Timetables view

Mimosa views:

Components
view 		Courses
view 		Weeks
view 		Timetables
view

In this view you can create timetables for all components you have defined in Components view, such as for teachers, students and rooms, groups or classes, and for all weeks you have defined. When you schedule a course lecture, Mimosa automatically schedules the same lecture to all the timetables of the components of that course and takes care that scheduling is permissible.

You can select the timetables and courses in any order for scheduling and you can make bookings to timetables to prevent scheduling to inappropriate slots.

In this view you can do the following:

  • Schedule lectures
  • Remove course lectures from timetables
  • Make or cancel bookings to block inappropriate scheduling
  • Move scheduled lectures between timetable slots
  • View the timetables of all components connected to courses

Recommended prerequisites:

  • You have created some components in Components view
  • You have created some courses in Courses view and attached components to them
  • You have allocated some course lectures to weeks in Weeks view (if you have timetables for several weeks)

If there exists at least one course with one or more components, you can start scheduling lectures. If the maximum number of weeks is set to one (=1) in Options|Limits there is no need to use Weeks view to allocate lectures to weeks or terms. If this is not the case, go to this week and allocate some of the lectures to weeks.

In Timetables view, when you select a week, only those courses having lectures allocated to that week are read into timetables. If you have only one week, the lectures of all courses and their lectures are automatically read into timetables.

Timetables view layout:

Note that you can edit only the timetable on the top left (the active timetable). All changes are automatically reflected to other related timetables. When you activate a course, all other timetables connected to this course are shown on the right. When you double-click a timetable on the right, it becomes then the active timetable. You can adjust the width and height of the active timetable by moving the mouse to the locations shown below and clicking the appropriate arrow keys:

Note that you can view timetables also in Bird's eye view. This displays all timetables on top of each other horizontally, enabling to compare their content.

Searching for lectures to schedule [F3]:

At the start you should see a timetable full of green check-marks () to indicate that you can schedule a lecture anywhere in the timetable, like in the timetable below.

If you cannot see this view, click the screen and Mimosa tells you the reason for that:

  • You have not created any components - go to Components view
  • You have not created any courses with components attached to them - go to Courses view
  • You have created courses, but you have not allocated them to weeks (and you have several weeks) - go to Weeks view

Note that you will edit only the cells of the timetable on the top left. Other timetables you see on the right provide you automatically additional information of other timetables related to the course you are about to schedule.

You can press the [F3] key or click to search for the next timetable containing at least one unscheduled lecture. The timetable you edit is located in the top-left corner of this view, and in this timetable you can schedule and remove lectures or bookings. Other timetables on the right of this view are automatically displayed according to the components of the active course to help you to visualise how the changes affect to all related timetables.

If you like to view and schedule lectures of the specific timetable, course or week, you can use the list boxes on top to find the appropriate item.

Scheduling and removing lectures with double-click:

Next, double-click some of the cells containing the check-marks () to schedule lectures. Double-click is the simplest way to manually schedule individual lectures and it also works other way round: double-click to remove already scheduled lectures from the timetables.

Double-click the cells until all check-marks have disappeared from the current timetable, indicating that this timetable is completed. You can then press the [F3] key or click again to search for the next timetable to be scheduled. Note that Mimosa automatically schedules the lectures of the current course to other timetables which are linked to it and it automatically takes care that conflicts cannot occur.

You can select the next course to be scheduled from the course list below the timetable. Mimosa displays here only those courses which are related to the current timetable.

In the column LEFT you see the number of unscheduled lectures (for example +4h). When all lectures of all courses containing the current timetable have been scheduled, this list becomes empty. Courses in this list are sorted in descending according to the unscheduled lectures, and if you do not pick any course from the list, Mimosa automatically selects the first course from this list.

When scheduling lectures, some cells become unavailable:

When you have scheduled more and more lectures, you will note that less and less cells become available and a red stop sign () is displayed on those cells. This is caused by the other courses using the same timetable as you are currently using.

