 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5475.0

ngoctp29121982:

Maximum number of teaching sessions per week for one teacher and the like:
According to me There is 1 more filter button, sort by number of operations ascending or descending, For example: 2,4,5,6,7....... and much easier to control.
Do the same thing when importing from csv: the teacher has 12 activities to give away 3 sessions.........

Liviu Lalescu:

I don't understand, sorry.

ngoctp29121982:

Maximum number of teaching sessions in a week for 1 teacher
In this constraint, there is a dialog box to sort the teachers with the number of lessons from small to large

493---------------------------------------------------------
From ngoctp29121982 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5478.0

Add a constraint on the maximum number of evenings in a week using a CSV file:

Adding the maximum number of sessions or the maximum number of days in a school week is very time consuming because it cannot have a dialog box to filter.
You say there are many dialog boxes in FET software, but I find all the dialogs you create very useful. Now we teachers from Vietnam really want you to create
that dialog box and add the constraint of maximum number of nights or maximum number of days in a week using a CSV file.

494---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr and Liviu Lalescu:

Liviu Lalescu:

What do you say, should we consider import/export of constraints as CSV/text?

Volker Dirr:

As you know i suggested myself to write a new csv import.

But my idea is/was NOT to single constraints, even that is the "FET
style". But there are too many and it the "FET style" is maybe
complicating things, since they allow to much.

In my opinion it is useful to write (a second) the teachers.csv import.

This time headers are fixed, but number of fields is optional.

So you can still import teachers with the old csv export file format.

But now optional fields can be added. Of course they must be fixed and I
think only importing 100% weight is enough (or if you want/need more:
only one constraint with weight X can be added; OR if you want more: 2
constraints can be added: 1. with weight 100%, the other with X%; or if
you want more: I fear then the "FET style" is needed. But in my opinion
that is much too much)

So for example we set the head like this:
name; max number of hours per day; min number of hours per day; ...

So you can import:
teachers1
or
teacher2;5
or
teacher3;5;2

So always with 100%.
If you think more is needed, then maybe variant 2:
name; max number of hours per day; weight maxnhpd; min number of hours
per day; weight minnhpd...
So you can still import:
teacher1
or
teacher1;5;100;2;50
...

Or if you think that is not enough variant 3:
name; max number of hours per day 100%;max number of hours per day;
weight maxnhpd; min number of hours per day100%; min number of hours per
day; weight minnhpd...
So you can import for example:
teacher1;5;4;40;2;3;50

Disadvantage is of course you can't do everything, but i think for
everything you should use the xml file.
Advantage of these Variants is that they are sticking data together, so
it will be easier for a human to edit that csv files.

Volker Dirr:

in fact i think it is a also a good idea if someone code an alternative 
GUI:
it should contain only 3 big tables (teachers, students, activities) and 
not all that single constraints. All constraint should be added in this 
3 tables.
So like Variant 3 that i just de scripted. Of course there are many 
constraints, so a lot of empty fields. That can be solved like in the 
activities planning tab: Display only the used constraints. Of course 
change like in the activities planning and show all (constraints). I 
guess in a few schools that might be still to large, so a 3th option 
like displaying selectable constraints will be helpful.
It is true, by this we will loose a few features. Currently it is 
possible to do stuff like this:
teacher A, min 2 hours per day=100%;
teacher A, min 3 hours per day=50%;
teacher A, min 4 hours per day=10%
teacher A, min 5 hours per day=5;
...

While my variant allows only 2. But i think the other are not useful. If 
there is really a good reason for a third constraint like this, then the 
interface must get a new line/column for this.
Also the requested sorting (see 
https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?msg=30166 will be easy in 
that case: just clicking into the table header. Qt can sort 
automatically tables like that. (compare like i done it in TiTiTo and 
StElTo). I guess in that case a CSV might be also unneeded, since you 
can edit in FET quicker/nicer.

If a new CSV is added we should also rethink about how to care about 
adding/deleting items. Currently it just add. Maybe (optional) it should 
also delete existing teachers, students, room, activities, constraints 
if they are missing? Or maybe optional remove them if they got a value 
0. So if teacher A get min 0 hours per day with 100%, then the 
old/existing min hours per day with 100% should be removed. (So 0 is 
different from empty. 0 = remove, empty = keep it).

(Maybe it other way around is better?
0 = keep old one and empty is remove.

I am not sure. Both variants have got different advantages and 
disadvantages.)

Liviu Lalescu:

Min hours daily is only with 100%.

Max hours daily is recommended with 100%, but can be any. To generate,
the resultant of all them must be convertible to two constraints of this
type.

495---------------------------------------------------------
From rjmillett:

*Kindly put an import from (csv) file BUTTON on the main button page,
activities dialog page*

*i have to go file imports -> ->*

Liviu Lalescu:

Thank you for the suggestion! Unfortunately, I don't consider this to
be added, because import is used seldom, and there is not enough space
in the shortcuts buttons and in the activities dialog.

I will add your suggestion in the TODO. Please confirm me you were
thinking about adding import from CSV to two places: shortcut buttons
and activities dialog.

rjmillett:

either place would be of help

Especially when setting up a new timetable importing from a CSV file makes
the process a lot easier

in the activity dialog if you're considering would suffice

At our school the timetable gets changed quite often especially when
teachers retire or leave and new ones are appointed

And most often I start with a new empty FET file and set up a new timetable

I work with a blueprint in excel, import the information into a CSV file
then use FET to import the activities from the CSV file

496---------------------------------------------------------
From castonepatha:

For his institution, he needed the students to have their onsite activities on maximum two consecutive days. The onsite activities are specified by some activity tags.
He has many students sets. The solution would be to add many constraints of type max 1 days between activities, but it is difficult and error-prone to add them manually.
A custom solution was done for him, but he suggests implementing this customization in the official FET.

497---------------------------------------------------------
From CarolStott (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5547.0

Is there an option for putting custom colors for subjects for students, years for classes, etc.? If not, may I suggest this as a feature?

Liviu Lalescu:

Could you please clarify a bit your suggestion? Do you mean "colors for subjects, students, rooms"? Or something else?

In the HTML results, if you generate with level 7 (colors), there is a CSS file. I looked over it and the first short list of colors is for subjects. This will
appear in the students' timetable. I admit it is difficult to change manually those RGB values. Then follows a longer list of colors for (subject+students).
This is unfortunately even more difficult to change, being longer. It will appear in the teachers' timetables.

CarolStott:

My suggestion is for colors for subjects (for the ease of students) and students (for the ease of teachers), and to be able to change this directly in the UI
(using HEX/RGB/CMYK codes, etc), rather than through the CSS/HTML files.

498---------------------------------------------------------
From Henrique Belo (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5552.0

We are currently working on ending the school year and arranging all student timetables to ensure that all classes finish on time.

To achieve this, we replicate one timetable for 6 or 7 weeks to determine the number of classes of each subject required to complete the total number of classes.

I have noticed that having a button to deactivate an activity in the timetable view, just like the one that currently exists in the activities section,
would make it much easier to manage timetables, we can manage this by see the activitie ID and going to the Data-> activities and Deactivate, but in the
Timetable view is better and fast.

However, it should be a note saying that deactivating an activity could have certain limitations that might prevent the timetable from being generated correctly
because some related constraints.

499-----DONE ordered pair, in FET-6.19.0, 15 March 2024-----
From victorcapel (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5561.0

Liviu Lalescu's words:

Add the constraints teachers/students min gaps between building changes per real day and/or
the constraints teachers/students min gaps between ordered pair of activity tags per real day.

500---------------------------------------------------------
From Neury Nunes Cardoso:

On the teacher's schedule grid visualization screen, could there be a
function in which it was possible to mark activities to be grouped? It
would be like this, the user would mark the activities with CTRL+Click
and then have access to a button to insert the group of activities that
would always be together (2 or 3 activities that are already existing
functions).

Volker Dirr:
>>>> hmm... I fear i don't understand 2 parts of your mail (since i  
>> don't  
>>>> know your dataset and constraints). That is why i can't give a  
> good  
>>>> feedback.
>>>> 
>>>> So your "grouping" is "only" needed to have a rotation that look a  
>>> bit  
>>>> 
>>>> similar to the old timetable?
>>>> 
>>>> Why are you rotating schedules?

Neury Nunes Cardoso:
>>>> I believe that the way of organizing the schedules, between my
>>>> reality here and yours there or in other places is very different  
>>> but  
>>>> I will clarify a little more how I use the FET.
>>>> My base of the FET file is formed only by the registration of
>>>> professors and their availability for 1 semester, in addition we  
>>> feed  
>>>> the FET with the set of disciplines of our courses, there are more
>>>> than 20 undergraduate courses. These courses use specific teachers  
>>> and  
>>>> common teachers because our courses are organized in cores, such  
>> as:  
>>>> Technology
>>>> Management
>>>> Health
>>>> Social Sciences
>>>> Art and Creativity
>>>> And others ...
>>>> The structure of the students is organized in Units / Shifts /  
> Days  
>>> of  
>>>> the week and when we rotate the schedules we do this for all  
>> courses  
>>>> of a given semester, for example 2023.2 (second semester of 2023).  
>>> So,  
>>>> there is a need to organize teachers' schedules to optimize their
>>>> occupation, since a large part of them also work in other  
>>> educational  
>>>> institutions. It is a complex system that may not be a reality in  
>>> all  
>>>> locations. FET gives me this flexibility because it is a “blank
>>>> canvas” where we can create structures that adapt to different
>>>> realities.

Volker Dirr
>>> I am not working at a university. Just at school (pupils age  
> 10-16).  
>>> And
>>> even schools here have a lot of different ways how to do it. I  
>> always  
>>> just try to understand it and try to think how to do it better. Of
>>> course i can't always find a better solution, but i already found  
> it  
>>> several times.
>>> 
>>> I read your post, but i must admit i still can't see why "grouping"
>>> later that ways is useful. I understand why grouping before
>>> calculating
>>> might be useful.
>>> 
>>> In normal case I care about "teachers' schedules to optimize their
>>> occupation" by using not available times, max gaps per day and  
> week,  
>>> max
>>> days per week, max hours per day, min hours per day, min days  
>> between,  
>>> 
>>> max room changes, spread the activities well, ... but not grouping
>>> something that was randomly grouped only. It sounds for me like a  
>> min  
>>> gap will affect the same much better then grouping.
>>> I must admit that i still don't understand the reason.
>>> 
>>> I will forward your suggestion to Liviu, but i guess he will max  
>> write  
>>> 
>>> on the TODO list.

Neury Nunes Cardoso:
>>> Yes,
>>> 
>>>  We really live in different realities, neither better nor worse,  
>> just  
>>> different, lol
>>> 
>>>  Maybe I can explain it better like this:
>>> 
>>>  Looking at this screen, imagine that I want to keep activities 169
>>> and 133 from Thursday / morning always together in any order. In  
>> this  
>>> same splint I would just mark the activities and then access a new
>>> button in the upper right corner of the interface that would
>>> automatically take me to the routine performed by the menu option
>>> highlighted below:

Volker Dirr:

>> I understood your request.
>> I wrote it to Liviu. He added it into the TODO list.
>> I won't code it, because...
>> a) there are a lot of other constraints that might be added like  
> this  
>> (so if we add it, then it should be done similar for the other
>> constraints also)
>> b) i can't see an advantage. What is the advantage? In my opinion it
>> is
>> a disadvanatge, since guy will try to add a lot of constraints like
>> that, making the timetable maybe even impossible, but for what
>> advanatge? The only advanatge is that the teacher has "randomly"  
> again  
>> 
>> the same activities grouped?
>> 
>> Maybe Liviu or an other guy will code it.

Neury Nunes Cardoso:

>> I really appreciate your attention in understanding the suggestion  
> and  
>> sharing it with others, but the advantage for me is that, due to the
>> way I use the tool, I don't know in advance which are the best
>> groupings for a given teacher, in fact I put the activities without
>> consider no grouping for teachers, only for students, as they can be
>> from different groups. Yes, the tool suggests random groups of
>> activities, but they are not always the best to optimize the  
> teacher's  
>> use, so my proposal would be, starting from the grouping created by
>> the tool, to refine this grouping by visually analyzing the  
> teacher's  
>> distribution and using the tool to ensure an optimal grouping to  
> serve  
>> students and teachers, remembering that teachers are not exclusive  
> to  
>> the school, being able to work in several different schools  
> throughout  
>> the week.
>> But I thank you again for the time you dedicated to listening to me
>> and understanding the suggestion even if it doesn't seem useful, and  
> I  
>> reinforce how much I like the tool !!

Volker Dirr:

> FET can't know what "good" grouping is, since it doesn't know how to
> detect good groups.
> 
> So you know rules how to group. Do you mainly detect them by knowing
> "good" activities that should be grouped or by detecting "bad"
> activities that shouldn't be grouped?
> 
> I just ask, because there might be much better variants to improve
> your
> timetables. Maybe it is a good idea to add diffrent activity tags for
> the actvities and then you in need a new constraint like "activities
> with the same activity tag should be grouped for teachers" or the
> oppistite: "activities with different activities should never be
> grouped
> for teachers"?

Neury Nunes Cardoso:
> I think I understood what you wanted to say.....
> 
> So I can create some tags with specific names to define these groups
> before running the times, so the FET will already consider these
> groups "tags" in this process.
> 
>  I think the concept is good and I can try to do it this way in the
> next works. What I do is exactly the opposite, because when I load the
> activities to the FET I load them in full from several courses and as
> a single teacher can be used for more than one course, his activities
> are spread out in the structure of the activities, perhaps a good idea
> is load them ordered by professors and not by courses. However, the
> method I use of loading without worrying about the groups and then
> visually identifying the best groups in the teachers' grid allows me a
> better analysis. The inconvenience is that I have to go back to the
> main menu to access the routines for defining groups of 2 or 3
> activities grouped together on the same day.
> 

Volker Dirr:

Currently it is not possible to do it that way, since there is no such 
constraint yet.
But if you think that the concept is good, i will suggest Liviu to add 
those concepts.
The disadvantage is, that it won't work if you already use activity tags 
for other stuff.
Also a disadvanatge is, that it is a bit more more if you do it the 
first time.
But in my opinion there are 2 big advanagtes:
It is a more general constraint and once you added it, it will be much 
easier to generate timetables in the next works.

I can see your current disadvantage if you do it with the current FET 
version,
but your suggestion is too specific. If it should be added, then it must 
be added more general.
So it must be possible the same way for other constraints and it should 
be also possible in the ohter views (teachers and rooms).

501---------------------------------------------------------
From wojgp (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5597.0

I think the missing option is to set by one click that a splitted activity should take place in the same room.
For example physical education has rooms PE1, PE2. Group A has 2 hours of p.e., but first takes place in room PE1 and another in PE2. In this time group B has only one hour of p.e. and it is assigned to PE1 while it could take place in PE2. Thanks to this group A could have 2 consecutive hours in room PE1.
Temporary perhaps it could be done by adding subactivities of the same type (2 x 1/2) as a one constraint. Unfortunately when there are a lot of splitted activities there has to be a lot of room constraints entered manualy.
Perhaps there should be an option to set room constraint for a whole activity. Now I have to group all subactivities into constraint as on attached picture. All activities in my case are phisical education :) I don't want students to change room for consecutive activities.
Is there any option to do it in easier way ?

Liviu Lalescu:

A better approach might be to use the constraints activities occupy max 1 different rooms (so even if not consecutive they have the same room).

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to implement this.

502---------------------------------------------------------
From wojgp (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5598.0

1. Activities dialog
I miss the option to sort by Teacher's name, currently sorted by ID ONLY.

2. Students
Students
In add activity I see all options except one.
My groups are listed by Years : 1,2,3,4,5 and then each is divided:
category 1: A, B, C, D, E
category 2: Girls, Boys
category 3: (1), (2) -division into languages and computer science (1 for novice and 2 for expert) :)

In activities I can assign whole year like '1', '2' etc
Certain class: like "1B" which is a group of girls and boys
Selecting a subgroup with label "1 Girls" selects all girls from all 1st classes which is 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E classes
Selecting a subgroup with label "1A Girls" selects all girls from 1A class only
Selecting a subgroup with label "1 (1)" selects all students assign to (1) subgroup from all 1st classes which is 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E

Unfortunately I cannot select particular subgroup 1A (1), 1B (2) etc., so instead of 1A (1) I have to select:
1A Girls (1)
1A Boys (1)
and instead of 1B (2) I have to select:
1B Girls (2)
1B Boys (2)

It would be good to allow all possible combinations and add necessary number of check boxes for displaying subgroups within a tree (cat 1, cat 2, cat 3, cat 4 ...)

3. Teacher home rooms
- Missing option to select a group of Rooms (left window) to move into "Selected" table easily and quickly.
I have to add one by one and it is easy to miss something clicking that way :) Maybe it would be quicker to select with check boxes and then copy selections from one constraint into another (clone).
There are activities to which I want to assign all existing rooms or rooms except specified. I have to click all constraints one by one.
Possibly it would be more convinient to combine rooms into categories (groups).
Example of groups:
a) Any subject room
b) Room for dedicated subject and any - math rooms, chemistry rooms etc., but also can handle other subjects
c) Gym room

4. List of Rooms
Missing option to sort in alphabetical order. 'Sort' button does not sort in alphabetical order. Currently after sorting I have 1,14,15,16,17,18,19,2,20,21... etc

Liviu Lalescu:

About (2.): you could create additional groups, with the option Add existing subgroup, so only click on the subgroup. Then use these groups in the activities.

About (4.): your suggestion is a kind of numerical ordering?

wojgp:

ad 2. I added a lot of groups manualy.
The only missing thing is a possibility to sort it in "Add activity" window as on the attached screen.
Also when generating time line I get multiple subgroups - screen shot attached.

Although I entered all divisions I had to add a lot of subgroups manualy. It would be really great to be able to add these combinations automaticaly.

I've already created all the groups manualy, but maybe someone will need this feature.

503---------------------------------------------------------
From ngoctp29121982 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5588.0

Adding Nam|Binh|An|An directly from the lecture button on the FET software, so users will add more lectures with more teachers faster.
An activity split into 4 components, each having different teachers. In FET-6.9.3 it was introduced the possibility of dealing with this
from the export/import CSV activities, but not from the interface.

504----DONE in FET-6.11.0 released on 25 October 2023-------

505---------------------------------------------------------
From Mohamed Ait Ichou (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5606.0

Is it possible to improve the max half days between activities constraint by adding the constraint for all teachers at once but in a way that each teacher is divided separately?

506---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

(see also item #312)

Constraint two sets of activities share min/max common time slots from selection.

They are very rarely used, but they might be useful.

Example for min:

We have the following activities (teacher-group-subject)

John A1 Math 4 hours per week
Mary B2 History 3 hour per week
George C1 Physics 3 hours per week
Vangelis C4 Chemistry 2 hours per week...

We need any of the 2 hours of Vangelis (1 of them) to coincide with ANY of the hours of John, Mary, or George...

507------------DONE FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS-IN-FET-6.11.0-
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

(see also item #323)

He proposes a time horizontal view of all the teachers' not available constraints. Also for students and rooms.

Liviu Lalescu: what about the rooms with <100% or multiple not available constraints (which is allowed)?

Vangelis Karafillidis:

About this time-horizontal view for "not available times"

1) I think that at least an HTML report with ALL the "not available times" constraints would be highly useful.
For the rooms each cell is going to include ALL the weights of each one of the constraints.

2) Moreover, instead of implementing (coding) a completely interactive dialog it might be easier if you could implement a time-horizontal view,
and instead of modifying the "not available times" constraints in this dialog,
the user could just press (for example) on the teacher, OR the students set, OR the room in order to open the already existing day-horizontal dialog
for the respective constraint (for example, of the selected teacher)

At least this HTML report is very important. Imagine for example that a typical Greek secondary school (in a city) has around 50 teachers.
Music schools have much more teachers.

Imagine for example a music school with 300 students and each student is a "group" by himself regarding the musical instruments lessons.

508---------------------------------------------------------
From balacco (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5614.0

Teachers/students all gaps on the same day must be consecutive.

Liviu Lalescu:

I think it was already suggested in the past by other users and I think a solution is impossible or too complicated.

509---------------------------------------------------------
From Bachir Sayah (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5615.0

I hope in the next update we will be able to make changes in the number of divisions for an activity .. to make more or less divisions after
adding an activity.

510---------------------------------------------------------
From Alexandre R. Soares:

Maybe some sentences should have gender inflection, p eg., "...for teacher %1 but not also min hours daily for him/her...".
I've considered it in the Portuguese version.

511---------------------------------------------------------
From ayreon (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5640.0

Maybe I did not get how the constraint StudentsMaxBuildingChangesPerWeek works.
I have a dataset with two buildings with different room. I want that if a group of students goes in a building then it remains in that building for that day and also for all week.
If I set StudentsMaxBuildingChangesPerDay = 0 I get that a group of students remain in that building for all the day. But if I set StudentsMaxBuildingChangesPerWeek = 0 the building changes between days.
What am I doing wrong?
Also, is it correct to assume that if StudentsMaxBuildingChangesPerWeek = 0 I can skip StudentsMaxBuildingChangesPerDay?

Liviu Lalescu: Unfortunately, it is a feature, not a bug. However, I added this in the TODO.

512----PARTIALLY DONE IN FET-6.11.0 on 23 October 2023------
From fartoto_dz2004 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5668.0

Can you add multiple selection on constraints lists when deleting (mean deleting multiple constaints)?

513---------------------------------------------------------
From sebi1972 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5707.0

Romanian:

Foarte buna constrangerea
"Un set de studenti incepe devreme (max inceperi la ora a doua)"

Dar am nevoie si de constrangerea
"Un profesor incepe devreme (max inceperi la ora a doua)"
se poate implementa? Sau o pot substitui cumva altfel?
Am incercat cu etichete, am etichetat toate activitatile unui profesor dar nu stiu ce constrangere sa pun ca activitatile etichetate sa fie puse cat mai devreme posibil.
Am nevoie ca profesorul respectiv sa aiba activitatile cat mai devreme posibil puse.

English:

Implement the constraint type "Teacher begins early max beginnings at second hour".

514-----------POSSIBLY DONE?--------------------------------
From Daniele Rocci:

I have a question that may involve future development: is it possible to set a constraint for all teachers except a small list?
In practice, in my case, out of 93 teachers, I can set the same constraint for the empty slots for 80 of them. It would be faster
to specify the 10 exceptions rather than adding a single constraint to all of them.

Liviu Lalescu: suggested also in many other TODO items.

515---------------------------------------------------------
From ggscuola (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5712.0

ggscuola:

1) All teachers/A teacher start(s) the day in a specific building. [end(s) the day in a specific building].
2) All students/A students set cannot have two specific subjects on the same day.
3) All teachers/A teacher work in a hourly interval min days per week (there is MAX option in current version).

Liviu Lalescu:

(2) can probably be solved with constraints of type min days between activities or students activity tag max hours daily.
(3) can probably be solved with constraints of type activities occupy min time slots from selection.

ggscuola:

Regarding point (2):
If I have multiple teachers teaching the same subject (with a lot of students sets and sub-activities) and I don't want students to have English and French,
Arts and Tech, Music and Sport activities on the same day, it would be hard to set up "min days between single activities".
And I don't see how "max hours daily" could work either, because some teachers teach the same subject 1 hour with a set of students and 2 hours with other sets.
Plus, some days last 6 hours, some days last 5, 7 or 8 hours... Some students go to school on Saturdays and others don't. So I cannot set hours between
activities for all the teachers and students sets.
That's why I was suggesting a possible new constraint which would avoid that two chosen "subjects" (or tags) fall on the same day.

Liviu Lalescu:

(2): If it is assumed that there are no two activities of English on the same day, and no two activities of French on the same day, you can add all the
activities of English and French, 100%, min 1 days between them.

If not, I just thought of another trick: use two constraints students min gaps between ordered pair of activity tags, min gaps = n_hours_per_day.
One from French to English and one from English to French.

516---------------------------------------------------------
From Nelson Gomes:

I'd like to make a few suggestions to implement in future versions of FET.
One of them is when you define that an activity must occupy max time slots from selection, you can't define a weight percentage under 100%.
In our case, and since your students have classes in the morning (6 periods of classes) and in the afternoon (only 2 periods), we'd like that,
as a principle, a specific subject wouldn't be in more than one afternoon - but if there are other constraints, that rule could be broken,
if it helps to achieve an timetable.

The other one (this one is easily solvable with other constraints, but if this could be implemented would save some time...) is that a activity
starts OR ends teacher (or students) day - as the current options, we can define an activity to be the one that starts or the one that ends the day,
but not starting or ending.

Liviu Lalescu:

- About activities occupy max slots from selection - I am not sure if
  this can be made <100% even temporarily as a custom version, but I
  think it is not a good idea, the timetable will be bad, the
  constraint will be broken many times. But another good idea for your
  exact problem is simple: say you have subject mathematics 1+1+1+1,
  and a single 1 can be in the afternoon all the time and another
  single 1 can be in the afternoon only if no other solution exists. In
  this case, add 3 constraints subactivities preferred times: split
  index 1, respectively 2, not allowed in the afternoon, 100% both, and
  split index 3 not allowed in the afternoon with 90%.

- About starts or ends day: it is not possible elegantly (perfectly). I
  did a customization for a user some time ago and if you are interested
  I can direct you to this and maybe if you need it I can help with
  adding again this custom code to the latest FET version as
  a customization for you. But I think I might know why you want this:
  you have either fortnightly activities or a difficult students'
  structure and you need the timetables for all the students to be
  without gaps. In this case, as I recommended a college in my country,
  you can triple the weekly activities, adding them to another students
  sets, then set same starting time for each set of three, and use
  max 0 gaps for all the students. Hmm... I did a custom program for
  that user to add this and it is quite a big task... Please see this
  forum post: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5370.0

Nelson Gomes:

As I stated, the last request isn't a big deal for me - I circumvent the lack of that option defining that some activity has a set of preferred time slots,
allowing only the first or last slots of the day. We don't use this feature all that much, so isn't a big deal (only when a teacher is going to be
substituted by another colleague for a short time - few weeks, one month -, to assure that this activity doesn't act as a gap to the teacher that usually
doesn't have that set of students.

517---------------------------------------------------------
From Crizalid, Volker Dirr, and Liviu Lalescu (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5721.0

The idea would be that fet-cl (FET used from the command-line) could have a parameter maybe like that of the GNU/Linux make command, -j n_processes,
so that it will generate multiple timetables in parallel on n_processes threads, like in the FET GUI generate multiple option.

518---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

About import/export from/to CSV:

1) Add a corresponding buttons also in the dialogs (of students, teachers, subjects, activity tags, activities), because having it only in the File menu
might not be noticeable by the user.

2) Implement import/export of not available constraints from a text matrix (maybe with x and o for not available or available).

519---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Improve the name of the constraint teachers/students work in an
hourly interval max days per week to teachers/students DO NOT work
in an hourly interval MIN days per week.

Liviu Lalescu: Sorry, but for now I prefer the current approach.

520------DONE IN FET-6.11.0 on 23 October 2023--------------

521---------------------------------------------------------
From fourat (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5746.0

I work with two weeks week A and week B with weekly activities and others fortnightly.
Is it possible to add to the constraint a teacher max span per day an exception with two days (for week A and week B)??

