Plom Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

Unreleased

Added

Users who have not logged in can now be deleted.

Changed

Fixed

Fix hard-to-debug errors about casing of headers in classlist.
Fix versioned scatterplots in reports.

0.17.2 - 2025-02-03

Added

Ability to download Annotations .csv for analysis in external tools.
Server can transmit a reject-list of known-bad clients.

Changed

Fixed

Fixes about PedagogyTags in Rubrics.

0.17.1 - 2025-01-29

Added

New experimental "bundle separator" sheets for organizing scanning in very large courses.

Changed

The experimental plom-cli tool can identify papers.

Fixed

Fixed a bug where users could not be created.
Improved overall error handling.

0.17.0 - 2025-01-24

Added

Plom server's web UI now supports dark mode.
All the pages of a paper can be discarded, rather than one page at a time.
Beta version of command-line tool and API to support "Homework Mode".

Changed

Plom server now runs on Django 5 and has a minimum Python version of 3.10.
Plom server does not accept annotations using old revisions of rubrics.
Rubrics can now be edited within the web UI.

Removed

Plom Client is now developed separately at https://gitlab.com/plom/plom-client
The plom.client code in this repo is deprecated but not yet removed.

Fixed

Improved error checked around validity of rubrics.
Many minor fixes and database improvements.

0.16.11 - 2024-12-10

Added

Server accepts upload of userlist in csv format.

Changed

Increase default password reset link expiry to 14 days.

Fixed

In some cases, discarding a pushed paper and re-uploading prevented the paper from being identified.
Client was not showing tags drawing attention to a particular user.
plom-push-to-canvas can handle blank-ID pages more gracefully by warning the user instead of crashing.
Fix command-line tools for manipulating staging bundles which were incorrectly complaining about multiple users.
Better (but not yet ideal) error handling during scan upload.
Reassigning a task to another user removes existing user tags from that task.
Misc fixes, cleanups and documentation improvements.

0.16.10 - 2024-11-06

Added

Bundle upload displays a progress bar.

Changed

Improve error message when running the auto-ID reader without a classlist.
Improve UI when looking at out-of-date tasks by disabling irrelevant buttons such as "reset".

Fixed

Clarify on-screen help about collisions during scanning.
Use higher resolution for in-client solution images.
Improve error handling around annotation images.
Upload bundle and some other places have improved UI (for example disabling the form during a long upload).
Fixed errors related to users differing only in case.
Other tweaks and fixes.

0.16.9 - 2024-10-23

Added

Server can now be run using the "Django-Silk" profiler, if enabled in settings.py.
Server respects additional environment variables PLOM_HUEY_WORKERS and PLOM_HUEY_PARENT_WORKERS to control how many background workers are used. Current defaults (subject to change) are 4 and 2, and are set in settings.py.

Fixed

Many performance improvements to services that were using too manyi or inefficient database queries, based on real-life experiences at scale, and from using the "Django-Silk" profiler.
Client: fixed a crash when editing a copy of someone else's rubric.

0.16.8 - 2024-10-15

Added

Respect the WEB_CONCURRENCY environment variable: it chooses how many gunicorn workers we use (but only if it is defined).
The PLOM_GUNICORN_TIMEOUT environment variable can be used to set the timeout of gunicorn workers.

Fixed

Temporarily increasing gunicorn timeouts, and decreasing default number of workers to 2.

Removed

Temporarily remove report building: it will return soon but is too slow in production for now.

0.16.7 - 2024-10-14

Fixed

Fixed a crash when reassembling papers when non-unit starting or non-contiguous paper numbers are used.
Server now uses 4 workers in production mode by default. This can be tuned live using SIGTTIN and SIGTTOU, search the gunicorn docs for more info.
Some paper views showed pages in the order they were scanned rather than their paper order.

0.16.6 - 2024-10-10

Fixed

Temporary fix to hopefully reduce timeouts during client image gets in client background downloader threads.

0.16.5 - 2024-10-08

Added

Using backend commandline its possible to retroactively add new rows to the paper database, to recover from various mistakes.

Changed

Client: the intention is that only lead markers can ID papers but this is, for now, just a warning.

