Options menu

In this selection you can define and redefine all the parameters related to your data. When creating a new file it is useful to go through at least three first selections to set key parameters (Limits, Time and Categories). You can set limits, rules, colours and other preferences in these selections and change them later on when you wish.

When creating a new file, the first three selections are the most essential:

Limits: Define upper bounds for the number of Weeks or terms, number of Days in each week and Time periods in each day.
Time: Give names to weeks, their lengths, week day names and time periods.
Categories: Give names to component and course categories and texts used in bookings for weeks and timetables.

Limits

On this page you set the upper bounds for the number of Weeks or terms (MAX=255), number of Days in each week (MAX=7) and Time periods or slots in each day (MAX=30). This is typically the first task to be done when creating a new file; these limits can be changed later on anytime. Note that the limits cannot be smaller than what has been already used in timetables.

After creating timetables, this view also enables you to perform other operations affecting several timetables and weeks at once, such as making and cancelling bookings, erasing and moving lectures and so on.

Note that Mimosa does not restrict you to define time-slots by hours or any fixed time-interval. For instance, you may have lectures in your school that have lengths 1 hour, 2.5 hours and so on. In this case, it is natural to define time-slots in 30 minutes intervals, such as

8:00-8:30
8:30-9:00
9:00-9:30
etc.

In this case, you should always think the lectures as multiplies of two. When scheduling lectures to the time interval 8:00-9:30, you have to use three lectures, since Mimosa cannot handle fractional numbers. In this case you should also double the MAX lectures definition as compared to the case when each slot represent one hour.

It is essential that you do not supply too many extra days or time periods than are needed, since it then scales down the size of the timetable grid on screen and in some reports. The limits can be easily changed any time later on, but they cannot be smaller than the corresponding maximum values that have been used in the current data.

If the maximum limits appear to be higher than is needed, and you cannot decrease them because there are scheduled lectures and/or bookings in the timetables, that should be removed before they can be decreased and you can use the following method.

Note that the tools under Manage cells in several timetables and weeks become visible and enabled after you have created at least component and want to effectively modify several timetables and/or weeks with one command. For instance, you may like to block some days off from specific teachers on all weeks and so on.

Make and cancel bookings

The number of scheduled lectures plus bookings on all weeks are visible on the timetable grid. Before using any of the commands below, you should Paint an area in the timetable grid that is going to be accessed next. In most selections you are next asked to select those components and/or weeks which are going to be modified.

You can make and cancel bookings in a selected range of cells of a single timetable in Timetables view (by clicking the [SPACE] key). If you want to copy bookings in all timetables from a selected week to some another week or weeks, use in Weeks view the pair of menu selections Edit|Copy week and Edit|Paste week Special...|3 Bookings to this week to set the source and the destination week. You can also use the Show timetables dialog to copy and paste selected bookings across weeks.

Timetable on the right displays the selected maximum timetable size selected in this view. When you change either the maximum number of days in a week or the maximum number of time-periods in a day, the timetable size changes accordingly. When you have scheduled lectures or set bookings to timetables, their total sum is visible.

When you want to set or remove bookings or remove lectures, select first the area in this timetable you want to change.

The selected area in the timetable is displayed as a time range.

Click the View timetables button to view individual timetables instead of the summary timetable containing the number of lectures and bookings in each cells.

Use the arrow buttons to scan for timetables and weeks and click View summary to go back to the default view.

Make bookings

This button sets the bookings previously selected in the box Default booking type into the cells you have painted on the timetable. You can change the texts in all three available booking texts in Categories.

After clicking the button Make bookings, you are asked first to specify the timetables and then the weeks where bookings are set (if you have more than one week). This option is useful to prevent scheduling to specific slots in several or all timetables in several weeks. The bookings that are set never erase lectures scheduled in the targeted slots.

Select the Default booking type you are going to apply.
Paint a range of cells on the timetable where you want to set bookings to.
Click Make bookings button.
You are next asked to select the timetables where bookings are going to be set.
You are asked to select the week(s) where you want bookings to be set.
You can then select if you allow new bookings to replace previous bookings.
Finally you will get information about the number cancelled bookings, timetable(s) and week(s).