What those numbers in the brackets are for?

In those cells where you can and where you cannot schedule, you will also occasionally see numbers (or "indicators") in brackets:

  1. The negative number (such as [-2]) on the right of the stop sign () indicates, that there are two timetables preventing scheduling a the lecture in this slot. You can double-click this cell to see, which timetables are preventing scheduling to this slot and you can optionally clear the slots from other timetables.
  2. The positive or negative number (such as [+2] or [-3]) on the right of the check-mark () indicates, that scheduling into this slot this either reduces or increases the number of gaps in the timetables in this week.

What are the other timetables on the right?

When you select a course, you will see on the right also the timetables of other components of that course. For example, if the course consists of a group, teacher and room and you are about to change the timetable of the group, also the timetables of the teacher and room are visible. This enables to view how the changes affect to other related timetables and which courses or bookings prevent you from scheduling the current lecture. You do not need to schedule the course to these timetables separately, since all other relevant timetables are always automatically updated when you change the timetable on top left.

You can change the contents only in the timetable on the left, but you will see the same indicators also in the timetables on the right and when changes are made in the timetable on the left, they are automatically reflected to the other timetables as well. Double-clicking a timetable on the right moves it to the left.

The indicators and the numbers guide you in the scheduling by showing information also of those timetables which are not currently visible. When you schedule, it is a rule of thumb to prefer those slots which have a big positive number, since on average it will keep the number of gaps low.

You can select to display or hide the indicators in View|Cell display options|Show indicators. When scheduling or removing lectures, you will also see the "hint box" on the right of the timetable guiding you about the basic operations you can do on the active cell. To show or hide these hints, select [Ctrl+Alt+H].

Scheduling and removing several lectures with one click

If you are about to schedule or remove several lectures with one click, first paint an rectangular area in the timetable and click the [Insert] button () or the [Delete] button (), respectively. For instance, you may like to schedule a row of lectures on the same day or clear a range of selected cells.

Make or cancel bookings (restrictions):

In similar way, you can set and remove bookings, which indicate that the cells where they have been set, are not available for lectures in that timetable. Select the area in the timetable and press the [SPACE] key (or click ) to set bookings or cancel them. You can select from three captions of bookings and you can change them in Edit|Change booking type. You cannot schedule lectures on cells where bookings have been set, and you cannot set a booking to a cell where lectures have already been scheduled.

After you have scheduled all the lectures in all timetables, the screen looks like the one below:

The colours of the courses displayed in each timetable are selected by Mimosa, unless you have not set colours to them in Courses view. If you like to change the colour palette Mimosa is using, go to Options|Colours.

You may also note that:

  1. Conflicts in scheduling of lectures and setting of bookings are prevented.
  2. Permissible and impossible scheduling options are shown.
  3. Other timetables related to the active course are shown.
  4. Information about the quality of timetables is displayed.
  5. Navigation and changing of timetables affecting to the current timetable is enabled.
  6. You can undo and redo up to 2000 last changes and go back to any previous or bookmarked step.

There are several ways to navigate to the desired timetable, course or week you like to start with. If you are using this view for the first time, you can do the following:

  1. Click the Find button or press the [F3] key to find the first timetable, which has unscheduled lectures.
  2. Click from the course list (below the timetable) the course you are about to schedule or remove.
  3. Double-click a cell in the timetable where you find a green check-mark.
  4. Repeat these steps until all green check-marks have been gone.

If you see components, courses and weeks listed in the list boxes on top of the screen you can start creating timetables. Although you can create then automatically (in Tools|Optimise|Create an initial solution), we recommend that you start from here, since it is more than probable that you like to edit the timetables manually sooner or later. Even if you prefer to create timetables automatically, there always will be some need to alter the current solution, and also to place some of the lectures into predefined slots.