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, the constraint allowing one day exception was already very complicated to implement. With two days exceptions,
seems too complicated, at least for now.

522---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Merge the "single" type and "all" type of constraints into a single dialog (instead of two).

523------DONE in FET-6.12.0 on 3 November 2023--------------

524---------------------------------------------------------
From ygoldblatt (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5749.0

Is there a way to control the order that the lessons appear on the printout of the timetable? It seems to be random and I would like to control it

525----------DONE in FET-6.13.0 on 14 November 2023---------

526---------------------------------------------------------
From Vũ Ngọc Thành (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5755.0

What should I do if i want max Activity tag = 1 from selection?

(in a table n_days x n_hours, he selected with X two slots.)

---

I have Two sets of activities:
Activity 1 with: id1,id2,id3,id4,id5
Activity 2 with: id6,id7,id8,id9,id10
I want to put only 1 activities in there

---

I have Two sets of activities:
sets of activities 1 with: id=1,id=2,id=3,id=4,id=5
sets of activities 2 with: id=6,id=7,id=8,id=9,id=10
I want to choose 1 set of activities for 2 lecture periods as shown in the picture.

---

Liviu Lalescu: So in the two slots selected with X there can be at most one activity tag?

---

Vũ Ngọc Thành: Thank you for understanding my thoughts correctly. I find this constraint does a lot of good for scheduling.

527------------------DONE in FET-6.15.0---------------------

528---------------------------------------------------------
From rozojc (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5760.0

Constraint room max occupied time slots per week.

529---------------------------------------------------------
From pnlshd (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5763.0

Teacher has at most one activity per week in a certain room/set of rooms?

---

How can I do this?

For example, I have three activities for each teacher. I want at most one of them (anyone) to be placed in a certain set of rooms.
This is to ensure fairness in the room distribution among teachers.

I can put a tag that only gets placed in these rooms but I don't want to choose the activity to be placed or be forced to count them myself.

530--------------DONE-in FET-7.0.4-22 February 2025---------

531---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

What I would like FET to have is a warning when re-generating single timetables. I think that for multiple timetables FET asks if the user
wants the solved timetables to be overwritten. I think that this should happen with single timetables, and I would like in addition to the warning
the user to have the option to save the generated timetable(s) (let's say in a .zip file) as a backup, for example I generate a single timetable
the file name is MusicSchool.fet. When I work with this file (without changing the name) and regenerate, the previous results are lost, so
it would be useful if FET asked if I want the results to be lost and keep the same filename, or if I want to keep the results changing the filename,
or if I want to keep the filename and keep a backup (.zip) file of the respective fet-results subfolder.

Liviu Lalescu:
The user would be annoyed to get a warning each time. Also, maybe too much disk usage if it changes the name each time.

Vangelis Karafillidis:
You could add an option in the settings "allow detailed warnings (highly recommended for new users)".

532---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

about:
https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5774.0

I sadly understand that it is a bit confusing. In fact it is a bit
strange in FET to have roomS constraint for a single room.
Just be "room constraint from a set of rooms" while rooms can be also
just a single room.
So merging the room and roomS constraint is my opinion useful, like
merging all "a teacher" and "teachers";
and also merging "a student" and "all students" is useful, as i
suggested already some time ago.

533---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Do we also need to print a table with activities that haven't got a building?
And if yes: Do the teachers timetable need a table with activities
without teachers? Similar to students, rooms, activity tags?

534---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

I was thinking about this "parallel" processing of a single timetable.
I have a 8 cores /16 threads CPU. Let's say that the user starts solving 16 timetables.
FET... is able to write on the disk the "highest" timetable when generating.
(when the users wants to). Right?

Liviu Lalescu:
In a single generation only or if you interrupt the multiple generation.

Vangelis Karafillidis:
Let's say that instead of letting the user interrupting the generation you make FET
interrupt the generation and save the highest timetables. For example 16 timetables are generated
Let's say that we have 500 activities.
After 500xn (n might be 3,4,5... or more) attempts of placing activities,
on each one of the threads each thread has its own "highest" timetable,
which is recorded by FET. Then FET takes the 4 best highest timetables (it might be 2,3 timetables...)
Stops the generation for all threads and starts a new generation.
For example the 1 best is delivered to 4 threads (threads 1-4) which continue this generation.

535---------------------------------------------------------
From Darren McDonald:

It would be useful for me (and some of the other staff members at my school) to have a “Free Room” timetable,
which shows a list of free rooms for each period (much like the Teachers' Free Periods timetable).
This would be useful for finding rooms to accommodate courses that haven’t yet been assigned a room,
and also for planning events throughout the year (where we often need to find, for example, three nearby rooms
that are all free at the same time).

536---------------------------------------------------------
From ngoctp29121982:

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5790.0

I've been using version 6.11 guys Added option in dialog to add time/space constraints for teacher(s),
so you can now add individual constraints for each teacher only with one click
I think having the option in the dialog box to remove time/space constraints for the teacher(s),
so that you can now remove individual constraints for each teacher with just one click would be great. Great

Allows you to delete part or all of it with one click, thus making the teacher's time/space constraints more complete.

537---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

about:
https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5813.0

Maybe FET needs an "save anonymous" feature.
So it replace for example teacher names just by "teacher 1", ...
By that guys might ask earlier for help in the forum without fearing to
publish too critical data. And it will also help us reading files if
they are written Arabic or with other non Latin characters.

538---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr and Liviu Lalescu:

Convert the very many nested if / else if-s in Rules::read, the part of reading the time / space constraints.
This could be done with a switch based on hashes / maps of the strings. Complicated and critical.

539---------------------------------------------------------
From maxi_mus (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5821.msg32156#msg32156

For morning afternoon mode, it seems to me that the names of the constraints are ambiguous. For example, 'a set of activities end students day'
is clear in original mode, but in MA mode, this means FET days (right?) and not actual days. Would it make sense to rename this stuff so
it's not ambiguous? This is perhaps something I could help you with.

540---------------------------------------------------------
From Gênesis (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5080.msg32169#msg32169

Como fazer para imprimir um horário com as disciplinas repetidas dentro da tabela, ao invés de uma disciplina mesclada em 3 ou 02 celulas. Esticamente não fica legal.

Translation from Portuguese to English using Google translate:

How to print a timetable with the subjects repeated within the table, instead of a subject merged into 3 or 2 cells. Aesthetically it doesn't look good.

541---------------------------------------------------------
From ogursoy (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5848.0

Is there any way to negate all tag related constraints ?

If activity has "xx" tag it is easy to set a constraint.

How about activity has no "xx" tag ?

Is there any way to accomplish this ?

Liviu:

Thank you for your suggestion! I will only add it in the TODO for now, and I'll think of it, but it is unfortunately probably very complicated, since it wasn't
considered from the start of the work.

542---------------------------------------------------------
From ogursoy (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5849.0

It could be very nice feture to set preferred starting times with a hard constraint without student groups (e.g tick box for ignoring student groups for that activity or even that time slot chosen for the constraint.)

In a university schedule, some courses "can overlap" even having the same student groups ( by the nature of required, elective courses)

When we want to ignore this overlap, only way is to remove the students groups from one of the overlapping activities. Then these courses can be placed in the same time slot.

However, when we want to change one of these ativities later on to another time slot actually we loose the student group information already for this new time slot where student group information is needed again.

it is time consuming to update the activity with the original student groups and place it on another time slot.

I hope i explained it clearly.

---

Extented IDEA :  :)

There could be also option to ignore  :

    Student Groups (even better to choose which ones to be ignored)
    Activity Tags (even better to choose which ones to be ignored)
    All Other Time specific constraints except this one
    All Other Space specific constraints except this one 

So basically, I am looking for a "killer" option to make preferred starting time is 100% applied.

And again, if I dont need this constraint, all my tags and student groups will be there and no worries on if I place activity somewhere else.

---

Liviu Lalescu: I added this in the TODO, but it is a fundamental feature of FET to not allow overlappings.

---

ogursoy:

Thanks for considering my suggestion. But please give it a higher priority  :D

In a university schedule consider this scenario :

Course A with StudentGroup1, StudentGroup2, StudentGroup3
Course B with StudentGroup2

however, Student Group2 for Course B is actually optional because it is an elective course for this student group. they do not have to take this course.
Because they have other courses as well for elective group.

Preferably Course A and Course B should not overlap However, when you have hundres of courses  you have other program elective courses that StudentGroup2 can take.
So overlapping with Course A and B must be ignored in certain cases when you have time & space limitation. - what a suprise ha ? :) -

It is already possible by removing StudentGroup2 from Course B. And you can place it in the same timeslot with CourseA without problem.

But when you need to move it to another slot later on for some reason and if this time it should not overlap at all, you have to update the activity CourseB
and set student group again in order to make it happen.

This is time consuming and easy to miss.

So, same logic for the activity tags as well. I will not repeat my example.

This could be called an "exception" for the activity constraint and has a "killer switch" on all other constraints set for the activity.

BTW: Please do not consider this is a real overlapping. Basically this could be achieved creating multiple schedules with correct set of constraints.
This is actually allowing to create multiple schedules in the same schedule. So it is not violation of FET fundemantal principle.
This is a feature allowing user to create multiple schedule in a one single time table :)  ;D

---

Liviu Lalescu: Maybe you could add two tags, A and B, and a constraint activity tags not overlapping, A and B, probably 100%, which can be
activated/deactivated with a single click. Otherwise, it seems very complicated.

---

ogursoy:

yes it is possible with 5-10 courses. Suppose you have this scenario :

Student Groups :
Study Programs x Semesters ( 8 ) x Sections .

Study programs have curricula which defines the courses to be taken in which semester and courses that are electives which can be taken in any semester.
Some courses could be elective for some student groups and at the same time required for other student groups.

combination of these student groups (as activity tags) for not overlapping is unmanagable.
We have around 400 activities , 3942 subgroups around ~120 teachers.

Another workaround could be to activity level state management. Where we can revert back all changes done to an activity. (so it will revert back activity tags,
student groups and teacher.) So we can remove freely student groups, tags and put it manually where ever we want. If we need to change it again, we could revert
back the original student groups and tags. so this will also helpfull alot.

---

Liviu Lalescu:

Hmm... sorry, it is difficult for me to follow your suggestion. I will add your words and read again later.

Do you know that in recent FET there is a History (Undo/Redo) option?

---

ogursoy:

Yes of course, it is perfect. But it reverts back to all states. that is, i can not selectively chose states:

In this set up , when i choose a state, it is perfect for that activity. But I loose other states of other activities if I have changed one of them.

so, state selection overrides all changes in other activities. All activities are revert back to state where a specific state is chosen. It is a time machine,
and reverts back all changes to that point.

I hope it is clear ?

---

ogursoy:

State 1 : Activity X changed
State 2 : Activity y Changed
State 3 : Activity z changed.

when you go state 1, you loose all changes done to activity y, activity z.

"It is a time machine " : )

543---------------------------------------------------------
From ogursoy (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5850.0

FET files are generated in Multiple Time Tables.

It could be also very nice to have also csv version of the each time table. Same as when we export FET file.

544---------------------------------------------------------
From ogursoy (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5852.0

When we set a space sontraint, it could be very nice to give priority to buildings. So any set of preferred rooms (from building 1, building 2,..)
give one of the building a higher preference so FET places activity in the room with higher preferred building.

I am aware that it can be still done with correct space constraints (multiple!) but a lot of work to set up these constraints.

545---------------------------------------------------------
From ogursoy (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5853.0

It could be very nice feture to be able to use multiple activity tags in an activity tag related constraint.
furthermore, even better if we could also specify :

If all tags must match (AND) or any of the selected tags match (OR).

546----------------DONE-------------------------------------

547---------------------------------------------------------
From topposempre (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5856.0

Vorrei sapere se è possibile stabilire un numero massimo di ore settimanali per ciascun docente, in modo tale che, se per errore, nella creazione delle attività
dovessi assegnare più ore, il sistema me lo segnalerebbe.

English translation by Google Translate:

I would like to know if it is possible to establish a maximum number of hours per week for each teacher, so that, if by mistake, when creating activities, I were
to assign more hours, the system would notify me.

548--------DONE in FET-7.3.1 on 14 July 2025----------------

549---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5860.msg32368#msg32368

It would be great if it was a constraint all teachers work in an hourly interval MIN day per week.

550---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

While playing with the Microsoft compiler I noticed a critical bug:

If you compile (at least in release mode, i didn't tried debug mode),
then assert() is not executed.

That might be very critical.

For example if you have a function like this:

bool checkFunction(int a){
  if(a)<5 return false;
  return true;
}

And then you call the function like this:
assert(checkFunction(B));

In that case with is working fine with gcc, but MSV will skip it.

Even more bad is it, if you need the results from assert later, since it
do/modify something.

---

Liviu Lalescu:

I never do/modify anything in assert, because it is a bad practice.
Also, in this case I think you get a compiler warning.

We need always to be prepared that assert is not executed.

---

Volker Dirr:

Sadly i don't get a compiler error if i use it later.
You get only an error if the variable is only used in the assert.

Is it more safe to write on own assert function that will be
always executed?

---

Liviu Lalescu:

I use "#undef NDEBUG" before "#include <cassert>", so this should make
sure assert is checked. I am afraid now to make our own assert in FET.
Maybe I'll add your suggestion in the TODO?

---

Volker Dirr:

yes. only as a TODO. I fear an own assert in generate make slow down too
much.

Maybe add in the TODO and maybe also add this link, since that might be
very useful in that function:
https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/utility/source_location

551---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5844.msg32398#msg32398

In Liviu Lalescu's words:

For activities 1+1+1+1+1, he would like 3 subactivities (3 hours) to be placed in the morning. This is easy with the constraint subactivities preferred time slots.

But for activities 1+1+2, he would like 2 hours to be placed in the morning, either 1+1 or 2. This can be only done with the constraint activities occupy
min time slots from selection. He suggests a more user friendly way to implement so many constraints (he has 4 years with 20 groups each with 3 such subjects each,
so 240 constraints (!) ).

Liviu Lalescu:

If you have 1+1+1+1+1 and use 3 constraints subactivities preferred time slots, it is much better than using activities occupy min time slots from selection,
in terms of generation speed.

However, for the above case (1+1+2 and you want two hours in the morning), even if we developed a new constraint, I think it would be the same as speed of generation
as activities occupy min time slots from selection.

So, the only advantage of adding a new constraint would be user friendliness.

552---------------------------------------------------------
From ogursoy (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5870.0

I am looking for correct implementation for centralized exam schedule where some activities share big a hall.

I know that i can create representative rooms for this big room but how to also satisfy that these "dummy" rooms created for the big room will not exceed
the total capacity of the real room ?

553---------------------------------------------------------
From aldo.f (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5873.0

I would like to be able to open a fet file and be able to view the last timetable generated in the Timetable tab and perhaps also see the conflicts.
For now you need to open the "....data_and_timetable.fet" file and regenerate the timetable.

554---------------------------------------------------------
From Alex Chernous (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5875.0

From version 6.12.0 (adding history), when the program is run, a directory is created (auto-saving, working, importing) but in wrong encoding (see attachment).

When you set the location of files in the settings again, this does not happen.

I tried to change the directory name in the settings file, but it didn't work, the encoding changed again and the directories were created.

---

Liviu Lalescu:

I found a possible fix, but I don't like it. I attach the file (fet.cpp). You can see the fixes if you search the text setIniCodec (it appears in 2 places:
line 390 and 598, adding stuff like 'newSettings.setIniCodec("UTF-8")'). Unfortunately, in line 598, when writing the settings, I don't know why I need not
to apply the fix (I commented this line in the file attached below). Note that this fix is only for Qt 5 (easy to correct for Qt 6 with an #if).

With the fix in line 390, it works, but after saving the settings the file still looks ugly, they still have the \x... stuff.

I don't like this fix, because it is not symmetrical and the saved configuration file is not looking correctly.

The bug only appears if you use an INI-style file for the settings (macOS or GNU/Linux, not Windows), and use FET with Qt 5 after using FET with Qt 6 (not viceversa).

---

Alex Chernous:

Can do the same with configuration files as with a history file. If the version is out of date or format change, create a new file?

---

Liviu Lalescu:

It is unnecessary in my opinion. It is comparable with loading a fet file with newer FET and saving it - the old FET might not always open it correctly.

The main options are there, only some characters are maybe wrong, but easily correctable.

555---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5875.msg32462#msg32462

How about adding an executable that does nothing else than clearing the settings (of course it should ask first).

It might help in rare cases or if someone wants to uninstall.

---

How to call that executable "uninstall".

Then it just tells you that you need to delete the working directory, the fet directory (but it shouldn't delete it. The human should do it, also because it can't
remove itself) and it should ask if the settings should be cleared.

556---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

I think i will make the style changeable in TiTiTo from the interface.
It is easy.
If you want to do it in FET also, you can code it like this:

QStringList stylesStringList=QStyleFactory::keys();
//QString currentStyle=QApplication::styleSheet();
bool ok;
int styleID;//=stylesStringList.contains(currentStyle);
QString selectedStyle=QInputDialog::getItem(this, QObject::tr("Change
Style"), QObject::tr("Change Style:"), stylesStringList, styleID, false,
&ok);

if(ok && styleID>-1){
	QApplication::setStyle(QStyleFactory::create(selectedStyle));
}

---

In TiTiTo it will be easy: I will just save the string in the
settings and load it. then it is easy to get the index.

And if you start it the first time, the string is simply empty. So Qt
will choose index 0.

557---------------------------------------------------------
From danghoan (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5888.0

How to export teachers' busy times to Excel (or CSV)?

558---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Constraints two sets of activities are overlapping on min/max time slots from selection.

Suggested again on the forum, by choko and Vangelis Karafillidis:

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6021.0

choko:

Other than "a set of activities that are not overlapping with any other", is it possible to develop a new set of constraints that an activity must be overlapping
with at least one activity from a set of activities"?

Vangelis Karafillidis:

Liviu, I think we have already discussed this issue. Sometimes, constraints of the type "a set of activities share min common time slots with any of another set
of activities" (and maybe in selected time slots). As you told me, this type of constraint is extremely difficult to be implemented. But it seems this type of
constraint is quite useful...

Again from Vangelis Karafillidis, on the forum:

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6255.msg34719#msg34719

The crucial point is that the necessity for this type of constraint "a set of activities shares min common time slots with another set of activities"
(and maybe in selected time slots) seems to appear more other than I expected...

559---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5904.0

Is it possible to have timetable one prints in a standard size eg. A4 size so that whether the activities are many or few, they will fit in it?

I have had scenario of some teachers' timetables occupying 1/2 page of A4 paper while others being more than a page hence customizing the ratio.

I tend to think if that can happen, one wouldn't have to photocopy timetable so as to fit whole page of A4.

Teachers tell me they struggle to see their timetables if they occupy half page of A4.

560---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5908.0

I have a scenario where when we have tution sessions for like 7 days, you get a situation where some teachers are through with their sessions 2 days
before while others have till the last day. Is there a way of ensuring that out of the 7 days, a teacher will have at least one of the last days to
avoid conflicts on why me and not the other teachers. If we can have a constraint like "all teachers work in days interval min/max days per week"
it can be of great help. Is it doable?

Liviu Lalescu: Cyrus Ireri has a file with 7 days per week. He needs that a teacher works in exactly 1 day out of the last 2 days of the week.

561---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

A setting to check for snapshots on startup (similar to checking for updates/new official versions on startup).

562---------------------------------------------------------
From pnlshd (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5930.0

Any idea how can I properly add days to the week in the basic data without affecting existing constraints?

I have a case where I am building an exam timetable and I want ALL students to have min 7 resting hours which is the number of lessons per day
(basically saying all students should not have two exams in consecutive days but in an easier way than manually doing min days between activities)
but the problem is that exams take two weeks and I have not added the off days in the beginning and now this constraint considers the end and
start of the week as having no rest. I wanted to add this day and make it not available for all students but I don't want the current
Teacher not available constraints to get affected (aka shifted when I add it).

---

I managed to do this by manually adding the day and modifying the number of days in the source .FET file. If you have any general feedback about
the problem itself you are most welcome :)

563---------------------------------------------------------
From TAHIR (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5931.0

Is it possible teacher statistics appear at the end of each teacher Timetable?

564---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

For importing activities from a .csv file, this feature, for adding the attribute active/inactive.

Volker Dirr:

So a new field is needed. If it is empty, then it will be the same as the old (to keep old
behaviour). And in the new field must be a string with true/false flag for each subactivity.
Maybe also split by "+", so it looks similar to split duration?

565---------------------------------------------------------
From maxi_mus (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5927.0

Cannot optimize, because you have constraint teacher min hours per morning for teacher XX but not also min hours daily for him. Please add a constraint
teacher(s) min hours daily affecting this teacher

I don't understand the problem here. The problem persists, even if I add a constraint 'minimum hours per real day'.

If I add a constraint 'minimum hours per day', then this obviously also forces FET to make a minimum number of hours for each afternoon. I don't want this,
this is the exact reason why I chose the 'minimum hours per morning' in the first place.

566---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5938.0

Is there a way of ensuring teachers can't have 2 sessions with 2 duration consecutive even if there is a break between? This affects science teachers when
they have double lessons for practical. The method I have been using is exhaustive more so when dealing with a school with 48 classes.

I don't mind a double and 2 single sessions but not double and double.

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe min 2 gaps between activities?

Cyrus Ireri:

That's what I have been using. Wish we can have constraint like max hours with an activity tag between time intervals for all teachers. It can save the hustles.

Liviu Lalescu:

I think Cyrus Ireri refers to teachers max hours daily with an activity tag in an hourly interval.

567---------------------------------------------------------
From TAHIR (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5960.0

Can we modify duration of all activities in single click?

Volker Dirr:

hmm.. I think if such a feature will be added, then it should contain a filter like in modifying multiple min days between activities constraints. So like
modify only activities with hour x or with subject x or only sub-activity x.

Liviu Lalescu:

Or maybe better modify a selection of activities in the activities/subactivities dialogs?

568---------------------------------------------------------
From TAHIR (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5961.0

A timetable have two frameworks. In one framework duration of lecture is 45 min and other framework duration of lecture is 40 min with break time 20 min.
How can we adjust this timetable except 5 min fet hour trick?

---

In 5 min fet hour Length of timetable become too long. Then to print all fet hours in single page font size reduced too much.

Volker Dirr:

We might hide the hour names at all.
or we might print the hour names only if the start and end time is used.
So in worst case all times. In best case around 4*hours per day.
It is a bit complicated to print only the needed start and end times, but
I think it is possible to code it. Sadly not very easy and it must be coded for a lot of timetables. So sadly a longer coding task.

569---------------------------------------------------------
From TAHIR (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5962.0

Can we import or export fet hours by using .csv file?

Volker Dirr:

That feature is not implemented by csv, because in normal case there are not many hours and you need to add them only a single time in your whole life.
hmm...
might be max useful if there is a school with a lot of hours because of a small duration like 5 minutes.
i think we can add this into the TODO also for days.

TAHIR:

Actually i am trying to generate different timetables of different types. Now in current timetable 5 min fet hours are 69.
08:00-08:05
08:05-08:10
So on .....

570--------------------DONE-in FET-6.21.0-------------------

571---------------------------------------------------------
From Ariel Thomás Rosero Peñaherrera (in his thesis "DESARROLLO DE UNA APLICACIÓN WEB DE PLANIFICACIÓN ACADÉMICA PARA LA FACULTAD DE INGENIERÍA DE SISTEMAS"):

- Write the rooms' XML timetables after generating the timetable, similar to the existing activities', teachers', and students' XML timetables.

- Allow multiple users to work on the same data file.

572---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

In the Mornings-Afternoons mode, output the real days/hours teachers free periods and teachers/students statistics.

573---------------------------------------------------------
From victorcapel (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5561.msg33053#msg33053

Is it possible to add new constraint for max gaps between an ordered pair of activity tags for a teacher?

Liviu Lalescu: "min" is already implemented, but this "max" is much more complicated. Do you mean in the Mornings-Afternoons mode, for a day, for a real day,
and between morning and afternoon, like the "min"?

victorcapel:

I just need for a day the constraint max gaps between an ordered pair of activity tags for a teacher.

Liviu Lalescu:

So for the Mornings-Afternoons mode, for a FET (half) day?

Also, can on a single day be a single tag present, or there must be both tags present?

victorcapel:

Could have both or just one, if have both tags it needs to have a max in a half day.

574---------------------------------------------------------
From youcef39 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5966.0

The suggestion or question concerns restrictions on changing buildings
I believe that the current restriction enables us to specify the number of times buildings can be changed within a certain period of time. This is an excellent, wonderful, and useful approach for many schools, especially those that include two buildings.
But there are schools with 5 buildings, so be it
Building A
Building B
Building C
Building D
Building E
Since it is acceptable and we do not need a condition not to move between Building A and Building B, for example, movement is also permitted between Building D and Building E.
The same thing is also acceptable and we do not need a condition not to move between Building C and Building D
But we need a restriction that prevents or reduces movement between Building A and Building E if prevention is impossible
We need a restriction that prevents or reduces movement between Building B and Building E if prevention is impossible
I mean, we want to develop a restriction
The maximum number of structures in a time domain that currently exist can be changed within the constraint
We can specify the time range...currently available
We can specify the maximum number of building changes....currently present

We can choose the intended buildings.... currently not available

575---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr (on forum):

About FET in MA Mode:
What do you think about adding a warning already in the days per week
dialog if the number of days is odd?
So maybe add a red label there that the number of days must be even
and/or print a warning if you close the dialog.

---

Liviu Lalescu:

I think I thought of this, but:

1) He might open an old file, before FET-6.21.1.

2) He might convert the mode from Official to MA and back.

3) The label is visible (even if disabled) in the Official mode, and
the users might get a wrong impression that they need even days.

4) He must anyway read the instructions to double the FET (half) days.

---

Volker Dirr:

hmm... I can't see why 1) to 4) should be a problem.

yes 1) won't help old users, but it will help all new users. I think
this is minor.

about 2): hmm... So maybe a warning function that is use 3 times. So you
need to code it only once (loading, changing mode and changing days)

about 3) You can hide the warning if not MA mode.

about 4) seeing this warning early is maybe very good, since you can
write "... see the instructions".
At the moment you (maybe) warn about that too late.
Isn't it more user friendly to warn earlier about it.

576---------------------------------------------------------
From TongThanhKieu (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5973.0

I would like an additional constraint: Each morning/afternoon has a maximum of x subjects.
For example: One morning there are only a maximum of 3 subjects: 2*Math, Computer Science, 2*English.

Liviu Lalescu:

Thank you for the suggestion! It is possible to do, I think. But I am a bit reluctant about it, how is this useful?

TongThanhKieu:

There are 3 reasons as follows:
1. Students do not feel happy when studying too many subjects.
2. Teachers do not want to move too much between classrooms.
3. In specialized schools, teachers and students want to spend more time studying a subject in depth.

Liviu Lalescu:

Is it a general constraint, for all the teachers and students sets? Or you want to add it separately, for a teacher/all the teachers/a students set/all students?

