FreeMIS / News: Recent posts

After a quiet year, I have been back working on FreeMIS again over the last month. I have refactored the code to make FreeMIS compatible with the latest version of Rails (2.2) running with mod_rails (passenger). Today I merged this work back into the trunk. A new release will follow some time in the New Year.

Following requests from several interested parties, I have packaged the latest version of FreeMIS inside InstantRails, so that you can get FreeMIS up and running on a windows machine in not much more than a couple of clicks, without having to install any other software. InstantRails already includes Apache, Ruby on Rails and MySQL.

The resulting zip file IS big - around 50 megs - but it does contain everything you need. One user said "Installation process is really just like a piece of cake :)"... read more

FreeMIS is an open source, web based Management Information System for schools. It
is built with the Ruby on Rails development framework.

This release is still one for the experts - if you don't have experience with Ruby on Rails
then you are going to have a tough time making anything happen here. Have a look at the demo site at http://demo.freemis.net instead.

Changes:

- Added user/admin_edit screen to simplify administration
- Cleaned up xhtml
- Fixed bug #1497176
- Refactored code to make it more DRY
- Removed historic tables from old PHP version
- Improved admin screen to edit pupil sets
- Increased coverage of unit/functional tests
- Cleared up css for reports, and switched full reports to print on blank page, rather than having fancy hiding of navigation stuff for printing.
- Fixed bug that made reports vanish if pupil was dropped from a pupil set
- Put together all academic_year related details on one form for ease of administration
- Gave Heads of Faculties write access to all faculty reports

The FreeMIS Subversion repository is now hosted at SourceForge: http://svn.sourceforge.net/freemis

As of Revision 88, all changes to the source code will be accompanied by relevant unit/functional tests, and pass the full suite of tests prior to being commited. there are currently some areas of functionality which are not covered by tests, but work is ongoing to complete coverage.

The freemis_db.sql file contained a bug - no admin rights for the admin user! The file has been replaced with a working one.

The 1.0 release has a new SQL file (freemis_db.sql). The one in the original release had a full demo SQL file, but did not have blank database structure file with only core navigation and user group details and an admin user to get started. The new one does (admin/admin).

FreeMIS is a web based management information system for schools. This release represents a major milestone in the development of FreeMIS - the first public release of an entirely new version built using Ruby on Rails. This may just be the most ambitious open source Rails product so far!

Having developed a functioning system using PHP, it became apparent that the code base was becoming cumbersome and difficult to comprehend for potential contributors. I chose Ruby on Rails as the new development platform in July 2005, and very quickly produced a working version for my school to go live with in August. Since then I have been polishing the Ruby on Rails version and adding a better admin layer.... read more

Several months after the porting of FreeMIS to Ruby on Rails, you can now access the new code via the FreeMIS subversion repository at http://www.freemis.net/svn/freemis/trunk - a full release is in the pipeline.

The FreeMIS project aims to provide schools with a high quality alternative to the proprietary Management Information Systems that abound in schools in the UK and beyond.

We at the FreeMIS project believe that the best way to create a high quality MIS is to develop it as an Open Source project.

At present, FreeMIS only offers a subset of the functionality of a comprehensive MIS. Development is ongoing, however, and FreeMIS has stood the test of being used in a Scottish High School.... read more

FreeMIS - the free web-based MIS for schools - has made it's second public release, which greatly improves the functionality of the reporting module, and provides a full set of dummy data to play with. If you are looking for an open source alternative then download FreeMIS here

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freemis/freemis_0.85.tar.gz?download

and get involved.

FreeMIS - the free web-based MIS for schools - has made it's first public release. If you are looking for an open source alternative then download FreeMIS, play and then get involved! The reporting to parents module of FreeMIS is fully functional. http://sourceforge.net/projects/freemis/

The first set of files has been added to the CVS today. They don't do much without data - the menus are populated from a table.