Lectures of the courses are automatically scheduled in the timetables of their components. When scheduling or removing a lecture, the changes in other connected timetables of this course are automatically changed. You can alternatively schedule the course immediately when you create or edit courses in Courses view, as described in Instant scheduling. In both cases, changes always affect the same timetables in a similar way.

If you have several weeks or terms in the school year, you first select the timetables of the week you are going to edit from the Weeks list on the top right. After that you might like to select the timetable from the Components list. If you do not see green check-marks in the current timetable, select another timetable from the list or click [F3] to let Mimosa automatically find the next incomplete timetable for you.

If all lectures of the current week or term have been scheduled, you are prompted to move to next week or term (if it exists).

You need to be focused only on the timetable which is located on the top left, while Mimosa automatically takes care of all background tasks needed to keep all other timetables synchronised and Mimosa informs also about possible scheduling options. When you change the active course, the other timetables are changed according to its components. Double-clicking a timetable on the right moves it to the active timetable to the top left.

Moving lectures to another location:

In order to use this option, the selection View|Cell display options|Show move options must be checked.

After all lectures of a course have been scheduled, it is easy to move a sequence of lectures to some other location within the timetable with just one mouse click. When you click the active time table cell twice, Mimosa displays all other available locations for the active course using the move icon () and a blue number in brackets. Note that you can also split the current sequence of lectures in two parts, and the available locations are indicated for the rest lectures in the sequence. When you click this cell again, move options disappear.

The same operation can be performed in two stages, by first removing the current sequence and scheduling it into the new location, but using the move option saves unnecessary mouse clicks and you can also see in advance all available options.

Instead of clicking the first lecture of the sequence (Tuesday, 1st slot), you can also click the second one (Tuesday, 2nd slot), to gain more options to move the rest of the sequence to another location (by clicking some of the green slots):

Tuesday, 1st slot: 3 move options (of 3 lectures) Tuesday, 2nd slot: 7 move options (of 2 lectures)

If you click the third lecture of the sequence (Tuesday, 3rd slot), you have even more options, and when you decide to click the green slot (at the first slot in Wednesday), the lecture is moved to the new location:

Tuesday, 3rd slot: 14 move options (of 1 lecture) Moved from Tuesday, 3rd slot to Wednesday, 1st slot

You can Undo and Redo all operations (up to last 2000 steps), such as scheduling, removing and moving of lectures and bookings, using the buttons () and (), or the shortcuts [Ctrl+X] and [Ctrl+Y], respectively. In the Edit menu selection you can also Undo all and Redo all changes, and also set a bookmark to the state you want to revert back later on.

It is also possible to first paint a rectangular area of slots on Master timetable and then use selections to schedule or remove lectures or set or cancel bookings in this area:

Use the Timetables list or the arrows keys (down and up) to select the timetable on the top left corner. You can then click the course to be scheduled from the List of unscheduled courses below. When you click a course in the timetable, Mimosa automatically displays also all related timetables.

Colours and other effects are used to make timetables more legible, but you might find that the cells are stacked with information that is not currently useful for you. Please go to the selection View|Cell display options to deselect those elements that are not essential.

When the timetables are printed or published, all cell contents are replaced by the course codes, names and collections, depending on your preferences set in the File|Print|Timetables selection.

Cells containing bookings (restrictions) are shown in red (like ////) colour.

A cell in each timetable can be in three exclusive states: it can be either empty, it can contain a course or a booking. The appearance of cells may look different on your screen, depending on the selections that has been made in View|Cell display options. Below are samples of different cell statuses and how they are displayed on Master timetable.

Notations for cells which are EMPTY:

SymbolExplanation

All courses of the current timetable have already been scheduled. Double-click the cell to set a booking on it. If this cell constitutes a gap between nonempty cells, you can optionally emphasize it with an icon (View|Cell display options|Show gap picture).
The active course can be scheduled into this cell, but it causes two ([-2]) gaps. Double-click this cell to schedule a lecture in it.
The active course cannot be scheduled into this cell, since one ([-1]) of the timetables prevents this operation. Double-click this cell to find timetable(s) preventing scheduling.
From the current cell, a sequence of two ([2h]) lectures of current course can be moved to this cell.