TongThanhKieu:

Add this constraint to a student set, a teacher, all teachers or all students.

Liviu Lalescu:

I added this in the TODO.

But there are also other modalities to impose this requirement with the existing FET constraints:

- Teacher(s) max room changes per day.
- Increase the duration of some activities to 2 hours and impose a min 1 day between the same subject, with 100% (or teacher(s)/students (set) activity tag
max 2 hours daily).
- Min 2 hours daily with an activity tag for students/teachers, and allow empty days. Not all subactivities of a larger split activity should have this tag
(you can edit the subactivities for this).

TongThanhKieu:

Yes, i already know what you have listed and used it. Thank You!
Just more a good option for new user.

Liviu Lalescu:

You are welcome!

Unfortunately, this constraint might be very strong and timetables impossible, and the user might not know the reason.

577---------------------------------------------------------
From Andrea Maleci:

With Liviu Lalescu's words: Andrea had a file containing many locking time and space constraints. He saw them, but thought that not permanently locked
meant that FET will neglect them when generating a new timetable. His file was unsolvable, until I unlocked all the activities in time and space, after
which his file was solvable fast. So, Volker made the following suggestion:

Volker Dirr:

maybe if we start generating we can print a small "warning". if more
than 10% of the activities are locked in time or room, then print it on
the screen and write that it might a bit much to lock so many
activities. And if 100% are locked then writing something like "probably
an old generated file. trying to place the activities again. Be careful
if you modify manually this dataset, because it might happen very easy
that the data set will become impossible by that."

Andrea Maleci:

I think that the simplest way to fix this OSX issue is to document it, because you can't choose any options from the menu, but it's not so immediate
to understand that it's a workaround for a modal window in Windows.

578---------------------------------------------------------
From Andrea Primiani:

He asked me (Liviu) if he could translate "Add constraints" (in the teacher(s) add constraint dialogs) as "Aggiungi per tutti" or "Aggiungi a ciascuno".
So I thought that maybe even the English original might be "Add for all" or "Add for each/everyone". Consider that this push button is available
in the teacher add constraint dialog, so "Add for all" is appropriate, but also in the teachers add constraint dialog, so "Add for each/everyone" might
be better.

579---------------------------------------------------------
From paolo_d and Vangelis Karafillidis (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5978.msg33171#msg33171

paolo_d has an impossible file, which is logically impossible, but FET does not warn this.

Vangelis:

The problem seems to be the teacher Romeo. His activities have duration = 2. Is it possible to change it? Otherwise, I think he should have max hours 6
at least for one day... since he has 22 hours per week.

Note by Liviu:

paolo_d has 5 days per week and 6 hours per day, and a constraint teachers max 5 hours daily 100%. So if the teacher Romeo has only activities with duration 2,
it means that he is allowed only 4 hours per day. 5 x 4 = 20, which is less than 22.

So, Vangelis suggested an additional test before starting the generation. But I (Liviu) consider that there are too many similar situations to take care
of them all.

580---------------------------------------------------------
From Diego Froner (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5983.0

A very common complaint about students' set schedules is the start time in the last hours on Fridays. So, considering this, is it possible to implement
a constraint to prevent a student set (or all students' set) from beginning at a specific set of time slots?

...

A suitable name for this constraint could be 'A students set has a preferred set of starting times.'

581---------------------------------------------------------
From Nelson Gomes (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5987.0

Is it possible to make mornings/afternoons mode with a different number of periods in each one? In my school (and I believe in many schools in Portugal)
the number of hours in the mornings is greater than the ones in the afternoons (in our institution, 6 in the morning and 2 to 4 in the afternoons,
depending of the school year). Of course the program works as is, but when trying to print the timetables, they become nearly unreadables, as they
end up using more than one page...

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe we could add a Boolean value to each day/real day/hour/real hour, Hide_If_Empty; if it is true and the line/column contains no activities,
it will be hidden.

Volker Dirr:

See also item #568.

582---------------------------------------------------------
2024-10-16: The right-to-left part is DONE.

From AHMED LAOUAR (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5992.0

In Arabic:

إذا ممكن في الطباعة إضافة خيار لتكون الطباعة من اليمين لليسار في النسخة الأخيرة مع اتاحة امكانية كتابة معلومات تحت اسم المنشأة و فوقها كعنوان الجدول و اسم البلد

In English by Google Translate:

If it is possible in printing, add an option to print from right to left in the final version, with the possibility of writing information under and
above the establishment name, such as the table title and the name of the country.

Liviu Lalescu:

Printing from the FET interface is wrong in right-to-left languages because of a Qt bug, we cannot correct this ourselves.

About the additional information to write, it is only possible after the institution name and teacher/students set name, if you add the teacher's/students
set's comment in FET and choose to print comments for the teachers/students sets from the Settings -> Timetables -> Data to print in timetables.

583---------------------------------------------------------
From Henrique Belo (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5993.0

Suggestion: Implementing Teacher Group Parameterization in FET Timetable

I would like to suggest a new feature for FET Timetable that I believe would bring great benefits to everyone's organization and time management.
Currently, we have the ability to parameterize students by year and class for example
5th Grade

    5A
    5B
    5C

6th Grade

    6A
    6B
    6C

...

My suggestion is to implement a similar feature for teachers.

The idea would be to allow the creation of groups and subgroups of teachers. For example:

English Teachers Group

    English 1
    English 2
    English 3

Philosophy Teachers Group

    Philosophy 1
    Philosophy 2

Mathematics Teachers Group

    Mathematics 1
    Mathematics 2
    Mathematics 3

This parameterization would make it easier to organize meetings that involve many teachers.
Instead of selecting each teacher individually for the activities, we could simply select the desired group, ensuring that all teachers in that group
are considered for the activities.

I hope this suggestion is considered and that it can be useful for many FET Timetable users.

Liviu Lalescu:

Yes, like Volker said, more users suggested a similar feature, for instance to add a set of teachers to a constraint.

584---------------------------------------------------------
From YOUSSEF HOUIET (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5994.0

Time horizontal view of Rooms not available times constraints in FET-NSRT

it is possible to add Time horizontal view of Rooms not available times constraints in FET-NSRT, for allow users to specify times when the room is
unavailable during exams, Instead of entering it room by room

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, a file can have more constraints of this type for a certain room, and also the weights are allowed to be less than 100%.

585---------------------------------------------------------
From Darren McDonald (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=5996.0

CSV Import/Export of Code and Long name

Currently my school uses the Comments field to enter student codes (students are Subgroups in our setup). With the new fields, it would make sense
to instead use the new Code field for this data. Would it be possible to have these new fields included in csv file import/export?

586---------------------------------------------------------
From Alessio (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6000.0

In Italian:

Come fissare un tetto max in ore per l'utilizzo di aule preferenziali

Ho il seguente problema: utilizzo 3 aule preferenziali per svolgere attività di laboratorio. In questo modo l'orario dovrebbe chiudersi più
facilmente perché non assegno una specifica attività a uno specifico laboratorio dando all'orario la possibilità di svolgere fino a 3 attività
contemporaneamente in laboratori diversi. Il problema è che così facendo non posso controllare quante ore saranno svolte in un laboratorio
e quante in un altro. Il punto è che ciascun laboratorio è affidato a un tecnico che da contratto non può superare un certo numero di ore settimanali
dovendosi occupare anche della manutenzione.

A questo punto mi chiedo è possibile porre un limite max in ore settimanali di utilizzo di un'aula laboratorio?

English translation by Google translate:

How to set a maximum ceiling in hours for the use of preferential classrooms

I have the following problem: I use 3 preferential classrooms to carry out laboratory activities. In this way the timetable should close more easily
because I do not assign a specific activity to a specific laboratory giving the timetable the possibility of carrying out up to 3 activities
simultaneously in different laboratories. The problem is that by doing this I cannot control how many hours will be spent in one laboratory
and how many in another. The point is that each laboratory is entrusted to a technician who, by contract, cannot exceed a certain number of hours
per week, also having to take care of maintenance.

At this point I ask myself, is it possible to set a maximum limit on the number of hours per week of use of a laboratory room?

587---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

Add the option to add a shortcut to the desktop.

588---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

The user can select more activities in the activities dialog and press a button there, "Duplicate", to duplicate the selected activities to another teacher
or to another students set. This is to avoid repetition and error insertion.

589---------------------------------------------------------
From Alpha Peace (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6004.0

If only Fet enables us to split activities after clicking on modify option, it would be great since we are deleting all the in order to split them.

Enable separately option for teachers too.

Liviu Lalescu:

I think Alpha Peace refers to making a check box "Separately" for teachers, in the same way as for the students, when adding an activity.

Alpha Peace:

That's exactly what I mean for activities split especially when using modify option.

---

Also Ai suggests in this forum topic to modify the split of the activities, but says that the "Separately" check box for the teachers might be impossible to realize.

590---------------------------------------------------------
From AmerAsiri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6011.0

All teachers work in an hourly interval min days per week.

Further suggestions of AmerAsiri on this topic:

تكملة لما بدأته
لاحظت قيود بالقيمة (MAX) تحتاج إلى قيود مقابلة بالقيمة (MIN)،
مثل:
1- أقصى فجوات يومية للمعلم لا يوجد مقابله (أدنى فجوات يومية للمعلم).
2- أقصى امتداد في اليوم لا يوجد مقابله أدنى امتداد في اليوم.
3- أقصى تكرار لمجال من الحصص في الأسبوع لا يوجد مقابله أدنى تكرار لمجال من الحصص في الأسبوع.

لأن تحديد القيمة القصوى لا يضمن الالتزام بحد أدنى من التوزيع على أفراد المجموعة.

Translation with Google Translate:

As a continuation of what I started,
I noticed restrictions with a value (MAX) that require corresponding restrictions with a value (MIN),
such as:
1- The maximum daily gaps for the teacher have no equivalent (minimum daily gaps for the teacher).
2- The maximum extension per day, with no corresponding minimum extension per day.
3- The maximum frequency of a range of classes per week. There is no corresponding minimum frequency of a range of classes per week.

Because setting the maximum value does not guarantee commitment to a minimum distribution among group members.

Clarification by AmerAsiri, at the request of Liviu Lalescu:

1- MIN gaps per day for a teacher
2- Teacher (MIN) span per day
3- all teacher work in an hourly interval [[min]] days per week

591---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

I was thinking of "standarizing" a spreadsheet prototype for importing activities so, instead of importing from CSV
the user could download this spreadsheet and work on it.
for example an .ods file for Libre Office Calc

so, some kind of standarized syntax should be discussed

for schools such as Music Schools (with many private-like lessons) adding activities manually is a titanic task
I tried to "standardize" a prototype by myself around a year ago.
actually, what I did is to work on a spreadsheet, export the data into a csv file, and then import the csv file.
the major issues I encountered had to do with
1) activities with multiple teachers/students sets,
2) activities with multiple activity tags,
3) min days constraints.

592---------------------------------------------------------
From math (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6016.0

Getting information about schedule generation interna (Liviu: the rest of the title was truncated?)

When generating a new schedule, FET tries to add all activities to the schedule such that all constraints are fulfilled. When adding an activity
results in a violation of contraints, a different placement of activities gets evaluated until (hopefully) finally a valid solution is found.

Is it possible to enable some kind of logging of this placement process? Is it perhaps possible to get an information which constraint has been
violated during the scheduling process?

Liviu Lalescu:

When you hit Generate, FET sorts the activities, 1, ..., n, where 1 is the most difficult and n the easiest, according to some objective but not
perfect estimations.

FET places 1, 2, ..., i. There might be constraints broken, but FET will swap the activities recursively to make place for say 4th. But if it cannot
place directly or by level>=1 swap to place i+1, FET chooses a slot and displaces all activities of that slot and places i+1. This is a level 0 swap.
It is possible to show, for each time slots of the week, the first constraint which makes i+1 impossible to place at level 0.

Am I clear to this point?

So, it is possible to show at each step say 5*6 slots (5 days per week, 6 hours per day) and activity id and the first broken constraint.
Some work is needed to add in each constraint type this logging. Not too difficult work. Hmm... I was just going to say "not too useful", but might
be useful to log this information when FET reaches a new highest stage.

593---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis, as a solution to a potential problem reported by Vũ Ngọc Thành (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6018.msg33453#msg33453

Vũ Ngọc Thành reported that the constraints of type teacher(s)/students (set) max room (and building) changes per week consider the changes as being
the sum of changes on each day, as opposed to maintaining a constant overall room (building) for the whole week if the maximum allowed changes are zero.
This was fixed by adding an explanatory text in the corresponding dialogs.

Vangelis Karafillidis further suggested this:

I think it depends how one interprets the constraint "max room changes per week". The constraint itself might mean either "max DAILY room changes
per week" or "max WEEKLY room changes per week". It seems that most people tend to interpret the constraint as "max WEEKLY room changes per week".

594---------------------------------------------------------
From AnSam and Volker Dirr (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6019.0

Volker's email to Liviu Lalescu:

she added one activity with duration 7, even she has only 6 hours per
day.

so maybe TODO:

- write a better warning in the generate pre and explain/complain a bit
more detailed

- limit the spin box in the add activities dialog to max hours per day.
(or don't limit, but write a warning if it is too high)

595---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

1) for the current implementation of importing from CSV file, we need some improvements.
2) for preparing the data (and maybe some constrains) on a spreadsheet, we need to "standardize" a "form" for this spreadsheet.

596---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

sometimes I wished there was a way to combine/merge .fet files.
for example the timetable of a Music School has a huge amount of data/constraints that need to be added to FET
most of the time there are two timetablers (or two groups of timetablers) which work nearly independently
in order to prepare the two parts (sub-timetables) of the timetable
these sub-timetables "intersect" on the hours that the students groups are available for these private-like instruments lessons
so
IF
there was a way to prepare (at first) two .fet files and then combine/merge them this would be very useful
OR
if you could add a option so the user could choose the first (initial) number of the activities
for example, the first activity to have id=3000 this might be possible to merge succesfully the one file with the first id=1
and the other file with the first id=3000 without conflicts.

597---------------------------------------------------------
From math (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6017.msg33458#msg33458

    Time -> Tags -> Min days between activities with an activity tag
    Time -> Tags -> Activities with an activity tag have same starting time
    Time -> Tags -> Activities with an activity tag occupy min slots
    Time -> Tags -> Activities with an activity tag occupy max slots
    Time -> Tags -> Activities with activity tag A and activity tag B are ordered
    Time -> Tags -> Max hourly span for Activities with an activity tag

Liviu Lalescu:

They might be too strong. Maybe they would be useful for students (set)/teacher(s).

598---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

Alert before production if hibernation mode is activated so that production does not stop.
Hibernation mode is typically three hours, and production is sometimes for long hours.

599---------------------------------------------------------
From Devrim Altınkurt (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6023.0

I would like to report an error regarding the time period when classrooms are not available.
I added the sample file.

    1. First I created a new file.
    2. I added an activity (act1, duration:6, no teacher, no students).
    3. I added a class (room1).
    4. I added the "An activity has a preferred room" rule. (act1 -> room1)
    5. I added the "A room's not available time" rule. I turned off all hours and turned on only 5 hours.
    6. When I click "Generate" button, the program goes into an infinite loop because there is no control.

Liviu Lalescu:

Do you mean FET should warn that it is impossible and not begin the generation? It is too complicated to take care of all situations, unfortunately.

Devrim Altınkurt:

You are doing this control for teachers and studentsets.

Liviu Lalescu:

Indeed, but each activity has an exact assigned teacher and students set (or none, or more), and also teacher/students set not available is only with 100% weight
percentage.

But each activity may have zero, one or more related space constraints with variable weight percentage, and also room not available can have any weight percentage.

So in general many cases may appear.

600---------------------------------------------------------
From mskalsi (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6042.msg33580#msg33580

Let's say a teacher teaches a common subject to two groups at the same time in the same room. Then, in the time table's final HTML output, both groups are printed
in the vertical time slots, which makes it appear a little crowded. Printing just one group in each vertical time slots would be feasible, in my opinion.

601---------------------------------------------------------
From potrempe (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6045.0

The school I'm generating a timetable with has 5 school hours (P1 to P5) for each day of the week (D1 to D5), so that's 25 hours a week. All students have 25 hours
of courses, so no gaps in the schedule.

For certain subjects that are taught twice a week or more, I need to make sure that a subject is not taught on the last hour of a day and on the first hour of
the next day. So for example, if students of group G1 have Music on P5 of D2, they should not have Music on P1 of D3, the earliest would be P3 of D3.

So what I'm trying to implement is some kind of "Min hours between activities". In the case above, I would add a constraint for two "Music" activities for a group G1
with a minimum of 3 hours between them. So:

    How could I manage to do this?
    Are the last hour of a day and the first hour of the next day considered "consecutive" in FET?

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe some new official FET constraints are needed, maybe adding some additional features to the "min gaps (hours) between activities" or "students min gaps between
activity tag", to consider the days of the week to be continuous.

602---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

On Windows, add a button to minimize the FET dialogs while generating.

Liviu Lalescu: on my GNU/Linux I can do that. It is more like a platform feature/problem and I am not sure it is good to use a programming trick to fix this.

603---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Suggestions for improvement:

1) Add an option to center tables on the page when printing. --> DONE only horizontally, not vertically.

2) Solve the problem of days appearing in Arabic as broken letters in some HTML outputs.

Liviu Lalescu: more specifically, the second suggestion/problem appears in the time vertical views, where the names of the days appear divided letter-by-letter.
I consider this to be a feature, not a bug, saving space for the rest of the table.

Volker Dirr also disagrees. He says that the correct way would be to rotate the font by 90°, but that is sadly not possible in Qt with HTML.

604---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Suggested improvement to the typography of the interface: Make the width and height equal for each teacher and class table.

Liviu Lalescu: do you mean timetable view from the interface?

Muhammad Ratrout: for printing.

605---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

In FET is there Print double lessons as single lessons in interface and html output?

606---------------------------------------------------------
From Bachir Nacer Elhak Sayah (on Facebook):

When you choose this option you only get one table per page, and that will waste a lot of paper. When you choose always:double, you get 2 per page.
Is it possible to make it 3 per page?

Especially if you rotate the page like this (portrait), a lot of space is wasted.

607------------DONE in FET-6.24.1---------------------------

608---------------------------------------------------------
From Liviu Lalescu (who observed Redha Rahmane's problem):

Actually, it was his message that made me (Liviu Lalescu) to think about this problem: in the Mornings-Afternoons mode, Redha Rahmane had set some
teachers in the exclusive (Morocco) mode, and this was making the program not being able to solve the file, without him to remember this fact. A good
idea might be to mention in the list of all time constraints each teacher's Mornings-afternoons behavior, to avoid this problem.

Note: On a Facebook vote about moving the teachers' Mornings-afternoons behavior to the constraints, the vast majority of users voted to keep the
current style (in the teachers' list).

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6085.0

YOUSSEF HOUIET: I think that users are confused about the teacher's behavior feature due to old YouTube videos that explain how to use the program
when there were the Moroccan and Algerian versions, as well as the FET MA version. We always try to guide new users to understand that the behavior
has been moved from the constraints interface to the teachers' data.

Anyway, I have opened a poll on the subject in a Facebook group and will wait for the results.

As for my opinion, I think moving the teacher's behavior back to constraints would be a step backward in the development of the program. 

Mohamed Ait Ichou: You can leave it as it is now, it is clear to those who use the program normally.

---

YOUSSEF HOUIET: I suggest adding a feature in the Mornings-Afternoons mode like a msgbox or a warning when user click on Data -> Teachers, and when
starting the generation process, alerting the user to pay attention to the teachers' behavior.

Liviu Lalescu: I think maybe we need to add in the list of all time constraints a list of the Mornings-afternoons behavior of the teachers (but also
keeping the current teachers' dialog, in which you choose the Mornings-afternoon behavior of the teacher)s. What do you say?

Benahmed Abdelkrim: I admit I didn't read your post very well. I think this idea is very good and will help users to detect any possible errors.
Let's summarize what can be done: Keep the morning - afternoon behavior as it is now,and add this behavior to the list of all time constraints.
In this way the user would be able to detect his errors and correct them.

Quote from @Liviu Lalescu
Or maybe move the teachers' Mornings-afternoons behavior from a teacher to a time constraint for each teacher?

Benahmed Abdelkrim: Yes, this is also a good idea with a little correction: the morning-afternoon behaviors are kept in the teacher as they are now.
This way the user has two options, not one, such as constraint min days between activities.

609---------------------------------------------------------
From pekuon (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6084.0

I am currently scheduling with many constraints; however, the school frequently changes the teaching assignments, which leads to frequent changes
in the class periods. When class periods are changed, some constraints are lost compared to the old schedule. Therefore, I would like to have
a button to export all constraints to CSV or Excel for easier tracking of any missing constraints later.

610---------------------------------------------------------
From Bahri Abderezak (on Facebook):

Say FET can place 495 out of 500 activities. We suggest to place these 495 activities and allow manual positioning of the remaining 5,
by displaying them on the right and allowing to drag-and-drop them in the timetable.

611---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

Implement a group of constraints, and from that group you can let FET do an AND, OR, or XOR of the constraints.

612------------DONE in FET-6.24.1---------------------------

613---------------------------------------------------------
From danghoan (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6102.0

I have 2 activities Tags, Tags A (morning), Tags B (afternoon).

1. I want to set a condition so that 2 activities Tags A and B do not appear on the same day.

2. Let me ask another question: If I want to set a condition of maximum space between morning and afternoon, how do I do it?

Liviu Lalescu:

2. Maybe teachers/students max gaps per real day.

614-----------DONE in FET-6.24.2----------------------------

615-----------DONE in FET-6.24.2----------------------------

616---------------------------------------------------------
From gt (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6119.0

I'd suggest to add the option to "Bring to front" the Menu Window (i.e. the one opening at Fet start) when it's superimposed by other windows.
It could be done by clicking the Menu Windows to activate it, if possible.
In my experience it should be very comfortable when working with small screens (laptops) and having the need to check the generated timetable
taking several windows opened at the same time (teachers, rooms, students etc.).
At moment it seems that I have to close or move off screen the other windows just to access the option in the Menu Window.

Liviu Lalescu:

This behavior is dictated by the operating system / windowing system. On my GNU/Linux XFCE, I can click on the main window and it shows, even if
I have other timetable view dialogs. If I remember correctly, on Windows the timetable views are in front of the main window. I think I cannot
modify this behavior, but I will look a bit at the options.

gt:

Yes it is a Windows "feature".
I think that a simple turnaround could be adding menu shortcuts for some options such as: Data->"All time constraints", "All space constraints" etc.
Maybe these shortcuts could be set by user?

617---------------------------------------------------------
From henozzo (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6122.0

Ho lavorato su un orario per la scuola secondaria e vorrei trovare un modo di esportare i dati in un altro orario che integra anche l'orario della
scuola primaria. Posso esportare su quel file .fet questi dati magari incollandoli? Come?

Google translate:

I worked on a timetable for secondary school and I would like to find a way to export the data to another timetable that also integrates the primary
school timetable. Can I export this data to that .fet file, perhaps by pasting it? How?

Vangelis Karafillidis:

@Liviu Lalescu, I think we have discussed about implementing some kind of feature for merging two (or more) different .fet files. It seems that
sometimes this feature would be really useful. Moreover, a multi-user preparation of the same (single) .fet file would be highly useful in some cases.
The above have to do with enhancing the usability and speeding-up the preparation of data (+constraints) for FET. At least, maybe an expert mode
for re-numbering the activities (ids) seems to be a solution, according to your post. The user could easily 'prepare' the two .fet sub-files,
so that would be compatible to each other for being merged. What do you think?

618---------------------------------------------------------
From Thai Chi Phuong (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6112.msg34042#msg34042

One more small detail but I think it will be useful for all of us: In the "Data" tab, information related to "Class", "Teacher", "Student"; "Tags".
If it is not too difficult, can you help us remove many redundant elements with just 1 click?

619---------------------------------------------------------
From Hieu Nguyen Trong:

> In the morning - afternoon mode, the interface in the bindings is not
> yet convenient for use.  [...] Adjust the periods of
> the day to be straight from top to bottom similar to the schedule
> results view.

620---------------------------------------------------------
From Abu Iyad (on Facebook):

I hope you can enable the automatic lock feature for the schedules immediately after they are created.

621---------------------------------------------------------
From topposempre (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6146.0

I would like to point out a series of changes that could be useful (at least for me):

- in the activities together with the option to indicate the minimum days between the activities, there below also insert the maximum days between
the activities (useful when I have two hours of a subject in the 1+1 formulation to say that at least a certain amount must pass between the two hours
and avoid having one on Monday and one on Saturday for example)

- insert the maximum number of teachers and/or subjects possible per day (to avoid having 5 different subjects in one day)

- in the management of the hours not available for a teacher, if I have to allow an early exit to a teacher 3 days out of 5, allow the random choice
of these 3 days without punctually binding them - insert the possibility for each teacher for a late and an early entry, always chosen randomly by the
system without punctually binding them.

- I add to the function hours not available for a teacher, not only to be able to select the free day, but also the possibility to tell the system
to be able to choose a random free day except, for example, the one we will indicate. "Ex. Choose a free day except Saturday"

Liviu Lalescu:

Some of them might already be solved:

1) I consider max days between activities constraints as not used too often, and I prefer to leave the user add these constraints after adding the activity(ies).

2) Maybe you could use the new just released constraint students max activity tags from a set per day. Unfortunately, you can restrict only to 1 or 2 tags,
not 4, but you might be able to use it in a certain way.

3) Add two constraints teachers interval max days per week.

4) Teacher max days per week, and constrain this teacher to have activities on Saturday with a constraint activities occupy min time slots from selection.

622---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Is it possible to add an option to the program so that the teacher calculates the minimum and maximum daily classes and the best number of consecutive classes
to obtain a balanced schedule of classes?

Button to calculate minimum, maximum and number of consecutive shares

is possible

By the total quota of the teacher's classes and the nature of the teacher's activities

623---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

A proposal to improve the program is to add the ability to delete more than one item at once using ctrl and shift in the program tabs data, time and space.
I noticed that it is only enabled in all in the time tab.

Liviu Lalescu:

I think Muhammad Ratrout suggests multiple selection in the dialogs from the data entry (teachers, subjects, etc.) and maybe in the separate dialogs
of the time/space constraints.

624---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Suggestion for development: In statistics menu, print advanced statistics, add for print for Arabic right to left direction and center page.

625---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Make the program accept deleting the item using the delete button on the keyboard, in program screens.

626-------------------------DONE----------------------------

627---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

are there any suggestions for developing the program screens in the future:
button : Copy to
button : Apply on

Copying restrictions to more than one teacher or class
Applying unavailability to more than one teacher or class
For the purpose of acceleration

628---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Show teacher statistics number of activities and duration when adding restrictions to the teacher

Customize header and footer for table outputs

Add if possible multiline of data such as institution name

What you see fit for that

Show maximum number of hours continuously for a teacher in teacher statistics in table outputs

New suggestion to display statistics in table outputs for teachers, students, etc. and whatever you see fit.
Example : display number of activities for teacher and duration for every teacher table and other.

