Schoolhouse 3 Released
I am proud to (finally) announce the release of Schoolhouse 3.0. This version is a major update, and introduces a completely new foundation to Schoolhouse.
Schoolhouse 3 is Shareware. Yes, I've moved to the paid model. *screams*. Well, we all have to eat, right? And it is at a reasonable price, in my opinion. $14 and you have the app. That's a lot less than most of those fancy to-do managers that are in the $50 to $80 range. I mean, we're students, right?
So, new features? First are Appearance Rules. They work like Mail's message rules in that they define how tasks in Schoolhouse appear (bolded, italicized, colorified, etc.), and are definable using a nice interface in the preferences.
Second is Websites. You can add websites to your courses or library, and access them directly in Schoolhouse. It's quick and easy for course websites that you look at frequently.
Next is MobileMe syncing, for those who have multiple Macs. Turn it on in the MobileMe system preference pane.
Another great new feature is a quick entry pane, which has become a popular trend in to-do apps. You can define a shortcut key in the General preference pane.
That's four cool new features, but you should download the app to check them all at.
Comments
Yeah ! Great news !
Is an iPhone companion on the way ?
I would love to see Schoolhouse synchronising with iStudiez (istudentpro.com) or a Schoolhouse touch.
Wow, amazing, thanks :)
Looks good.. have added some great ideas..
2 things..
1. what do we get with a purchased key different from not purchasing??
I am guessing Mobile Me is one but what else really is there we currently can not see? there is not much about it written on the site.
2.seeing that v2 had bugs and never really got fixed, what is the plan for supporting v3?
But again great work, and I can see this being an app that all students will use:)
I’m taking this year off, so I won’t be buying it just yet (although I almost definitely will next year), but I just hope that now that it’s paid, updates will be more frequent. Before updates were so infrequent that it made me wonder if the project had been abandoned or not. But since it was free, that was ok with me, seeing as how I was glad to have it at all. However if something in Schoolhouse breaks with an OS update after I’ve paid for it, I’d be kind of upset if it took months for a fix.
That said, I’m glad to see this release! For the longest time I kept hoping for Schoolhouse 3, and now it’s finally here! I’ll have to check out the full list of features later (I have to run out the door now)!
The demo version is limited to 20 tasks in your library before it nags you to buy a license.
I don't have plans for an iPhone version, because I'm an intern at Apple during part of the year. Apple employees can't release iPhone apps independently, unfortunately.
And is it possible to see an integration of an other app (as iStudiez Pro) in collaboration with his developer ?
The lack of iPhone companion for a software like Schoolhouse is a dealbreaker for me (and for many other people too).
By the way, I'll stay tuned :)
Nice release Logan but I have a couple requests.
I liked the in-app notes in Schoolhouse 2, not sure why you took them out.
And a small bug, when you choose "Tasks" in the source list and create a new task it doesn't let you pick what kind of task it is. Not a big problem since really all tasks should be created in their appropriate notebooks.
I love and have already bought Schoolhouse 3 but I'm sorely missing the notetaking feature. Is there anyway we can see that brought back? It was always one of the most useful parts of Schoolhouse.
Another question, why did you remove the 'Ask Instructor' feature? And where can i found the button to view the grades visual/in a grafic?
Again many thanks, great job!
Here are a few suggestions from the peanut gallery...
1) "Days until Due" column
2) Dashboard widget counterpart
3) iPhone app (No, hear me out! Have a web-based sync to a web app? That might work and get around Apple's restriction on you.)
4) iCal connection (Automatically add exams to iCal and "communicate" with a calendar of class schedules that can be accessed through iCal or Schoolhouse. Or even "to-do" sync, for what little that's worth.)
5) Be aware of class times (To allow tasks to have their day count based on when their corresponding course begins, etc.)
6) Customize what the dock badge means (Link it to a 'smart notebook')
7) Sub-tasks (A rotatable triangle submenu for tasks with "steps" within them)
8) Let tasks be added by email (Let incoming mail formatted in a certain way be added as a task in Schoolhouse. That'd solve the iPhone app conundrum for me personally.)
9) Let tasks be accessed via Spotlight
Trust me, there's a reason I stayed with Schoolhouse through the days when you'd be scared stiff that the next OS X update would render it incompatible. Nonetheless, I think these are features worth considering.
Err............could we please have a backup/export feature in case this thing crashes or our computer dies?
In schoolhouse 2, the help file said go to FILE>EXPORT, but there was no such thing.
It's something I'm considering adding. For the short term, you can back up your library by copying the Schoolhouse library file from ~/Library/Application Support/Schoolhouse/Library.schoolhouse to a safe location. If your Mac dies, just put that file back in the same folder.