Note that you may sometimes need to apply different bookings patterns for different components and/or weeks. In this case, you have to run Make bookings several times with various ranges in the timetable and then select different components and/or weeks. See examples of some common bookings patterns below:

Cancel bookings

This button removes the bookings specified in Default booking type from the are you have painted on the right from selected timetable(s) and selected week(s). After clicking the button, you are asked to first to specify the timetables and then the week(s) where bookings are removed from (if you have more than one week). You can also clear all bookings at once in Tools|Clear|1 Bookings from timetables.

Select the Default booking type you are going to apply.
Paint a range of cells on the timetable where you want to remove bookings from.
Click Cancel bookings button.
You are next asked to select the timetables where bookings are going to be cancelled.
You are asked to select the week(s) where you want bookings to be cancelled.
You can then select if you want to cancel all bookings or only the currently selected.
Finally you will get information about the number cancelled bookings, timetable(s) and week(s).

Convert bookings

This button changes all bookings in all timetables and weeks to the type previously selected Default booking type. This operation automatically changes all bookings in all timetables and all weeks.

Erase lectures

Erase lectures clears the scheduled lectures of all selected courses from the selected timetable range and from all weeks. You can use this option to remove erroneously scheduled lectures from inappropriate slots in the timetables. Note that you cannot limit your selection to specific timetables, since they are determined by the courses.

Paint a range of cells on the timetable where you want to remove lectures from.
Click Erase lectures button.
You are next asked to select the courses which you allow to erase lectures from.
You are asked to select the week(s) where you want lectures to be erased.
Finally you will get information about the number erased lectures.

Make all day event

If you have aligned your Mimosa weeks with calendar (by checking [x] Align Mimosa weeks with calendar in Time), you can create an All date event that is scheduled as a booking in all timetables on the date you have specified in the box on the right. The same task can be made also by clicking Make bookings, but this task is simpler since you can explicitly set the date, and it also allows you to add a text which is visible in all timetables on that day and prevents accidental scheduling of lectures on that day.

All day event makes bookings to all timetables on the specified day.

Pick a date where you want to create the all day event.
Click Make all day event button.
Add a comment that is shown in all cells of all timetables on the selected day.

Remove all day event

This selection does the reverse action of the Make all day event above. It removes the all day event from a specified date and removes the comment associated to it.

Swap lectures

Swap lectures swaps the locations of the scheduled lectures and the bookings in all timetables of the selected weeks in the painted area. After selecting the cells you want to swap, you are prompted to select the First day of the week and the First time period of the rectangle (with the same dimensions) which you are going to swap lectures with. Swap lectures is an advanced feature. In some special cases, you can use this tool to swap two days of week.

Paint a range of cells on the timetable you want to swap.
Click Swap lectures button.
Enter the area you are going to swap the selected range with:
- Select the first day of that area.
- Select the first time-period of that area.
Select then the week(s) you want to swap
If the areas are of the same size and they are not overlapping you can next swap them.

Arrow buttons

The four arrow buttons enable you to shift days or slots of the used area within the grid in each direction, provided that there are enough space (days in week or time periods) for the intended operation (you may have to increase these limits to make all arrow keys enabled). When you click a cell in the timetable, all lectures and bookings in all weeks beyond this cell are shifted as indicated. Please note that you cannot cancel this operation, after you have shifted lectures to left or upwards, since the cell values of the first day or first slot are erases. For instance, this feature can be used to insert a lunch break in the timetables without changing the scheduling manually.

Time

Here you give names for all weeks (MAX 255), their lengths (1-255), days of weeks (MAX 7) and time periods (MAX 30).

Weeks or terms

Input the names for the weeks (or terms) in your planning period. Input also the length (or the weight) for each week, which is the number of the calendar weeks the same schedule can be replicated. For instance, if the schedules are going to be similar in the next three weeks, you can define its length for 3 weeks. The weeks (in this context) are identical to the calendar weeks only if the lengths of all weeks are equal to one.

There are several ways to split the school years into weeks or terms. Some schools follow exactly similar timetables each week, whereas some change at least some of them in each calendar week. The application also gives the user the option to deal with several school years at once, since the maximum capacity of 255 weeks is normally large enough for that.

If you use several weeks, you can apply the same course more than once during the planning period. In this case you must set the maximum number of lectures in courses (MAX) large enough, so that you can then allocate the lectures to each week as required. The advantage of having all weeks in the same file is that you do not have to create same courses repeatedly and that you can also easily make necessary changes during the year.

