Online Grades and Attendance

We are pleased to release version 3.1.2 of Online Grades. A lot of development and testing has gone into the software since our last release in March and we are proud to offer this stable release with many new feature updates in time for upgrading your school this summer.

* Most pages now valid XHTML
* Better CSS Support
* A new skin (Fern) and a skin temporary switcher in the Admin Interface.
* JavaScript fixes - no more javascript errors!
* Javascript and PHP verification of all form data entry
* Register Globals = OFF full support
* Completed removal all non-mysql database code
* Ability to force login via ssl
* Login and Logout functions have been rewritten in the backend
* Text that gets emailed is now configurable
* New error handler for displaying errors and basic help information
* Improved display of personal and class notes.
* A RSS News Feed is displayed in the Admin Interface (Configurable)
* The admin mailer now has a "send to all" feature
* Self Password Resets and Changes (if the admin enables them)
* User Expiration Date now fully implemented
* Many bug fixes

Along with all the major feature updates and bug fixes we have also revised and updated both the Install Guide and the User's Guide. Both have increased in both length and detail since the last release. In addition we have documented the format that Online Grades is able to import and have approached several other grade book software companies/authors about supporting exporting from their software. Several authors have expressed interest and we hope to be able to announce further integration soon. If you are using a grade book program that you wish worked with Online Grades please contact the company/author and express your desire for their program to support exporting to Online Grades.

With this release Online Grades has changed how usernames and email addresses are handled. Under the old scheme, the username was the email address. We now have a separate field and the username is independent of the email address (though they could be the same text in each field). This change allowed us to offer self password resets for users with a valid registered email address. Adding the dedicated email address requires a database structure update. If you are not starting with a fresh database please be sure to read the "upgrading" document.

A lot of the new features are configurable by the administrator in the config.php file. Each option contains clear comments on how the options change the way Online Grades operates.

You may download the latest version of Online Grades at http://onlinegrades.sourceforge.net/Downloads+index-req-viewdownload-cid-1.html, the latest version of the documentation is also available at http://onlinegrades.sourceforge.net/Downloads+index-req-viewdownload-cid-3.html.

If you have any questions while upgrading or installing please feel free to post in the forums: http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=127473 . If you find any bugs they should be posted to the Bug Tracker - http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=127473&atid=708659 and if you have any ideas for improvements or additional features they should be posted to the Feature Tracker: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=708662&group_id=127473 . If you are interested in contributing improvements to Online Grades, feel free to submit patches.

We plan to continue to follow the feature Road Map for future versions; you can review it at http://onlinegrades.sourceforge.net/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=9 . We have more user interface cleanup in the works as well as some new feature ideas.

Thanks for using Online Grades!