629---------------------------------------------------------
From Mohcene Ben Mohammed KH (on Facebook):

can you release the android or ios version of Fet? that will be very interesting for us .... we can work every where any time .... thank you ....

630---------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Please add in future button to open output folder after finishing generate.

631--------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Show or hide "---" in the timetable outputs.

632--------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Improve the display of information about subjects, students and teachers in the HTML table outputs so that the display is through another table horizontally
instead of being vertically displayed.

Liviu Lalescu: Muhammad Ratrout refers to the printing of the legend of subjects, students, and teachers - it should be done subjects legend, then on the right
the students legend, then on the right the teachers legend.

633--------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

You make Activities padding in print table option : Horizontal expansion only
Is it possible to add vertical expansion in the future?

634--------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

Please enhance program with shift key to select more elements in print screen.

Liviu Lalescu:

Muhammad Ratrout refers to selecting for instance multiple students sets with the Shift key in the Print timetable dialogs.

635--------------------------------------------------------
From Muhammad Ratrout (on Facebook):

I am showing you the problem of the broken letters of the days in the Arabic language in the vertical mode.
Letters must be connected.

(Liviu Lalescu: Muhammad Ratrout refers to time vertical print, where the names of the days are written one letter below the other,
and seems to break the correct meaning of the letters, in Arabic.)

Is it possible in the future for teachers' and students' tables to have the same dimensions (height and width) on the page through the print screen?
To make the tables look better

We want more options in the print screen to control the appearance of the tables, such as making the texts bold and other options related to the borders
in terms of appearance and bold border.

We ask you to improve the program so that the Shift button works with all program screens for ease and speed of work.

We want options for table borders and cell borders.

636--------------------------------------------------------
From thaaanos (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6042.msg34220;topicseen#msg34220

"Data to print" is a bit misleading as a menu item I had to hunt it down to find it :)
maybe "Output settings".
Also since the dialog is huge and extensive, please consider a "restore defaults" or even maybe a "custom settings" menu.
Also a setting that uses the full names in column and row headers and short names in the cells would probably what people would need most, my 2¢

Liviu Lalescu:

You can restore all the Settings to defaults. I know this is not what you suggest, but it is something.

637--------------------------------------------------------
From thaaanos (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6163.0

Since
* teachers may have websites / videoconferance room / or simply a mailto: link
* Rooms may have websites / an associated videoconferance room
* Activities or students may have an associated e-learning platform link
etc

I would find it useful if I could add this info in a url field that was easily accessible from the html timetable output
also please consider making all fields importable from cvs, so we can export them from our systems and feed fet

YOUSSEF HOUIET:

You can use comment fields

Liviu Lalescu:

Indeed, as Youssef said, you could use the comments field. You can use also the long name field or the code, which are custom strings.
Activities have only comments, for which these is no option to be printed, but all the the other information can be printed in the HTML results.

CSV should indeed be updated.

Did you see the fet files XML structure? Maybe you could replicate that.

638---------------------------------------------------------
From Mohcene Ben Mohammed KH (on Facebook):

I wanted to suggest an option
for example we want to introduce the teacher parameter... maximum afternoons
Could you introduce a selection of teachers in groups instead of introducing them one by one?
select a group of teachers and choose the maximum after option for the selected teachers

in a real day..That's why we need a restriction through which we can select only some teachers and not all of them to apply the same restriction
to them instead of entering them one by one... It takes a lot of time.

639--------------------------------------------------------
From danghoan (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6176.0

Is there a way to edit and split Activities of Teacher without having to delete and re-add them.

640--------------------------------------------------------
From Carol Stott:

I wonder if, in a possible future update, it would be possible to import
stuff like the long names, codes, and qualified subjects from a CSV
file, along with the regular-length names and comments. This would
greatly save time in inserting this data, as it takes time putting these
in one-by-one.

Furthermore, there are several teachers who all teach the same
subject/set of subjects. For example, teachers A, B, C, and D all teach
subjects E, F, and G, and it would save time to be able to import all of
this from an Excel CSV file instead of having to insert this data
teacher-by-teacher, especially with schools with large numbers of teachers.

Liviu Lalescu: Carol Stott refers in the second paragraph to the
qualified subjects E, F, and G of teachers A, B, C, and D.

641--------------------------------------------------------
From Gabriela Osaci-Costache:

1) Pentru activități, așa cum putem alege mai mulți profesori, mai multe
grupe/mai mulți ani, mai multe etichete, nu se poate să alegem mai multe
discipline, astfel încât să nu fie nevoie să scriem noi disciplina compusă
(ex.: materie A / materie B), pentru săptămânile impare/pare?

2) S-ar putea schimba ordinea butoanelor, încât butonul de Bine/Adaugă să
fie mai în dreapta? Acum, cel mai în dreapta buton este fie Închide, fie
Ajutor, după caz. Cum sunt aranjate acum sunt favorabile stângacilor. Am
văzut, de ceva vreme, că și QGIS are tot ordinea asta a butoanelor. O
explicație trebuie să fie, însă nouă ne vine peste mână. Nu e o mare
problemă, doar că am tot închis ferestre după ce setasem ce ne trebuia dând
clic pe Închide, în loc de Adaugă.

642--------------------------------------------------------
From wolfrain87 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6184.0

Se è possibile scegliere il colore in base alla sede in modo tale che chi sta in una sede ha per esempio la scritta bianca e il quadratino verde
e invece in un'altra sede si sceglie un altra combinazione in modo tale da rendere facilmente leggibile la classe e anche un docente in quale plesso
si trova tramite una leggenda.

643--------------------------------------------------------
From wolfrain87 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6185.0

Inserire la distribuzione per materia. In modo tale che gli insegnanti possono entrare in quella classe con quella materia 1 volta 2 volte fino
a n volte. In modo tale che distribuisce per una materia o tutte ogni giorno una volta solo o più di una.

644--------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

max campus changes per day/week.
for Greece.. this problem occurs only for teachers.
the real problem is the changes per day.
the other problem is not so significant (per week).

After a Facebook discussion between Vangelis Karafillidis and Liviu Lalescu, we arrived at this conclusion:

Teacher(s)/students (set) max activity tag changes per day/week... this can solve the problem in a much simpler way.

Unfortunately, an activity can have more tags, so we might also need to add a set of tags to be checked.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

so... max activity tags pair switches per day/week
input = a pair of activity tags
number of switches
so the user could select which activity tags the constraint is going to be applied on

645--------------------------------------------------------
From vietphamvan0705 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6192.0

Is there a way to use constraints 2.8a and 2.8b independently without having to use constraint 2.6?

You want to be able to use teacher(s) max hours per morning/afternoon without adding teacher(s) max hours per day, in the Mornings-Afternoons mode?
I will add your suggestion in the TODO list, but it is unfortunately risky to change the currently working code.

But can't you simply use min hours daily with allow empty days? The only bad situation is you cannot force at least 1 hour on each day without
allowing empty days, but this is an improbable situation.

646------------------DONE in FET-6.27.0--------------------

647--------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6196.0

I think that the implementation of an option for not displaying specific activities would be useful in some situations. For example an option for
not displaying activities with a specific activity tag would solve this problem.

I am referring to the generated timetables. Especially the html ones. I am not referring to the way the activities are displayed in the FET UI.

648---------------------------------------------------------
From Thai Chi Phuong (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6112.msg34390#msg34390

I have a suggestion: Can you add a constraint so that in a set of n teachers there are 1, 2 or 3 teachers busy in a day/actual day.

649---------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Enable by default the colors in FET?
Or maybe if someone starts FET the first time it should ask him for some of his preferred default values?

Liviu Lalescu:

There are more places where there are colors: in the interface (constraints and view timetable dialogs, print from the interface,
and the HTML level 7).

650---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

If an activity has home room (example: R1) and preferred rooms (example: R1, R2, R3), prefer the home room (R1) over the other rooms.

651----------------------DONE-------------------------------

652----it was already done----------------------------------

653---------------------------------------------------------
From uni_instructor:

The 'all-time-constraints' menu allows you to adjust the selection with
filters, which is a useful feature.
Has there ever been any consideration of introducing a history for the
filter terms, so that you can select previously used search terms from a
pre-selection?

654---------------------------------------------------------
From Darren McDonald:

(Liviu Lalescu: Darren talks about the Filter group boxes in the time/space constraints. In the FET versions 6.28.0 and later we don't have a label to explain
that it filters by the teacher, students set, subject, activity tag, or room).

For me it’s fine, but I think a new user might find it a bit confusing (what is the filter in the first dropdown list? Where do I filter by teacher?, etc.).
A nice option (if possible) would be to have the default selection (when no filter item is chosen) appear instead as text (“Teacher” “Student” “Subject”, etc.).
Is that a possible?

Also Michael Towers suggested on the forum to add (restore as in FET-6.27.0) labels for the filters:
https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6242.0

Also Vangelis Karafillidis reported that the filter labels are missing.

655--------------------------------------------------------
From pnlshd (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6235.0

In an exam timetable, each subject has several exam sessions of varying counts between subjects. They are usually consecutive. There can be another
subject's exam in the same room after the first one given there are hours left.

I want to have at least one empty gap between the last activity of the first subject and the first one of the second one in the same room so as to make
room for teachers to be able to get out and let others in etc, if it has to put the second subject exam in the same room.

I've looked into teacher min gaps between room changes but this is not quite what I want.

I've also looked into min gaps between a set of activities but it works on the activities entered pairwise and I  don't know which activities will end up
consecutive. (Maybe I can do all the possibilities between the pairs of every other subject? I think it will have an exploding number of constraints this way)

Min gaps bw ordered pair of tags is specific to teachers and students, not rooms (that can have different teachers and students)

I am looking for something like room min gaps between two sets of activities, or room min gaps between a set of activity tags (and I can then assign a
different tag to each subject's activities so that no two subjects touch)

Maybe min gaps between activity tag switches?

Any ideas or workarounds? I can automate the creation of a workaround if it involves many constraints until a new one is introduced, if any.

Edit: teachers have max 0 room changes to stay in their room all day.

656--------------------------------------------------------
From pnlshd (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6238.0

I have a suggestion regarding the multi-threaded generation, when no timetable is generated, there can be more than one highest timetable, and if it completes,
there can also be one or more timetables

As far as I know, there is no way to select which highest (or completed) timetable to load in the application after generation ends, to view it the app itself
not using the files, view conflicts, export and so on.

I think currently some timetable gets selected and I am not sure which one, and I may want to work with another one (highest/completed).

So maybe it would be good to be able to select which one to load if there are multiple ones generated (or multiple highest) when attempting to close the multi
generation window (after having a look at the timetables using the generated files one can decide).

Another suggestion is very subtle and I don't know if it is on fet, but on single generation, when a new generation is stopped using view highest, it indeed
writes the new files in the old highest folder (I enabled single overwrite), but it somehow doesn't update the last modified date of the containing folder itself.

I am not sure if fet should do it. Still, it definitely helps to have that last modified time of the folder the same as the files inside it, because many times
there may be newer folders that show on top when I sort using last modified. I will have to look for the highest folder, double-check the last modified date of
the files inside, and so on.

657--------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Add a constraint of type subjects preferred rooms (to add a single constraint for multiple subjects, instead of one for each separate subject).

658---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

1) DONE

2) He sent to Liviu on Facebook a screenshot in the teachers / modify teacher dialogs, with texts: "Add button to change mode type of teachers with multi selection" and
"Qualified subjects and target hours with multi selection".

About (2), from Volker Dirr:

About the multi selection: In my opinion it can be used only very rarely,
at least in Germany, since nearly every combination is allowed and it is
very unlikly that you hire 2 teachers with the same subjects at the same
time. It is max "useful" if you use FET the first time. In normal case
you will never hire 2 teacher with the same subjects at the same time.
In my opinion a matrix with teachers - subjects where you can just
select/deselect a cell will be much better. Especialy if you can always
sort them by teacher name, subject and/or hide rows and columns.

659--------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Divide a year A by (1,2,3,4), (English Advanced, English Beginners), (French, German), (Technology 1, Technology 2), such that we have the groups:
A1 EA, A1 EB, A1 F, A1 G, A1 T1, A1 T2, ..., A4 T2.

Also, apply the same divisions from year A to year B (easier to input, to save time).

Liviu Lalescu:

I think adding a check box "First category divides permanently" and a push button "Copy categories/divisions from another year".

Vangelis Karafillidis:

Maybe a check box with the message generate additional groups accordingly to the first category?
And a push button with follow the dividing pattern of another year?

660--------------------------------------------------------
From Nahum Lipkunsky:

Groups' timetables in the FET GUI (now we have only the subgroups' timetables).

661---------------------------------------------------------
From Malamojka (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6252.0

I was just sorting out my timetable and was trying to find the fastest way to make my tags printable/not printable. I couldn't find a way to do it in bulks,
for instance to use ctrl+mouse click to chose more tags and then set printable/not printable for them but I had to click at every one of them and then set
printable/not printable for each of them. The same thing happens if you want to delete teachers for instance or delete subjects.

I noticed you can now activate more than one activity by using ctrl+mouse click or even shift+mouse click. Could you do that for tags/teachers/subjects also?

662---------------------------------------------------------
From Malamojka (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6254.0

Is there a possibility to include the number of students at seperate activities? The reason I need this and add it manually is that while I know the number
of students for each year/group/subgroup the number at an activity can vary (be higher or lower than what you would guess from the number of students in
year/group/subgroup), because we can always have last years students attending if they didn't pass or have students passing an exam one year in advance.
So for me it would be great if I could also import the number of students at an activity when importing activities.

663---------DONE in FET-7.3.1 on 14 July 2025---------------

664---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

Add a menu item to remove all the fet-results directory (he sent to Liviu Lalescu a picture in which this option is added in the menu to select the output
directory and whether to overwrite the single generation results).

665--------------------------------------------------------
From Nahum Lipkunsky:

2 activities - mutually exclusive (same group).
Both are constrained with the same preferred time (preset)
FET loops (forever?) - this is very easy to identify pre-run validation.

666--------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Implement the possibility to modify the whole selection of constraints in the specialized dialogs. The teachers/students/activities will remain constant,
and the rest of data will be set in all selected constraints.

Another suggestion from Vangelis: implement some check boxes for the information that should remain fixed and that which should be altered.

667--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

He sent Liviu Lalescu on Facebook a screenshot with suggestions to add the long name and the code of the teacher to show/hide; other suggestion
in this screenshot: A 'Hide' button in the timetable view days horizontal. Also, Lock/Unlock 'All time', 'All Space', 'All both'.

668--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

Stretch the timetables to occupy a whole page when printing them.

669---------------------------------------------------------
From Željko Vrabec (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6260.0

It would be really nice if tables in print (preview) dialog could be all the same width.

670--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

He sent Liviu Lalescu on Facebook two screenshots with suggestions:

1) Teachers:
 Subject: Math, etc., combo box
 Number of teachers to add: 6
 Qualified subjects: Math
 Target hours: ...
 Mornings-Afternoons behavior: Unrestricted (Algeria), combo box.

 Generate 6 teachers.

2) Add teacher:
 Mornings-Afternoons: Unrestricted (Algeria), list box (Liviu Lalescu: I think this is a mistake, should be list box for qualified subjects).
 Code: ...
 Long name: ...
 Qualified subjects: ... (Liviu Lalescu: I think list box).
 Target hours: ...

671--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

He sent Liviu Lalescu on Facebook a screenshot with suggestions:

In the view teachers days horizontal timetable, he added four circles: "Name", "Long Name", "Code", "Qualified Subjects", with arrows from "Filtered List of Teacher".
I (Liviu Lalescu) am not sure what the suggestion means exactly.

Further clarification by GUEFFAZ REDA:

Les profs seront filtrer par matiere.(qualified subjects)

672--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

He sent Liviu Lalescu on Facebook three screenshots in which the option "Merge" cells in the timetable view dialogs seemed not to work. The problem is that these
were two separate activities from the same larger split activity, which were placed consecutively. This is a feature, not a bug.

673--------------------------------------------------------
From Nahum Lipkunsky:

Do you remember I have mentioned the need to provide a partial
solution by eliminating the "hard to schedule activities"  as incremental
process ? Well, it proves to be very effective in the process of
identifying issues in the data.  I.e before we start the process of
relieving constraints, we
would like to keep the quality of the solution in a partial  solution and
check for data "modification" which can fix it.

Anyways it would be very helpful to enable activity deactivation from
the view of initial order evaluation.... it will save the need to close the
list,
look tor the activity by Id in the Activities list, and deactivate it
there, then re-generate.... or even better : a one click, deactivate and
re-generate would be very nice....

674--------------------------------------------------------
From Volker Dirr:

Why not adding the terms constraints always? So remove the terms mode,
add the constraint and then you can use terms mode constraint in
Official, MA and BP Mode.

675---------------------------------------------------------
From JOYAL ISAC S (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6288.0

Is it possible to import csv in time - teachers not available times.

676---------------------------------------------------------
From maumartelli (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6290.0

1) In the hours dialogs, add Up/Down buttons, to move/order the hours, as it is for example in the subjects dialogs.
Probably also for days.

2) Add an option to hide empty rows in the timetables.

677--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6292.0

He suggests a virtual break in the timetable view dialogs, just so that the timetable appears clearer
(for instance between the 2nd and the 3rd FET hours - for the Mornings-Afternoons mode).

678---------------------------------------------------------
From infoo_ (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6298.msg35006#msg35006

About constraints with times tables:

The possibility of dragging the mouse for multiple selection instead of single clicking on every adjacent slot of teacher not available times table
(and possibly other tables with X and empty):

It should also work in every direction (not only vertically).

679--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6311.0

Fixed Random Seed with checkbox

And show a warning that it is fixed

(GUEFFAZ REDA showed us a screenshot in the selection of the random seed, in which he added a check box, Fixed Random Seed.)

Volker Dirr:

I have got a similar feature in StElTo, but I have a single checkbox only. I can't see an advantage of 2 (or more) checkboxes. I can only see disadvantages
if you fix only some numbers.
But I must also admit, that I added this feature only while developing and checking my source to save a bit time as a developer in some rare cases. I can't see
advantages for normal users.
Also, StElTo is single core only. But FET is multi core. So be aware that core 2 and higher do other things than you expect and it is probably because of that
much more difficult to see that you fixed the seed.

So in my opinion: For developers this is sometimes useful. For normal FET users this is critical. I can't see advantages for normal FET users, I can see only
disadvantages for normal users.

Liviu Lalescu:

Yes, this is also my opinion. It is very risky for users, they might generate the same timetable over and over again. Yes, for multiple generation the random
seed is not the same, but will be constant for the same number of threads.

Volker Dirr:

I think/suggest:
If you add this feature, then always add a warning if you start generating, that the seed is fixed and that it is a normally bad idea to have a fixed seed.
Recommend to unfix it again.

680---------------------------------------------------------
From infoo_ (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6313.0

I would like to make a very small suggestion for tabs:

In multi generation menu:

Suppose 6 threads, it would be nice that we can do the following using wheel mouse and arrows keys when focus on tabs of threads:

1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> 1 -> ...

6 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 -> 6 -> ...

Actually we have:

1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> we can't return to 1

6 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 -> we can't return to 6

Also it can be implemented in Activity menu, subactivities tabs

This is for the solely purpose of checking more quickly max placed activities etc. For 2 or 3 threads (or subactivity tabs) it does not impact, but for
larger threads like 6 or 7 yes

681---------------------------------------------------------
From Bouredha Youcef (on Facebook):

Suggestion:
When, for example, the mathematics subject for a specific department consists of 5 sub-activities assigned to a specific professor
Subactivity 1 or Subactivity 2 is tagged with a specific tag
If we want to change the professor, the program removes the tag from the subactivity
We want the tag to remain for the subactivity if we change the professor

Liviu Lalescu:

I think you need to edit the subactivities, not the activities.
Change the teacher from the subactivities.

Bouredha Youcef:

When promoting more individuals or making it easier through agency
But if the number required to be changed is large, it will require more time

682---------------------------------------------------------
From Thai Chi Phuong (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6112.msg35051#msg35051

Can you help me add a constraint: "I have n teachers, in a real day/day only n-i teachers come to school."

The second post of Thai Chi Phuong:

Maybe my wording is not good, but my problem is: "I have a small group of teachers-teaching the same subject, and I want in 1 day/actual day only 1 (2) teachers
not to come to school". I used the maximum number of days constraint but encountered a case where there were days/actual days with many (2,3,4,..) teachers not
to come to school.

Liviu Lalescu:

I think you are suggesting the constraint for the minimum number of teachers from a set of teachers to be present on each day/real day. Unfortunately, it looks
complicated and also I am not sure it is possible to implement efficiently/feasible.

683---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

He suggested an option Merged/Not merged for the HTML timetables (for activities with duration >=2); the Not merged selection would help the import in a
spreadsheet program.

684---------------------------------------------------------
From infoo_ (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6319.0

I would like to suggest two buttons for activities dialog (maybe also Modify subactivities):

- One button for moving an activity up;
- One button for moving an activity down;

This is present in Time constraints dialog and it is nice, but not in activities.

Liviu Lalescu:

I think other users suggested this (or Sort activities). However:

1) Most important reason is that FET relies on increasing and adjacent ids for the activities.

2) I prefer to have the ids ordered, and also the first component is not indented, while the next are indented.

infoo_:

In that case, moving the entire split activity would be ok. I think users don't want to change subactivities order, but between activities

Liviu Lalescu:

It might be working this way.

Also, all the filters should be deactivated (Teacher, Students, Subject, Activity tag, and Filter).

685--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6320.0

GUEFFAZ REDA suggests a complex heading for printing the timetables, including a title, and information on the left and on the right above each
teacher's table. He also suggests to write the number of working hours for the teacher.

688--------------------------------------------------------
From Željko Vrabec (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6323.0

Is there a possibility to add an option to show long names of hours in timetables views?
(I know it's possible to switch long names and names in my case, but then I can't to get them to be unique.)

687--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6325.0

Sometimes we have to use the program with multiple databases to generate schedules or help some colleagues. Can you program the software to open, say,
four different databases and let it generate the tables all at once?

688--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6326.0

Shutdown - sleep  - save and locking  or  other option After end Generate.

689--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6329.0

Repeat Activities - with copy paste
select all ===> copy ====> paste To ...

GUEFFAZ REDA posted a picture of this suggestion, a modified activities dialog: "Copy all activities of
4M1 to other students: 4M2, 4M3, ..., without teachers, because the process is repeated with all in each level.

690--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6331.0

1- Display a message indicating that the database is locking on opening and show an image or color to reflect that.
note :
This usually appears before generating the tables by default.

These notes should be displayed, if possible, at the bottom of the program interface:
1- Display the size of the fet-results folder.
2- Display the size of the autosave folder.
3- Display the size of the Restore files.
4- Indicate whether the program is connected to the internet or not.

GUEFFAZ REDA also showed us a screenshot with a fet file in Windows explorer with added text:
"Autodetect icon of Database".

691--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6334.0

GUEFFAZ REDA showed a dialog listing the time constraints of type teacher not available times with an added Subject filter.

692--------------------------------------------------------
From Željko Vrabec (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6340.0

Is there a chance to store settings like output directory and stuff about html output into fet file rather than into fet config directory?
So when you open file you have all settings for that timetable. When you open some other file it contains settings for its timetable.

693--------------DONE in FET-7.1.2 on 30 March 2025--------

694---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

In the dialog for dividing a year automatically by selecting categories:

I think that automatic dividing years should have as default value for divisions/categories 1 and not 0. 0 seems little strange.

695---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

In the dialog for dividing a year automatically by selecting categories:

You have added as default separation character the "space" but it's actually "invisible" for the user.
Maybe you could add the word [SPACE] in gray font in order to "warn" the user.

696--------------------------------------------------------
From ygoldblatt (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6363.0

Is it possible to direct FET to color by year-groups not by subjects so that (for example) all year 7 classes are on color etc?

Is it possible to change the colors from the heavy dark colors that are default?

697--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

1) He sent a picture: add what is new in FET in the Help > About > News section.

2) He sent a picture: add a button for the Notification command in the Timetable > Generate multiple dialog.

698--------------------------------------------------------
From Herbadji Djamel (on Facebook):

We hope to add manual editing of classes after production, such as aSc time table.

699--------------------------------------------------------
From HAMMACHE_S (on Facebook):

We hope the possibility of manual modification will increase.

700--------------------------DONE--------------------------

701--------------------------------------------------------
From Nahum Lipkunsky:

Liviu's words: he suggested to add a text showing the difficult activity
(n_placed+1 in the initial order). But after Liviu showed him that the
difficult activity is shown when stopping the generation, he said it
was what he was searching for. However, more suggestions follow:

The option to click on it to stop the generation and go to the Activities
screen will be great.

The option to click it, deactivate it mid run or re-run run will be superb.

702--------------------------------------------------------
From Nahum Lipkunsky:

It seems that a teacher's gap is considered an empty slot between 2 non empty
slots  (we call it a window). However an empty slot on 1st hour  (we
call it a door)
is not considered a gap.  Is there a way to minimize doors as well
(for teachers)  ?

703--------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Constraints students (set) min days per week.

704--------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

Button for pausing (temporarily) the generation... plus exporting .fet file

(Vangelis refers to exporting a locked fet file from a partial generation, with a name other than file_data_and_timetable.fet.)

705--------------------------------------------------------
From Nahum Lipkunsky:

Nahum suggested a filter in the activities/time/space constraints dialogs, to show/hide the active/not active items. Liviu instructed
him to use the filter option with an option: "Detailed description contains/does not contain" "Active activity/time/space constraint=false".
So Nahum said this is a bit too complicated, and further suggested:

In the filter dialog add an option: save as ....(name) - to save filter configuration.
Then in the front screen add a section with toggle buttons (or combo box) to activate the saved filter.

706--------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6380.0

I have a scenario where on Mondays,only form 4 s are taught. Form 1-3 have exams same day. All classes are on sessions as from Tue to Fri.
Due to that, teachers can have session on Mon or not depending on whether they teach form 4. Is it possible to have min hours/sessions
that a teacher can have between Tue and Fri so that we don't have a scenario like i have attached of a teacher having 2 sessions in a day
and others have many. If this can happen, it can help in balancing.

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe "teacher(s) min hours daily with exception of one day".

Cyrus Ireri:

Can Min hours daily in an hourly interval be a solution more so when every day can be treated individually?

Just wondering though i know we only have Max hours daily in an hourly interval for all days.

707--------------------------------------------------------
From Željko Vrabec (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6384.msg35499#msg35499

Is there any plan to clear html structure?  :)

Liviu Lalescu:

How would you suggest to clear it?

Željko Vrabec:

1. Use HTML5 document structure:
    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
      <head>
        <title>My Web Page</title>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
      </head>
      <body>
        <h1>Welcome to my web page!</h1>
        <p>This is the content of my web page.</p>
      </body>
    </html>

2. Move tr with foot class into tfoot (out of tbody)

708--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

(translated from Arabic with Google Translate)

Color the teacher restrictions a specific color
Color the student restrictions a specific color
And color the spatial restrictions a specific color.
(In the 'All time constraints' dialog.)

709--------------------------------------------------------
From Lekcir Ali (on Facebook):

Is it possible for your program to allow users to make manual edits?