In almost all cases, you can assume that the lengths of the weeks are = 1. You can change the names and lenghts of the weeks anytime in Weeks view, and also Copy, Paste, Insert, Delete and Split weeks.

If you create only one set of timetables that is used throughout your planning period, you can simply set the Weeks or terms = 1 in Limits tab.

[x] Align Mimosa weeks with calendar

If you have decided to use calendar weeks then define the First date of the first week to match the calendar you are going to follow by selecting the appropriate date from the calendar which is displayed below.

If you have selected to use calendar weeks, you can still show the names of the weeks or terms you have decided. If you do not want to input them, you can alternatively let Mimosa give them names automatically, by the following two options:

Dates (mm-dd) replaces the names of the weeks with the month and date number (mm-dd) based on the first day of each week (eg. "03-17").

Week numbers (ww-ww) replaces the names of the weeks with the week numbers of their starting and ending weeks. If the length of the week is one calendar week, only one week number is displayed. The week containing the year's first Thursday has the week number = 1. The week number definition follows to ISO 8601 standard, used widely in European countries.

If some holidays or other special weeks break the year, you can input their names manually to better distinguish from normal weeks.

When you change the lengths of weeks, insert new weeks, remove or split existing weeks in Weeks view or you change the First date of first week, all subsequent dates and date ranges change automatically accordingly.

You can change the date format as well in Edit format date format. If you input ddddd in the box below (=default), it will result in the same date format as you have defined as the Short Date format in Windows. You may experiment with symbols d, m, and y plus dots (.) and slashes (/) to create the desired date format, for instance m/d/yyyy, d.m.yyyy or d.m.yy.

Days of week

Input the names for the days of week in this panel. When you click this panel, the button Use defaults is displayed below. When you click it, the days of week are replaced with the Windows Long Date format of your computer. Depending on your requirements, you do not have to use the traditional days of week, for example if you do not apply the Western calendar or your use Mimosa for some special purpose.

Mimosa supports also other calendars than the Western calendar. For instance, if your first day of the week is "Saturday", enter the days "1 = Saturday",...,"7 = Friday" in the box below Days of week. Then check [x] Align Mimosa weeks with calendar and pick from First date of first week the first Saturday of the first week. All calendar based items, web pages and printed results are then adjusted according to your preferences.

Time periods

You can select the time periods as you like and use up to 11 symbols for each slot. If the time periods are of equal length, you can also let Mimosa to set them automatically. When you click the panel to set time-periods, the following options are shown below:

The first two numbers denote the hour and minute of the starting hour, the third one is the length of the lecture (in minutes) and the last one is the break between the slots (in minutes). When you click the button Preset time periods, these selected time periods will replace your current time periods.

Mimosa supports only one set of time periods. If they vary, it is a good practice to use numbers (1, 2, 3, ...) or letters (A, B, C, ..., J) or some other convenient symbols instead of time periods and to map them to the time periods of each class (or teacher) and day of the week. This information is then declared on a separate table for the school:

Sometimes schools apply two different sets of time periods, depending on the day of week. In this case, it is also possible to denote the start times of the lectures by day as follows (assuming that Monday, Wednesday and Friday apply the first time periods and Tuesday and Thursday the second):

Note that if the starting times and lengths of the events vary frequently, such as every 15 minutes, you may also need to scale the used time unit for lectures. If events can start at every 15 minutes and their lengths can be any multiple of 15 minutes, you should multiply all lectures by four and think one lecture as a 15 minutes interval.

If you like to export your timetables to the calendar applications of other vendors (as described in File|File Export|Other file formats), you should use time periods notations that other applications can easily understand and map to their time notations. In this case it is recommended to use the same format as set in your computer, or write the time periods using symbols : and - as follows: "08:15-09:00".

Copy and Paste

The Copy and Paste buttons enable you to copy text from the selected text box to the Clipboard and to paste text from the Clipboard. These tools are often useful, if you use a spreadsheet application and want to keep copies of various options in another application (see Clipboard).

