The EKHO School Management System

Version History

 

(You can display this document at any time when you are in the EKHO SMS by selecting Display EKHO SMS Documents from the File menu, then selecting What's New ... )

Version 1.9.8

·        Added support for saving more than one picture on the student form. A picture can be flagged as the student’s photo; it will be the default picture to appear when the student’s record is displayed. Other picture, such as samples of a student’s work, should not be flagged this way.

Version 1 8.2

·        Added ability for a user to change his own password, via an item on the File menu.

 

Version 1.8.1

·        Better support for printing the various documents, such as the welcome and map documents, and course descriptions. The setup form documents page now allows entry of the welcome and map file names. There is now an option to use the Windows File Association to determine how to print a document. This uses the file extension (e.g. .doc, .html) to determine which program should be used to print a document. The course form file names page now allows the user to inform the system if the course outline is a PRN file, an MS Word document, or an “other” type of document, in which case the file association will be used.

Version 1.8.0

·        Changed the class form extensively. The selection page now has more options, and is easier to use. There is a list page that shows a table of all the classes that meet the selection criteria; this may be used to select a specific class. Clicking on the column headers in the table will sort the table; alternate clicks change the sort between ascending and descending.

·        Added facility to download registration data from the web site, and process it. Student records can be added or updates; the student can be register for the desired class, or placed on a wait list. An e-mail can be sent to the student telling him his registration has been received.

Version 1.7.8

·        Made changes to the search forms (such as for selecting a student) to highlight n a rose color the entry that is closest to the text the user entered, in the case where there is no excact match. This warns the user that the entry he was searching for does not exist.

·        Added facility to the class form to allow the user to specify class numbers, rather than using the system-assigned ones. The system ensures the numbers are unique. Theses class Ids do not have to be numeric, and can be up to 8 characters in length.

·        Instructors can have an expiry date attached to their qualifications for a course. When selecting an instructor for a course, the selection form will show instructors whose qualifications have expired in red

 

Version 1.7.4

·        Generating a course schedule for the web also generates a text file that can be used on the web site to create a calendar (much like the EKHO SMS calendar), complete with hyperlinks to course descriptions

·        Added a page to the course form to enter a brief course description that can be displayed in a popup window on the web calendar

Version 1.7.0

·        Added facility to automatically upload  the HTML class schedules, etc to a web site. The setup form allows the user to specify the web site, userid, and password.

·        Double-click on the web site field of the company form to bring up the that site using the default web browser.

·        Double-click on a student form e-mail address to send e-mail to that student.

·        Added autobackup on exit facility. The setup form allows the user to set up options for the backup.

·        Added a facility to use the user’s default mail program, rather than our built-in mail form, if the user so chooses. Note that there is a limit to how many addresses can be passed to the mailer this way.

 

Version 1.6.12

·        Added a profession field to the student form

·        We now check for duplicate student names when creating a new student, and warn the user

·        Added support for student pictures to the student form

Version 1.6.4

·        Clicking the middle mouse button (the wheel on a wheel mouse) while over a session on the calendar will bring up the class form for that class.

·        The various selection grids and forms (e.g. those that allow you to select a student, or a company, or a course …) have been modified so that the mouse cursor is a hand rather than than the I-beam; this makes it more obvious that you are selecting an item rather than editing the text.

Version 1.6.0

·        General improvements to drag/drop – use checkmark to indicate a drop target is OK.

·        Added ability to drop an object on the main data page of a form; the form will determine the appropriate action. For example, dropping a company on the student form’s data page will make the company the student’s employer; dropping a course will add the course to the waitlist for the student.

·        Added a right-click menu item to phone numbers to allow dialing of the phone number. This requires that the Windows Phone Dialer be set up properly. Use a Y-adapter to connect both your modem and a telephone to the same line, then dial numbers from the EKHO system.

·        You can now drop a student on a class session on the calendar. This will register the student for that class. The class form is brought up and the attendees page is displayed.

·        Changed the course  form to allow course costs to be specified in both Canadian and US dollars. Added facility to the setup form to specify whether support for both $US and $Cdn is desired, and to specify the exchange rate (how many $US one $Cdn will buye.g. 0.65)

·        The web pages generated for price lists and course schedules will print both Cdn and US prices, if US support is enabled.