710--------------------------------------------------------
From Lekcir Ali (on Facebook):

Could you use artificial intelligence to further develop your program in order to make it easier to work with and to facilitate data entry and constraints?

711--------------------------------------------------------
From Omar (on Facebook):

(translated from Arabic with Google Translate)

Can developer Liviu Lalescu introduce artificial intelligence into the FET program? Is it possible, when copying tables in FET, to give the addition as
writing at the end of the tables the date of the supervisor, the manager? Is it possible, when producing tables when work is stopped, to directly
determine the entry that stopped work for students or teachers?

712--------------------------------------------------------
From mikkojoo (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6411.0

Add the constraints of type teacher(s) min hours per term (in the Terms mode). The variant with 'max' was implemented in version 7.2.4.

713--------------------------------------------------------
From alexwonglk (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6412.msg35649#msg35649

It would be a good feature in future versions that we can filter by the durations of sub-activities in constraints windows.

Liviu Lalescu: in recent FET versions you can add an activity tag to a selection of activities. Filter activities by duration, add tags say Duration1
and Duration2, add the corresponding tag to a whole selection of activities, and then in the constraints dialogs filter by tag.

Volker Dirr: Liviu, I think your idea is only a workaround, but not better.
You need to add such a tag to every activity. That is much work.
It will flood/increase the number of tags.
It will also "double" data. "Doubling" data is always bad, especially because you need to modify the duration sometimes and then there is a high risk
that you modify the duration but you forget to modify the tag. It will be very difficult to locate such a bug.

Liviu Lalescu: you can filter with an advanced filter the activities, and add a tag to the selection with a single click.

714---------------------------DONE in FET-7.2.6------------

715--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a picture of a CSV file for teachers, having as
labels: Teacher, Long name, Code, Target number of hours, Qualified subjects,
and Comments.

716---------------------------------------------------------
From Neury Nunes Cardoso:

I would like to make a suggestion because I believe it will be very useful in making use of previous plans. We know that class planning happens
cyclically and that for each of these cycles it is possible to reuse previous restrictions and plans. Therefore, when we search for a previous plan,
as a starting point, it would be convenient to have an indication within the restrictions menus if there is any registration for that specific
restriction. It could be just a symbol (for example: ✓) next to the menu option indicating that there is something registered for that restriction.

717--------------------------------------------------------
From abuayham2016 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6433.0

A new suggestion for enhancing HTML-generated tables :

Add New Option For Tables Repeating vertical and horizontal headers in the empty area or cell between days in order to make it easier for the user
to read long tables, especially if the time is horizontal or vertical.

718--------------------------------------------------------
From Carine (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6480.0

I suggest having the final printable format as an Excel file. This would make it easier to adjust the final layout and to add the school's logo.
I also recommend allowing sorting of teachers by cycles or groups, as well as sorting classes — it makes it easier to navigate, especially when
creating schedules for French schools.
One more suggestion, if possible: it would be helpful to generate a single schedule that includes classes with different period durations.

Volker Dirr:

If you have different time periods, then you must set smaller FET hours. For example if class A have got 45 minutes and class B 30 minutes,
then you need to set a FET hour as 15 minutes. So class A get 3 FET hours and class B get 2 FET hours.

719--------------------------------------------------------
From Fabio Lucchini:

He sent Liviu Lalescu his locked file, which was generated successfully (in approximately one hour). The locked file, instead of generating instantly,
seemed impossible to Fabio - but we needed to let FET generate on it some more, like some minutes. The problem is a combination of constraints
with weights near but less than 100% (in our case 99%). This was a known problem, reported previously by math.

Volker Dirr suggested this:

Generating a timetable where ALL activities are locked in time
AND/OR locked in space are not a rare case.

maybe we can fix this easy in the generation_pre.cpp:

If ALL activities have a locked time, then delete/remove/don't add time
constraints with less then 100%.

If ALL activities have a locked room, then delete/remove/don't add room
constraints with less then 100%.

So the source of generate.cpp can stay the same (untouched) by this
special check/feature.

720--------------------------------------------------------
From Mohamed Ait Ichou (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6447.0

I kindly suggest making the color selection option apply to all windows. In other words, when colors are chosen, they should be applied to all constraints.
In the latest versions, we have to reselect the colors each time we access a constraint, which is not a pleasant experience.

721-------DONE in FET-7.4.0 on 19 July 2025----------------

722--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu two pictures of the teachers' not available times time horizontal (and the suggestions are also for the students' not available
times time horizontal):

a) First picture:
	1. Color the columns according to the periods color by color so it is easier to concentrate.
	2. The name of the day is divided into columns and the original name is in each column.
	3. Rotate the name of the day.
	4. If I use the colored style, the vertical lines don't show up and I can't focus in the boxes.

b) Second picture:
	He suggested to color the half days alternating: green for morning and normal for afternoon.

723--------------------------------------------------------
From Yush Yuen:

I come back to a situation where I wish FET can do: randomly assign a teacher from a set of teachers.
I have activities, PE, that I don't care who is teaching it. However, assigning one teacher as opposed to
the other sometimes make other activities impossible or difficult. Something I cannot foresee.

I know we have talked about this many years ago already. And it is something very complicated to implement.
But I would stay that if FET is still missing any major feature (it has evolved into a very powerful
program!), I would say that the ability to choose a teacher from a set would be a very good one.

724--------------------------------------------------------
From Sérgio Augusto Dias Castro (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6460.0

This year, I started using the program to develop the school schedule for the educational institution where I work, the Federal Institute of Piauí.
I'm a math teacher and don't have much programming experience, so I watch YouTube videos to help me with the specifics I need. While developing the
schedules during this period, I encountered a problem: the teachers at my institution cannot teach classes in all three shifts in a single day
(morning, afternoon, and evening). They can teach classes in up to two shifts per day (morning and afternoon, morning and evening, or afternoon and evening).
As far as I've searched, FET doesn't have a feature that restricts this.

We have courses that are Technical Courses Integrated with High School, and although each class has a preferred shift (which must be full), they still need
classes in the afternoon to complete the workload (e.g., 2 INFO (Manhã) is a course that primarily has morning classes, but requires some afternoons to
complete the workload). So when I tried using the tags, I couldn't get it to work. Due to my limited experience, instead of dividing the breaks, I simply
created the periods and also made the break times for the classes unavailable.

The shift schedules are:
Morning: 7:30 to 12:00
Afternoon: 13:30 to 18:00
Evening: 18:00 to 22:00

Link for my code: https://gist.github.com/sergiocastro9/cfdf3d5fabfdd0ebf58bdf68394e669d

725--------------------------------------------------------
From midus74 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6461.0

ho visto che è possibile impostare il numero di ingressi alla seconda ora utilizzando questo vincolo:
"Un gruppo di studenti deve iniziare le lezioni presto, rispettando un numero max di ingressi alla seconda ora".

Esiste un vincolo per impostare il numero massimo di ingressi alla terza ora? oppure come posso fare?

In English, by Google Translate:

I saw that it's possible to set the number of entries for the second period using this constraint:
"A group of students must start class early, respecting a maximum number of entries for the second period."

Is there a constraint to set the maximum number of entries for the third period? Or how can I do it?

726-------------------DONE in FET-7.2.6--------------------

727--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a screenshot, showing that in Teachers' not available times time horizontal
views the days names are shown separately in the hours' columns.

Liviu Lalescu: Yes, indeed, this is not very nice, but a perfect solution, which would show a single
day name cell spanning over the hours of that day is quite complicated.

Also, this should be done in the other similar dialogs: Students' not available times time horizontal,
and teachers'/students'/rooms' timetables time horizontal.

728--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a screenshot, with tables with selected/deselected cells, with the user's choices
of generating a timetable: "Choice generate by students: all or by filter". The same idea for the subjects.

More explanations from GUEFFAZ REDA:

Adding a feature before starting the process of Generate timetables:
We choose to generate all the tables or choose the Students where we
want to be distributed. We select the Students where we want to
distribute the classes from the Filtered button.

The same idea for Subjects where we choose the Subject or Subjects we
want to distribute.

729--------------------------------------------------------
From Pass Enger (on Facebook):

Pouvez-vous ajouter la contrainte du nombre maximum de cours le soir pour un professeur et le nombre maximum de cours le matin pour un professeur ?

Liviu Lalescu:

Do you mean teacher(s) max hours per morning and teacher(s) max hours per afternoon?

Pass Enger:

Yes.

Il existe des établissements éducatifs qui fonctionnent quatre heures le matin et quatre heures le soir. Pour alléger la pression sur l'enseignant
afin qu'il ne travaille pas quatre heures complètes durant la période du soir, on peut ajouter une contrainte de nombre maximum de cours le soir ou
le matin pour un enseignant ou pour tous les enseignants.

Liviu Lalescu:

Can't you use teacher(s) max hours daily per real day?

Pass Enger:

Yes, I used the maximum limit of slots for a professor in a real day and set it to 6, but he can schedule 2 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening.

We have four evening classes. A group of professors must work for 3 hours in the evening—either by teaching the first three evening classes or the last three
evening classes.

Liviu Lalescu:

Then, I propose you to add n_afternoons constraints teachers pair of mutually exclusive time slots, for each afternoon add the first slot of that afternoon
and the last slot of that afternoon. It is exactly what you need.

Pass Enger:

I'll try to apply it... but the suggestion I gave you will be easy and straightforward to implement... I hope you succeed in applying it.

730--------------------------------------------------------
The first suggestion was done in FET-7.4.4 on 2025-08-09.

From Bachir Nacer Elhak Sayah (on Facebook):

2- always the same topic: if it is possible to select multiple teachers to change their type together... and not to do them one by one.

731--------------------------------------------------------
From Bachir Nacer Elhak Sayah (on Facebook):

He suggests that the teacher not available times dialogs should have a behavior like the teachers not available times time horizontal,
so the user can click and drag more cells, or click on a half day's header and change the cells only for a half day.

732--------------------------------------------------------
From aries10 (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6483.0

I'd like to suggest two changes to the activity constraints: the possibility to modify the percentage of the maximum or minimum number
of activities in the selected time slots to allow for more solutions to be found. At the moment, the constraint is only at 100%.

Liviu Lalescu:

Please confirm me that you refer to the constraints min/max simultaneous activities in selected time slots.

aries10:

Yes, I confirm this.

733--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent more screenshots and messages as FET suggestions to Liviu Lalescu:

1. After the user inputs the activities, he can create the teachers' qualifications from these activities.

2. Add the number of activities and the duration of the activities for the teacher in the teacher's not available times dialog.

3. Raport detaillee pour les classes et les professeur nb trous nb demi-journee libres nb journee libres (add detailed statistics
for the students and the teachers in the Mornings-Afternoons mode for half-days).

4. After the user interrupts the single timetable generation, he gets a dialog with the order of the impossible activities. He suggested
to highlight the locked activities (he suggested the yellow color).

734--------------------------------------------------------
From Youssef Bourdha (via GUEFFAZ REDA, on Facebook), copied by Liviu Lalescu on the forum:
https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6491.0

Google Translate from Arabic to English:

This is a suggestion from Brother Youssef Bourdha
To develop a new entry
Develop the existing entry
There is an entry
Students arrive early, maximum start time in the second period
---------
We add a new entry
--------
Students arrive early, maximum start time in the third period
----*****-------
Thus, we use the first entry to prevent attendance in the second period by setting it to 0
And we allow attendance and start time with the third period with the new entry

Liviu Lalescu:

It is not like that
Max 0 beginnings at second hour means that the students will always begin at the first hour.
The solution might be another new constraint, if the students have activities at the second hour they must have also activities in the first hour.

See also item #755.

735--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a screenshot, with the timetable generate single dialog, and the text over the button of writing the highest-stage timetable:
"Automatically write over the file every time if it exceeds half the number of activities."

He said that he generated for 30 hours and the power supply went off, and he lost all that computation.

736---------------------------------------------------------
From Khineche Kaddour (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6499.0

Google translate from Arabic to English:

After the recent updates, the tables now display beautifully, especially in the outputs groups_days_horizontal.html and teachers_days_horizontal.html.
However, we still use print utilities to add headings above the student and teacher tables, such as:
People's Democratic Republic of Algeria
Ministry of National Education
Directorate of Education for the State: Name of State
High School: Name of High School
Academic Year: 2025/2026
This is in the center of the page, in clear, somewhat large fonts above each student and teacher table.
My suggestion: Is it possible to add an option to place this information from the program so that it appears in all tables, in the center of the page,
and in large fonts? This way, we can print directly from the output without resorting to utilities.
Thank you very much for the wonderful program.

Liviu Lalescu:

Khineche Kaddour posted an example picture. The header is centered horizontally and above the table, and has some lines with larger fonts than the table's,
and some with fonts the same size as the table's.

737---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=2607.msg36075#msg36075

(Possibly continuing item #267)

Liviu Lalescu:

I have a question, related to http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=2603.msg14012#msg14012 :

A constraint min days between activities, with force consecutive if same day = true. Can (should) two activities if on the same day span over a break?

In the present, two activities cannot be consecutive on the same day over a break if force consecutive is selected.

If I make this change, to allow spread over a break, I cannot undo it in subsequent FET versions.

Benahmed Abdelkrim:

Suggestion: If it is possible to add this feature as an option (selection box) to this constraint, it would be better and beneficial for everyone.

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe we could make the "force consecutive if on the same day" with three values: no, yes_continuously, yes_allowed_breaks_in_between, or something like that.

Or maybe the three-valued option:

"Consecutive if on the same day":

- "Indifferent". Or "Don't care".
- "Consecutive but allow break in between".
- "Consecutive" (default when adding a split activity or a constraint min days between activities).

When reading old files, make the new setting indifferent (if NO), or consecutive (if YES).

Benahmed Abdelkrim:

Maybe, but I prefer to leave things as they are, and simply add one line with a selection square: allow a break between activities.

Or this sentence:Allow consecutive activities to spread after a break time.

Or this: if consecutive allow activities to spread after a break time.

Liviu Lalescu:

I noted your opinion, but we need to think of this: adding two Boolean variables for a constraint complicates things. Also, there are not really 2x2=4 options,
but only 3, because if the "Force consecutive if on same day" is false, the new variable "Allow breaks between activities" is useless.

Benahmed Abdelkrim:

Yes, I agree with you. It will be as you said: useless because the new variable will only work if the first variable works, but it is simple and
understandable and does not complicate things too much.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

I thought that the clearest form for this feature would be a double check box. The first part should be "consecutive if on the same day".
This first part should always be "active" (i.e. the user should always be able to check/uncheck it); the second part should be "inactive"
(i.e. the user should not be able to select anything) when the first check box is unchecked) and become automatically "active"
(i.e. the user should be able to check it) when the first check box is checked, and appear by default unchecked when the first one is unchecked.
This second part should be a "sub-option" (a "nested" option) and appear "indented" to the right (when compared to the first part/option).
I think that the indication "allow break(s) between consecutive activities" is the clearest one I could think of.

Liviu Lalescu:

Also, for the Mornings-Afternoons mode, the two activities must be on the same half day if they are on the same real day. This is current in FET.
Do you need to allow one activity morning and the other afternoon?

Benahmed Abdelkrim:

I think that for the morning - afternoon mode it does not matter; the 2 activities placed in the same half-day or separated, one in the morning
and the other in the afternoon... but we must accept that this is relative and depends a lot on the wishes of the users.

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe allowing breaks for the constraint (the check box would be checked) would allow one activity in the morning and the next one in the afternoon;
otherwise, they must be immediately consecutive on the same half day.

Benahmed Abdelkrim:

Agree with this idea.

738---------------------------------------------------------
From Mo Da (on Facebook):

Would it be possible to add a feature to your program FET that consists of a button allowing the user to return to the last state
(or several previous states) before changing activities and constraints in the timetable, or to go back to one of the previous
generated versions.

739---------------------------------------------------------
From Aboulhamid (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6491.msg36105#msg36105

Currently, the program includes two categories of constraints depending on the scope: one that applies to an individual teacher, and another
that applies to all teachers.
If possible, it would be highly appreciated to add a third category of constraints that applies specifically to a selected group of teachers.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

Liviu.

I think that there might be some kind of misunderstanding...
There are two variants.
1) The "literal" variant: The user needs to define a group of teachers and then apply the necessary constraints to this group of teachers.
2) The "functional" variant: The user can select the teachers they need (let's say by clicking on the respective checkbox for each one of
the teachers), and then add the constraint to the selected teachers (practically: add multiple constraints at once... one constraint for
each one of the selected teachers).

The 1st variant seems to be what Aboulhamid suggested, and most likely it's difficult and tricky to code.
The 2nd variant, seems (at least to me) to be primarily some kind of UI "manipulation", which most likely does not need some "tricky" code
for defining groups teachers, plus some "exotic" code for applying constraints to groups of teachers. Maybe... the 2nd variant (regarding
the functionality part) is a good option, without severe implications regarding the coding part. What do you think Liviu? And... what do
other users think about these variants?

Liviu Lalescu:

Vangelis, I considered the first variant (defining groups of teachers).

740---------------------------------------------------------
From islam (on Facebook):

I want to suggest to add a new constraint if you can, max resting hours between morning and afternoon for a teacher.

741---------------------------------------------------------
From YOUSSEF HOUIET (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6504.0

I noticed a possible issue in FET when using the constraint A set of activities has a set of preferred starting times.

If I add this constraint with duration = 2, while in fact the file contains no activities of duration 2, FET shows the following error when
starting generation the timetable:

(and attached is a screenshot: "Following constraint is wrong (refers to no activities). Please correct it:".)

742---------------------------------------------------------
From YOUSSEF HOUIET (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6505.msg36119#msg36119

I have an idea to help the user input sets of time slots by using colors for the fields, all the fields of the same group having the same color.

(YOUSSEF HOUIET refers to the dialog of adding/modifying the constraints of type teacher(s)/students (set) occupy max sets of time slots from selection,
where there is a table of spin boxes.)

743---------------------------------------------------------
From thiagonunes (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6508.0

I would like to suggest that the csv file export include information like teacher's long name and code. The same for students, subjects and spaces.
I usually use these file to customize HTML and CSS.

744---------------------------------------------------------
From Anisse Hanifi (on Facebook):

When the program stops production, can the program indicate the restriction that hinders production and not activity?

Also, number the entries in the list (the time and space constraints).

745---------------------------------------------------------
From Thai Chi Phuong (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6512.0

First of all, thank you for the new constraint group in the August 21 update. I appreciate this constraint, but I think if possible, can you add an option
for users to do a maximum of 1 or 2 for each day instead of the whole week as it is currently? I am seeing that if each day is divided into 3 shifts and
the constraint is a maximum of 2 shifts, the teacher will do the whole week as shifts 1 and 3 or shifts 1 and 2 or shifts 2 and 3. I mean it is random
to do 1 or 2 shifts per day, for example Monday is shifts 1 and 2; Tuesday is shifts 2 and 3; Wednesday is shifts 1 and 3, ...

YOUSSEF HOUIET:

You need to add the constraint day by day, that is, for each day of the week a separate constraint has to be added.

Thai Chi Phuong:

I understand this, but what I mean is can I add an optional command button: "For all" or "For specific days"?

But if my school has 50 teachers and each teacher repeats 5 to 6 times, I see the constraints created are a lot.

Before suggesting I did as You said, but I still like it to have a checkbox, for example: "Apply to all" or "Apply to each day" or have a range of checkboxes;
"Monday"; "Tuesday"; "Wednesday"; ...

YOUSSEF HOUIET:

Maybe an option "days sparated" is solution.

746---------------------------------------------------------
From Ngô Minh Ngọc (on Facebook):

The constraint "a set of activities are ordered", generalizing the constraint "two activities are ordered".

747---------------------------------------------------------
From YOUSSEF HOUIET (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6517.0

In Morocco, it is often very difficult to assign one teacher to the same room throughout the entire week. Teachers usually have to use more than one room.

Currently, the only way to control this situation in FET is by assigning a large number of possible rooms to a teacher's activities, and then adding the
constraint "activities occupy max different rooms". While this works technically, many users find it complicated and not very intuitive, since it requires
select theacher's activities.

To simplify this, I suggest introducing a new direct constraint:
"Teacher(s) occupy max different rooms"

This constraint would allow the user to directly set the maximum number of different rooms a teacher may use, without having to go through the step of
selecting activities.

Such a feature would be especially helpful for Moroccan schools (and possibly elsewhere) where room allocation is highly constrained and teachers are
often forced to rotate between several rooms.

748---------------------------------------------------------
From SATIA.OUSAMA (on Facebook):

Existe-t-il cette contrainte : un groupe d’enseignants travaille dans la même plage horaire ?

Liviu Lalescu:

You can add a constraint activities occupy max time slots from selection, with all activities of these teachers, select with X (red) all the slots of the week,
max occupied = max(duration of activities of teacher). This is if you want an exact overlapping. For only the beginning and ending of the timetable of the teachers,
there is no such constraint.

From SATIA.OUSAMA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=1220.msg36224#msg36224

Please add the following constraint:
A group of teachers works in the same time slot.

749--------DONE in FET-7.5.1 on 27 September 2025-----------

750------------------------DONE-----------------------------

751---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6527.0

I have a small idea that could be very useful while working with FET.

When we start a single generation, it would be nice to have a button inside that window which allows us to switch directly to multiple generation — without losing
the first single generation result.

This way, if we begin with a quick single generation and later decide to continue testing multiple generations, we won't need to restart the process from scratch.

I think this could save time and make the workflow smoother.

752---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6528.0

Right now, we can export timetables as HTML or PDF, which is great.
I think it would be even more powerful if we also had the option to export directly to Excel (XLSX) format.

That way, schools could easily make small manual adjustments or apply custom formatting in Excel after generating the timetable with FET.

753---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6529.0

I'd like to suggest a new feature in FET: the ability to define some activities as optional.

Here's how I imagine it could work:

First, we run the normal generation for all compulsory activities.

After that, there could be a button or option to "Add Optional Activities".

FET would then try to place these optional activities into the existing timetable, depending on the availability of teachers, students, and classrooms.

The duration of an optional activity could be flexible, for example: it might fit as 1 hour or 2 hours, depending on what FET can find.

These optional activities could be scheduled even if they create gaps in teachers' or students' timetables.

A stop condition could be set: for example, FET stops adding optional activities once it has successfully placed a specified number of them.

If no space is found, optional activities would simply remain unscheduled without affecting the main timetable.

This way, schools could handle enrichment or extra lessons more flexibly, without compromising the core timetable.

754---------------------------------------------------------
From drvemana (on guestbook):

I would like to suggest that, if possible, kindly provide one more student group under the subgroup.
Example: Year - July 2025 Term, Group - UGProg_Arts, Subgroup - Section_A. If one more subgroup under
Section_a, it is useful for group students for common elective subjects from core subjects.

755---------------------------------------------------------
From Bahri Abderezak (on Facebook):

A suggestion that will surely help lots of schools in different countries .. which is related to the numerous classes in comparison to the number of rooms
.. a suggestion to help reducing the entrance/ exit movement of students to the school .. through introducing a new constraint if it s possible..
which makes all classes start studies whether at session 1 or 3, to avoid entrance at 9 (it is similar to .. all sts start early constraint, but different
in starting the third hour).

See also item #734.

756---------------------------------------------------------
From YOUSSEF HOUIET (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6541.0

A set of overlapping activities

This new constraint would allow a defined set of activities to overlap in time (partially or fully).

Possible use cases include:

-Two or more teachers working at the same time.
-Two or more student groups scheduled at the same time whenever possible (for example, to ensure they can share the same school transport in rural areas).
-Synchronizing multiple sub-activities in pairs (such as English and Spanish lessons running in parallel).

This constraint is related to the existing "A set of activities occupies max selected time slots", but it would be more practical to have a dedicated one
for overlapping activities.

If it is easy to implement, the new constraint would be very useful. Otherwise, the existing constraint can still be used as an alternative.

757---------------------------------------------------------
From Hamou Berkouche (on Facebook):

Would it be possible for you to add a constraint that reduces the break period for teachers between the morning and afternoon sessions?

758--------------DONE in FET-7.10.0-------------------------

759---------------------------------------------------------
From Syed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6545.0

I'd like to suggest a UI enhancement that could make FET even more user-friendly. In dialogs such as Activities, Subjects, Teachers, Students, and Constraints,
the lists can become quite long and difficult to navigate. It would be extremely helpful to have a fold/expand toggle for grouped items—similar to how code
folding works in editors like VS Code.
For example:
•    In the Activities dialog, fold all activities under "O1 Business" or "O2 Science"
•    In the Subjects dialog, collapse subjects by department or level
•    In Constraints, group and fold by type (e.g., time constraints, space constraints)
This would make it much easier to focus on specific sections without excessive scrolling, especially when working on large timetables.

760---------------------------------------------------------
From Devrim Altınkurt (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6555.0

I think the following constraint could be added:
If a teacher has less than X (total activity hours) hours of activity, they must be in school for a maximum of Y days.

For example,
(there are 10 hours per day)

- if a teacher has less than 20 total activity hours, they must be in school for a maximum of 2 days.
- if a teacher has less than 35 total activity hours, they must be in school for a maximum of 4 days.

761---------------------------------------------------------
From abououbeida (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6571.0

I hope that Mr. Livio will add the possibility of adding a period to an activity, for example: an activity that includes 02 periods, I want to make
it 03 periods instead of deleting it and adding it again with 03 periods.

762---------------------------------------------------------
From niobee (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6066.msg36425#msg36425

We have 6 hours per day, some teachers want to work maximum 4h a day, some others are willing to work up to 5h a day one teacher told me he can also work 6 hours.

For the teachers willing to work 5 or 6 hours a day I would like this to happen only one day a week.
But then a second day could have a break, so the teacher is at school 5h, but only 4 of them are with students.

I allready put minimum hours per day (2 for each teacher) and maximum hours per day (4, 5 or 6 per day, depending on the teacher). I also put maximum 1h a day
and 3h a week for "ore buca" so hours when the teacher isn't in a class and 2h a day and 3h a week for those teachers who want to stay only 4h in class.

(hope I explained everything well)

Now my problem is that some teachers are working 5 hours two times a week. I tried "Teachers max span" but it doesn't generate a timetable. What else could I try
to solve this issue?

763---------------------------------------------------------
From xtzetzias (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6587.0

I've have a question and perhaps a request. Is there a way to set min gaps per day or per week for a teacher? I don't see a relative constraint.
It seems a bit strange perhaps, but i need it.
If there isn't a way, then could two constraints be added? One for min gaps per day and one for min gaps per week.

Liviu Lalescu:

If you need a variable break, you could use teacher(s) max hours daily in an hourly interval.

xtzetzias:

I will think more of it, but at a first thought, i cannot find a way to use the constraint you propose. What i'm trying to do is to force a teacher
spend a min hours per day at school which is more than the actual teaching hours. For example if a specific timetable gives him or her 2 teaching
hours on Tuesday, then there should be at least one gap between these two hours, so that he stays for at least three hours at school.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

Liviu, this situation is quite common in Greek schools. The directors of studies expect the teachers to have a minimum number of gaps (especially per week),
in order to provide "secretarial" support services. Constraints such as "teacher(s) - min gaps per day", "teacher(s) - min gaps per week",
"teacher(s) - min span per day", "teacher(s) - min span per week" (or maybe... "teacher(s) - min hourly span per week" or something like that)
are in some cases quite useful.

