1.2.3 (04-06-2010) ================================= -Added activity: Alphabet Order Students are required to click on each letter of the alphabet, in order, inside a grid of random letters. This activity is great for tracking skills. -Added activity: Days Activity 1 The days of the week are shown in order, then 'expload' into random places on the screen. Students then need to drag and drop them back into order. This can be found in the Topics section. -Added activity: Days Activity 2 7 blank boxes are shown. A day is said, then the user needs to click in the matching box (e.g. Tuesday = 2nd). -Added activity: Months Activity 1 The months of the year are shown in order, then 'expload' into random places on the screen. Students then need to drag and drop them back into order. This can be found in the Topics section. -Added activity: Months Activity 2 6 or 12 blank boxes are shown. A month is said, then the user needs to click in the matching box (e.g. February = 2nd). -Reorganised the category selection screen. Placed First Steps and Steps to Literacy behind a Courses button. Made space for a new course. Added progress bars for each book, these bars track the results of the Spelling Tests. Added medals for completed books. -Added book 5 to the Steps to Literacy course. This new book can now be accessed the same way you access the old books. -Redesigned the way users enter wordlists. You can now enter sentences for the new words as well, and also record both the word and its sentence. This opens up virtually all of the activities in Steps to the custom wordlists. -Added roughly 400 new words to the database. -Added 67 new wordlists to the Word Families and Spelling Patterns categories. -Added an Admin page 3 tab to the Admin menu. This contains options for each computer relating to the way it prints reports/resources, if it's windowed, and a few other options too. These settings can also be chosen inside the settings.ini file next to Steps.exe. -Added an 'Options' button to Steps Home so Home users can change the print settings too. -Added a splash screen to Home and Tutor Editions. -Added the option to force students to finish an activity instead of letting them quit half way through. This feature is intended for students that continually restart an activity after making a mistake so they can achieve a gold. This option can be found in the Student Properties in Admin page 1. -Renamed the 'Spelling Topics' section to just 'Topics' -Perception and Colours have now been re-introduced and can now be found inside the Topics section. -Added a print feature to the Schonell Spelling test. It creates an A4 printable report similar to the current 'Analyse' button. -Added wordlist category "Useful Stuff". This category contains two wordlists; one with the days of the week, the other with the months. -When playing Spelling1, you now don't have to wait for Steps to correct a mistake before typing another attempt. -Changed the Visual Memory activity so it works with lists as short as 4 words now. -On Macs, words that are missing recordings will now get spoken by the computers internal voice. You may also choose the voice using the settings.ini file. -Upgraded the preloader so it now displays the progress while patching. It is normal for the last few files to take a while to transfer because they are the largest (by a long way). -Added 'Repair Corruption' button to Admin page 1. This function will load every file in the database and check for corruption. Any corrupted files found will be deleted, then recreated next time Steps tries to access it. Please backup before using it. -Adjusted the Network edition to resize according to screen resolution, this means that on widescreens there should now be black bars on ether side to avoid stretching. -Created an option in the settings.ini that can tell Steps to close when trying to preview something before printing. This can be activated when users see 'flashing' as the computer struggles to show a fullscreen application and something else at the same time. It can also be set to just send the file straight to the printer without previewing. -Added a splash screen to Initial Sounds with instructions. Removed the "make" infront of the audio instructions while playing. -Swapped Spelling Age for a level value when viewing the Schonell Spelling Test results. You can now find the Spelling age in the Students Properties, inside the Admin menu. -Reduced the amount of errors in a row needed to finish the Schonell Test from 10 to 6 -Placed the correct help file for the Initial Sounds activity and prevented the bubble underneath it from activating when hitting the 'X' button. -Made sure the license expiry warning only appears once each time Steps is run (Network and trial editions only). -Spelling Test now removes all leading and trailing spaces from a students answer. A blinking bar has now been added to keep consistancy with every other place text input is used. -Added a proper dialogue that tracks the progress when restoring databases from backups. -Prevented "/" from being added into the database path on PC's. It was causing some issues when installing the preloader patch. -Moved the 'Back' and 'Quit' buttons to the top of the screen in the Admin menus -Adjusted Sounds 1 so that sounds made entirely of just vowels (e.g. "oa") will always be coloured red. Also 'y' will now be on a red square instead of the old purple one. -Fixed an inconsistancy with the length of a wordlist name when renaming. The font has also been corrected to be the same as the rest of Steps. Wordlist names may now be up to 25 characters length. -Fixed a bug with Silent-e Activity 2 that caused the logs from that session not to display. -Fixed a bug