·        Invoices that are generated automatically from the class attendees page will use $US prices for courses if US$ support is enabled, and the person to whom the invoice is being billed is in the US. If you change the billing address, the prices of the invoice items for the student will be changed accordingly, unless you have manually changed the amounts.

 

Version 1.4.0

·        Made necessary changes to run under Windows 2000.

Version 1.3.12

·        Added the ability to generate HTML course schedules by course name as well as by date.

Version 1.3.10

·        Added a facility to the calendar so that when scheduling class sessions, sessions for other classes for the same course may be optionally displayed. This is handy to show where you have already scheduled the course.

·        The company form was modified so that the selection list can be sorted by company ID (name), by change date, or by order entered, the same as the student form.

Version 1.3.6

·        FAXing respects the NOFAX flag

·        Student form now has a NoEMAIL flag, and a Profession field

·        Company form now as a NoEmail flag, and a WebSite field

·        Contacts form has a NoEMail flag

·        Invoice form how has fields for the FAX and phone number of the person to whom the bill is being sent.

·        Fixed the runaway print problem when printing student forms.

·        The setup form lets the used select a default document directory, where course descriptions, etc can be kept

 

Version 1.3.3

·        Based on VFP 6

·        The HTML generators create lower case file names; the default extension is “.html”

·        The facility to send E-mail generate FAX file, etc is now available via the reports toolbar button.

·        The FAX generation now provides an area code filter.

·        FAX generator send a “.txt” file, with fields delimited by semicolons (;). The 1st fields is the FAX number, the 2nd is the name (firstname lastname), the 3rd is empty, the 4th  is the lastname, for sorting purposes.

·        The calendarform classroom popup is now sorted by classroom name, not number

·        The invoice form selection list is sorted by invoice date (descending order), not by invoice number.

·        The bug regarding not being able to change the tax check boxes on invoices has been fixed.

·        There is code in the HTML schedule generator to generate a course registration page. It requires a template CourseRegistrationTemplate.htm with the string $$htmltext$$ in the place that the course selection popup should appear. The default name for the output file is courseregistration.html .

·        The system now has subdirectories custom, templates and documents under the data and testdata directories.  The custom directory contains programs and files that may be different for different clients, such as the invoice printing routine, the Web page generators and the like. The client will not modify these. The templates directory contains files that the system uses as templates to generate other files or documents. For example, the generation of Web pages uses template files containing the basic web page layout, with a placeholder where the system should insert the variable HTML text. The MS Word certificate template, which gets filled out with the name, course, etc is here. The documents directory can be used to store various documents that the system prints, such as course descriptions.

 

Version 1.3.2

·        Same as Version 1.2.12 but for VFP 6.

Version 1.3.1

·        Same as VFP5 version 1.2.11 but for VFP 6.

Version 1.3.0

·        Converted to Visual FoxPro 6 from VFP 5. This entails distributing the VFP6 runtime library. No functional changes

Version 1.2.12

·        The system now automatically adjusts various dates in the test data to correspond to the month and year of installation. When the user displays the calendar after installation, it will show classes in the current month, rather than the date the test files were originally built.

·        There is now a checkbox to allow you to send to ALL student on the form for sending E-mail, FAXes, labels, etc.

·        Fixed bug in printing calendars where legend text had the same class number for all classes

·        The generation of HTML for prices and schedules has been changed from using header and footer files to using  a single template that has everything the user wants on the page except for the data we generate. Where  the generated html is to appear, place $$htmltext$$ exactly as shown – no extra spaces, and all in lower case – into the template html. This placeholder will be replaced with the generated text. This allows the use of a tool such as Front Page to generate the templates. The template files should be placed in the Data subdirectory, and must be named SchedTemplate.htm and PriceTemplate.htm.

Version 1.2.11

·        Sending E-Mail, FAXes, printing  labels and envelopes

·        The File menu E-Mail, Labels … item now brings up a different form that allows the user more control

·        User can select if he wants to send E-mail, generate a FAX listing, generate labels or print envelopes

·        User can select students who have taken selected courses before a given date, or students who are interested in selected courses, who are wait listed for selected courses, or who are either interested or wait listed.