Timetables

Prevent conflicts for

Select here those categories you want to check for conflicts (or clashes), such as classes, teachers, rooms, students or other "physical" objects. Only categories that do not require resource of this kind, like subjects, are not normally selected here. For checked categories, Mimosa takes care that they cannot conflict - the same resource cannot be scheduled twice in the same slot.

You can publish and print timetables only for these selected component categories and only they are shown in the Timetables view. You can change these selections later on, and if you check a category that was not previously checked, Mimosa automatically checks and removes possible conflicts that may occur.

You can the components in the unchecked category to add more information to courses. For instance, you can attach a specific component from this category to a course to add some content that you want to share to others on timetable cells.

Count gaps in timetables for

Select those categories that you want to have gaps counted for (among categories that you selected in Prevent conflicts for). A gap is defined as an empty slot between lectures or bookings. Normally, categories like rooms are not included in this selection. The quality or desirability of the timetables of classes, students or teachers (or other living resources) is often measures with this concept.

Show linked timetables for

Choose those components categories that are included when you like to show the linked timetables in Timetables view. The linked timetables in this view are shown on the right automatically when you click a course in the master timetable. Note that you can change this selection also in Timetables view by invoking a pop-up menu on top of the linked timetables.

Category for classrooms

Select the category that represents the classrooms. If you have not defined rooms in your school this selection has no effect. Some tools in Mimosa (like Tools|Select rooms manually) or room capacity comparison utilise this special category type, since in many cases replacing a room in a course is more flexible than other resources. Except this selection, Mimosa does not know the actual meaning of other categories.

[x] Assume bookings as lectures (when counting gaps).

When this option is selected, Mimosa assumes that bookings are lectures when it counts gaps in timetables.

Define default block length (in Timetables view)

This selection determines the number of blocks that are changed when you double-click the master timetable in Timetables view. The default value 1 changes the value of a single cell, whereas higher values are recommended if the lectures are given in longer sequences (double periods or triple periods). If the value is higher than 1, Mimosa assigns/removes the corresponding number of consecutive lectures. This parameter can be changed also in Timetables view Edit menu.

Weeks

Show sums of components (in Weeks view)

Select those categories that you want to include when you view the weekly sums of lectures in connection with the course allocation in Weeks view. This selection is useful when the collections of courses contain several components, but only some of the categories of interest with respect to their weekly sums of lectures (invoke the option in Weeks with the command View|Sum window or double-click the grid).

Upper limits for lectures (in Weeks view)

Enter the maximum number of lectures in a week (1...255) that should not be exceeded in this component category per week. This helps to ensure that the weeks remain reasonably balanced. Depending on the case, this limit is often around 20-30 weekly hours in the case of students and teachers. The settings here do not automatically prevent to allocate courses as you like.

[x] Warn when limits for lectures are exceeded

When this selection is chosen, the cells that exceed these limits are displayed in red colour in Weeks view, provided that you have the View|Sum window option active (double-click the week grid show activate this). For instance, if the limit is set to 31 for teachers, all items exceeding this limit is displayed in red.

[x] Add bookings to weekly sums

This selection adds also the bookings to the lectures and applies their total weekly sum as the criteria above.

Allocation patterns for lectures

In Weeks view you have the option to let Mimosa allocate the lectures to weeks. Typing the [Insert] key or selecting Reinsert lectures gives you eight different allocation patterns for the active course, on the range from the first permissible week up to current week. Every time you press the [Insert] key, the next allocation pattern from this set is applied, by allocating the lectures evenly to weeks with symbol X, and omitting weeks which has symbol 0. If some of the patterns are not appropriate, leave them unchecked.

The example below results in when this operation is applied to all courses below (and all allocation patterns are selected):

[x] Automatic scheduling when allocating lectures

When this option is checked, Mimosa automatically schedules lectures in timetables when they are allocated to weeks. When the number of lectures in some cells is increased, the application automatically schedules all missing lectures into the timetables as in Tools|Optimise|Initial solution.

Report titles

Define the report titles on the right as you like to see them printed or published on your reports. Select Restore original report titles to copy all default report titles from the left column to the right column.

Vocabulary

Define the words on the right as you like to see them printed or published on your reports. Select Restore original words to copy all default words from the left column to the right column.

Colours

In this selection you can define all colours of the application, including both the screen, course and component colours. It is also possible to set the colour for each component and course individually, but here it is possible to set for several items at once, such as for the whole category. The colours are displayed on screen, and also in web reports.'

