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Text File | 1992-01-01 | 22.3 KB | 470 lines

WHATSNEW.V21 Page 1 Making The Grade Version 2.1 WHAT'S NEW? ~~~~~~~~~~~ January, 1992 NOTES EDITOR The biggest change in version 2.1 is the addition of an integrated text editor. On either a Test or Student screen, move the cursor to a test name or student name (or anywhere in the row) or onto the class name in the upper left hand corner, and press Alt- N ('N' for 'Notes') indicating you wish to write notes on this particular item. There are many possible uses for such an editor; it's a convenient way to record consultations with parents, guidance counselors and students, to record medical disabilities, reasons for absence, details of domestic problems. Many teachers of special education and elementary school may be required (or may wish) to keep detailed logs of student behavior and progress. The editor may also be used to write up a course outline or a test. Like many other features in MTG, some teachers will have a need for the editor and some won't. If a test name (or the class name) is selected, MTG searches for a file name in the data subdirectory composed of the class name and the extension .TST; for example, if the class name is ENG- 2A(.MTX), then the Notes file for tests is named ENG-2A.TST. If the file is not found, you are advised that you are beginning a new file and are asked how many pages per test you wish to allocate, between one and eight pages. The data you write on each test is stored in this file in database format and requires a considerable amount of drive space. As you increase the number of pages allocated per test (using the right arrow), you are shown the total drive space that a full file will occupy (forty tests' worth) which can range from 151K to over a megabyte, depending on the number of pages. The default number of pages per test is two; decide how many pages you'd like according to the amount of drive space you can afford to allocate. I highly recommend that you use Notes only on a hard drive, or at least on a high density 3.5"/5.25" floppy disk. In the latter case, you should plan on using one floppy per class if you use Notes extensively. Once you have selected the number of pages you wish to allocate per test, it cannot be changed for that file. Data 'keyed' to the class name is stored in the test Notes file, so that you can use Notes to write up a course outline. In similar fashion, if you press Alt-N on a student name, a file named ENG-2A.STU is loaded or created as necessary, and you then specify the number of pages you wish to allocate per student (which need not match the number you have specified for tests). All of this may seem needlessly Page 2 WHATSNEW.V21 complicated, but I feel it is better to offer some flexibility with regard to file size rather than taking a 'one size fits all' approach. In actual use, much of this structure will be transpar- ent. MTG checks to see if there are already notes on the selected item (test/student/class) and if so, loads this data into the editor; you can then edit the data or add new information. If there are no previous notes on this item, the editor starts up with a blank page except for the 'header' it creates at the top of the page. The two-line header consists of such things as the test or student name, the name of the class, and your name, and cannot be edited or removed; MTG uses this information internally to identify the block of data and to store and retrieve it correctly on disk. Below the header, MTG inserts today's date and time if the selected item is a student, and the cursor appears a couple of lines below this. If the item is a test, that test's maximum score, weight, and description is inserted for you (any of which can be deleted if you wish). USING THE EDITOR The Notes editor is a text editor, and is distinguished from a true word processor mostly by the fact that it doesn't support word- wrap, i.e. each line ends in a carriage return (press Enter). If you have used EDIT in DOS 5.0, or TED, or the editor in PC Tools, then you are already familiar with this type of editor. It is very simple to use, and is entirely adequate for the task at hand, but it is not WordPerfect. If you need fonts, automatic hyphenation, hanging indents with bullets, multi-column pages, and spell- checking, this editor is not for you. Each page consists of 58 lines of text, with a top and bottom margin of 4 lines. The left margin is set for 0.7 inches (seven characters in from the left edge), and the line width is set for 65 characters. Page breaks are indicated by arrows at the left and right margins and the page number is shown beside each page break. As in WordPerfect (for example), text entered immediately adjacent to the page break prints with correct top and bottom margins. Pages are numbered automatically when you print, beginning with page 2. Some commands are listed at the bottom of the screen. Press Alt-S at any time to save current data. When data is saved, it is automatically encrypted (another reason for the