Fixed

Server was recording rubric usage incorrectly: info about which tasks used which rubrics is likely incorrect in previous versions, even after server upgrade. Nothing student-visible.
Server was rendering some rubric table headers incorrectly.
Improved client refresh, especially when other users tag your tasks.
Client: don't crash on URLs with trailing slash.
Client: can now ID paper number zero.
Misc bug fixes.
Documentation updates

0.16.4 - 2024-10-02

Fixed

Misc bugs. Mostly minor annoying things. See gitlab milestone.

0.16.3 - 2024-09-24

Added

A new page tells markers what to do next when they login the web site.

Changed

Collisions in a bundle with papers already pushed are reported in the thumbnail view.

Fixed

Certain push failures could leave the bundle locked, preventing any other bundles from being pushed.
Fix error reporting when collisions occurring during push.
All manager accounts are now members of the scanner group.
Fix reassembly when using older versions of the Weasyprint library.
Misc fixes and documentations updates.

Removed

Temporarily disabled the create rubrics button in the web UI, due to confusion around system rubrics.

0.16.2 - 2024-09-17

Fixed

Fixed static collection on hotstart.

0.16.0 - 2024-09-12

Added

Instructors can enable 1/2 mark rubrics in the Rubrics screen.
Instructors can set a quota, limiting the number of papers that can be marked by certain markers, for use in marker training, quality control, or team-creation of a consistent set of rubrics.
Client: tagged tasks have a notification banner highlighting their tags to markers.

Changed

Server can now be launched via script in plom_server/Launcher/launch_scripts/launch_plom_server.py
Demo is now launched via script in plom_server/Launcher/launch_scripts/launch_plom_demo_server.py
Managers can perform scanning actions directly, without a separate scanner account.

Fixed

Client: erase the page cache on shutdown.
Client: improved box-drag annotation rendering.
Misc fixes and documentation updates.

Removed

Support for macOS 12. This is because GitLab.com no longer provides runners for macOS 12. Note the EOL for macOS 12 is Nov 2024.

0.15.7 - 2024-08-14

Fixed

Fixed crash on Windows pre-compiled binary.
Fixed prename box positioning.

0.15.6 - 2024-07-30

Added

Client: in experimental mode, add an on-page menu for manipulations such as rotating, reordered and removing.
Client can spell check rubrics.
Client can query for a list of other papers that used a particular rubric and display those annotations to the user.
Tasks can be reassigned between users on the server.
Questions can be tagged with, for example, learning objectives.
The revision history of rubrics is stored and viewable.

Changed

Assessments with an odd number of pages now generate errors, which seems like a major change but has always been our best-practice.
Client: improvements to the undo stack.
Its easier to wipe the new server back to its initial empty state, at least before scanning begins.
Minor tools in annotator are reordered to put tick first and box later.

Fixed

Client: line widths scale with annotation scale.
Better classlist validation when prenaming.
Continued implementation of the new server.
Misc fixes and improvements.
legacy-server: minor fixes to legacy workflow.

0.15.5 - 2024-06-12

Added

Users can change their own passwords.

Changed

Plom now allows sharing pages between questions.
Client: parameterized rubrics are no longer considered experimental.

Fixed

For now, you must manually create system rubrics before marking begins; to enforce this the client will crash if the server has no rubrics.
Misc fixes and documentation improvements.
Spec verifier now checks that numberOfPages is even.

0.15.4 - 2024-05-21

Added

Scanning (on the new server) defaults to automatic image extraction (if its detected safe to do so). Scanners can force "safe mode rendering" for the previous behaviour.

Changed

Plom is less aggressive about "font subsetting" when creating PDF files which might make generated PDFs a little bit safer.

Fixed

Workaround spurious characters appearing on generated pages when using certain versions of PyMuPDF.

0.15.3 - 2024-05-11

Added

Server can now show and in some cases customize the feedback rules that nag clients before they submit annotations.
New feedback rule checks that each page is annotated.

Changed

Rubrics now keep more careful records about who modified them and when.