Notations for cells containing a COURSE:

SymbolExplanation

Course DRA405/SEA646 is scheduled in this cell. Double-click the cell to remove the scheduled lecture from this cell. You can also optionally display the manual room (m) and/or cell comment (c).
This cell of a Room timetable has been scheduled to a course (FOR744) manually. Double-click once to change it to a booking, double-click twice to clear it.

Notations for cells containing a booking:

SymbolExplanation
The active cell contains a booking (of type Meeting). Double-click to remove the booking from the cell, double-click to set it again. Click [Ctrl+O] to change the booking text.

In general, the fastest way to use and learn the basic techniques of this view is to double-click individual cells in the master table (on the top left corner) to see how scheduling and removing of lectures or bookings functions in different situations. This double-clicking technique can then be extended to all other tables and lists that you see in this view. If you often schedule lectures as blocks (double, triple periods,...) instead of single cells, right-click the pop-up menu on the master table and change the parameter in selection Default block length.

Menu selections:

Instead of using the commands on the menu selection, it is often easier and faster to click on the corresponding buttons on the left hand side of the active view. Try this out with the sample data and see the results.

Edit

Undo [Ctrl+Z]

This selection cancels the latest action (schedule, remove, move, swap, component change) you have made on this week. Up to 2000 steps can be undone. If another view is activated or you have changed the current week, the undo stack is cleared. After at least one change has been made, the caption in this selection displays the number of actions that you have made so far - such as "Undo last (of 123 steps)".

Redo [Ctrl+Y]

Redo selection redoes the last action that was undone (cancels the latest cancel action). This selection is an opposite to Undo. After at least action has been undone, the caption in this selection displays the number of actions that can be redone - such as "Redo last (of 56 steps)".

Set bookmark

Set bookmark stores the action that was just performed. If you are about to make a lot of changes to timetables, but you are unsure if the upcoming changes will improve the result, you can store the current state with this selection. If you later on will regret latest changes and want to go back to bookmarked state, select Go to bookmark.

Go to bookmark

Go to bookmark goes back to the step that was previously stored by Set bookmark. If you have not stored any previous action, this selection is disabled.

Undo All

Undo All cancels all previous actions stored in memory (opposite to Redo All).

Redo All

Redoes all previously undone operations (opposite to Undo All).

History

History selection shows the history of the last actions (of the maximum of 2000 last actions that were stored). Selecting an item on the list of actions and accepting it with the [OK] button moves you to the selected step. This selection is disabled if you have not made any action (schedule, remove, move, swap, component change) yet.

Each line on this view is shortcut of the action that was made. For instance, the notation [Swapped] DRA266 and SHI503 between "Mon 14:00...15:45" and "Fri 09:00...10:45" [2h] means that Mimosa interchanged the locations of two blocks the courses (coded "DRA266" and "SHI503") across the shown time periods. Swap is an operation that can be done only by Quick optimisation, all other operations can be performed manually.

Quick optimisation [F9]

This selection enables you to optimise the timetables of the current week by minimising the number of their gaps (empty cells between blocks on the same day). This will result in more compact timetables. The same settings are used here as in the selection Tools|Optimise. For instance, if you have by default selected not to change the locations of locked courses, they are not changed in this selection neither.

In case some of the lectures have not been scheduled yet, you have the option to let Mimosa do that for you. Select [Yes] to let Mimosa schedule the remaining lectures and select [No] if you want to go directly to optimise the lectures that have already been scheduled. Select [Cancel] to cancel optimisation.

When the optimisation is running, you can always interrupt it by clicking [Cancel] and then select to resume or stop it. The progress bar shows the current number of gaps as compared to the number of initial gaps in the timetables.