header) to prevent someone else from easily reading the file (COPY ENG-2A.STU PRN or TYPE ENG-2A.STU will display gibberish). This is not DES encryption and it won't stop someone who is determined and knowledgeable; and of course if your copy of MTG isn't protected by password, anyone can run it and consequently read your files. Alt-P prints either all data for the currently selected item or all marked (highlighted) data. Note that a marked block prints out with a correct top and bottom margin even if the block is somewhere in the middle of a page WHATSNEW.V21 Page 3 -- no need to adjust the page in the printer. Press Alt-Q or Esc to exit the Notes editor; you are warned if any changes have been made. A pair of numbers in the lower right corner of the screen indicate the present cursor location by row and column; note that the cursor is in column 7 at the extreme left edge, the left margin already accounted for. On occasion you may wish to 'export' some data from the Notes file and save it to an ASCII or .TXT file. This type of file can then be loaded into a word processor and be edited further, or you may simply want to store it separately from the Notes file. Exported data is no longer encrypted so be sure to keep this data in a safe place if it's sensitive. You may export either all data for a particular test or student, or only data in a block you have marked (use Shift-down arrow to mark a block of data). If you export all data, it is automatically saved in a file with the extension .EXS (for student data) or .EXT (for test data). In the case of a class named ENG-2A for example, exported data on a student is written to a file named ENG-2A.EXS. Each time you export data in this manner, it is appended (added) to the end of this file. When all data on an item is exported, the editor screen is cleared and you can then start with a fresh file on that test or student. If you save the file at this point (blank screen), the data on disk for that item is also cleared from the Notes file (e.g. ENG-2A.STU). This is a way to circumvent the limitation of having allocated, say, only two pages per student. When that two pages is used up, export it to an ASCII file and continue with two now empty pages. If you export only a marked block of data on the other hand, nothing is cleared from the screen or the Notes file; a copy of the marked block is simply written to an ASCII file, and you continue from there with all data intact. Note that in this case you can also specify another file name for the exported data other than the default by pressing 'F' at the prompt. The chart below summarizes the different types of files and data: __ Class _ (large Notes files, (small files, / \ database format) ASCII text format) / \ Alt-E Alt-N -- Test -------> ENG-2A.TST -------------> ENG-2A.EXT \ \ Alt-E \_ Student ----> ENG-2A.STU -------------> ENG-2A.EXS Alt-H displays a list of other editing commands, most of which are intuitive and self-explanatory. In addition to edit commands, you can also display the 'Class Stats' box with Alt-C, and if you're writing notes on a student, Alt-X brings up the Attendance data for that student. Page 4 WHATSNEW.V21 DELETING A CLASS When you delete a class file at the Main Menu, the following message now appears at the top of the screen: >> Notes will be exported to ASCII files XXXXX.EXS and XXXXX.EXT, which are not encrypted and can be edited with a word pro- cessor. (where XXXXX represents the name of the class file you are delet- ing). All data in the large Notes files is exported to more compact ASCII files, and the Notes files are subsequently deleted. If for some reason you wish to keep the original Notes files, you should copy these and the class file to a different floppy disk or subdirectory; Notes files cannot be accessed without the accom- panying class file. Finally, remember that data in the ASCII text files is no longer encrypted and should be kept in a secure place if it is sensitive. Notes files created with the shareware version of MTG (or with a school/school board license copy in which the teacher has not yet entered his/her name), will not be encrypted. If you have purchased a commercial version of MTG half-way through a semester, and have created unencrypted Notes files with a shareware copy, you can encrypt this data by simply loading the data and saving it again, for each test and student on which you have written notes. ARRANGING Unless you sorted by student name, average, trend, or test results, previous versions of MTG didn't display the criterion on which you were sorting; you simply saw the names listed in correct order. In this version, if you sort by 'unauth'd absence' (for example), the raw score, percentage, and average columns are cleared, and unauthorized absences are displayed in sorted order until you press Esc; then the regular screen is restored. When a sort is done by average, the averages remain on screen and the letter grades are listed beside them. This is a convenient time to do a Print Screen or use a TSR utility like SNIPPER or GRABBER