Maybe something like "teacher(s) - min total hourly span per week" could solve these problems. I think that most of the time, "min gaps" could be
"replaced" with the above mentioned constraint.

xtzetzias:

I was thinking last week what you just wrote, if "teacher(s) - min total hourly span per week" could replace "min gaps per week". It can, i think.
However, in terms of per day restriction, i think it's not the same. "Min total hourly span per day" is not such a good replacement for "min gaps per day".
It's more restrictive, because it forces a somehow evenly distribution of teaching hours, even when it is not necessary (or else many gaps could be placed
in the same day, which is not good). It should be used along with other restrictions, in order to give the same result.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

It seems that this situation occurs in quite many cases in Greek schools. What I think is that "teacher(s) - min total hourly span per week"
in combination with existing constraints could solve the real-life problem we both described, at least in most cases.

Liviu Lalescu:

I also added this further conversation in the TODO. However, I am not sure it is possible/feasible.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

Liviu, this is not an "exact" problem. Let's say that the timetabler just needs to achieve a minimum number of gaps for specific teachers. This can be
achieved via different approaches (theoretically). ANY of this approaches could be useful towards this direction. For example, if the implementation
of "teacher(s) - min daily span" is easy, this could provide the timetabler with a tool to solve this type of problems. The exact constraint is not
so important. The important part is to have ANY kind of constraint that helps the timetabler.

764---------------------------------------------------------
From Andrea Primiani:

(Following an email correspondence with Liviu Lalescu, about the symbols and the colors of the table cells in the constraints of type not available,
preferred times, occupy min/max time slots from selection, and min/max simultaneous in selected time slots.)

I'm not sure to agree totally in the use of this same red/green tables
in different context, since the meaning of the colors is not always the
same and the meaning is somewhat reversed (not available/available
teacher hours vs. selected/not selected hours for activities).

765---------------------------------------------------------
From alege (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6600.0

The first and most difficult part of the message/suggestions was done in FET-7.5.0. The second part is written below:

Un'altra richiesta: sarebbe comodo se FET evidenziasse in qualche modo i "moduli di trasferimento" (viaggi tra un plesso e l'altro) nell'interfaccia grafica e
nelle statistiche avanzate, anche per distinguerli dai semplici "buchi": ne teniamo conto in fase di scelta fra i possibili orari prodotti da FET, un orario
con meno trasferimenti complessivi è più efficiente (e, di solito, più gradito dai colleghi...soprattutto quando piove :p).
Al momento lavoriamo con un tapullo fatto combinando fogli excel...ma non è un granché...

Google Translate to English:

Another request: it would be helpful if FET somehow highlighted the "transfer modules" (trips between one campus and another) in the graphical interface and
in the advanced statistics, also to distinguish them from simple "gaps": we take this into account when choosing among the possible schedules produced by FET;
a schedule with fewer overall transfers is more efficient (and, usually, more popular with colleagues... especially when it rains :p).
At the moment we're working with a patchwork made by combining Excel spreadsheets... but it's not great...

766---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6618.msg36679#msg36679

I would also kindly suggest adding in the future:

Export timetables to Excel (XLSX)

767---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6619.0

I would like to suggest adding a new type of constraint:

Constraint: "Rooms available for a teacher in specific time slots"

This constraint allows us to specify that a particular room is NOT available for a teacher during certain time slots, and it can be applied separately to each room.

The program would then take this into account during timetable generation, ensuring that the teacher is assigned only to the allowed rooms at the specified times.

For example:

A teacher may have two rooms during the week.

We may want to fix that in the first 4 days the teacher uses room 1, and in the last 2 days the teacher uses room 2.

Currently, simply allowing two rooms may lead to a timetable where the teacher alternates randomly between the two rooms. This new constraint would prevent that.

---

I understand that the current constraint teacher room not available times already exists, but what I am suggesting is slightly different.

The new proposed constraint is about directly assigning one or more specific rooms to a teacher in certain time slots, not just forbidding rooms.

For example:

I want to assign Room 1 to a teacher during the first days of the week,

and Room 2 to the same teacher during the last days.

With the current constraint, I would have to forbid many rooms for the teacher, which is less practical. It would be better to have a direct assignment of
specific rooms to a teacher in chosen time slots.

768---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6620.0

Thank you for your continuous improvements in FET. I would like to suggest a new type of guide/constraint regarding time restrictions for activities.

Constraint: "Activities available to different teachers"

This would allow an activity to be initially assigned to a first teacher, as usual.

After the timetable generation, it would give the possibility to link the same activity to a second teacher, without causing conflicts or errors for
students or other teachers.

The main goal is to provide flexibility: if the first teacher is absent, the activity can be assigned to the second teacher directly.

I am aware that we cannot use tags for this purpose, but using tags might complicate the process later. Therefore, it would be better to have a specific
constraint directed at one activity or a group of activities, allowing them to be assigned to two different teachers in a controlled way.

This feature would be very helpful for schools where certain activities can be taught by more than one teacher or in cases of temporary teacher absence.

Liviu Lalescu:

But, could you think of constraint activities min simultaneous in selected time slots?

Alami Mohammed:

Regarding the constraint activities min simultaneous in selected time slots: I have already tried to use it in one of my timetables. The difficulty is
that the user needs to manually select all the time slots for each teacher's activity, and also add other constraints like no gaps, minimum hours,
and many more. This makes the process complicated.

In the new constraint I suggested, the program itself would handle the distribution more effectively. The user only defines that an activity is available
to two teachers, and FET would automatically decide the placement of the activities and the possible substitution for the second teacher in case of absence.
This would be much simpler and more efficient.

YOUSSEF HOUIET:

You can use dummy activities assigned to the second teacher and make them simultaneous with the main teacher's activities.

Alami Mohammed:

But in this way we will exhaust the halls theoretically because every activity, whether real or fake, must be provided with a specific place for it.
However, if the matter is done through registration, the place will be reserved for only one activity.

Liviu Lalescu:

An activity can end up in an unspecified room (meaning it will have no room) if there are no space constraints for it.

Alami Mohammed:

I would like to clarify my idea in more detail, so that the goal of this new constraint becomes clearer.

The main objective of "Activities available to multiple teachers" is not to make two teachers teach the same activity simultaneously, but rather to define an alternative teacher for the same activity in a flexible and conflict-free way.

For example:

Suppose "Math – Class 2A – Monday 10:00" is normally assigned to Teacher A.

In the same activity, we could also specify Teacher B as an "available alternative teacher."

This means:

FET would still treat the activity as belonging to Teacher A in the generated timetable.

However, in the data structure, the system would recognize that Teacher B is also compatible with that same activity, and can replace Teacher A if necessary (for example, in case of absence or substitution).

The advantage of this approach compared to using "dummy" simultaneous activities is:

1. No duplicate room usage – the activity only occupies one room.

2. No artificial load increase for Teacher B – the program knows it's an optional link, not a real assignment.

3. Simpler data structure – no need to create extra activities or multiple constraints manually.

4. Better flexibility for real schools, where substitution is common.

Technically, this new constraint could act as a "link" or "secondary teacher option" associated with a specific activity or group of activities, without affecting the rest of the timetable generation process.

I believe this feature could be a powerful improvement, especially for schools that need automatic flexibility in case of teacher absence or activity sharing between teachers.

769---------------------------------------------------------
From Dr Amit Sharma (on guestbook):

I kindly request you to add a feature that allows us to select and display certain information from the existing data, such as teachers’ load or the
full forms of abbreviations, at the bottom of each timetable page—provided there is sufficient space available.

770---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

I have a request. Sometimes the ConstraintActivityTagsNotOverlapping has tags that no activity belongs to. Can this be ignored instead of throwing an error?
This will help me to progressively create a timetable in steps where the tags I'd need are there already.

Generally in the fet if something can be ignored, ignore it with a warning not an error.

771---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

Perhaps you can also add a time/space constraint between students
So I don't have to put it to all their activities
Ie I may have three years. A1, A1SYN, A1ENG
These must not overlap but currently I have to put that constraint in all their activities

772---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

I'm introducing ConstraintTeacherPreferredRooms, in which the processor will convert to preferred rooms for activities before sending to FET.
I will AND it with the lesson preferred rooms and place the result in the activity preferred rooms.

I'd suggest you drop the home room and replace it with that.

The same for ConstraintStudentsSetPreferredRooms. A class might have a preferred room. This is VERY common.

773---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

It would help IF, if a specific thread makes it to something high, the rest of the threads could be "restarted" at that position.

774---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

For presentation
I have for example year A and A1 A2
But, at some point, another set of students create two classes,
So, it would be nice if a print out of years can be combined in html output

Liviu Lalescu:

Combine 2 years in HTML printout?

Michael Chourdakis:

Let me explain
I have a year A and two groups A1 and A2
But, for two hours per week, these A students form another set of groups, AX and AY. These activities are separated.
So I want a print which includes All the students that belong to A
Not one with A and one with the other year

Liviu Lalescu:

I don't understand, you have in HTML results the years' timetable

Michael Chourdakis:

Let me give another example
I have students 1, 2, 3 and 4
Students 1 and 2 belong to A1 Group and 3, 4 belong to A2
I have another year Az which has two groups AX and AY. AX has students 1 and 3 and AY 2 and 4
So I want a print for student 1 with both of its years

775---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

what would help is to specify a color, so html colors are groupped.

Liviu Lalescu:

You mean the user to specify the colors, not random?

Michael Chourdakis:

Yes. I want a tag to have a specific color so in the print I can debug more easily.

776---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

It would greatly help if once you reach a long problem (i.e. stuck in activity X, to show a log to show all failed constraints for the activity that can't be placed).

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, I think this is impossible... but I will add in the TODO, and think of it, maybe it is possible.

Michael Chourdakis:

Just keep a log of the constraints that fail.

777---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

Also, something that would help. In Win32 non console it is not posssible to send a ctrl+c. Perhaps fet-cl would accept a command line flag of a "termination"
HANDLE of an EVent -> Easier to communicate
also, something that would help: the ability to "resume".
i.e. i stop a fet generation and keep the current state to restart later, perhaps with different seeds

778---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

In fet-cl it says that a "sigwrite" file will write the current timetable, but i only get .html files. It would be nice if I get a .xml file of the current
like the finishing version.
and then another fet can start from that with different seeds
the idea is to "punch" stuck fets with a more progressed version

---

Do think the fact about partial restart please
It seems useful
Perhaps you can save the state and restart based on new seeds

779---------------------------------------------------------
From Herbadji Djamel (on Facebook):

I have a small suggestion, if possible:
It would be helpful to add a constraint that limits the maximum number of activities with the same tag in one time slot.
Instead of having to apply this constraint repeatedly for each individual slot, it would be more convenient if it could be applied once for the whole day.

Liviu Lalescu:

Can't you use max simultaneous activities in selected time slots? For a tag which interests you.

Herbadji Djamel:

Yes, I can, but it needs to be applied separately for each time slot.
My suggestion is to add an option to apply this constraint once — for example, to set the maximum number of activities with a certain tag during a time
period — and have it applied automatically for the whole day at once.

779---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

I added <Coordinates> tag to the Building. Perhaps you want to add a distance constraint.

780---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6660.0

I would like to propose a new possible constraint named:
"Preferred room for a teacher in a specific time interval."

This constraint would allow assigning a preferred room to a particular teacher during defined time periods.

It would be especially useful in situations such as:

When a teacher needs to stay in the same room from Monday to Friday for better stability and organization.

While on Saturday, teachers can freely change their rooms or be assigned randomly, depending on the schedule.

This feature would bring more flexibility and realism to timetables, particularly in institutions where teachers have fixed rooms most of the week but
variable rooms on certain days.

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe a good thing in FET would be to double each type of home and preferred room(s) constraint to a new constraint type, to action only in a selection of time slots.

YOUSSEF HOUIET:

This can be achieved by assigning preferred rooms to each teacher and adding constraints for unavailable times for both room and teacher — particularly for rooms other than the one the teacher prefers to use at specific times.

Alami Mohammed:

I think your idea of extending the existing Home Room and Preferred Room(s) constraints to work on selected time slots would be an excellent and more general solution than introducing a completely new constraint.

The current workaround using unavailable times for teachers and rooms is possible, but it requires creating many additional constraints, making the timetable more complex and difficult to maintain, especially in large institutions.

Allowing the existing room constraints to apply only to selected time slots would provide a much cleaner and more flexible solution while remaining fully consistent with FET's current design.

781---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

Perhaps you can add a post processing of the rooms. Ie after fet has created a timetable, see if you can switch rooms based on teacher preference.

I.e. lesson A has no requirements and is placed in R1 and T1 has R1 as preferred room and it's activity can be placed in R1 -> swap instantly.

782---------------------------------------------------------
From boubata (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6685.0

I wonder if it is possible to provide the ability to customize the colours in FET by subjects and teacher to let us control the results effectively.

---

I think it can be added in dialogue box of subjects, groups and rooms.

783---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

Please consider a) saving the state and b) introducing subconstraints with OR.

784---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Towers (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6688.0

Having done some work on interfacing FET with other software, it seems to me that it might be useful in some cases to have Code and Comments fields on
more elements.

The current state seems to be:

Day and Hour elements have neither Comments nor Code.

Activity elements have no Code.

Constraint elements have no Code – and also no unique identifier like Id or Name.

You probably had reasons for your choices, but if it is not too much work, perhaps it might be helpful to some people if these fields were also available
on these elements (I may have missed something ...).

785---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Towers (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6689.0

I guess this one might be quite a bit more work (so I could understand you wanting sponsorship for something like this), but I think it might be a good idea
for those cold, dark winter days ...

My suggestion is to make a library version of FET, rather like the command-line version, but interfacing via some communication mechanism (callbacks,
messaging, whatever, ...). Or it could be an HTML server, using JSON messages for example ...

Anyway, this FET version would create no files, but pass all generated data and progress information back to the client, which could do with it whatever it
wanted. Control of the processes, setting of options, etc., would be done by messages from the client.

786---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

We had a discussion about some issues which a user encountered when using the constraint "a set of activities occupies max time slots from selection".
If the number of max time slots is n and the number of the selected time slots is m, and n>m the constraint is ignored. It would be really useful if
the user had some kind of warning that this constraint is going to be ignored. The same applies for the constraint "a set of activities occupies min
time slots from selection".

Liviu Lalescu:

The Help description and the constraints' names should be self-explanatory.
Also, it is tricky: for max, if n>=m the constraint is ignored,
otherwise it is useful, while for min, if n<=m the constraint is
useful, otherwise it is impossible.

787---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on Facebook):

We had a discussion about Greek institutions' timetabling. A functionality to keep a quite similar timetable to what was generated would be useful. We could
add a new type of time constraint, activity preferred starting _window of_ time. It will accept for the day and for the hour either a range
[a, b], or a centered range, [c+a, c+b]. The user will convert from the starting time to the starting window of time from the timetable view dialogs.

788---------------------------------------------------------
From Pietro Giudice (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6697.0

I have a suggestion for a new time constraint "building" related; it should be something like:

"Max days per week for a student set in a building"
"Min days per week for a student set in a building"
(one should have the entries: student set, max/min days per week, building)

and maybe also:
"Max days per week for all student in a building"
"Min days per week for all student in a building"
(one should have the entries: max/min days per week, building)

I try to explain why it is important in my case (and I hope also for other schools).

In my school we have two buildings, very far apart from each other, and for various logistic reasons, during the week students have to stay in
one building for a few days and the rest of the week in the other building (students go to school 6 days per week). Moreover the Principal would
like the classes spend time in the two buildings homogeneously (ideally 3 days in each building) but this is actually not always possible
because there are other good reasons for spending, for example, 2 days in one and 4 in the other. Note that some laboratories (and gym) are in
one building but not in the other, therefore they are forced to go in a specific building.

At the moment FET decides to send one class (student set) in one building or in the other just according to "activity preferred room" or just
because the rooms in a building are finished. But sometimes happen that one class is in a building for one day and the other five days is in
the other: this is not acceptable for me. Therefore I had to modify the timetable by hand...

Introducing the above suggested constraints the classes can be distributed between the two (or more) buildings in a controlled way.

Liviu Lalescu:

If you knew exactly for each activity its corresponding building (each activity has a fixed single building possible), the "max" variant is possible:
a set of activities occupies max sets of time slots from selection; add one such constraint for each students set's activities, selecting the slots
as 6 sets: day 1, ..., day 6, max occupied = 4 for your case.

But I think in your case a specific activity may take place in either building, so maybe the approach above is not possible.

Pietro Giudice:

Unfortunately, as you have noticed, a specific activity may take place in either buildings. For example, certain theoretical subjects such as mathematics,
history, geography, philosophy, etc., can be taught (by the same teacher to the same class) in both buildings. Other ideas ? Or any chance to introduce
a new constraint ?

Liviu Lalescu:

I think you need a new constraint.

It is a research problem, and "min" seems much more difficult than "max".

---

Also from Francesco Rizzo, in an email to Liviu Lalescu:

I want suggest constraint to set the minimum and maximum values for
some students set in building 2.
My problem is the same as described in the forum:
https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6697.msg37122#msg37122
I would be very happy if you could include this type of constraint
in fet software. I've also pointed out this need.

This custom version addresses the problem:
https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download/custom/francesco-rizzo-B/

and it works well. You can use this as a starting point:

ConstraintStudentsSetBuilding2MaxDaysPerWeek

ConstraintStudentsSetBuilding2MinDaysPerWeek

789---------------------------------------------------------
From SEMMARI MILOUD (on Facebook):

If possible, please format the print and print directly from FET. Thank you.

Liviu Lalescu:

The printing from the interface in Arabic should be correct for some months now.

SEMMARI MILOUD:

However, I wanted the printing output to be fully formatted and organized, with no need for auxiliary programs to print the outputs.

Thank you to artificial intelligence.

790--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a screenshot, with the dialog showing the (soft) conflicts list, which on double click will show the list of broken (soft) constraints with
alternating colors (green and yellow).

791--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a screenshot, with the activities dialog having an additional button: "Copy" - "Copy the selected activities to student or class without teacher".

792--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu 4 screenshots, suggesting to display an "inactive" state when listing the data (subjects, ..., dialogs). If the user clicks on
"Deactivate all activities for selected subject", that subject will be listed as inactive (maybe with an X and an 'inactive' color).

793--------------------------------------------------------
From Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes:

Constraint "Minimum Continuous Free Hours in an Interval for teachers".

794--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a screenshot, with the activities dialog having additional radio buttons or check boxes to show the corresponding long names and codes
for the teachers.

795---------------------------------------------------------
From corra (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6706.0

When I generate the timetable, my usual approach is to insert step by step the constraints and running the solver to get a timetable. Of course, at the
beginning everything runs smoothly, but after inserting a number of constraints the solver becomes slower because the number of constraints starts getting
significant.

My question is: is it possible to run a solver feeding a previously generated timetable as starting point? Being an optimisation problem, I would expect
that giving a reasonable starting point the solution would be got more easily than a full start from scratch.

Liviu Lalescu:

It is not possible. You cannot take a solution and make it better in terms of hard (100% weight) and/or soft (<100% weight) constraints. You need to start
from zero each timetable. It is not possible even to start with a partial solution (a part of activities allocated in time and space).

My advice is to generate on a file with all the activities and only the not available constraints. If it succeeds in a reasonable time, you could add also
min days between activities constraints and generate again. Then, add all the remaining constraints and try to generate, possibly on more threads to see
which solution is found first. Then, if not successful, deactivate or lower the noncritical constraints.

corra:

Many thanks. Maybe it is something that could be introduced in the future?

Also, another useful thing could be a drag and drop feature in the timetable view (for instance vertical view by rooms).

Liviu Lalescu:

What I meant by "You cannot take a solution and make it better in terms of hard (100% weight) and/or soft (<100% weight) constraints." is that it cannot
be implemented in FET, because it is unfeasible/impossible. The solution must be constructed from zero placed activities, increasingly adding activities.

796---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

The ability for fet-cl to save it's current state in a file then restart from it, say I reached 90% of a timetable, perhaps save this, stop fet and resume later.

797--------------------DONE in FET-7.7.0--------------------

798---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA:

In the Mornings-Afternoons mode, add the possibility to convert the selected min half days between activities constraints to min days between activities constraints
(he sent to Liviu Lalescu a picture in which this option is added in the min half days between activities dialog, and he said that in the past he added by mistake
min half days instead of min days. Liviu proposed him to use the Advanced > Spread activities evenly over the week option).

799---------------------------------------------------------
From Eleni Damaskou and Vangelis Karafillidis:

Initiated on Facebook, continued on the forum: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6721.0

Facebook:

The user should be able to modify a timetable with MINIMAL changes.

The user actually does not care about the number of tries of the algorithm itself when the weight is <100%,
but they do care about the number of the constraints that are violated.

So, the user might accept ANY 20 of 40 selected activities to change.

So, what the user REALLY needs is a way to limit (constrain) the number of the constraints that are violated.
For example, max hour continuously for a teacher - the user might accept 4 hours with 100% and 3 hours with 99%.
But, what they really care about is that max 3 hours is violated 1 or 2 times (for example),
so the weight is not the most important parameter for the user.

Liviu Lalescu:

This must be implemented specially for each constraint, and is really complicated.

Continuation from Vangelis Karafillidis:

The user does not really care about the number of the attempts of the code - they actually care about either 
a) the number of constraints that are going to be violated (for example activities locked in time) or
b) about the number of violations of a single constraint (for example max hour daily)

Liviu Lalescu:

It is very difficult.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

both (a) and (b)?

Liviu Lalescu:

(b) is.
About (a), for activity preferred starting time, it is actually possible. But only this.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

Activity preferred time slot?

Liviu Lalescu:

Yes, possible.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

So, it's some kind of "optimization".

Liviu Lalescu:

It is for a set of constraint activity(ies) preferred time(s), and works like activities occupy min time slots from selection.

Maybe constraint max (n) broken activity(ies) preferred times from a set?

Continued on the forum (https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6721.0):

Liviu Lalescu:

@Vangelis Karafillidis suggested two things:

    Quote
    The user does not really care about the number of the attempts of the code - they actually care about either
    a) the number of constraints that are going to be violated (for example activities locked in time) or
    b) about the number of violations of a single constraint (for example max hour daily)

I think (b) is very complicated, but for (a) it might be possible, and deliver a nice result. It could work for the 7 preferred times constraints:
activity preferred starting time, activity preferred starting times, activity preferred time slots, activities preferred starting times, activities
preferred time slots, subactivities preferred starting times, and subactivities preferred time slots:

The user selects n constraints of this type, which will only have 100% weight, and says that out of these constraints at least m activities will
be correct (from the set t of total individual ID activities involved).

Hmm... it is possible to implement, but there is a big problem: the constraints do not have an ID, to consider a set of constraints inside this constraint.

Hmm... another big problem: we cannot say that an activity with 100% weight is to be skipped.

If we managed to implement this it would be a nice feature, like: activities A1, A2, A3, at least two activities out of these three should be
placed correctly, like A1 on Monday, A2 on Tuesday, and A3 on Wednesday. And more general options.

Or we could just make a constraint m out of n which has also a list of accepted times for each involved activity. This might work.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

I seems to me the the last alternative is the safest. I am not a coder... but this option seems to be the clearest one... So, a constraint which
places m activities out of n activities in the selected time slots. What do you think as a coder?

But, is it possible to connect the "locked in time" activities of a generated timetable with this new constraint? Or maybe, "locked in time m out
of n activities"? (n = the number of the selected activities).

And my last question: Is it possible to implement the other feature we discussed some time ago? For example... is it possible for the user to select
a "time window" of (let's say) -1 hour to +2 hours (two values) for the selected (locked in time) activities? The idea is like this: Each activity
has its own time slot in the generated timetable. Sometimes, the user can accept solutions (modifications) with the activities placed in slightly
different positions (time slots). So... if the user can select the activities, the minimum number of the activities that they demand to remain
locked in time, PLUS a possible slightly different position of the m activities.

800---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

I was thinking about:
"Added the possibility of modifying multiple selected constraints at once, with a single click, for these types of time constraints: teacher min/max days per week,
teacher min/max hours daily, teacher max hours continuously, and teacher max gaps per day/week (suggested by Vangelis Karafillidis)."

1) I think that this feature could be extended to ANY possible type of constraint that can support the modification of multiple constraints

2) I think that the options "Modify" and "Modify constraints" should be merged into one single option ("Modify"). if the user has selected one single constraint
the code should be able to detect it and proceed to the modification of one single constraint. If the user has selected multiple constraints the code itself should
be able to detect that there are multiple constraints selected, and proceed to the modification of multiple constraints.

For example, the user can select many constraints, and click on "Modify". FET is going to modify the last selected constraint - under my perspective this is
a quite strange behavior.

Liviu Lalescu:

I think the button should indicate that the user can modify a whole selection.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

When the user selects many constraints, most likely they need to modify them all.

Liviu Lalescu:

I mean he might not know he can modify all selection, if it is not written on the button

Vangelis Karafillidis:

When the user selects one single constraint, they need to modify this one single constraint.

801---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

When FET generates a tt and shows it in C:\Users\.... , you should open this folder immediately. Or the user has to manually navigate there.

Liviu Lalescu:

Sorry, I don't understand the problem.

Michael Chourdakis:

FET completes, it says HTML is ready. Open this folder with explorer (ShellExecute), don't just tell the user it's there.

802---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Towers:

He suggested to not distribute the qm translation files with the sources archive. This is unfortunately needed for QMake, so
for the moment we'll keep the qm files included in the sources of FET.

803---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot: In the All time/space constraints dialogs, move up/down should operate on the whole selection of constraints.

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, the selection can be noncontiguous...

804---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

and now the complex problem I have:
there's a lesson that doesn't have to be always the same teacher
let me explain
i have a lesson which is taught 1 hour / week, called "tambouras"
this lesson is normally taught by one teacher to one student as the other individual lessons (piano etc), but we never have as needed as many teachers for that
so, what we do in the school is to group people and have one teacher teach the entire group in 1 hour,
the point is, the group needn't be the same all the time and the teacher needn't be the same all the time
in TT 1, say monday/hour 2 has students 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5. In TT 2 monday/hour 3 has students 1,2,6,8,9,10
however they are placed , we don't care
i only that a teacher (any of the teachers) to get assigned to that group
currently, what I will be doing is to have FET generate the first time table without teachers, and then find out from the generated TT the available placement of that lesson, and create another FET which will then assign the teachers there.

Liviu Lalescu:

what is TT 1 and TT 2?
same school?

Michael Chourdakis:

timetable 1 and 2
first week's

Liviu Lalescu:

yes, but what do they represent?

Michael Chourdakis:

same school
just another timetable
the idea is that the group needn't be the same and the teacher needen't be the same

Liviu Lalescu:

but in TT 2 student 3 has no tambouras?