Okay. And where is the library for 2.2?
@William, Same folder, but it's named Library.plist. The file format changed from 2.2 to 3.0.
Maybe I'm missing something, but where is the month view in Schoohouse 3? I like seeing all my tasks in a month view. Please tell me it's still there and I just can't find it.
Are smart notebooks with day criteria supposed to update at midnight?
I usually have to relaunch schoolhouse each morning to make sure my "can do now" notebook is up to date. This happened in 2.x too.
I am also missing month view =( it was nice to have a visual representation of the amount of work I was going to have in the coming week/month!
I downloaded it to give it a try, and I have to say, I strongly prefer Schoolhouse 2. I’m not trying to flame you or anything, I really appreciate the work you do, but I’m not going to be buying version 3. Version 2 was just so much more friendly. It seems that in 3.0 you can’t even separate courses into terms, so it’s only reasonable to keep current courses in SH. Also, the week and month views are seemingly gone. Notes changed in a way that I had requested, which was having SH actually save each set as an RTF file, for easy access and Spotlight integration. However, in doing so, the ability to take notes in SH itself has been removed, and the RTF must just be added as an attachment to an otherwise empty task. These are HUGE losses for me. Other things like the grade graph disappearing and the general interface being less friendly (in my opinion) are disappointing as well, but not deal breakers. Were it a free upgrade, perhaps I’d give it more of a chance and get used to it (although I doubt it), but seeing as it’s a paid upgrade, I’m definitely staying with 2.0.
Again, I don’t mean to flame you or anything. I’ve been relying on SH all through college, and I’m pretty sure (although not positive) that I’ve donated to show my appreciation. It’s just that for my purposes, 3.0 is a huge step back, with a price tag on top. I’d be willing to pay for an upgrade that I actually wanted to use, and I’m still going to keep my eye on Schoolhouse, because hopefully in the future some of these things will be added back in due to feedback, and if so, I’d be more than willing to upgrade. But at this point, I consider Schoolhouse 2 to be a far superior program.
@Devin
I'm sorry to hear you say that. The reason a few features were not transitioned to 3.0 was for the most part because I wanted to focus on taking the app towards the future. The notes, for example, was a feature that was becoming a full-on app in its own right, and so many people had made the request to be able to do more with it, more like an actual note taking application, like Pages, Word, etc. Since I wasn't able to keep up with any other note taking system within Schoolhouse, I opted to harness any of the users' preference instead.
The number one complaint from new users of Schoolhouse that I got was that they did not understand why they had to create a "Term", and then create their "Courses". I understand where you come from, It does make organizing a bit more linear, and I have been considering adding something along the lines of Mail folders to organize courses by whatever criteria you deem necessary.
Finally, the Month and Week views were removed because I didn't like how I designed them in the first place. They worked well to the user, but on the internal side they were becoming more and more difficult to manage with every release, and I have not had the opportunity to create new widgets for them from scratch within my release schedule, so alas, they are no longer present in the new foundation. Will they reappear? Possibly. It is a factor of if I was going to do so, or focus more on bridging with other apps on the system, perhaps iCal to do the same thing. I have no decided yet.
When it comes down to it, I believe that the new features present in 3.0 are the primary reasons to upgrade. Appearance Rules are a powerful addition that takes over many of the aspects of organizing tasks. MobileMe sync is invaluable to me, because if my computer dies, I have a backup on a server I can get anytime.
Again, thanks for your feedback.
Logan
Hm…what about a setting where a user sets his preferred app for notetaking and then bringing back the Notes functionality in Schoolhouse but with different behavior? For example, when creating new notes, Schoolhouse could automatically open a new document in the preferred app and attach it, and when opening notes by double-clicking them (like was done in version 2) if would open the attached file in its app? It would also be useful for SH to keep the name of the attached file in sync with the name of the notes entry in SH. I suppose all of this would only work for supported applications or filetypes, but still, supporting rtf/TextEdit, doc/docx/Word, and Pages should cover most people.
As for terms, I liked it the old way, but I guess if people were complaining that much it makes sense to change it. Organization of courses in the future like you said would be nice though.
I hope that week view at least reappears (I never really used month view), because having that graphical representation was very useful to me. When I tried out the new version, I missed the toolbar too. It made the interface more friendly and useful. Plus, you could always hide it if you wanted it gone, like it is in version 3. Having it there as an option would be good.
I can’t say for sure that I’d switch if some or all of these features were implemented, since I haven’t used version 3 extensively enough to know what it’s like, but I’d definitely download it again and give it another go. Generally I just think 2 was a little more simplified and user-friendly, but that could also be attributed to me being used to it.