to capture this text to a file. QUICK SAVING A FILE Occasionally, you may wish to save a class data file to a different drive or path from which the file was loaded. For example, you have loaded the file from data path C:\MTG\GRADES on your hard drive, and while the file is in memory you'd also like to save it to a backup floppy in drive B:; or you are getting a drive error on drive C: (disk full, perhaps) and rather than lose the work you've done so far, you'd like to save the file to a floppy disk in WHATSNEW.V21 Page 5 drive A:. To do this, instead of pressing Alt-S, press Ctrl-F1 to save to drive A:, or Ctrl-F2 to save to drive B:. If a path was previously set on the floppy drive (e.g. A:\FALL92), then the file will be saved here; otherwise it will be saved to the root directory A:\. If you need to set a path on the floppy disk before saving, exit to DOS first (Alt-T) and set the path (e.g. type A:, and then type cd FALL92); then exit from DOS back into MTG and press Ctrl-F1 -- the file will now be saved to A:\FALL92. The 'Changes have been made to this file' reminder will not be cleared when you use Quick Save, only when you have pressed Alt-S and saved to the usual data directory. CREATE A NEW SUBDIRECTORY From 'Select Data Pathname' at the Main Menu, and from 'Default Data Disk Location' at the Change Setup menu, you can now create a new subdirectory. This option has been added to the list of other options in the pop-up box in the lower right hand corner, and is a convenient feature at the start of a new semester; it's quite simple to create a different subdirectory for new classes, something like \SPRING92 or \FALL92. Subdirectories help keep the various class files organized, like folders and drawers in a file cabinet. The new subdirectory is created just below the level you're at; for example if you are at C:\MTG\GRADES, then the complete path for the new subdirectory would be C:\MTG\GRADES\SPRING92 (or whatever). Incidentally, some of the menus have been re-ordered for greater ease of use. At the Main Menu for example, 'Edit a file' is now the first item on the list since this is what you will select most often. Similarly, the first item on the Report menu is now 'Gradebook Report'. TEMPORARY EXIT TO DOS This feature has been dropped from the Main Menu and Change Setup menu; no class files are in memory at this point and it is a simple matter to quickly exit the program to perform DOS tasks and then return. It is still available from an Edit screen however, by pressing Alt-T. In addition, MTG now checks that COMMAND.COM is available somewhere on the PATH defined in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, since a second copy of the command processor must be loaded whenever you 'shell' to DOS. If you booted with a system disk in drive A:, you'll be prompted to re-insert the system disk before shelling can occur. This situation will most likely arise with laptops, many of which don't have hard drives. Page 6 WHATSNEW.V21 CHOOSING A PRINTER If MTG detects two parallel ports, an additional selection can be made at the bottom of the 'Choose A Printer' screen; you may choose LPT1: or LPT2:. If in doubt, stick with LPT1: (this is the default). This feature may not work with some print spoolers and has not been tested with networks. If it doesn't work, you may have to pre-configure the parallel ports with a separate utility before running MTG. CURSOR COLOR Pressing Alt-B on an Edit screen cycles the cursor through seven different colors; the default is black. To save a new cursor color, just be sure to visit and exit the Change Setup menu before quitting the program; the change will be saved in your SET_UP.MTG file. One color in particular, white (so you'll have bright white lettering on a grayish background), may show up better on monochrome monitors. REPORTS Progress Report now allows comments in the COMMENTS.TXT file to be 55 characters long instead of 36. If longer than 36, a comment is truncated in the four pages of comment menus with a small right arrow at the end of it, but will appear in its entirety at the bottom of the screen if selected, and when printed. At the bottom of the screen, four blank lines now appear instead of two. Any line may be left blank, may contain a comment selected from above, or may be edited. To enter your own remarks on any line, simply begin typing. These changes give you a great deal more flexibility when filling out progress reports. The Class Summary report now allows you to print student number rather than student name, similar to the Gradebook and Missing Assignment reports. As well, if the students have first been sorted by over-all average, each student's ranking is printed to the left of his name (highest mark is #1, second highest is #2, etc.). The Gradebook report now also prints each student's ranking under the following conditions: you have selected only one test to print, and the students have already been sorted on the results of this test at the edit screen (Zoom onto Test.6, press Alt-A, followed by 'Arrange By Results Of