Screen colours

The idea to use specific colours for each item on screen is to help the user to identify them easily. A set of eight predefined colour Themes is provided, if you do not prefer to use the default colours of the application (they can be reselected by clicking Restore default screen colours). Themes enable to use selected subsets of colours that may better suit your preferences, state of mind or the current desktop colours, without tailoring them individually. Note that if you screen is unable to reproduce all colours of your palette, select then 16 colours from the schemes.

Default colour

Default colour is used as background colour in all dialog windows and on the top panel of the main screen. The colour selection depends on your computer settings and your preferences, and Mimosa uses the colour "Sky Blue" as default.

Default tooltip colour

Default tooltip colour is used in all tooltips. The colour selection depends on your computer settings and your preferences, and Mimosa uses the colour "Info Bk" as default. You can change the selected colour from the dropdown lists below.

[X] Apply selected colours

If you want to use the grey scale (black, grey and white colours) instead of those colours which you have defined or that were available as default colours when you started the application, you can uncheck this option.

Restore factory settings

If you prefer to revert back to the set of colours that Mimosa provides you as defaults , click Restore factory settings button.

Clicking the Set background colour or Set foreground colour buttons enables you to pick a new colour for the item you have first activated from the grid below. This enables to tailor the screen colours according to your preferences.

Course and component colours

You can also define colours for each course and component separately, and use them in, for instance, the Timetables view or web reports. You can also use the appropriate colour button elsewhere in the application.

Use the buttons Define course colours and Define component colours if you want to change colours of several codes (such as the whole category of codes) at once. You can change the background colour only, and it is recommended to prefer light colours. Pick the codes from the code list, select the colour and click [OK] to accept it. The Black colour cannot be used in selections.

If you do not want to display these colours, uncheck

[X] Show colours for courses and components

and if you want to completely clear all set colours, check

[X] Clear all course and component colours

Course colours in Timetables view

If you do not prefer to define colours for courses, Timetables view still uses a set of 16 colours to better distinguish different courses in the same timetable. You can change the default colours by clicking the appropriate colour. If you have defined own colours for courses, they are applied instead. Click Restore default course colours if you like to apply the default colour set provided by Mimosa.

Description

File info

This displays the name and the time of the last save of the current file.

File description

In this memo you can attach short notes (255 characters) from the current file; it may contain information about the latest change or a short reminder about things that are important.

[x] Show above text as a reminder at start-up

If checked, the above text is automatically displayed at start-up, so that you and other possible users of Mimosa know what you should be aware of.

You can also use this text at the bottom of each page in Report 3, if you select the option [x] Description as footer in File|Print|Timetables.

Comment for reports

If you want to add a short comment of MAX 63 characters shown on top in reports, you can input it here and it will be stored with the current file.

Show text file annotation

If you have stored the text file filename.txt into the same folder where your current Mimosa file filename.mfw is stored, you can select when this file is shown for viewing and editing. This file can contain additional textual information about the Mimosa file you have been accessed. Select Never, if you do not want to view/edit it, or Open, Save or Open+Save, if you want to view/edit this file during file when opening or saving your Mimosa file. To create this text file, select first the option Save or Open+Save.

Text file annotation is particularly useful if you want to share some information and conventions about it with other users.

Other

Automated file operations

[x] Open the last accessed Mimosa file at start-up

If you select this option, the file that you have last read into Mimosa will automatically be opened when Mimosa application is next time invoked.

[x] Create a backup copy (.bak) of your Mimosa file when exiting

This option is intended to prevent losing your data accidentally. When you save your file on disk, a backup copy of the original file (with the file extension .mfw replaced with .bak) is automatically created and stored on disk. If you have to revert to the original file, you must first rename the backup file to a valid Mimosa file (with the extension .mfw).

[x] Create a copy of your Mimosa file from yesterday and day before when exiting

If this option is selected, Mimosa automatically maintains two copies of the current file as they were saved on the previous day, and also on the day before. For the file "filename.mfw" Mimosa maintains the copies "filename!TODAY.mfw" and "filename!YESTERDAY.mfw" which are intended to be used as backup copies in case something goes wrong or user wants to revert back to older file versions. These files are stored in the same folder where "filename.mfw" was stored.