I use month view exclusively to get an overview of my workload for the week and the month. This is the whole reason that I used Schoolhouse in the first place. I've search and have not found another application that allows you to view tasks in a month view that you can check off and sort in categories.
I cannot use Schoolhouse 3 until it has the month view implemented again. I have been looking forward to Schoolhouse 3 for a long time and I will pay for it without blinking an eye, but month view is a deal breaker for me.
Please please please put the month view back into Schoolhouse 3. Until then I'm still using Schoolhouse 2 and loving it.
Thank you for spending time developing this amazingly helpful app.
Logan,
Let me begin by saying that I'm thrilled to see a new Schoolhouse release, one that is undoubtedly more future-ready and has some shiny new features. MobileMe syncing, in particular, is enticing.
Having said that, I gave it a try today and I'll continue using 2.x for at least the remainder of this semester. There are too many changes that are unappealing to me, though I'm certain you have your own good reasons for each.
For examples:
- No toolbar. Any good Mac app feels naked to me without the standard toolbar, and I have become quite accustomed to using it in Schoolhouse. The new look is quite jarring, to say the least, and a toolbar can be hidden by choice if that's what a user wants.
- Notes. The new approach seems like not the best option. I don't have any suggestions for what you could have done better, but the new approach is about as "unintegrated" as you can get. I would have preferred nothing change, and let those clamoring for more options come up with their own external solution (using an app like the excellent Notebook) while those of us with a plain text approach to notes could have the facilities available in Schoolhouse.
- New icon. The proportions and plain coloring just look off to me, with the desk top actually looking somewhat like a stylized "b." I manually pasted in the old icon while trying v3 and greatly preferred it.
- No terms. This was my sole method of organizing courses, of which I have several semesters' worth stored in my Library. I almost can't believe that people would find the concept too difficult ... are those users managing kindergarten assigments? Upper education revolves around terms.
- Random GUI niggles, like the 1 pixel gap between the collapsible "Task" header (in the right sidebar) and the title bar.
There's no need for me to go on. I've never minded paying for quality software and Schoolhouse definitely qualifies. For that reason I will keep a watchful eye on future updates, though I will be living in the past for the foreseeable future.
Nooooo! I have lost my Library! Thank god i have a backup! How can i restore?
I'm using 2.0
SHIT! Why al my data get's lost after crashsing????
Bug report No23237324:
[img]http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/9852/schermafbeelding2009092c.png[/img]
When you give the title multiply lines.
@Jules Aah... you shouldn't be able to have multiple lines. I am guessing that's from copy-paste. I'll make a note of it.
Again. I'm going to just repeat a lot of what has been said. I've been using schoolhouse pretty much since I got my first mac (during high-school). Now as a freshman in college I rely on it to keep me on task.
I feel like v3 is a step backwards. I hardly ever use anything except the monthly view because it gives me a visual view of whats coming up. It's really hard to see things when it's all in text. It seems like there is less features with a higher price.
@Damien, @Geoff
Again, I'm going to reiterate that I'm sorry a few people are disappointed. I try to put the best of what I can into my software, and sometimes I have to keep the list of items that I implement in due time short in order to deliver a quality release.
Schoolhouse 3 is a reimplementation from virtually the ground up to take advantage of Leopard and Snow Leopard, and tacking more and more features onto my list of requirements only makes implementation for me, a full-time student with another job, harder. I love working on Schoolhouse and delivering releases to the fans of it, but I only do what I can in the time that I have.
I wrote a review of the trial version that I have used at:
http://www.rarevisual.com/2009/10/software-schoolhouse/
Quote:
"To establish trends, sometimes one has to look for software that has a combination of a great future and a cheap price – Schoolhouse is it for me...."
@Robert
Thanks for the review!
Hey, just wanted to throw in a comment that those of us giving negative feedback aren't doing so to complain, we're doing it more in the form of constructive criticism. We love Schoolhouse and want to see it be all that can be, so rather than just not upgrading, we're letting you know what features we miss or what we find unlikable about the upgrade, in hopes that you'll take our feedback to heart when updating the software.
Thanks! :)
Ditto. I do indeed like Schoolhouse, appreciate the hurdles of a modern reimplementation, and understand the demands on your time as a student (I am a Schoolhouse user, after all). I will still be watching for 3.x updates to see if any of the opinions expressed here get addressed.
Thoughts on enabling print? Save paper yada yada - but still, would be super useful ...
Already purchased, but (hastily) thought print would be enabled after purchase.