Michael Chourdakis:

it will have it in another day/hour
with student 12,13,14

Liviu Lalescu:
OK

Michael Chourdakis:

i know i what i'm saying is complex programmatically

Liviu Lalescu:

it might be possible with activities occupy min/max time slots from selection and/or max simultaneous activities in selected slots.
add tambouras activities for each student
one for each student
occupy max = say 2 (or 3, or more)
max simultaneous = say 5 (or more)
about the teacher...
I think you can also add one for each teacher
and not overlapping for teachers' tambouras
and include teachers' tambouras in occupy max and max simult.
hm... occupy max for teachers is not good.

Michael Chourdakis:

actually there will be 6 hours in the week for this
2 for class A, 2 for class B, 2 for class C

Liviu Lalescu:

can you choose 6 teachers for FET?
or FET should choose?

Michael Chourdakis:

it may be 2 or 10 teachers. IT doesn't matter, I just want to know that in monday 2 in which fet placed 12 students to have tamboura with 2 teachers. (so it will be 6/6)
if FET assigns 3 teachers that day/hour, i will split them 4/4/4
i think it is programmatically complex

Liviu Lalescu:

yes, it is too complex. Only if you know the exact number of hours of tamboura per week and max allowed students in a slot

Michael Chourdakis:

the exact number of hours per student is 1
max allowed students doesn't matter

Liviu Lalescu:

which is best? 4+4+4 or 6+6?

Michael Chourdakis:

i don't care.

listen what i have so far:
so far it created 6 hours/week with some people doing tamboura at that hour
now i want as many as fet wants teachers these hours. 
if i have 10 teachers i may get 2-2-2-1-1-2, it doesn't matter

Liviu Lalescu:

you prefer less students per teacher, I suppose?

Michael Chourdakis:

yes but that's not restricting, if I have a teacher it takes the entire group
if i have 2 they split it
BUT -> If i have 2 - > 2 rooms needed
if i have 3 teachers -> 3 rooms needed

Liviu Lalescu:

using virtual rooms, you can make an activity take place in more real rooms.
my only thoughts are for activities occupy min/max and activities min/max simultaneous.
you need to decide exactly for a number of tambouras per week
and for a maximum number of students per hour of tamboura
the hour of tamboura must be a single one in the week, at an exact day+hour, or you can have 6 time slots of tamboura?

Michael Chourdakis:

we have 3 levels, each one 3 classes = 9. These 9 classes 'kids do tamboura. Each of them splits to two groups for all other instruments so there will be "18" hours for any subgroup doing tamboura per week. So the assignments will be 18 hours. 
basically i want to tell fet that a teacher may have student list ANY of a certain set of student lists
but i do think that it's easier for me to resolve it with 2 FETS instead

Liviu Lalescu:

my idea is to add an activity subject=TAMB with duration 1 for each student, and an activity with subject=TAMB for some chosen teachers, with duration 1.
and maybe constrain the teachers' preferences for students in some way...

Michael Chourdakis:

can fet do that ? match automatically subjects with same name ?

Liviu Lalescu:

no
not same name

Michael Chourdakis:

same tag?

Liviu Lalescu:

no. but can ensure that some activities are simultaneous with activitiies occupy max slots from selection

Michael Chourdakis:

perhaps that's an easy todo for you then

if a teachers'a activity has the same lesson with a student set activity 
(even if the teacher isn't there)
then match them

Liviu Lalescu:

my idea is, say, 4 students: Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, add 4 activities, and 2 teachers, T1, T2, add 2 activities. Then all these 6 activities occupy max 2 slots from selected whole week, and max simultaneous in all selected slots of the week = 3. This is my idea, and we need to develop it.

Michael Chourdakis:

hmmm
isn't what i suggested easier?
to match activities based on lesson names 

Liviu Lalescu:

it might be possible as a new constraint, indeed.

Michael Chourdakis:

this opens door for this: to have FET match groups of students with groups of teachers without 1-1 matching

Liviu Lalescu:
but please let me get a perfectly correct idea

Michael Chourdakis:
for example i may like kid a being taught by teacher A or B, doesn't matter who
this constraint would allow it.

Liviu Lalescu:

did you read anything about Block planning mode?

Michael Chourdakis:

no, not yet

Liviu Lalescu:

you could use BP mode if you only care about the assignment of students to teachers in a time slots.

Michael Chourdakis:

I will take a look
ALSO
a fet's plugin system would be very nice for me.
VERY nice indeed

Liviu Lalescu:

no constraints about gaps, max hours per week...

Liviu Lalescu:

OK, I see.

Michael Chourdakis:

a DLL that you call my function to test activities
if i return OK -> you use them
IF i don't , you reject them
this allows FET To be extended by a user

Liviu Lalescu:

sorry, I don't understand "DLL that...."

Michael Chourdakis:

you call my function from a dll
passing activities to be tested
that way I can extend fet

Liviu Lalescu:

tested for what?

Michael Chourdakis:

for inclusion or exclusion based on a custom rule
that is up for the plugin to decide

Liviu Lalescu:

I understood!!! 🙂
very interesting...

Michael Chourdakis:

yes
i can easily tell you how to do that, it's very easy

Liviu Lalescu:

but you also need to send a subset from these activities as a rejection, and the rest of the activities from this set are OK.

Michael Chourdakis:

yea why not
("State") sending

805---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

Eliminate the need for Qt classes in FET-CL.

806---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Towers:

The new snapshot seems to work. but I still have some suggestions that
you may care to consider.

I see that you have quite a lot of work (several files to change) to
update to a new FET version! This seems like something that could be
automated a bit ...

One possibility: This might be horrible C++ (I'm not an expert!) but I
thought, what about a header file with the stuff that changes? It needs
to be shared by fet and fet-cl, so perhaps put it in the fetengine
target. But it needs to be very visible, so I thought, put it in the
"src" directory:

src/VERSION.h:
--------------

#ifndef VERSION_H
#define VERSION_H

#define FET_VERSION_DEF "7.7.1.1"
#define FET_COPYRIGHT "2002-2026"
// + anything else useful

#endif

--------------

Then we have in engine/CMakeLists.txt:

qt_add_library(fetengine STATIC
     ../VERSION.h

   ...

--------------

Then, for example, in fetcl.cpp:

#include "../VERSION.h"

...

//std::cout<<"FET version "<<qPrintable(FET_VERSION)<<std::endl;
std::cout<<"FET version "<<FET_VERSION_DEF<<std::endl;

...

//std::cout<<"Copyright (C) 2002-2026 Liviu Lalescu, Volker
Dirr"<<std::endl;
std::cout<<"Copyright (C) "<<FET_COPYRIGHT<<" Liviu Lalescu, Volker
Dirr"<<std::endl;

--------------

... and so on, wherever there is version-dependent stuff. You could use
QLocale (e.g. QLocale::monthName) for some things.

For the places in the documentation where there is something that needs
to be updated with a new version you could use a little script. Indeed,
the script could, for example, read an ini-file with the data and also
write/update VERSION.h ...


CMake can read the version from VERSION.h using a REGEX, but it needs
CMake version 3.29 (the current version supplied with Qt is 3.30, so
that's no problem).

My latest version of the top-level CMakeLists.txt is attached:

  - It uses CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX_INITIALIZED_TO_DEFAULT to set the
default installation directory to fet-x.y.z in the build directory.

  - It still has my separate lupdate and lrelease handling, which I like
– it seems to work well.

  - Regarding my splitting of lupdate and lrelease:  "5) I'll see your
file, but in principle I prefer not to risk with the
very important complete translation files..."

My change doesn't touch the complete translation files, unless lupdate
is used, and lupdate can only run on the full build, the same as your
version.


  - If NO_WINDOWS_CONSOLE is set, it doesn't include the translations, as
I assume they would be unnecessary, perhaps even undesirable, in places
where fet-clw is used. But I am not sure about this.


I see you still have the plugins in the root directory in the latest
test exe, so I have added an option for windeployqt to do this:

     set(deploy_tool_options_arg
         --plugindir .

But this still generates the qt.conf file. I haven't found a way to stop
this.


  - qmake without .qm files?
  Regarding "Unfortunately, Michael, we are still allowing and using
QMake. I tried to remove the qm files from the sources archive, it
worked with CMake, but QMake... I don't know if it is possible.":

Where is the problem? If the .qm files are not there, you just need to
run "lrelease *.ts" in the translations directory. Of course, you are
welcome to ship .qm files with the source code, it's just that for me
they are not really SOURCE.

...

About generating the qm files with QMake:

You can put this in src/src.pro:

LRELEASE_DIR=$$PWD/../translations
CONFIG += lrelease

I don't think there's a way to merge the Qt translations automatically.

807---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu two modified screenshots: When adding a teacher not available times constraint (and in all types of teacher's constraints), and
in students not available times, write Number of hours = ... .

808---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

about the state save/opening, you can do that in the same fet-cl by launching a new thread on request that has the same memory to start
so in same fet you have more than 1 thread searching from a good start

809---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6729.0

Show image if timetable is locked. To get the user's attention. (modified screenshot provided, with the Locking push button having a closed lock symbol on it.)

810---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6730.0

Conflicts to Form Constraints
Separate each line of conflicts form and double click to show constraints form.

(modified screenshot provided.)

811---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6731.0

Add button swap between name and code or long name.

(modified screenshot provided.)

812---------------------------------------------------------
From kilindor (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6732.0

I have a suggestion, which is adding a tab that allows importing random seeds from txt file instead of do it manually,
because sometimes we need to start generating from exact seed number.

813---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6734.0

Add jump button to deplace Activities.

(modified screenshot provided.)

Note Liviu Lalescu: I think GUEFFAZ means to move up/down the constraints with 5/10 positions.

814---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

Screenshot provided, in which he would like to synchronize the check boxes "Colors" in modify constraint dialog
and view constraints.

815---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

export and import work perfect but ...
Set a condition for importing files to avoid errors. For example, I want to import subjects files, but I mistakenly select the teachers file,
yet the program proceeds with the import without displaying an error.

816---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6733.msg37308#msg37308

separate morning/afternoon

(Liviu Lalescu: when viewing the detailed description with constraints in the Mornings-Afternoons mode.)

817---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6736.0

modify select Max/Min Days between activities

Liviu Lalescu: GUEFFAZ REDA provided a modified screenshot, with modifying multiple constraints of type max days between activities,
like the min variant (and also don't forget max half days between activities).

818---------------------------------------------------------
From kilindor (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6737.msg37353#msg37353

It is about morning-evening mode.

Is there a constraint preventing groups from studying only in the last two hours of the day?
For instance, studying is from 9 to 1 PM, then from 2 to 6 PM.
Some groups in some days only study from 4 to 6 PM, with the rest of the day free.

I want to prevent this.

I don't want to use "min hours 3" constraint because there is no problem for groups to study only 2 hours at day, BUT not the last two hours.

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, this is more complicated. We already have this in the TODO, I think, and it is a kind of conditional constraint: if the students
set has an activity in the last slot, it must have at least 3 activities on that real day. I'll also add your suggestion in the TODO.

819---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot: the CSV import should allow only the specific file name, so for example the user
selects to import subjects only from files with the name containing the word "subject".

820---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on Facebook):

About my "optimization" idea (we have already discussed it in detail lately), what do you think?

Liviu Lalescu:

You mean to allow each activity an interval, or to say that n out of m constraints should be respected?

Vangelis Karafillidis:

I think BOTH.

So, if the user could select BOTH the number of the broken locked in time activities + define an acceptable time window (an interval of RELATIVE hours)
as broken constraint, this would be the best, and could be considered as "optimization".

For example, if the user could select 50 activities of the generated timetable, and allow the locked in time constraints for these activities be broken
for ANY 40 of these activities, and at the same time define as NOT broken the constraints when their respective activities are placed in the relative
time window -1 hour to +2 hours relative to the initial time slot, then this would be some kind of "optimization".

The user (most of the time) does not care so much about the weight percentage; this has to do with the way the algorithm works, but they do care
about controlling the AMOUNT of modification of the timetable and AMOUNT = number of activities that are placed in different time slots + difference
should be counted not literally, but with allowing some kind of flexibility.

I was thinking about this "double" control, since this is what the user needs to control; so, if they can control both from the same dialog, they could
achieve some kind of "optimization".

821---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot: the timetable view students days horizontal dialog has a check box "Weight (percentage)", and the table
cells contain the weights (100%, 99%, 99.75%). GUEFFAZ REDA told Liviu Lalescu that we would write the weights of the activities and rooms with
small fonts in each cell.

822---------------------------------------------------------
From Željko Vrabec (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6746.0

It would be really nice if it's possible to open children dialogs simultaneously. Sometimes you have to adjust some data (let's say teachers not
available time) by watching some other data (let's say students not available time, or activity planing).

Željko Vrabec also attached a screenshot, showing the FET main window having the teachers' not available times dialog opened, and saying that
he cannot open another dialog.

823---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot: the 'Timetable' tab has instead of 'Conflicts' three items: 'Conflicts', 'View initial order of placing
the activities', and 'View difficult activities'.

824---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6752.0

I have realized that depending on the names of subjects and teachers more so those sharing classes eg bio/cre/comp/hist/geo/hsc and teachers as
23,5,26,9,41,10,43 if you more of this in a class, the timetable may appear to occupy like half a page of A4 size paper hence becoming a challenge
for easy visibility. How can one handle this such that no matter what, the timetable fits the larger portion of the A4 size?

Liviu Lalescu: Cyrus Ireri would prefer that very long combined names would be split across more lines, automatically.

825---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot: it is important that the students' days horizontal timetable should show the long name or code of
the teacher, as in print.

(Note by Liviu Lalescu: please consider that the long names and codes might be empty or duplicate.)

826---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot: the students days horizontal timetable to show more details about the number of activities and durations
for the students set: instead of "No: 27   Dur: 33" show "No: 27/27   Dur: 33/33".

827---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot, adding the buttons: lock/unlock all activities of a specified students set/teacher. He said he knew we could
do this with filtering, but using drop-down lists is better.

828---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot of the activity planning dialog, adding the option "color by teacher".

829---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on Facebook):

Is it possible to implement something like "max total span per week" for teachers?
(the sum of each day's span for all the days of the week.)

830---------------------------------------------------------
From uni_instructor:

Note by Liviu Lalescu: uni_instructor sent some attached screenshots, which are showing the not available times of a teacher;
the idea of the reported problem can be understood from uni_instructor's words.

Recently, while working on my timetable planning, I noticed something in FET that I would like to point out.
I came across it rather by chance, because I wanted to implement some ideas for my timetable after the planning had already started.

I enter the time slots for my lecturers in which they are available or unavailable.
The arbitrary pattern of the lecturers’ time slot assignments is intended merely as an example here.

The following graphics show this. So far, this is fine.

Example pattern 1

Example pattern 2

If I subsequently add an additional time slot in the basic settings of the timetable (see the graphic below), I would expect the table
with the time constraints of my lecturers to be expanded by an additional row, which indeed happens.

However, adding an additional time slot then results in the lecturers’ time slots not being shifted or adjusted relatively.
The pattern of the old grid remains the same, but the times for the lecturers are inevitably no longer correct.

Expected behavior:

Observed behavior:

It is similar if I add an additional day.
In this case as well, the old grid is retained and not shifted.

Expected behavior:

Observed behavior:

It is not urgent, and I also do not know how often other users make changes to the basic timetable settings in the middle of their planning.

However, it could become important if you need to expand the basic settings afterwards without having to repeat all the entries you have already made.

831---------------------------------------------------------
From Devrim Altınkurt (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=2603.msg37490#msg37490

I have a suggestion for an easy solution to this issue:
I created a solution with the existing rules without making any new developments.

Let's think of the day as 5h + break + 5h.
Let's also have a 6h activity.

If you add a checkbox [ X ] "span over break is allowed" when adding/modifying an activity;

in the background,
you can convert this activity into 6 separate activity (a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6) and add the "ConstraintTwoActivitiesGrouped" rule to each of these 6 activities separately.
ConstraintTwoActivitiesGrouped1 -> a1 and a2
ConstraintTwoActivitiesGrouped2 -> a2 and a3
ConstraintTwoActivitiesGrouped3 -> a3 and a4
ConstraintTwoActivitiesGrouped4 -> a4 and a5
ConstraintTwoActivitiesGrouped5 -> a5 and a6

The "activityGroupId" in activity.cpp might be useful.

Sample file added.

832---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6773.0

I have a scenario where a teacher is teaching 3 subject in the same class. What can i do to ensure she doesn't get consecutive lesson in the same class?
Have quite a number of teachers with similar problem. The only way i can use seems long since it will involve use of special tags in all single subjects
in every class then i have a teacher to have max 1 hour continuosly with that activity tags. I wish to have an alternative.

Liviu Lalescu:

Please investigate teacher(s) min gaps between activity tag / ordered pair of activity tags.

Cyrus Ireri:

Aware of that. Just that i thought there is a less demanding constraint. Under min gaps, i will have to move from one teacher to another identifying
the subjects they teach in the same class so that i can consider in the gaps. All in all, i'm glad there is a way of going about it even though long in a way.

833---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6773.msg37514#msg37514

A request on the highlighting colouring the activity planning. If it can be faint, it would be of great essence. As it is now, there is a way you may
not see the content highlighted until you have the screen tilted in a certain angle. In line with highlighting, under adding/modification of activity,
if the highlighting colour can be visible, it would be amazing and easy to trace which class or teacher one is dealing with.

834---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6772.msg37534#msg37534

Allow the viewing of buildings timetables in different formats via the FET interface: horizontal days, vertical days and horizontal times.

(Note by Liviu Lalescu: Benahmed Abdelkrim refers to the FET-NSRT custom version.)

835---------------------------------------------------------
From sasbland (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6775.0

Let say a subject has 2 sessions per week. If one session is the last lesson on one day, I want to avoid the other session being the first lesson
the next day. There should be one or more of other lessons in between. Similar idea to min resting hrs. Is this possible?

Liviu Lalescu:

Maybe n_days_per_week-1 constraints activities pair of mutually exclusive time slots for each pair of activities. So math cannot be the last hour
on Monday and the first hour on Tuesday.

sasbland:

It looks like I have to add each activity one by one and select each pair of day (Mon-Tue, Tue-Wed etc.) Is that correct? That is a lot of constraints
as I actually want all activities to avoid slots like this.

Liviu Lalescu:

Yes, unfortunately a lot of data inputting work...

Maybe a suitable name and behavior for a possible new constraint could be devised.

836---------------------------------------------------------
From ptrdtznr (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6782.0

I am trying to achieve a deterministic generation process. My goal is to be able to recreate the exact same timetable after making very minor adjustments
(or even with no changes at all) to see how the algorithm reacts to small data variations.

However, even though I have set a fixed random seed in the settings, every time I hit "Generate", I get a slightly different result (different number of
iterations or different placement of activities).

My setup:
FET Version: 7.8.0
Random Seed: Set to "Fixed" (e.g., 12345).
Data: I am testing this without changing any data between runs.

Am I missing something? I suspect it might be related to the number of threads used for generation. Does the multi-threading affect the determinism of the
algorithm even if the seed is fixed?

Should I set the "Number of threads" to 1 to get 100% reproducible results? And are there any other "hidden" factors (like the order of activities or
constraints) that could break the deterministic chain?

Liviu Lalescu:

Fixed means s10, s11, s12, s20, s21, and s22 have respectively the same values as s'10, ..., s'22.

To replicate a timetable, the seed must be fixed, the FET algorithm must be the same (so, the same FET version, or a FET version with an identical algorithm),
and the data file must be identical. Even a slight variation can lead to totally different results.

The single generation starts with the inputted seed in the settings; the multiple uses the inputted seed from the settings to initialize each thread
differently - the seeds for each thread are written in the fet-results. You need to either have a single thread to have the same seed as single generation,
or generate multiple on the same number of threads respectively, and the seeds will be the same.

No other hidden things to change behavior, but only the above.

ptrdtznr:

Thanks for the detailed answer. Any chance to set the seeds s10, s11, s12, s20, s21, s22 for all time to the same value? I don't want to change it after
every run, to re-create the same results (in case I haven't made a single change in the planing).

Liviu Lalescu:

It would be possible to make an official FET setting for this, but I really don't want, because it is very bad for the casual users, who might misunderstand its use.

In FET-CL, you can input the seed s10, ..., s22 as a command-line parameter. But not in FET.

ptrdtznr:

I mean, if you have this options disabled and only allow it, once the user has read carefully the implications, I think this is a reasonable solution...

Liviu Lalescu:

I will add your suggestion in the TODO. But I strongly resist/object it...

Volker Dirr:

I also think this is a bad option for most users.

Also: Even if you need it now, as soon as you do the new timetable 6 or 12 month later, you probably forgot that you set that fixed feed.

So if you ever add the feature, then in my opinion it must be also added:

a) A warning if you try to generate multiple timetables at once. It should disallow it and warn that it is only useful if you disable the settings again.

b) A warning with EACH single generation. Because users will forget after some time that they fixed the seed.

---

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6782.msg38081#msg38081

On 2026-03-29 ptrdtznr provided the code changes for this option, with the following text:

I've added a new GroupBox within the Settings menu to house these options. Here is a quick breakdown of how it's currently functioning:

- Scope: This is strictly for the "Generate" (single generation) function. It will not apply to "Multiple" generations to avoid any conflicts with batch processing.
- Persistent Warnings: I've added a warning that triggers with every single generation. Since it's easy to forget that a seed has been fixed, I wanted to ensure
users don't accidentally get stuck with identical results without realizing why.
- Auto-Reset Logic: For safety and to keep the default behavior clean, the feature is automatically disabled every time you restart FET.

837---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot, with a suggested new type of constraint: a building's not available times.

838---------------------------------------------------------
From Anthony Siaudeau (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3707.msg37811#msg37811

What I really missed were tags for the FET days (I'm thinking of tags named week1, week2, etc.) to create time constraints based on these tags that are simpler,
fewer in number, and more readable than the constraints I used.

839---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot, with the timetable showing Subjects legend, and each such category shows "Teacher name".

He also wrote: Split the legend more columns. Subjects - Teacher - nb hours.

840---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot, showing that if we print preview the groups/years timetables there appear "???" characters if we uncheck
"Detailed tables" (which is in fact the intended behavior). Also, he suggested to add colors for these "???".

841---------------------------------------------------------
From YOUSSEF HOUIET (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6772.msg37912#msg37912

Note by Liviu Lalescu: YOUSSEF HOUIET refers to the new constraints room(s) max activities per teacher.

We focused on applying this constraint only to exam-related cases.

However, it could also be useful in more general scenarios. In the future, the constraint could be generalized to apply to a set of activities, defined
through criteria such as a specific teacher, activity tag, subject, ...

842---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot, showing the option to select a profile in the timetable print dialog: "Names", "Long names", or "Codes".

843---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6772.msg37930#msg37930

We should consider cases where we find 3 teachers in a building, and cases where the user no longer wants more than 2 teachers per building.
Maybe a new building constraint could be considered, or maybe a workaround that could simplify the solution?!

844---------------------------------------------------------
From YOUSSEF HOUIET (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6772.msg37962#msg37962

I have another idea that we might need:
Introduce a constraint for the minimum number of activities in a building from a given set of activities.
This would help ensure placing, for example, at least one activity from a specific teacher category in a building (e.g., at least one male teacher,
or a teacher of a certain professional grade).

845---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6797.msg37993#msg37993

Maybe you can make the colour be highlighting colour be visible both while you have selected the colours and when not to assist one while adding the constraint with ease.

(Note by Liviu Lalescu: Cyrus Ireri refers to selecting cells in the timetable view teachers/students/rooms time horizontal, on Windows. The highlight is faint.)

Is it possible still in that interface to have like a strikethrough to assist put a line in the locked activities that one want to show they have been taught?
Or what can we do to show those activities have been taught once you regenerate the timetables.

846---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6804.0

The statistics for MA mode show only data for half-days. Is it possible to add columns that show data for full days (mornings + afternoons), such as gaps, hours?
(min and max).

847---------------------------------------------------------
From Anthony Siaudeau (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3707.msg38079#msg38079

I'm encountering a problem in the same context that I don't know how to handle. I've attached a minimal file that illustrates my issue.
Let's say that teacher1 wants to have the same time slot every real week (except in exceptional cases) with the students1 group, and that Thursday in week2 is
a holiday. Given that teacher2 teaches chemistry to the same group, students1, in two 3-hour blocks—either on Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday in week2.

My constraints are as follows:
teacher1's activities start at the same time (90% of the time)
minimum days between teacher1's activities is 5 (95% of the time)
maximum days between teacher1's activities is 25 (100% of the time)

The proposed percentages are to prevent FET from searching for a solution for too long.

The problem is that sometimes FET will propose a solution where Teacher1 has classes in the same time slot every actual week except week2 which is the expected
behavior—but sometimes it may also propose a solution with classes on Tuesday in week1 and on Mondays in weeks 3 through 6.
To avoid this, I haven't found any other solution than to remove teacher1's activity in week 2 from the constraint "minimum days between teacher1 activities
is 5 to 95%" and to add a constraint of the type "minimum days between teacher1's activities in week1 and week3 is 10."
However, I don't know in advance whether Teacher1 will have a problem with the holiday in week2; this is due to the scheduling of teacher2's class, which is
constrained by the holiday.

In other words, I feel like I have to, by default, perform this adjustment for all activities in a given week whenever there's a specific issue like unavailable
students or a holiday (which happens, in my case, every other week).

How can I use Terms mode to simulate a constraint like this: teacher1's activities are on the same real day (95% of time)?

Liviu Lalescu:

I think new development would be needed for this, in maybe a new constraint to do this: specify in the constraint a set of n activities, and say that at least n-1
of them must be on the same real day and at the same hour, in the Terms mode.

848---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=4448.msg38096#msg38096

Sometimes during exams, some teachers have to be assigned to certain rooms so that they stay for a full day (or 1/2 day and maybe for all days/week).
To do this, I think we need to add a space constraint, for example: max room changes in a given day for a teacher.

However, using this constraint will make it impossible to use the recently added constraint: a(all) room's max activities per teacher, unless if we make
max activities > 1 ...

---

I achieved this by adding the following constraints:
2 time constraints: activity has a preferred starting time, activities are regrouped
and
1 space constraint: activities occupies max different rooms (max different =1)

I attach 2 files showing the method mentioned above.

849---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6772.msg38133#msg38133

Room(s) max activities for a teacher?

Is it possible to add the constraint "room(s) max activities for a teacher" which would apply individually to each teacher, in case some teachers need
more than one activity in a room, while other teachers have max activities=1?

850---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on Facebook):

For multiple generation, can we have some kind of id (the number of the generated timetable) inside the generated HTML files?

---

More words from Vangelis Karafillidis:

So, about multiple generation, I had this issue, there was no sign inside the html (or pdf) file that discriminates the multiple timetables from each other.
If the user could know form some kind of information stored inside the pdf or html file, the respective number of the multiple generation, this would be very useful.

I would suggest:
Multiple generation [number of timetable] from [filename] on the bottom of the html file. So, "Timetable generated with FET..."
and another line with
Multiple generation [number of timetable] from [filename]
...
maybe this second line with 'single generation from [filename]' would be useful as well, for single generation.

851---------------------------------------------------------
From boubata (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6824.0

Here's an attachment about possible colour customization suggestion. This tool helps us to revise the final results for possible errors.