·        A list of courses from which to select is presented

·        User can select label size and envelope size

·        For FAXes, a list of fax number and person’s name is generated, in CSV format. The user can select the file name and path for saving this data. If the FAX number does not have an area code, the system uses the area code of the user’s company, as entered on the Setup form.

·        There is now a report to generate a Price List for the Web. It generates hyperlinks to course descriptions, for any courses that have one.

·        An installation will now create a WebData subdirectory in the EKHO SMS directory. The programs that generate web data will use that directory as the default location for saving files.

·        If the header or footer HTML files used by the various HTML creation programs are missing, a default header and footer will be used. It will have the “title” of the form at the top, but no other information. This is just a safety precaution in case the user manages to delete the files.

Version 1.2.10

·        Invoice Form: you can now enter 100% discount; checks not greater than 100%

·        Invoice Form: selection page now has a list of invoice number, date, name from which to select, rather than a pop-up with just the invoice number.                       

·        Creating an invoice from the class attendees page now properly displays the new invoice.

·        Phone numbers: you can now paste an extension, as long as the extension is separated from the phone number by a / symbol. There is now a right-click menu for phone numbers with copy and paste. You can now copy a phone number to the clipboard, but only from this menu. Ctrl-c will not work (although ctrl-v for paste does work).

·        Instructor form Availability page now has a check box to show all or just recent (within last three months)

·        When generating an HTML Class Schedule, you can now select a path & file name. The default is still sched.html in the current directory.

·        Class form List Classes to select from ... button now brings up a list rather than a popup box. Same function, but works better with mouse wheel.

 

Mouse Wheel Support

The mouse wheel was already supported by many elements in the system, such as grids (tables), list boxes, popup list boxes (but before you pop up the list; e.g. in a province/state popup, use the mouse wheel on the box rather than popping up the list, and the various provinces/states will appear in the box. Note that in many cases if you click the mouse wheel, the mouse pointer changes to a multi-directional arrow. Moving the mouse causes the grid, etc to scroll fast in the direction you moved the mouse. Try this on the student selection popup form. Try using the mouse wheel on various elements of forms to see their effect. the calendar form is a good example.

·        Forms; now, using the mouse wheel when on any blank space of a form (not anywhere on text, or fields, or command buttons, etc) will select the next or prior record (e.g. next student, class, etc). In the case of the calendar form, the mouse wheel selects the next/prior month; as well, the wheel can be almost anywhere in the calendar, not just in blank space.

·        Date selection boxes: the mouse wheel moves the date by 1 day; with the shift key pressed, by 1 month; with the ctrl key pressed, by 1 year.

Version 1.2.9

·        When the system starts, display an introductory document, which points the user to the various documents and other help that is available. The user can prevent the document from appearing at subsequent startups

·        When the system first starts after installing an upgrade to a new version, display the WhatsNew document (this document).

·        Added a Display EKHO SMS Documents item to the File menu. This sub-menu allows the user to display the introduction and Whats New documents. Other documents can be added.

Version 1.2.8

·        Modified startup sequence to use Test Data for newly installed systems, rather than production data.

·        Modified the User Preference form Data page to bring up the Setup form the first time the user switches from Test Data to production data.

·        Changed WinFax generation to use a form to ask for parameters

·        Added a field to the Course form Files page to allow user to specify the name of an HTML file containing a course description. This will be used when generating course schedules for the web to create a hyperlink to a course description.

Version 1.2.6

·        Added facility to Report to generate an HTML class schedule for posting on the Web, with optional hyperlinks to course descriptions.

·        When you get a Select Instructor form, you can now ask for a new instructor to be created. This will bring up the Instructor form. When you create the new instructor and save the form, this new instructor will be used as the result of the "Select Instructor"

·        When you change data sources in the User Preferences form, a validity test is run on the newly selected data source.

·        Added a check box to the Course form to allow the display or hiding of obsolete classes when you scroll through the courses, or pop up the "List courses ..." selection.

Version 1.2.5

·        Internal release only

Version 1.2.4

·        Added an extended tool tip facility. Tool tips are now displayed in a much easier to read format.

·        Added a facility to the User Preference form to allow the user to change the look of tool tips. The tip format can be changed; brief or verbose tips can be selected; how long the tip remains on the screen can be selected.

·        Tool tips can be enabled or disabled on a form by form basis.