TTime - Technion TimeTable Utility

TTime is (breath) a rewrite of a fork of a replacement of an updated version of software intended to help Technion students organize their timetables. (That was UDonkey-mono, UDonkey.Net, Marprog-Windows, Marprog-DOS). It automatically fetches its data from the Technion, and then generates automated schedules for the user according to his selections. We intend to make this program easy-to-use and extensible.

While this is technically a rewrite, a lot of concepts and code were borrowed from UDonkey, so thanks!

More about TTime vs. UDonkey

Download

There are three options for downloading TTime:

Windows Binary (includes Ruby and additional libraries)
ttime_0.9.4-1_all.deb - Ubuntu/Debian package (changelog)
Git Snapshot (even less stable!)

Having problems? Want to suggest a feature? Head on over to our mailing list (technically a google group).

Developers

Want a crack at the source code? Interested in developing new Constraint or Rating plugins? Check out the Git repository for the source code. To get hacking quickly, install git and clone the repository:

    git clone git://github.com/lutzky/ttime.git

Screenshots

The following screenshots are from the Hebrew version.

The main view, displaying the course list (filtered by a search) and the currently selected courses. Note that the search was performed by the course's nickname, not its full name.

The exam schedule, generated from the selected courses.

The Constraints tab allows you to show only schedules matching the selected contraints. All constraints are optional, including the "No clashes" constraint (so schedules with clashes can be found).

The standard schedule view.

The multi-schedule feature, showing alternatives for the "Intro to CS" tutorial.

Schedule rating priorities allows you to decide which schedules will be written first.

More about TTime vs. UDonkey

In the beginning, there was MarProg, an ancient program for working with REPY files, for which the lore (and source code) have been lost in the mists of time... This program was available for DOS and WIN32 (essentially, Windows 95).

Then there was UDonkey, written by Yehuda Arkin, Alon Jacobi, Yaniv Raziel and Yaniv Gardi, as a project for the Technion EE faculty, under the supervision of Nissim Natanov and Dr. Ilana David. This program was written in C#, but has only been tested under Windows (e.g., not on Linux). The source code for UDonkey was made available.

A group of students - namely, Haggai Eran, Boaz Goldstein and myself (Ohad Lutzky), started hacking at UDonkey to get it to work under Linux (using Mono), but eventually decided to rewrite it in Ruby. This was a hobbyist project (i.e., no academic points were granted).

Since we get asked about this a lot, here is a summary of the differences between UDonkey (as described on September 18th, 2009) and TTime 0.9.1.

Here are some things UDonkey does better than TTime:

Better Windows compatibility - written in C#, which is a first-class citizen on modern Windows operating systems.

Full XML support - the REPY file gets converted into an XML file first, which UDonkey operates directly on. The support for this in TTime is experimental, and considered second-class (at least until the Technion starts offering compatible XML files officially).

Export schedule to HTML for easy printing using a browser. (TTime exports to PDF for printing).

Export course information to HTML.

Allows users to define their own events.

Allows the inclusion of any set of days in the schedule, including Friday and Saturday.

Automatically joins parallel lectures and tutorials held in the same day at the same time.

Here are some things TTime does better than UDonkey:

Better Linux support, with very easy installation on Debian and Ubuntu systems (dependencies are managed automatically).
Much, much faster parsing of REPY files.
Simpler, friendlier user interface, written according to the Human Interface Guidelines. Also, supports window resizing.
Very flexible constraint and sorting system, right up to optimizing the schedule for minimal running between buildings (when there is no break).
Manual-Dynamic style schedule building, as suggested by Tom Meiri - all options are displayed side-by-side, and the user manually makes his choice. This has been compared to planning your schedule using Excel or slides, but without errors copying from the UG site.
UI available in English and Hebrew.