[x] Create text a file copy (.mxt) of your Mimosa file when exiting

With this option you can also save the file automatically in text file format (.mxt), when it is saved as a normal Mimosa file (.mfw). This option is useful when the same data is used by other Mimosa users and it works similarly as the File|File Export selection. The text file name remains the same as the Mimosa file, but with the extension .mfw replaced with .mxt.

[x] Add the contents of the selected text file (.mxt) at start-up to your Mimosa file at start-up

This option works like the corresponding selection File|File Add ...|Add everything in Mimosa by adding the contents of the selected text file (.mxt) to the current Mimosa file automatically when Mimosa is invoked. Use the Browse... button to select the file that is going to be added at start-up and the Clear button to clear the current file selection. Note that this selection works only if you have checked above [x] Open last accessed file at start-up defining the current Mimosa file to which the text file (.mxt) is automatically added.

Note that you can also automatically add the contents of a text file (for example addfile.mxt) to a Mimosa file (for example filename.mfw) by using the file names (plus their folder names) as command line parameters:

mfw.exe filename.mfw addfile.mxt

Adding the third parameter /W automatically writes the results back to filename.mfw and closes Mimosa after the operation:

mfw.exe filename.mfw addfile.mxt /W

Using the /W parameter allows to add the contents of several text files in succession:

mfw.exe filename.mfw addfile1.mxt /W
mfw.exe filename.mfw addfile2.mxt /W
mfw.exe filename.mfw addfile3.mxt /W

For this purpose, create a .bat file containing these lines (for example addall.bat). When it is invoked, the contents of all three .mxt files are merged to filename.mfw.

Other selections

Hidden text separators

You have the option of hiding parts of texts in the name field of components and courses in reports and on screen, which are not intended to be published others, but may contain important information for you. You can add short comments, tags and/or monetary figures between the selected separators that are not visible to users if you put them inside the separators [ ... ], ( ... ), { ... } ,\ ... \ or / ... / as shown below:

"Room 234 [rent $10/hour] capacity #30 students" is displayed "Room 234 capacity #30 students", if you have selected [ ... ] as the separator, but if you had selected instead / ... /, "Room 234 [rent $10/hour] capacity #30 students" would be displayed as "Room 234 [rent $10", hiding the rest characters from the first "/" onwards.

If you enter the group sizes and room capacities by using the tag "#" as "Form-A (#30)", "Laboratory (#32)" and you have selected ( ... ) as hidden text separators, they are shown as "Form-A", "Laboratory" on screen and in reports.

Select the option Don't hide (=default), if you would like to show the names exactly as they are entered.

Change a new component code

When creating a new component or editing an existing one, this option allows Mimosa to automatically change the code to UPPER case or to lower case. When the default selection Do not change it is selected, the code remains as it was typed. This selection does not change the previously entered component codes.

Change a new course code

When creating a new course or editing an existing one, this option allows Mimosa to automatically change the code to UPPER case or to lower case. When the default selection Do not change it is selected, the code remains as it was typed. This selection does not change the previously entered course codes.

[x] Check room capacity

If this option is checked and at least one of the component names contain the tag "#" followed by the number indicating either the number room seats (if the component is in room category) or seat requirements (in other categories), Mimosa displays in Courses view also the column SEATS containing the difference of the number of room seats and seat requirements. If the component does not contain the tag "#" followed by the number, its seat requirement or room capacity is assumed to be equal to 1. Examples: "Form-A (#30)", "Laboratory (#32)".

For instance, if the course consists of a teacher, a group with the size of 23 (students) and its room has 28 seats, the SEATS displays their difference +4 = 28-23-1. In the case when there are less room seats than what is required, this number is negative. If the course contains several components, Mimosa compares the sums of all seat requirements with the sum of all seat capacities and displays their difference. All numbers in components belonging to the Category for rooms are interpreted as seat capacities whereas the numbers in other categories are interpreted as seat requirements.

You may like to replace the room(s) for courses where the SEATS number is negative. You may enclose the "#" and the number in Hidden text separators if that number is not intended to be shown in reports.

The selection Edit|Optimise room usage supports also the seat capacity and seat requirements numbers as indicated with the "#" symbol.

