This chapter contains the general info about Ggradebook. It also contains some installation instructions and information about the general usage of Ggradebook.
Ggradebook is the fully-featured GNU gradebook; an application for tracking student grades for teachers. It uses GTK+ and can optionally be compiled to use GNOME. The Ggradebook website can be found at http://gtkgo.netpedia.net or via ftp://ftp.gnu.org. Ggradebook is copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. The author of Ggradebook is Norbert de Jonge <hack@altavista.net> and the latest version of Ggradebook is 0.91.
Ggradebook is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.Ggradebook is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Ggradebook; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
Ggradebook requires GTK+ version 1.2.0 or better. GTK+ can be downloaded via <ftp://ftp.gtk.org>. GNOME use is optional. GNOME use requires GNOME version 1.0.0 or better. GNOME can be downloaded via <http://www.gnome.org>.
Use the following commands to install Ggradebook:
If you want to help developing Ggradebook, send an e-mail to <hack@altavista.net> and tell me how you want to help. I can also tell you what requests I got from Ggradebook users. Please don't send patches. If you want to help writing this manual, please read section 1.5.
This is version 0.91 of the Ggradebook Manual. The Ggradebook Manual is copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc, the author or the manual is Norbert de Jonge <hack@altavista.net> and the manual is licensed under the Open Content License version 1.0. If you have ideas for this manual or if you want help writing this manual, please send an e-mail to <hack@altavista.net> and tell me how you want to help. I really don't like writing manuals, so please help me with this!
The interface of Ggradebook is pretty self evident, so using Ggradebook shouldn't really be a problem. Ggradebook is made as easy to use as possible, since my personal opinion is that a good program shouldn't requires a manual at all.
The only thing you should know when you want to start using Ggradebook right away, is that Ggradebook uses or letters and percentages or numeric grades. The way period averages are shown for example can only be changed when working with numeric grades. The (default) preferences can be changed when adding a new class or when editing a class.
In the main window, you can only select a class or add a new class. When adding a new class, changing the default preferences may be a good idea. More about this can be found in one of the following sections.
When you want to send feedback, you can use the form in the Feedback window, which can be selected from the Help-menu. However, sending e-mail directly to <hack@altavista.net> may be a wiser idea, since sending the information in this form won't always work.
The Help-window, which can be selected from the Help-menu contains a very simple version of this manual. In the future this window may contain this entire manual, since users may want to know more about the (general) usage of Ggradebook.
To add a new class, you'll have to select Add Class from the main window. From this window you can also change the default preferences. More about changing the default preferences can be found in the next section.
Here are the default preferences, that are used when creating a new class, defined. The difference from these preferences and the preferences which can be changed when editing a class is that the default preferences will be used each time when you add a new class. They are the global preferences.
This chapter talks about the different options you have when editing a class. It will tell you something about changing the data for students and changing the grades or period information. I will also talk about the possibility to print the grades and the option to change the preferences for one separate class.
From the Students-window, you can add, edit or delete students. It is also possible to add all students from another class. When you want to do that, this other class should also be in the default class path.
From the Grades & Periods-window, you can add, edit or delete grades. It is also possible to change the settings of the current period or edit a period from this window.
This window can be used to print information about the students, grades and/or periods to a file or a printer.
From this window, the preferences for one separate class can be changed. Changing the default preferences can be done when adding a new class.
This chapter talks about the way averages are calculated in Ggradebook.
For the period averages per student, first all the grades for the student are multiplied by their work weights. After this, the total of all these multiplied grades is divided by the the total of all the work weights.
For the final averages per student, first all the period averages for the student are multiplied by their period weights. After this, the total of all these multiplied grades is divided by the total of all the period weights.
This is a very short and simple specification of the ASCII files that are used by Ggradebook. Since the structure of the class files (<file>.cls) and the default preferences file (currently ~/.gg) are very much the same, I will try to explain them both at the same time.
In the default preferences file (not in the class files), we first specify the path to the class files:
classpath: <string>
After this, we specify the grades type (default grades in the default preferences file and simply grades in the class files). Use 1 for letters and percentages and 2 for numeric grades:
[default] grades: <integer>
If we use letters and percentages, we then specify the number of used letters (default letters in the default preferences file and simply letters in the class files). This integer should be between 0 and 26:
[default] letters: <integer>
If we use letters and percentages, we also define each used letter and it's value. This can be done maximally 26 times and the double value of the letter should be between -100 and 100:
<letter>: <double>
Then we define the lowest possible allowed percentage or grade, the highest possible allowed percentage or grade, the percentage or grade below which the grades should be highlighted, the percentage or grade for plus (+) and the percentage or grade for minus (-). All these values are double values between -100 and 100:
lowest pos: <double> highest pos: <double> highlight below: <double> plus: <double> minus: <double>
If we use numeric grades, we also specify how the final averages should be calculated. This should be 1 for wholes, 2 for halves and 3 for decimals:
final averages: <integer>
After this, we define if the lowest grades should be dropped from the periods. Use 1 to drop the lowest grades and 0 to not drop the lowest grades:
drop lowest: <integer>
The rest of the below explained lines are only used in the class files and not in the default preferences file.
We now specify the name of the teacher, the name of the mentor, the number of students and the number of periods. The number of students should be 0 or more and the number of periods at least 1.
teacher: <string> mentor: <string> students: <integer> periods: <integer>
For each period we then define the following things:
First we specify the period weight, which should be at least 1 and maximally 10:
period weight: <integer>
If we use numeric grades, we also specify how the period averages should be calculated. This should be 1 for wholes, 2 for halves and 3 for decimals:
period averages: <integer>
Then we define the number of works, which should be 0 or more:
period works: <integer>
For each work in this period we then define the following things:
First the name of the work and the weight of the work, which should be at least 1 and maximally 10:
work name: <string> work weight: <integer>
Then we specify the extra info about the work. The extra info should be exactly MAX_TEXT (1000) characters and starts on a new line. Unused space should be filled with #'s.
work extra: <characters>
Finally we now define the grades for this work for all students. Each percentage or grade should be between 100 and -100 and should start on a new line:
work grades: <double> <double> <doub...
The periods are now defined. We only need to define the students now. For each student the following things are defined:
First the student name, the student code and the student sex, which should be either Male or Female:
student name: <string> student code: <string> student sex: <string>
Then we specify the extra info about the student. The extra info should be exactly MAX_TEXT (1000) characters and starts on a new line: Unused space should be filled with #'s.
student extra: <characters>