After the optimisation Mimosa shows you the number of those gaps that were removed, the initial number of gaps before optimisation plus the total number of changes that were made in timetables to achieve this. Optimisation time takes from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on the number of timetables and the complexity of their structure.

If you select [Yes], the optimisation history is displayed and you can select to go back to any previous step that was made during optimisation.

Optimisation neither joins two blocks nor breaks them. This operation is always left to be done manually. The number of gaps in the timetables is not the only quality criteria for good timetables. You might like to go through the changes that has been made, improve the solution manually or cancel all or some of the actions with the help of selections Undo, Undo All, Go to bookmark or History.

Copy to the Clipboard

This selection contains four ways to copy timetables onto the Clipboard. You can use these timetables as snapshots that you probably want to paste to some spreadsheet application, decorate them with borders or some other effects for printing or distributing to others. In selections 1 through 4 you can copy the contents of the timetables to the Clipboard also in line format instead of table format.

The description of the available Clipboard formats in this selection can be found in Import and Export with Clipboard|Timetables view.

Schedule lectures [Insert]

If you often like to schedule several lectures at once, paint a rectangle in the timetable where you want to schedule lectures and click the [Insert] button. The application checks all free slots and schedules lectures accordingly. If you mostly schedule single cells, double-click the cell to make the changes.

  • All slots where you can schedule the active course are emphasised with a green check-mark. The value of the cell is shown in [brackets].
  • The higher the number in the brackets, the better is the likelihood to reduce the gaps (or empty slots) in all other timetables. If the number is positive [+1...+99], the number of gaps in timetables will be reduced by that amount and if it is negative [-1...-99], they will be increased, respectively. If no brackets are shown, scheduling does not change the number of gaps.
  • Highlight the cells where you want to schedule the lectures and click the [+] button (or press the [Insert] key). The lectures are scheduled in other connected timetables and the number of unscheduled lectures are changed in the list below this table.
  • The course list below the master timetable is sorted in decreasing order according to the number of currently unscheduled lectures (in the LEFT column). When a lecture is scheduled, its position on the list moves to down, and when all lectures have been scheduled, it finally disappears from this list. If there are no unscheduled lectures for the current timetable, this list is empty. You can then press the [F3] key find the next timetable with at least one unscheduled lecture.
  • You can change the number of unscheduled lectures in the LEFT column with the pop-up menu (activated by right-click on the list of unscheduled lectures) or by typing [+] or [-] to increase and decrease them, respectively. The application checks that the attempted change is feasible and updates the course list accordingly.
  • In the same pop-up menu, you can also use the selections Add new course and Remove this course to change the course structures on the fly.
  • Those cells where scheduling is impossible, are marked with a red symbol, including in brackets the number of tables preventing scheduling in this slot and preceded with the negative sign [-x]. The bigger the (absolute value of the) number in the brackets, the more removes of lectures are needed in other tables to accomplish the planned scheduling. If you select [Cancel], the application often provides you the possibility to replace some of the components of the current course so that scheduling is technically acceptable. You have to check that the proposed component replacement is also meaningful.
  • It is often easier to schedule a single lecture by double-clicking a green cell and also remove a lecture by double-clicking the corresponding cell. double-clicking a red cell gives often an easier way to remove those lectures or bookings, which prevent the scheduling of the currently selected course.

Remove lectures [Delete]

Removing lectures is the opposite action for scheduling of lectures. Highlight a rectangle in the timetable (by keeping the left mouse button down and dragging) and click Delete button or [Delete]. All removable lectures are taken and unscheduled lectures are returned to the list below the timetable.

Double-clicking the cells is the quickest and simplest way to edit individual cells in timetables and to schedule and remove lectures. Try also the more efficient operation Move. When scheduling or removing several lectures at once, paint the cells in the timetable and click the [Insert] or [Delete] buttons.

Erase course schedule [Ctrl+Del]

This selection clears all scheduled lectures of the current course in this week and adds them back to the list of unscheduled lectures below the master timetable.