Test.6', for example). Two new reports have been added ('report' is used loosely here). Graph Paper prints a reasonable facsimile of Cartesian graph paper in a 55 x 42 grid -- somewhat finer resolution than the usual graph paper and perhaps more suitable for certain tasks. Lined Paper, as the name implies, prints lined paper, 28 lines per page, WHATSNEW.V21 Page 7 with slightly more space between lines than the usual 3-hole binder paper. Multiple copies of either can be printed, or you may wish to just photocopy one of them. These reports were added mostly for convenience, in case you run out of one or the other. Lastly, a small bug was fixed whereby a couple of extra line feeds were being generated at the end of every 'print job' on dot matrix printers, whether it be a single page, a multi-page report, or a number of copies. The reports themselves printed fine, but the paper had to be slightly adjusted by hand before the next print job so that the print head was once again even with the perforation. If this was ignored, successive jobs would force the print to creep down the page. The paper now stops where it is supposed to stop, and you needn't fiddle with the printer between print jobs. COMMAND CHART For your convenience, a single-page keyboard command chart is now included, giving you quick access to the commands used in Edit, Graph, Report, and the Notes editor (registered version only). MEMORY REQUIREMENTS If you have been 'getting by' with a 384K computer, you may find this is no longer enough memory in which to run MTG. The new features have enlarged it significantly, and most likely a 512K computer will now be required, as originally specified. SCHOOL AND SCHOOL BOARD LICENSES MTG can now be configured for an individual user, school, or a school board license. In the case of a school or school board license, provision has been made in the Change Setup menu for a teacher to enter his/her name, and the school's name (or board name in the case of a board license) is 'hard-coded' into the various reports. License fees for schools and school boards will be assessed on an individual basis so the cost will be based fairly on the number of teachers involved; see the file SCHOOL.LIC for more details or please enquire in writing for further information at this address: Coffee Mug Software 95 Notch Hill Road, Suite 306 Kingston, Ont. K7M 5Y6 Canada Page 8 WHATSNEW.V21 NOTES ON WEIGHTING BY CATEGORY Several teachers have asked if MTG can weight by category (Homework, Quizzes, etc.) rather than having to assign each test its own weight. In the programs I have seen that employ weighting by categories, I noticed that within a category, it is impossible to assign different weights, so if for example, there are five quizzes within the Quiz category, and that category is assigned a weight of 15%, then each quiz gets a weight of 3%, regardless of its actual standing or significance in relation to other quizzes in the category. As well (at least in the programs I looked at),the number and names of categories are fixed, often with names like HW, TE, QU, etc. If I were to implement categories, I would still feel compelled to allow variable weighting within the category, which is little different from what MTG currently offers. However, there is a way to organize weights by category, and I will give an example here. First, it is assumed that you know ahead of time how each category will be weighted as a whole; 10% for homework, 25% for tests, etc. So when you enter the first item in a category, say Test.1, give this item the _entire weight_ for that category. When you enter scores for the next item in that category, you'll divide the first weight in half and assign half to the new item (so each is 12.5%), and so on. What about when you've got say 5 tests and a total weight of 17% must be split evenly among them? Here's what you can do in such a case: first, change all the weights for the 5 tests to 1%. Then press Alt-W, for Group Weight Adjustment. Answer 'No' to the question 'Adjust all weights?'. Then use the spacebar to mark each of the 5 tests. Press Enter when done and enter a weight of 17% for that group. The 17% will be split evenly (within 0.1%) among the 5 tests. This may seem more tedious at first, but there are advantages. The tests don't have to be weighted evenly; before using Group Weight Adjustment, you could assign weights of 0.5%, 1%, 1%, 1%, and 1.5% for example. Then specify a group weight of 17% and MTG calculates the new weights _based on this ratio_. Also, there is no limit to the number of possible categories, or any naming re- striction other than a maximum of 6 characters, though obviously you need some kind of naming convention, similar to that used in the sample file CHE-3A1!. Finally, it's a simple matter to change any individual weight or the group weight at any time during a sem- ester. If you haven't used Group Weight Adjustment before, you might want to experiment with the sample file first to see how it works and read the relevant section in the manual. _______________________