• support images on skinned buttons [wiliamsouza]
• support blocking student keyboard and mouse [gmoro]
• detect when students lose connection
• add support for configurable parameters
• add support for user and site-wide configuration files
• add support for different and third-party skins
• properly parse teacher names on broadcast
• l18n fixes on russian
• when sending files to student, give an option between saving then or opening directly

The most notable changes in this version are support for system and user configuration files to fine-tune most of the OpenClass settings, and setup for third-party plugins/skins which can be distributed on a plugin-basis.

To simplify the life of the artists, system integrators, OEMs and all other interested parties, I thereby grant the exception for the skins and plugins licensing, allowing them to be re-distributed under any license they prefer, as long as it does not conflicts with core OpenClass functionality which is, and forever will be, open-source (and of course, open-source licenses are preferred for all the skins and plugins!). Needless to say, those third-party skins and plugins, in case they are not open-sourced, will not receive any official support from this project.

This release is also marked by contribution from two other developers besides myself – Guilherme Moro and Wiliam Alves, so I’d like to thank them for their work!!

• Possibility to have multiple multicast streams in parallel on same networks (e.g., different teachers sharing their screens with different students)
• Possibility to show the content of a student display to other students
• Lots of fixes for Windows version. Windows version should now be available for general use and testing (please see Known issues below).
• Advanced event logging and debugging
• UI and artwork updates
• Several bugfixes

Have fun!

Known issues on Windows:

• When sharing a page or a file with students, the students spawn a command windowSolved in version 0.3.1.
• Sometimes, when closing teacher module, python throws threading-related exceptions

Those issues should be fixed in next release.

some days after the 0.1 release, time has come for OpenClass 0.2. Among the biggest highlights of this version I’d like to mention:

• windows integration and windows installer (check the Download page for details)
• ubuntu and debian integration
• support for standalone notifications (e.g., for systems which do not have notification-daemon available and running)
• improved shutdown on windows and Linux machines
• standardized installation for non-rpm systems

Of course, the biggest highlights of this version are the windows and ubuntu integration. For Windows, however, there is still a number of outstanding bugs which prevent its usage in real class-rooms, such as:

• notification windows appear out-of-the-screen on windows XP
• when choosing to view a student screen, the window stops responding (main openclass teacher window still runs fine in background however)
• default teacher and student names, obtained via the environment variables on Windows, contain some garbage in them
• the student and teacher applications spawn a text-mode window for logging the events instead of a log file

Those items should be fixed in some future version without a doubt. My biggest problem for now is to locate some Windows-powered machines to do the testing – for the past 2 years or so, I only have Linux-powered machines around me. But I know that I am not the most common use case in this sense .

So I took some time to remember my windows hacking skills, and created a windows-compatible version of OpenClass. While it certainly was not trivial because I had to re-remember lots of things (I think it has been some 2 years or so since I last worked that much with Windows), it certainly was not that hard as catching IRPs within the NTFS driver .

So, a picture which says more than a lots of words follows.

OpenClass on windows. Some fancy things are still missing though, like nice icons and windows-specific decorations in some places..

I am pleased to announce to you the newest release of OpenClass, named 0.1. The version bump from version 0.0.4 to 0.1 is due to a absolutely amazing number of changes (most of which were requested by you!), such as support for multi-seat-based environments, teacher selection, possibility to shutdown student computers, improved screen sharing in full-screen mode, possibility to have multiple teachers on the network, and localization updates.

On additional note, I’d like to thank you all for the support you have given to this project. When I started working on it some weeks ago, I never expected so warm welcome – and I am glad to see that you liked this project as much as I did. Thanks you for your messages, feature requests, comments and suggestions!

So, without further bla-bla-bla, the full changelog for OpenClass 0.1 is:

• support multi-seat configurations and multiple clients per machine
• allow to send custom messages to teacher
• implemented teacher selection
• do not allow student to disconnect from teacher while in class
• i18n: new localization: Russian
• allow teacher to remove and re-add students from/to class
• allow teacher to see when students change names
• display students screen on global view
• allow to send actions to individual students
• implemented class shutdown
• ceiling scaling values to avoid “wireframes” in weird resolutions

Some screenshots of the new features follow:

"Mosaic" view of students screens. In this case, both students are connected from the same machine, in multi-seat-based configuration.

Now it is possible to disconnect unwanted students from a class, and have multiple students connected from same IP (e.g., multi-seat configuration)

And of course, new i18n support. Remembering my native language, I added Russian translation to openclass. So now it makes it officially three-language-supported: English, Portuguese and Russian.

As always, OpenClass is available for download on GitHub, with packages compatible with Mandriva 2011 already available for download and installation.

Hold on tight and prepare for the ride. And may the Source be with you!

–
Eugeni.