Edit course structure [F2]

You can change the current course information (such as the components attached to this course) as you can do in selection Create and edit courses.

Search for the next course [F3]

This selection searches for the next the course to be scheduled and changes the active timetable accordingly.

Make or cancel bookings [SPACE]

You can make bookings or cancel them by highlighting the appropriate area in the current timetable and then either pressing the [SPACE] or the appropriate button. Those cells, which contain bookings, are then freed and free cells are booked.

Useful tips to change and copy bookings effectively:

  1. If there is a need set bookings to several cells and/or several component timetables and weeks at once, the appropriate selections in Options|Limits should be used. For instance, the tools in this view enables to create all day events for all timetables at once.
  2. It is also possible to copy timetable bookings from one week to another in Weeks view by first clicking the grid on the week column where bookings are copied from, and then select Edit|Copy week. Next the target week where bookings are going to be copied to, is clicked and then selected Edit|Paste week Special|3 Bookings to this week.
  3. Another way to copy bookings across timetables is to use the tool Show timetables. User has first select the component timetable and week where bookings are going to be copied from and paint the cells in the timetable that are going to be included. Clicking Copy button stores the selection into memory, and when Paste button is clicked when another timetable is active, the selected bookings are copied to this timetable.

Change booking type [Ctrl+O]

Select the default booking type for timetables among the three choices defined in Options|Categories or change the text of the current booking type.

Lock or unlock course [Ctrl+U]

This selection locks or unlocks the current course. If the course is locked, all changes to weekly allocated and scheduled lectures are prohibited.

Lock scheduled courses

All courses that are scheduled in the current timetable become locked. This function is useful, if you want to freeze the current solution.

Unlock scheduled courses

All courses that are scheduled in the current timetable become unlocked. This function frees the previously frozen solution.

Replace component [F5]

Replaces the active component (associated with the master timetable) of current course with another permissible (or non-conflicting) component of the same category. See also Replace component.

Check available rooms [Ctrl+A]

When a cell containing a lesson of a course is selected, its Room can be replaced (if it already exists) or a new room can be added (if it does not exist) with this selection.

It you have more than one week or term, it lists also those rooms where the replacement or addition is permitted when limited only for THIS WEEK (=the current week) or NEXT WEEKS (=the current week plus all remaining weeks).

These options are listed below the line --- Rooms below cause conflicts --- since these operations will cause conflicts in other weeks. It is sometimes common to change rooms in this way even thought it is normally against what Mimosa allows you to do. When you have already passed the first week and you are creating timetables for the second week, it is not relevant if the rooms conflict in the previous week (which is already history). If it is more important to find a solution, with no conflicts in the current week and upcoming weeks - then you select NEXT WEEK.

If you are forced to think each week separately (and assuming that the problems of the upcoming weeks will have new solutions), you may be forced to select a room under the title THIS WEEK, which finds room replacements or additions that are valid only in the current week (but not in the upcoming weeks).

Rooms marked with the highest status ALL WEEKS can always be chosen without any fear of conflicts, since the change is checked for all weeks.

All possible conflicts can be checked and removed with the command Tools|Check for conflicts, if necessary.

If you see a course code preceded with MSR, this indicates that the room for this course is a Manually selected Room (see Tools|Select rooms manually).

(Check first that you have initially selected the right category in Options|Timetables to represent the components that are called ROOMS. This is by default the third category)

Select room manually [Ctrl+R]

If there are no rooms associated with the course, you can select the room for each slot separately, as in selection Tools|Select rooms manually. If the current course has this property and it is scheduled in this slot, you can replace its current manual room selection or add a new selection, if it has not been selected yet.

Comment this cell [Ctrl+E]

You can add a comment to each cell in timetables to be printed along with timetables. The comments are stored in Mimosa file.

Erase “Comment” erases the existing comment in the selected slot, Change “Comment” or Add comment enables you to replace/add the comment text in the selected slot, Generalise comment lets you to expand the same comment to larger time-space and code set. This option is enabled only when you are adding a new comment.