[x] Show component category sums

When selected, this option displays the numbers of components in each category in the COMPONENTS column using form "2G+T+R", where the number of components in each category is followed by the category shortcut. For instance, the expression "2G+T+R" means that the course contains of two groups (2G), one teacher (T) and one room (R), provided that the shortcuts "G", "T" and "R" denote "Groups", "Teachers" and "Rooms", respectively.

[x] Show memo edit box [Ctrl+K]

This selection enables you to use the memo box on the bottom right of the screen in all Mimosa views enabling you to edit or view a note attached to components or courses, which are not contained in its name field. All memo lines are saved in the current Mimosa file. You can also select to display the entered memos on web reports by checking the options Show course memos and/or Show component memos in File|Print|Timetables.

Buttons:

Save: saves the memo you have entered
Erase: erases the memo
Copy: copies the current memo to the Clipboard
Paste: pastes text from the Clipboard to the memo box
Copy all: copies the memos of all components and courses to the Clipboard
Paste all: pastes the contents from the Clipboard to memos
Close: closes the memo box ([Ctrl+K])

Memos are stored on the Clipboard in two columns (Code, Memo) as follows:

[x] Show timetable snapshots

Checking this option displays a small timetable of the active course or in Components, Courses and Weeks view. The purpose of this view is to show a picture of the current timetable in all views. Deselecting this option hides the timetable and this option can be turned on and off also in these views.

[x] Show left buttons

Checking this option displays the main buttons of the current window on the left (default). Deselecting this option increases your work space on screen.

[x] Show top buttons

Checking this option displays the buttons on the top (default). Deselecting this option increases your work space on screen.

Tooltip display time (in seconds)

You can select the time how long tooltips are displayed. By selecting this time to 0 seconds, tooltips are not displayed. If you like to change the colour of the tooltips, go to Colours tab and select "Default tooltip colour".

Summary info [Ctrl+I]

Displays some of the key parameters of the current file in the following format:

At the top you can see the result of a performance test where the average number of courses and timetables accessed per second are calculated. The complexity rank at the bottom is an index measuring the degree of the difficulty of the scheduling task. Note that this is only an approximate indicator and it is based on the volumes of selected variables in the current Mimosa file.

Statistics

Shows a tabbed notebook containing six tabs of statistical information of the current data file, see Statistics.

Health check

This tool lists some typical simple problems you may have in your current file, such as overloaded components, courses, components, collections, unallocated lectures and so on and helps you to overcome them. This selection is often helpful to sort out problems you may face when you start using Mimosa for the first time or when you get stuck with a problem you cannot immediately identify.

If there are any critical errors, such as uneven use of different resources, you will get instructions how to correct the situation.

Maximum weekly load

Select the component category for which you want to look for the maximum weekly lectures. From the selected week on, the components and weeks having the greatest number of lectures per week are sorted and displayed in decreasing order of weekly load. This selection can be used to identify overloaded weeks and resources. If some of the items is higher than the number of cells in timetables, all lectures cannot be scheduled in them.

You can select the resource type you want to calculate the maximum weekly load. For instance, you may like to know which one of the teachers has most lectures allocated to weeks. Then you select the first week where the calculation will be started from. As a result you will get the selected resources listed in decreasing order according their weekly allocated lectures. You may like to use this information with Weeks view.

Maximum slot load

This selection counts the load of all slots in the timetables of components from the selected week on, by summing up all events (courses, bookings and manual rooms) of each timetable cell. The list is sorted and displayed in decreasing order of slot load, so that the first items on the list refer to those slots that may be overloaded and can cause bottlenecks in creating of timetables.

You are first asked to select the first week from which the slot load is caclulated from and you will get a decreasing list of timetable cells and the numbers of events scheduled in those slots.

Default Clipboard target

Everything that is copied to the Clipboard, is also possible to save in a text file too. This option enables to overcome the 64 kilobytes Clipboard size limit, and you can create text files for file transfer and publishing purposes without the need to convert them separately.

Select the appropriate text file type (.txt, .csv, .htm or .html) and also the file name. When you next time copy data to the Clipboard, it is also stored to the file you selected, without the 64 kilobytes size limit mentioned above. Several applications can read these text files directly.

Introduction

Mimosa views

Menu selections

Mimosa windows

More about Mimosa