Liviu Lalescu:

I do not understand exactly your suggestion. Do you mean to set a specific color for each teacher and subject?

boubata:

Yes, exactly. When the final table is produced, the colours will be shown as what the user set before.

852---------------------------------------------------------
From Anthony Siaudeau (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6825.0

I've noticed that to start generating a timetable, you have to open the dedicated window from the main window and then start the generation process.

Would it be possible for that dedicated window to operate independently of the main window?

The idea would be to be able to work on a FET file, save the file, start a generation, and continue working on the FET file at the same time
(and perhaps not be able to save until the generation is finished). With timetable generations that take several minutes, this would save valuable time.
It could also be used to simultaneously verify certain aspects of the selected constraints, as well as the teachers or students involved.

Liviu Lalescu:

You could open two FET instances, one for generating and one for modifying the file.

Anthony Siaudeau:

It is indeed possible to open two instances of FET on the same file, but the two instances are independent. Any changes (including saves) made in one
instance will not be reflected in the other.

Currently, you must first close any child window of the second instance, then reload the FET file there so that the changes are visible, and then reopen
the closed child window.

In other words, you can currently only have a single child window open on the same FET instance, whereas sometimes you might want to have several.
And be able to generate a timetable in parallel.

Liviu Lalescu:

Unfortunately, FET was designed from the start as going in a single opened window (with the exception of view timetables and help dialogs). It would be
quite complicated to improve this now.

Anthony Siaudeau:

Perhaps it would be easier to link multiple FET instances with a well-placed FET file reload button (for example, in the subwindow for generating timetables)?

Liviu Lalescu:

I kind of don't like this idea.

Anthony Siaudeau:

It's up to you — I obviously don't know all the ins and outs of FET's internal coding.

I'm looking for alternatives that would be more acceptable to FET. Another idea might be to add a "Generate in a new instance" button in addition to the
"Generate" button.

Liviu Lalescu:

Yes, this is an interesting suggestion!

853---------------------------------------------------------
From TAHIR (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6828.0

How is it possible that no teacher has two consecutive free periods?

Liviu Lalescu:

Currently, not possible in FET. Maybe as a customization or a new official constraint.

854---------------------------------------------------------
From Marinho Medeiros:

   1. As a timetable is generated, a “counter-timetable” is also
   produced—that is, a schedule showing the teacher’s available (free)
   periods. It would be an interesting feature if the program could generate
   this schedule of teachers’ free periods, especially for possible
   substitutions. In Brazil, full-time schools cannot have gaps in their
   schedules. Therefore, when a teacher is absent, another teacher who is
   available or free at that time must step in as a substitute.

   2. Building on the idea above, you could consider a subprogram that,
   based on the generated timetable, identifies which teachers are free during
   a specific class period for a given group, and from there suggests a
   possible substitute teacher for that class.

Liviu Lalescu:

1. I am not sure I understand the problem. There is a timetable,
"teachers' free periods", which does exactly this.

Marinho Medeiros:

  Regarding the first suggestion: when the timetable is generated and made
available for printing, the teacher’s classes are displayed. However, the
suggestion is to also make it possible to generate the opposite—that is, to
generate and print a PDF/sheet showing the teacher’s free periods. I
believe the second suggestion might even make the first unnecessary, but I
still find this first suggestion interesting as an option.

Liviu Lalescu:

About 1.: There is an HTML and a PDF timetable called "Teachers' free
periods" available in FET, which is a table hours x days, and which
lists all teachers available in a time slot. Isn't this useful?

Marinho Medeiros:

Yes, now I see it. That could help! I just think it would be simpler if the
system could directly generate a list of all the people available at that
time for a substitution—in other words, those who are free and eligible to
cover the class.

This is because there are other factors and constraints that can influence
the decision. For example, some teachers work 30 hours while others work 40
hours. Those who work 30 hours are not allowed to substitute, and all
teachers have a planning day on which they are not allowed to substitute
under any circumstances.

855---------------------------------------------------------
From Michael Chourdakis (on Facebook):

i perhaps plan to create a collaboration server for fet
would you be willing to support that in fet executable ? that is, hot
reload a file on change. I will give you a .hpp library.

Liviu Lalescu:

hmm... I am not sure.
I would not like to use other library.
and I never worked with these, I don't know what they are.

Michael Chourdakis:

the idea is for more than 2 people to work on the same fet
simultaneously basically the idea is -> when you get notified that
.fet is changed -> reload.

Liviu Lalescu:

interesting idea, I'll add this in the TODO,
but I am not sure we can work on this soon. I'll think about it.

Michael Chourdakis:

its very important because in reality, in schools more than one people
is involved in editing. in my school 10 people edit the tt. basically,
your work in that would be a) when a user saves a file notify the
server and b) get notified by a server when another user saves the file
you are working on and hot reload.

Liviu Lalescu:

I understood. we had a related
request some time ago. it's very important for such apps collaboration
editing he asked that the first user opening the file to have
read/write access and the second user opens the file and sees it is
read-only for him.

Michael Chourdakis:

yea that's not collaboration
thats simple file sharing
not very much useful

Liviu Lalescu:

it was very long ago
many years suggestion
and I did a small customization for him.

Michael Chourdakis:

i will create it anyway because I use it for my apps so you will be
able to see a demo in my other apps

Liviu Lalescu:

I will think of this.

856------------DONE on 12 June 2026, in FET-7.8.7-----------

857---------------------------------------------------------
From ygoldblatt:

Is there a way to print/export the teacher availability data?

Liviu Lalescu:

Please see the new function Statistics > Human-readable text file! You
might want to create a dummy file in which you remove all the other
kinds of constraints (using the filter and multiple selection) and
export human-readable data for its time constraints.

Or you might want to check the Time constraints > All teachers > All
teachers' not available times, and you might print screen more times.

858---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6832.0

I'm used to using a set of activities occupies max/min set of time slots from selection. If we can have a keyboard shotcut for ALL, CLEAR and
SELECTING NEXT GROUP,it would be great. It would make work easier when one has to have constraint for all subjects in all groups. Never easy for
28 subjects and 30 groups. Moving from one group to another is hectic.

Cyrus Ireri provided a screenshot on the forum topic.

859---------------------------------------------------------
From Roshan Ali (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6835.0

As we know that its era of AI. All software makers are trying to add AI one way or the other to their software. I have seen so many old software
now they have AI added. We want you to add AI to FET too. For example we could write all our constraints in a chat like box and hit enter and the
FET automatically add those constraints. Or I ask FET to guide me how to make a specific kind of timetable (I will write the scenario) and it
explains to me. It will be like AI help. There could be so many possibilites.

860---------------------------------------------------------
From Roshan Ali (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6836.0

I suggest to simplify the layout by putting all the submenus on the front of the tool. I mean on the first page. Put them in sequence.
In this way most of the things will be visible on front page and we could make changes directly without clinking menu and then sub menu
and sub sub menus etc. So days, teachers names, subject names, rooms, all are visible on the one place.

861---------------------------------------------------------
From mikkojoo (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6411.msg38300#msg38300

Write better instructions for the constraints of type max terms between activities.

862---------------------------------------------------------
From mrtvillaret:

  I am writing because I have prepared two patches on top of FET 7.8.5 that
  have been useful for us and might also be useful to other users. I am not
  a programmer — I made them with the help of an AI (Claude Code) from
  prompts I wrote.

  1. parallel-subjects.patch — improves the presentation of the exported
  timetables when we have cross-class optional subjects. It continues the
  thread of the question I asked you back in 2019
  (topic 4262):
  I followed your advice of modelling them as a single activity with all
  teachers and all student groups, and this patch generates, in addition
  to the standard timetable, a second timetable that distinguishes each
  subject.

  2. comments-sections.patch — visual improvement of the constraint
  list dialogs: a tooltip on every row with the full comment, and the
  possibility of grouping the rows into sections using a [Section]
  convention inside the comment. Useful when you have dozens of
  constraints of the same type.

  Both apply with patch -p1 on top of the original sources, build with
  CMake and QMake and add no dependencies. They do not touch the generation
  engine. The first patch does add two new XML tags to the .fet file
  (<Display_Subjects_List> and <Parallel_Subjects_List>) to store the
  parallel-subjects configuration, but they are only written when the user
  has configured them — a .fet file without parallel subjects keeps
  exactly the same format as today.

 I am attaching the two patch files directly, along with a FET file with
samples of the features.

---

On 2026-06-11, mrtvillaret sent Liviu Lalescu and Volker Dirr another email,
with a slightly changed mode of operation of the parallel subjects.

863---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6837.0

Is it possible to have teachers total duration in teachers timetables? It can help instead of counting manually once the teachers get their personal timetables.

864---------------------------------------------------------
From Benahmed Abdelkrim and Liviu Lalescu (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6838.0

Thinking of Benahmed's suggestion: https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6831.0 , I thought of a possible improvement, allowing to change the order
of activities in the activities list; also, we could just remove or add one or more subactivities from a group of activities.

(Note by Liviu Lalescu: Benahmed Abdelkrim's suggestion was done on 12 June 2026, in FET-7.8.7 - the old TODO item #856.)

865---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum) and Volker Dirr:

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6843.0

I wish to have my timetables visible with ease for all the subjects once i wish to print without graphics?

---

That happens when i want the html file be printed but without graphics.

---

Volker Dirr:

hmm... maybe we should move the calculation from the black or white text
color into the css file?

I didn't try, but Gemini told me 2 solutions for this,
Instead of:

we can do:

Solution 1: (Exactly like we calculate the contrast right now:

tos << "td.c_"<<QString::number(cnt+1)<<" { /* Activity id:
"<<QString::number(act->id)<<" (subject+students) */\n";
tos << "  --bg: rgb("<<QString::number(r)<<", "<<QString::number(g)<<",
"<<QString::number(b)<<");\n";
tos << "  background-color: var(--bg);\n";
tos << "  color: rgb(from var(--bg) "
        "clamp(0, ((r * 0.299 + g * 0.587 + b * 0.114) - 127.5) * -1000,
255) "
        "clamp(0, ((r * 0.299 + g * 0.587 + b * 0.114) - 127.5) * -1000,
255) "
        "clamp(0, ((r * 0.299 + g * 0.587 + b * 0.114) - 127.5) * -1000,
255));\n";
tos << "}\n\n";

Solution 2: Use the official contrast calculation:

tos << "td.c_"<<QString::number(cnt+1)<<" { /* Activity id:
"<<QString::number(act->id)<<" (subject+students) */\n";
tos << "  background-color: rgb("<<QString::number(r)<<",
"<<QString::number(g)<<", "<<QString::number(b)<<");\n";
tos << "  color: contrast-color(rgb("<<QString::number(r)<<",
"<<QString::number(g)<<", "<<QString::number(b)<<"));\n";
tos << "}\n\n";

---

Liviu Lalescu:

Hmm... and do you think this would solve Cyrus' problem?

I like more solution (2.), but we are not guaranteed to have the same
behavior as FET interface.

I do not like solution (1.), seems too complicated and much CSS code.

---

Volker Dirr:

I didn't try it yet, but i guess it will help if guys manually change
the background. Yes solution 2 is smarter. Gemini explained me that we
currently use the old school way to calculate the contrast. The new one
is better in a few cases.

But I sadly saw an other problem with solution 2. This "contrast-color"
is a very new feature in web browsers. the official release date was
April 2026. Probably as a beta in some browsers a bit earlier. So the
biggest problem will be, that at least the Qt 5 preview will not work
(and maybe even the Qt 6 preview will not work.)

So I think maybe add the second solutions as a TODO with the comment
"Try this as soon we skip the Qt 5 support. Check if the Qt 6 print
preview can handle it fine."

866---------------------------------------------------------
From mrtvillaret:

In the Constraints subactivities preferred starting times constraint: when you specify which component should go in a
particular time slot, the generated timetable might not place subactivity (1) where it was supposed to go, but instead
place subactivity (2) there. When the two subactivities are interchangeable, this falsely inflates the conflict count.

Liviu Lalescu:

It is a bug, not a feature. The program cannot know exactly that two (sub)activities are interchangeable, because they
might have different constraints. I am sure (I hope it is not another FET bug) that you are talking about weights strictly less than 100%.

mrtvillaret:

Yes, that's right — I've only tested it with weight strictly less than 100%. But it would be great if it didn't produce
these false positives, especially when comparing timetables to pick the one with the fewest conflicts.

867---------------------------------------------------------
From ygoldblatt:

Is there any way to hold a "fet" file on the cloud (eg on a google drive) so that more than one person can have access?

868---------------------------------------------------------
From Anthony Siaudeau (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=3707.msg38421#msg38421

In the Terms mode, he needs a constraint to ensure that a teacher has the same timetable layout every real week.

869---------------------------------------------------------
From Malamojka:

When importing from CSV, not having the standard header, could FET retain the user's choices (selected rows) for the combo boxes?

870---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis:

About FET edit + print Morocco...
this type of tools are useful for small modifications.. for
example if on Wednesday two teachers are absent I think much time
ago... we discussed about exporting SELECTED activities (from a
generated timetable) to a new .fet file... is this possible?

Liviu Lalescu

It is possible, even now, with an advanced filter and deactivate/remove
the filtered activities. 

Vangelis Karafillidis:

Really? export? to a new .fet file?

Liviu Lalescu:

Save as.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

oh.. I see...

so... the user can select the activities of the other days.. (except
for Wednesday) and delete them all.. right?

Liviu Lalescu:

exactly!

Vangelis Karafillidis:

and... what about the constraints?

Liviu Lalescu:

they will be removed (if you removed the activities), or ignored (if
you disabled the activities)

Vangelis Karafillidis:

and.. for example.. what about teacher -
min days per week? 

Liviu Lalescu:

remains

Vangelis Karafillidis:

bad...

Liviu Lalescu:

I thought it was good.

Vangelis Karafillidis:

we need to expand FET's capabilities regarding modifying timetables...
so.. if you implement a dialogue for the types of constraints that the
user want to keep or delete/deactivate... the problem would be solved
very easily... you have filters in the all constraints' dialog so...
for a timetable for Wednesday... most of the time the user would need
to keep only not available times,  max span, max hours continuously and
max gaps daily for teachers.

Liviu Lalescu:

x Teachers x Students x Activities

Vangelis Karafillidis:

too much time.. hmm...
if an alternative fast way could be implemented... this would be much
easier... in my opinion...
1) export selected activities (or activities of a selected day) to a
new .fet file. the new file has number of days = 1, name of the day =
name of the selected day... and hours... the hours of the original .fet
file 2) dialogue for selecting which TYPES of constraints should be
kept... default not available times, max hours continuously, max span,
max gaps for teachers delete all constraints that have to do with
week... maybe some space constraints should be kept as well...

871---------------------------------------------------------
From Cyrus Ireri (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6871.0

Is it possible to view timetables online for the classes, teachers and rooms? I'm in a school that is very big with around 39 classes (groups) and 91 teachers.
It's not easy to be printing timetables for them all the time. They wish upon generating, they can be viewing the timetables online. Is this possible?

Liviu Lalescu:

Isn't it very easy - just copy the HTML and CSS files from fet-results? But you need a server to host them.

Cyrus Ireri:

I thought there is a way through a mobile app that can be achieved for teachers. Once I generate, I can upload to cloud and the access is there through an app.
Just thinking.

872---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6872.0

I would like to suggest a new feature for both Time Constraints and Space Constraints, which could be called Constraint Group.

The idea is to introduce a new type of constraint that acts as a container or group, allowing users to combine two or more existing constraints into a single logical group. Instead of requiring every constraint in the group to be satisfied independently, the user could define the logical relationship between them.

For example, if a group contains two constraints, the group could be considered satisfied if either one of the constraints is satisfied, or if both are satisfied, depending on the option selected by the user.

For groups containing several constraints (four, five, or more), I suggest providing different grouping modes, such as:

All constraints must be satisfied (AND).

At least one constraint must be satisfied (OR).

Exactly N constraints must be satisfied, where N is chosen by the user.

At least N constraints must be satisfied.

At most N constraints may be satisfied.


I also believe the most user-friendly implementation would be to add a "Group Constraints" button in the constraints list window.

The user would simply select multiple existing constraints, click the Group Constraints button, and a dialog would appear asking how these constraints should be combined. The dialog would allow the user to choose the grouping mode (AND, OR, Exactly N, At Least N, At Most N, etc.).

This approach would eliminate the need to recreate constraints, since users would only group existing ones. It would also integrate naturally with FET's current interface and workflow.

I believe this feature would significantly increase the flexibility and expressive power of FET, making it possible to model many real-world scheduling situations that are currently difficult or impossible to represent using the existing constraint system alone.

Thank you once again for creating and continuously improving this outstanding software. I hope you will find this suggestion useful, and I sincerely appreciate your consideration.

Liviu Lalescu:

I'll add this in the TODO, but it is impossible. All constraints in FET must be combined with AND.

Alami Mohammed:

My idea is not to replace the global AND logic used by FET. On the contrary, the solver would still combine all top-level constraints with AND.
The proposed Constraint Group would simply behave as a single constraint from the solver's point of view. Only the constraints inside that group would be evaluated according to the selected logical mode (AND, OR, Exactly One, At Least N, etc.). Once evaluated, the group itself would return either "satisfied" or "not satisfied", just like any other constraint.
I realize this may still require significant changes to the solving algorithm, but I wanted to clarify that my proposal keeps the global AND behavior unchanged.

Liviu Lalescu:

Yes, I understood your suggestion, the algorithm should respect an AND of more groups of constraints. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to tell FET: in this group of constraints, you must respect at least one (OR of a group of constraints), or other variants different from AND.

For instance, many asked for "activities begin or end students' day". I tried much to obtain this constraint, and I managed in the end, but it was very complicated, and it is still not perfect.

873---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6873.0

I would like to suggest a feature that I believe would be extremely useful for many FET users: native Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) export and printing.

Currently, FET provides excellent output formats such as HTML and PDF, which are very useful. However, many schools and administrators still rely heavily on Microsoft Excel to review, customize, format, and print timetables before distributing them.

Therefore, I suggest adding Excel (.xlsx) as an additional output format alongside HTML and PDF.

Ideally, this option could be integrated directly into both:

the Timetable View window,

and the Print/Export window,

where the user could simply choose the desired output format:

HTML

PDF

Excel (.xlsx)

The generated Excel files could preserve the current timetable layout, including merged cells, colors, borders, fonts, and page formatting as much as possible, making them immediately ready for printing or further editing.

This feature would provide several important advantages:

Allow users to make final formatting adjustments directly in Excel.

Simplify the preparation of printed timetables according to each institution's preferences.

Enable easy integration with existing Excel-based administrative workflows.

Save users a significant amount of time, since many currently convert HTML files into Excel manually.

I believe that native Excel export would be a valuable addition to FET and would be appreciated by a large number of users worldwide, especially in educational institutions where Excel is the standard tool for document preparation.

Volker Dirr:

I guess it will be possible for teachers, rooms and subgroups timetables as long as there is only a single activity per html cell. It will be difficult (impossible?!) as soon as there are more then 1 activity in an html cell; like in groups and years timetables. So it will be hard/difficult to convert that into Excel.

Maybe you can also add some more words how to export the many timetable variants that FET supports. I guess each html file as an Excel file. But in a single file are a lot of tables. All tables into a single sheet OR each single table into an own sheet? How to care about cell with more than 1 activity?

Liviu Lalescu:

I'll add your words in the TODO.

But: We prefer to promote the use of free software.

Alami Mohammed:

To clarify my suggestion, I think the export feature could initially be limited to Teachers, Rooms, and Students (Groups/Subgroups) timetables, since these usually contain a single activity per cell.

The user could choose the timetable type to export, just as in the current Print Preview window.

Instead of creating many worksheets, each exported spreadsheet could contain a single timetable sheet with a drop-down list at the top, allowing the user to select the teacher, room, or student group to display. The timetable would update automatically according to the selected item.

A similar approach is used in the EDT4FET application, where a selection field allows the user to choose the timetable to display.

Regarding the output format, I fully understand FET's preference for free software. Therefore, I believe that supporting OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) would be an excellent choice, while .xlsx could remain an optional format for users who need Microsoft Office compatibility.

Volker Dirr:

Sadly groups timetables have in most countries/schools more than a single activity per cell.

So max teachers, rooms and subgroups is "possible" (even those can also have multiple activities in a single cell).

I might code it, but it is a big task and I can't see big advantages for it. Out of my personal view it is even unneeded. It is easier and even more flexible to modify the html tables. You can simply add text before and after the tables, so that you can even print a nice letter for each timetable, even if cells contains more than a single activity.

Note by Liviu Lalescu:

On 1 August 2026, in FET-7.9.5, we added an option to include the CSS file in the beginning of each HTML timetable file. This will improve importing in some programs.

874---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on Facebook):

about CSV importing for long names, etc... I think
that this part is quite crucial for facilitating the importing
process.... I mean that if the user could import "at once" long names,
regular names and short names for subjects, teachers, etc, this would
vastly facilitate the user who needs all these forms of the names...

---

I think that even if a new import feature (from CSV) does not support the multi-line long names, this would not be a problem for most users.
Moreover, if the user needs a multi-line long name, they could edit the specific subject (with the already existing dialog) in order to make
the corresponding long name multi-line. The void and not unique of the long names and codes is what internally FET supports. So, if the new
import from CSV can be implemented in a way that supports void and not unique names, this would be compatible with the internal FET functionality.
I am not a coder, but this seems to be very easy; empty value (void, blank, no value) for void long names and/or codes, and identical values
for not unique long names and/or codes. And one more question... Liviu... the current implementation of the dialogue needs many clicks in order
to add the name, the long name, the code of a subject and the comments. I think it would be much better (much faster) if the user could add
in the same dialog all this information. So. when clicking on "Add" I would expect a unified dialog for "Name", "Long Name", "Code" and "Comments".
The current implementation of the UI has "Add", "Rename", "Remove", "Long name", "Code", :Comments". Under my perspective the variant with "Add"
(with the new dialog as I described it), "Edit" (instead of "Rename" and with the new dialog as I described it), "Remove" (this one is the same),
and with "Long name", "Code" and "Comments" omitted, would be clearer...

---

is it possible to add an option for selecting names, long names
and codes in the dialogs? for example: not only for subjects... but
this is the idea... also... for example.. when adding a subject... I
think that it's easier of the user to add + edit the name, long name
and the code.. in the same window... with the current user interface...
the user adds the name.. and then adds the long name and/or the code...

(Vangelis sent Liviu a modified screenshot with the Activities dialog,
in which the subject filter had 3 radio buttons: N, LN, and C.)

Liviu Lalescu:

one problem: the long names/codes might be empty or
not unique

Vangelis Karafillidis:

you can add a warning when selecting for example "code" or
"long name". for example... if at least one of the "code" names of the
subjects is missing... the user should be informed... OR... you could
implement this option to be activated for the respective option (for
example "code") IF AND ONLY IF all the code names of the subjects were
added by the user... even if a single one is missing... the option
should remain de-activated... OR... when a "code" name is missing... it
could be replaced with the respective "normal" name...

875---------------------------------------------------------
From MOHAMED AIT ICHOU (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6892.0

Add an option to group teachers by subject in the following FET sections:

Timetable → Teachers → Days Vertical
Data → Teachers

This would make it easier to navigate and manage teachers, especially in schools with a large number of teachers

876---------------------------------------------------------
From Alami Mohammed (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6895.0

I would like to suggest two new constraints for FET related to the number of activities per day, one for teachers and another for students.

1. Allowed number of activities per day for a teacher

This constraint would allow the user to control the number of activities assigned to a teacher each day.

The user could specify:

- One exact number, for example: exactly 4 activities per day.
- Several allowed numbers, for example: 2, 4, or 6 activities per day.
- A general condition, such as only even numbers of activities per day.

This could be useful when an institution wants to organize teachers' workloads in a specific way or avoid undesirable daily workloads.

2. Allowed number of activities per day for students

A similar but separate constraint could be provided for students, groups, or subgroups.

For example, the user could specify:

- Exactly 2 activities per day.
- Exactly 4 activities per day.
- 2 or 4 activities per day.
- Any other selected set of numbers.
- Only even numbers of activities per day.

This could be particularly useful for schools where student transportation affects the timetable. For example, a large group of students may need to have exactly 2 or 4 activities on a particular day so that they finish at an appropriate time and can take the school bus.

I think having these as two separate constraints would provide greater flexibility, because the requirements for teachers and students are often different.

877---------------------------------------------------------
From Vangelis Karafillidis (on Facebook):

in the generated timetable view... the additional functionalities of modifying, removing and deactivating the selected ACTIVITIES would be highly useful...

---

what about a button for modifying/deleting/deactivating activities on this view? (Vangelis refers to the teachers time horizontal view.)
(and other similar views of course)
much time ago..
both of you and Volker... didn't like the idea... because of "confusing" the ideas of modifying a timetable... with the data entering process... 
but... it's much easier for the user..
to select (for examples) the activities of teacher_a (if he is absent)... and deactivate (or delete) them with a single click...
or you might implement this feature not with a new button...
but... by opening a little window when right-clicking after selecting some activities

---

I need to test this... but.. let's say that we work on the teachers time horizontal view... when selecting an activity with TWO TEACHERS (let's say
teacher_a and teacher_b) only by clicking on the raw of teacher_a... what does happen? does this activity becomes automatically selected for teacher_b as well?

I think that when we have a generated timetable (in the teachers time horizontal view) and click on an activity which has two teachers... only the cell that
we click on appears "selected"... I would expect both cells to appear selected...

when we have this view...
and we select an activity
or... the activities (let's say) of teacher_a, who is absent...
I suggested to have some kind of "shortcut" of the activities dialog... this IDENTICAL dialog... could open... and have as FILTERED activities...
ONLY the SELECTED ones... you are the coder... but... if the user can do this procedure manually... they can take some notes about the activities
IDs... and search these IDs in this dialog..., why can't this be done in an "automated" way?

878---------------------------------------------------------
From Željko Vrabec (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6896.msg38622#msg38622

Can you please make that all teacher/group/subject data are exported to CSV? For instance long name and abbreviation i.e. code?

879---------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on Facebook):

He sent Liviu Lalescu a modified screenshot. When selecting which days to unlock, FET will show the locked days with a bold font.

880--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6907.0

When adding a constraint for a students set or for all students, implement the possibility to add a constraint for each students set,
"Add constraints", as it is possible for teachers.

881--------------------------------------------------------
From GUEFFAZ REDA (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6908.0

What if the research was deeper and more precise to include the names of the teachers and students?

(GUEFFAZ REDA refers to the new feature, introduced in FET-7.10.1, to search in the menus for specific words.)

882--------------------------------------------------------
From Anisse Hanifi (on Facebook):

Could you provide us with tags for professors — or even for a selected group of professors — all at once?

883--------------------------------------------------------
From kieronsalmon (on forum):

https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/forum/index.php?topic=6911.0

I was wondering if there's any way to export a really clean .fet file.
I know that you can export a selection of days, and can remove redundant constraints.
I also know that TiTiTo can do a clean export, but that file still includes unused teachers, student groups and rooms.
Ideally I'd like to export a .fet file that only includes active activities, assigned teachers, assigned students / groups, and assigned rooms.