Each line in this file starts with a number that represents the week, day and slot (time period), followed by the code of the component it is attached to. These fields are separated by semicolons(;) and you can also edit this file like any other text file.

[wwwdhh];Code;Comment

Example comment lines:

[001405];Form-A;This is the 1st week’s 5th slot in Thursday... 
[012306];Form-B;This is the 12th week’s 6th slot in Wednesday...

Note that the comments in this file do not follow the changes of the locations of the lessons or bookings in timetables. If there is not enough space for comments, you can Remove comments from previous weeks when you leave this selection.

You can copy the comments to the Clipboard by selecting Edit|Copy to the Clipboard|7 Comments by category.

Comments are printed also in empty cells. In those cells where you have made bookings, the comment replaces the text.

Copy comment

When you click on the cell which has a comment on it, you can copy this comment (say "Holiday") to memory and paste it to other cells with the Paste comment option. The copy comment selection is disabled, when the clicked cell does not have any comment on it. When you click Copy comment, the Paste comment selection becomes enabled.

Paste comment

When you have copied a comment (with Copy comment on a cell which has a comment), you can paste it to other cell(s) either in the same or another timetable, or in the same or another week. Click a single cell or paint a rectangle area and click Paste comment to add the latest stored comment to the selected cell(s). Paste comment becomes enabled after you have clicked Copy comment on a cell with has a comment on it.

Default block length

Sets the default block length (as also specified in Options|Timetables). When you set this parameter to other than 1, double-clicking will change blocks of the length that you specified here.

Copy to following weeks

Copies the selected items (courses and/or bookings) from the current timetable to all following weeks (or terms) - if they exists. This enables the user to create identical timetables instantly across weeks.

You have the following selection of different copy options:

    1 Active course

    Copies the lectures only of the currently active course

    2 All courses

    Copies the lectures of all courses of the current timetable

    3 All bookings

    Copies all bookings of the current timetable

    4 All courses and bookings

    Copies all courses and bookings of the current timetable

When you have selected the option, you can clear the already scheduled lectures or bookings from the following timetables, by answering Yes to the question Clear previous items? (It is often safer to answer No, if you are not certain if the upcoming timetables already contain important information.)

If you are about to copy several items at once, activate Weeks view, and use the selections Edit|Copy week to first mark the source week and then Edit|Paste and Edit|Paste week Special to define the destination week(s) plus the items you want to copy.

What if?

When at least one of the lectures of the current course is not yet scheduled, this selection displays a list of options of how you can change the components of other courses to add new free slots and it also enables you to make the replacement immediately.

This tool is useful when scheduling is demanding (there seems to be more unscheduled lectures left than there are free slots in the timetable). If you have some degrees of freedom in change the course collection (such as rooms or teachers), this tool displays these additional options to you and marks the appropriate slots in the active timetable.

Click some of the unscheduled courses on the list below the timetable. When the What if? button or menu selection becomes enabled, click it to display a menu showing what you can do:

"What if" options (4):
Replacing the shown course component
can add (2...4) free slots to schedule lectures
of course "CAS-12D" in the timetable

*1 : ING-12 (513 -> ?) 0+4 = 4 free slots
*2 : EFI-12 (12D -> ?) 0+2 = 2 free slots
*3 : OPC2-12 (12D -> ?) 0+2 = 2 free slots
*4 : MAT-12 (513 -> ?) 0+2 = 2 free slots

The numbers *1, *2, *3 and *4 are also shown in the timetable (*1 appears 4 times, others two times). When you select *2, for instance, you will gain 2 free slots in the timetable, if you replace component 12D of course EFI-12 by some other component of the same category.

View

This selection is designed to change the appearance of the view and also to find the appropriate table on the top left corner.

Select font

This selection enables to change the font both in the master timetable and timetables linked to it.

    Default font

    Selects the default font used in all elements of this view, except the master timetable on top left.

