Praise for a Developer
Apr. 11th, 2012 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fiberaddictI HAVE to give a shout-out to the developer of PlanBook. It's a Lesson Planning software (for both Windoze and Mac - with apps for iPad as well!) that does a good job. ALL it does is lesson planning, but it does it very, very well.
Yesterday, I sat down to plan out our next 2 months (or so). I ran into a problem - it wouldn't let me plan after May 11. I shot off an email, not really expecting more than a "dummy, do this" sort of reply. Instead, Mr. Hellman explained that it is automatically set up to run 1 year (52 weeks) from the "start date" that the user sets up. I could easily go into Schedule and extend my school year by 1 week at a time, until I reached a "good" end date.
I shot off another email - saying "Thanks, and....can this go on indefinitely, or is it better to start a new file for each year?" (Answer - it probably *could* go on indefinitely, but it would start to bog down after a while. :shrug: New year = new data file. I can deal with that. :grin:)
While waiting for his reply, I went in and extended my year.....and decided that June 1 was a good "end" date to the current school year. No biggie - I extended it by the 3 (or 4 - whatever) weeks I needed, then went in to add the plans.
Problem: It decided to insert 4 "No Lessons Entered" days. :scratches head: I have NO CLUE. So, I fiddled with it; I tried changing those days to "custom" days, I tried changing them to whatever week day they were - nothing changed. So, I shot off another email, and closed the file without saving.
I re-opened it (because I am an optimist!)...this time, I only got 2 "No Lessons Entered" days. I saved it - 2 is better than 4, after all! - and noticed a new email from Jeff.
He requested my data file, so he can look at it and see what it's doing. This man is busy, I have no doubt, and he's taking the time to look at my piddly data file to see if he can help me fix it.
I gotta tell you, this makes me happy. I was beta-testing another planner program (this one aimed specifically at homeschoolers)...but this? Has pretty much ensured that I won't switch. (I wish PlanBook tracked grades, as well...but I can live with using a separate program. In TX, I don't NEED to track grades - I do it so I know that the kids ARE learning. SG likes the solidity of *grades*. And...laws change. I'd rather be in the habit of grade-keeping instead of it being dropped on me unexpectedly.)
So. If you're looking for a program to help you plan out your school day/year, I HIGHLY recommend PlanBook. It wasn't that expensive, and the developer is VERY helpful. There's a yahoo group for it, as well - and he's on there all the time trying to help people with problems. I haven't had any until now, which is fabulous. It's VERY intuitive, and it's easy to bump lessons if life intervenes and you have to drop school for something else (it happens.) You can also save lessons from 1 year to the next (like...our Torah-reading schedule. That repeats every year, in the same order.), and you import plans if someone else has set up something you use. (I haven't done that yet - since we do a 3-day/2-day schedule, I figured it was just easier to set them up myself.)
I was going to finish out May, but I think I'll wait until I hear from Jeff again. That way, I'll only have to type stuff in 1x. :lol:
Yesterday, I sat down to plan out our next 2 months (or so). I ran into a problem - it wouldn't let me plan after May 11. I shot off an email, not really expecting more than a "dummy, do this" sort of reply. Instead, Mr. Hellman explained that it is automatically set up to run 1 year (52 weeks) from the "start date" that the user sets up. I could easily go into Schedule and extend my school year by 1 week at a time, until I reached a "good" end date.
I shot off another email - saying "Thanks, and....can this go on indefinitely, or is it better to start a new file for each year?" (Answer - it probably *could* go on indefinitely, but it would start to bog down after a while. :shrug: New year = new data file. I can deal with that. :grin:)
While waiting for his reply, I went in and extended my year.....and decided that June 1 was a good "end" date to the current school year. No biggie - I extended it by the 3 (or 4 - whatever) weeks I needed, then went in to add the plans.
Problem: It decided to insert 4 "No Lessons Entered" days. :scratches head: I have NO CLUE. So, I fiddled with it; I tried changing those days to "custom" days, I tried changing them to whatever week day they were - nothing changed. So, I shot off another email, and closed the file without saving.
I re-opened it (because I am an optimist!)...this time, I only got 2 "No Lessons Entered" days. I saved it - 2 is better than 4, after all! - and noticed a new email from Jeff.
He requested my data file, so he can look at it and see what it's doing. This man is busy, I have no doubt, and he's taking the time to look at my piddly data file to see if he can help me fix it.
I gotta tell you, this makes me happy. I was beta-testing another planner program (this one aimed specifically at homeschoolers)...but this? Has pretty much ensured that I won't switch. (I wish PlanBook tracked grades, as well...but I can live with using a separate program. In TX, I don't NEED to track grades - I do it so I know that the kids ARE learning. SG likes the solidity of *grades*. And...laws change. I'd rather be in the habit of grade-keeping instead of it being dropped on me unexpectedly.)
So. If you're looking for a program to help you plan out your school day/year, I HIGHLY recommend PlanBook. It wasn't that expensive, and the developer is VERY helpful. There's a yahoo group for it, as well - and he's on there all the time trying to help people with problems. I haven't had any until now, which is fabulous. It's VERY intuitive, and it's easy to bump lessons if life intervenes and you have to drop school for something else (it happens.) You can also save lessons from 1 year to the next (like...our Torah-reading schedule. That repeats every year, in the same order.), and you import plans if someone else has set up something you use. (I haven't done that yet - since we do a 3-day/2-day schedule, I figured it was just easier to set them up myself.)
I was going to finish out May, but I think I'll wait until I hear from Jeff again. That way, I'll only have to type stuff in 1x. :lol:
