Re: [WWdevel] preparing for WeBWorK 2.1.1

[John J. <jj...@as...>]

Sam Hathaway wrote:

> I've backported a good number of bugfixes from HEAD to rel-2-1-patches 
> in preparation for tagging a 2.1.1 release. I've attached a list of 
> the changes that have and have not been backported. Over the next few 
> days, I'll be testing rel-2-1-patches to ensure that it is stable.
>
> If you have some time, please test this branch as well so we can make 
> sure nothing falls through the cracks. If you have a favorite bug 
> you'd like to see fixed in 2.1.1, please fix it or let me know about it. 

Yesterday I had someone come to me with a variety of bugs on the scoring 
page.

   1. There are 4 checkboxes.  Their values are not sticky.
   2. The two middle checkboxes are checked by default (ok so far), but
      if you uncheck them it does no good.  The columns are still produced.
   3. If you forget to check some sets to score, you get a webwork error
      (with stack trace).  You should get a more pleasant "badmessage".
   4. The cvs files have padding in them to right justify the columns. 
      This messes up sorting them in at least some spreadsheets.  Since
      webwork doesn't give you the option to sort the lines for you, you
      pretty much need to sort them in your spreadsheet.

The first three are clear bugs which I can fix when I get around to it.  
The last one may be a big more of a judgement call.

The last one is there presumably to make the scoring output look nice 
when it is displayed in a pre group on the page.  I think the right fix 
would be to not pad when creating the file (that much is easy).  Then 
when producing a copy of the cvs file on the web page, padding would 
have to be added at that stage.  So, that step is not a simple read file 
and dump its output on the screen, but it should still should not be too 
complicated.

A second way to fix this which is simpler, but less pleasing (in terms 
of programming aesthetics) would be to generate two copies of cvs files 
when scoring - one without padding for download and one with padding for 
display.

In addition to removing the padding, we may want to add the possibility 
of sorting lines of the spreadsheet (allow specifying up to three 
columns to sort on).

Thoughts on the .csv files?

John