    Master timetable font

    Selects the font used in the master timetable on top left.

Bird's eye view [Ctrl+B]

This selection displays the contents of the timetables of the current week horizontally. The first column contains the names of the components and the other columns the cells of the timetables by the day of week. When you click a cell in this view, the current component is activated and the content of the course in that cell is displayed. If your file contains more than one week, you can click the Next week and Previous week buttons (,) on bottom to view the timetables of other weeks. You can change the widths of the columns in this grid with pop-up menu selections.

You can copy the contents of the current view to the Clipboard with the Copy button (to be pasted to other applications). When you go back to the default view (by typing [Ctrl+B]), the current timetable and the selected slot becomes active.

Cell display options

This selection includes all commands that you can use to change the appearance of the cells in the master timetable. Selecting too many options can make master timetable look too cluttered, but selecting too few options may sometimes show less useful information than required. In most cases, selecting the default (factory setting) options are most appropriate when considering the timetable cell size limitations.

    Show indicators [+x]

    Indicators are the numbers in brackets ([+2],[-3]) that give the user additional background information about the desirability of the permissible cells and the degree of difficulty of forbidden cells. If this option is not selected, the numbers are not shown. For instance, [-1] on the (red) cell where you cannot schedule lectures indicates that there exists one timetable which prevents scheduling, whereas [+2] on the (green) cell where you can schedule a lecture indicates that you can reduce the total number of by 2.

    Show manual rooms (m)

    If this option is selected and you have manually scheduled a room for the current cell, it is indicated by the letter min the bottom left corner of the cell. See more about manual room selection in Tools|Select rooms manually.

    Show commented cells (c)

    If this option is selected and you have added a comment to the current cell, it is indicated by the letter c in the bottom right corner of the cell. You can add a comment to a cell with the command Edit|Comment this cell or using the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl+E].

    Show move options

    When all lectures of the current course have been scheduled and you have selected this option, has been selected, all possible one-click move options are displayed, if you click the same cell twice. If you like to move the current lecture (or a sequence of lectures) to this new slot, click the cell with a move indicator (). The number on the right indicates the length of the sequence you can move. Move minimises the needed keystrokes, since you don't need to remove the lectures from the old slot(s) before scheduling them in the new slot(s).

    Show gap picture

    When selected, a picture of a walking man is displayed in cells constituting a gap (or a hole) between lectures and/or bookings. This option has only a decorative purpose.

    Show cell hints [Ctrl+Alt+H]

    This option shows a tooltip on top of master timetable related to the cell content and actions. This tooltip is shown on the bottom right of the master timetable. It gives a short hint of what you can do at the current cell.

    Show all options

    Selects all cell display options.

    Show default options

    Selects default display options (factory settings) .

    Clear all options

    Clears all default display options. 

    Show codes

    Shows course codes in timetables.

    Show names

    Shows names in timetables.

    Show both

    Shows codes and names in timetables.

Course info [Ctrl+H]

Displays the list of the components (collection) of the active course. If you also want to replace some of the components, remove or add a component, select the appropriate component and then click Edit? button, enabling to edit the course structure without switching to Courses view. See the page Course Info for more information.

Show free resources

Displays the list of free components of similar category with the current timetable component. Those components are listed which have empty cells in all slots of the currently selected area.

Find timetable ... [Ctrl+F]

By entering the code or name (or a substring) locates the first timetable that matches the search criteria and makes it the active one. The search method is not case-sensitive.

Search for unscheduled lectures [F3]

Locates the next table having unscheduled lectures and sets it as the active table. If no unscheduled lectures are found, there are no unscheduled lectures left in the current week and the original table is returned as the active table. If there are several weeks available, the application prompts to continue searching for unscheduled lectures from other weeks.

First timetable

Sets the first table as the active table.

Previous timetable [Ctrl+P]

Sets the previous table as the active table.

Next timetable [Ctrl+N]

Sets the next table as the active table.

Last timetable

Sets the last table as the active table.