in Sentence Builder that was occasionally causing blank spaces to appear where grammar should've been. 1.2.2 (24-02-2010) ================================= -Replaced 'Perception and Memory' with 'Spelling Topics'. This new section contains a large selection of spelling topics, printable resources, and activities to reinforce them. -Added recommended Steps and Course levels to the Schonell Spelling Test -Added a 'Print list' button to the First Steps, Steps to Literacy, General, and Word Families sections. This will print out cards of the same dimensions with words from the wordlist on them. -Added over 350 sounds. -Swapped the activities Drop and Spelling Test over so that Spelling Test is now the last activity under Spelling. -Placed the Initial Sounds activity in all sections, though it can still only be played with wordlists from the Word Families. This is to allow it to work inside the General section when a Word Families list is selected. -Added the option of playing for ether 5 sentences, or all sentences inside the Sentence Builder activity. -Smoothed the lighting on the Steps logo in the Login screen. -Stopped the Wordsearch logging unless some progress has been made in the activity. This allows the wordsearch to be printed without it showing up in the log. -Removed splash screen for Spelling Test. The activity will now always test the whole wordlist. -The Steps logo now shows when setting up Steps for the first time (i.e. setting the database path and licence information). -Doubled the space for writing words when printing the Wordsearch clues. -Replaced the Schonell Spelling Test sample words. -Reduced the selectable starting levels in the Schonell Spelling Test from 10 to 8. This will not change the results of the test as the students will still progress through the last two levels if they get that high. -Replaced several more 'Yes!' buttons with more appropriate labels. Buttons do the same thing, just a cosmetic change. -Further adjusted the Sentence Builders text so its closer to the middle. -Added fail-safe incase files already exist when renaming. -Prevented accidently adding spaces to words in the user and administrator wordlists. -The 'Back' button now clears out the Set Work. -Fixed a bug in Schonell Spelling Test that was causing the Analyse button to sometimes pick the wrong test when there were multiple entries. -Fixed error in the sentence for 'hike'; corrected 'wil' to 'will'. -Fixed a bug which instantly completed the Initial Sounds activity with a gold medal when used with lists consisting only of words ending in 'y'. -Fixed a bug which stopped the medals showing for Spelling Test when using revision wordlists. -Fixed a bug that allowed the user to click the greyed out 'Save' button while recording the sound for a custom word. -Fixed a bug with the Administrator wordlists not loading the list contents correctly. 1.2.1 (30-11-09) ================================= -Added game: Snap This can be found under the 'Games' category -Added activity: Schonell Spelling Test This test will accurately determine spelling age (S.A.) and gives appropriate recommendations for teaching and suggest a wordlist in the program. It can be found on the screen immediately after login. -Made the greyed out activities much more obvious -Reversed General section and Choose Wordlist. Clicking 'General' will now let you choose a wordlist first and then take you to the activities. -Reduced Find the Word and Spelling 1 game duration from 20 answers to 14. -Fixed glitch with Set Work feature (sometimes wasn't allowing you to click on activities correctly, also the work was clearing every time an activity was played in FS or StL) -Fixed bug with chunks when getting the rime wrong, the background object was the wrong size -Changed Admin button 'Modify student' to 'Student properties'. It still does the same thing, it's just labelled differently now. -Enabled right-clicking on words to play them when creating student/admin lists -Replaced several 'Yes!' buttons with 'OK' buttons. Buttons do the same thing, just a cosmetic change. -Fixed bug that showed too many categories expanded when going into 'Choose Wordlist' -Centered individual characters in Fireworks game as they move along -Changed 'Back' button to 'Log off' in the menu where you choose which section to enter 1.2.0 (16-09-09) ================================= -Added activity: Initial Sounds This can be found in the Word Families section -Added function: Set work This allows teachers to set activities for the student to do. Simply click 'Set' (from any of the activity menus), then click on the activities you would like your student to play. Click 'OK' to finalise your choice. It greys out all other tasks until the 'clear' button has been pushed. -Added function: print button It can be found in the First Steps, Steps to Literacy, General, and Word Families sections. This button will take a screenshot and send it to the default printer. On Vista this will bring up a print dialogue, on XP it will just print to the default printer. -Simplified entering in the license and setting database path for first time installs -Steps now recreates files that are missing when logging into students, such as wordlists, medals, preferences or logs. -Last backup date is now stored and shown on Admin page 2 -Included logic and physics tic rate settings into ini file. These control how many times per second the logic and physics are processed. Decreasing these values below 60 will increase performance but decrease how smooth the 3d games run. There is no advantage in doing this unless typing into Steps is hard. -Spelling1 now removes trailing spaces when pressing 'OK' -Fixed bug with the sorting alphabet in the Login screen -Fixed bug with the sorting alphabet in the Admin screen -Increased length of custom wordlist name -Upgraded sound recording menu -Fixed bug with missing CD 'retry' button. -Fixed bug in Sound Boxes with the word 'eight' not being accepted -Adjusted Sound Boxes activity so clicking on the background no longer clears the selection 1.1.0 (13-08-09) ================================= -Added game: Fireworks This can be found under the 'Games' category -Added activity: Drop This can be found in the General, First Steps, Steps to Literacy and Word Families sections inside the 'Spelling' category -Adjusted Steps Network so the application can be run without any write access. The database still needs write access though. Keep in mind that if you want to update the database path or patch then you'll need to do that with write access. -Added ini-controlled settings for storing Home and Tutor data in user profile (designed to allow 'restricted users' in XP and Vista to use Steps) If running Steps on restricted accounts interests you and you have a previous version of Steps then contact us and we can send you the ini file. -Updated preloader so it will launch Steps anyway if it doesn't have write access. The preloader is completely useless with read-only access, but at least it won't halt the start of Steps now when it fails to check/apply patches. Since the preloader IS the updater, we'll only be shipping it out with new purchases of Steps. Anyone who is already running an older version can achieve the same effect by changing the shortcut to Steps from ".../Steps Network/preloader.exe" to ".../Steps Network/Steps.exe". If you really want to get the updated file then email us and we can send it out to you. -Added import students function to Admin menu. This tool is designed for merging of databases. To use it, copy all of the files (do not overwrite originals) from one or more databases into one database, then run the tool and import all of the extra students. Backup before attempting this. -Fixed bug in Sound Boxes where it wasn't displaying apostrophes. -Fixed bug in Chunks and Word Building when using lists over 10 words long -Fixed bug in Find the Word with words over 13 letters long -Fixed mistake in High Frequency 49 (terific -> terrific) -Made the collision zone variable on objects in Find the Word -Added sample words into reference section -Fixed bug in Wordsearch where it was trying to place words that were longer than its width -Adjusted Wordsearch so it won't let the student play if the wordlist doesn't contain any compatible words (words need to be less than 13 characters long) -Reduced text size in many places to cope with larger words/names -Added print button to Wordsearch activity. The results may look weird on the webpage it opens, but it'll look fine when you print it. Wordsearches can be printed with clues or just the words. -Made text size variable in Visual Memory activity -Made text size variable in Spelling1 activity -Fixed bug in Reversals splash (put -ad and -in buttons the right way around) -Limited Spelling1 activity to words of at most 18 characters long -Limited Chunks to only words with a second half shorter than 7 characters long -Limited Word Building to only words with a second half shorter than 7 characters long -Increased max word length in spelling test to 30 characters -Inverted Student Logs Sessions sorting (places the most recent entry at the top rather than the first) -Increased update frequency of elements in Student Logs -Wordwrapped the list of errors in the Student Logs when needed -Changed sorting to ignore case ( from A-Z-a-z to Aa-Zz ) 1.0.8 (15-07-09) ================================= -Made the sidebar lighter on Chunks and Wordbuilder activities -Stopped logging games with a duration of less than 3 seconds -Corrected a spelling mistake in Vowel Sounds and Clear the Skies splash screen settings -Fixed bug that stopped Home and Tutor versions from running on computers that can't use networks -Removed word 'stab' from wordlist Lit 1 - 1a A 1.0.7 (2-07-09) ================================= -Added support for words with capitals when making wordlists -Corrected a sentence containing 'wtih' to 'with' -Added registry modifications on changes, not just on startup -Increased max length of words when creating your own wordlist -Fixed bug with applying patches to mapped network drives 1.0.6 (12-06-09) ================================= -Clarified dialogue text on the Create Student menu -Smoothed scrolling scripts -Adjusted scroll amount -Increased frequency of screen updates when viewing lists -Added a column header to the search results -Updated manual -Shifted The Learning Staircase Ltd logo in the Home splash screen -Replaced 'Remove student' button with 'Delete Student' button -Fixed Rename Class delete speed 1.0.5 (3-06-09) ================================= -Fixed logging bug when students have passwords assigned 1.0.4 ================================= -Fixed Expiry date when first entering demo codes -Prevented adding spaces into license code accidently -Fixed Level 2 of Reversals to display the letters the correct way around 1.0.3 (22-05-09) ================================= -Fixed CD Retry button -Clarified CD Retry instructions -Added 50% transparency black screen behind most dialogue boxes -Added contact details to license expiry screen -Added contact details to demo expiry screen -Adjusted demo expiry process -Added logs button to General section -Adjusted tutor CD load 1.0.2 (18-05-09) ================================= -Fixed Database creation bug -Fixed sound from FSB -Added Logo image to splash -Reworded 'locate database' dialogue box 1.0.1 Initial Release =================================