Fixed

Legacy workflow: plom-scan upload ./foo.pdf will now explicitly fail informing you to keep path info out of bundle names.
Processing PDF scans: don't complain about rounding errors when instead some metadata mixup about width/height has occurred.
Client: clicking "sync" to synchronous rubrics from server no longer resets selection.

0.15.2 - 2024-03-11

Added

Server - scanner can now bulk-discard unknown pages from a bundle, and bulk change discards back to unknowns.
Server: supports tags in more places.

Changed

Client respects Question Labels in more places.
Server container should automatically hotstart if a database exist. Previously behaviour was to delete and start again.
Experimental support for users to modify each others' rubrics.
Server: new settings to control global create/modify rubric permissions.

Fixed

Legacy server: fix crash when client asks to view images from paper which exists but has no scans.
Server: fix crash when client asks for non-existing Annotation images.
Client: popup error message when viewing non-existent images rather than empty blue dialog.
Client: fix a crash on sync when rubric's per-version was changed.

0.15.1 - 2024-02-16

Added

Django-based server container starts the canned demo if environment variable PLOM_DEMO is set to 1.

Changed

Web UI: displays version number.
Web UI: various tweaks and improvements to building blank paper PDFs.
plom-manager command is deprecated; use plom-legacy-manager to manage legacy servers.

Fixed

Web UI: improved error handling for unexpected errors when using asynchronous HTMX calls.

0.15.0 - 2024-02-13

Added

Django-based server is closer to being the default server.

Changed

switch client dependency from appdirs to platformdirs.

Fixed

-1 as papernum wasn't worked for input classlists.

0.14.8 - 2024-01-04

Added

Identifier: UI includes explanation of why we confirm prenamed papers.

Changed

The "new" idBox3.pdf was giving warnings in LaTeX: new idBox4.pdf is now a 1.5 PDF.
Client: experimental "view cat pic" feature removed; it was often offline and the content could be construed as endorsed by Plom.

Fixed

Client: temporary workaround for Qt bug resulting in overly-long error dialogs on macOS.
Previous compiled clients 0.14.x produced imperceptibly corrupted annotated images due to bugs in jpeg libraries, causing rare problems with some PDF viewers on the reassembled files.
Client: crash when sorted columns in the rarely-used "filter/arrange" dialog.
Dependency and documentation updates.

0.14.7 - 2023-12-03

Added

Support for Python 3.12.

Changed

Clients: more dialogs have "Don't ask me again" checkboxes.
"Don't ask me again" settings are stored only in the current session (for now).
Don't show default "1" paper and page when assigning unknown pages.

Fixed

Duplicated paper numbers in question-version map input will now be detected.
Correctly handle solutions that encode to jpeg.
Fix some version clashes between old pyOpenSSL and cryptography by forcing users to update both.
Legacy server: increase json upload limit to 5MiB to accept larger question-version maps.

0.14.6 - 2023-11-02

Changed

Improved messages for push-to-canvas script.

Fixed

Fix crash in Manager viewing annotations in Review tab.
Documentation and misc fixes.

0.14.5 - 2023-10-23

Added

New "idBox3.pdf" template moves the signature box up to avoid signatures hitting the bounding box (which was leading to additional manual IDing).
Page Arrange: new "Invert selection" button is useful to quickly discard all but the highlighted pages.

Changed

Do more checks before uploading a custom version map, hopefully avoiding errors that are hard to recover from.
Making self-signed certs no longer needs command-line openssl, instead uses the cryptography package.

Fixed

Wrong padding on the top paper number box on recent versions of PyMuPDF.
Various fixes for Python 3.12 but full support may be waiting on a new release of AIOHttp library.
Fix a crash in server manager when unpredicting a row without a prediction.
Improved contrast in Identifier client when OS is in dark mode.
Push-to-Canvas could fail when assessment shortname contained underscores.
Documentation edits and fixes.

0.14.4 - 2023-10-10

Changed

Various edits to contrib scripts, especially pulling from Canvas.

Fixed

Fix a crash when users sync a changed rubric.
Clearer error messages when auto-IDing an a student number has less than 8 digits.
Filter leading/trailing whitespace from server address.
Fixes in contrib scripts related to just-in-time prenaming and IDing.
Typos and clarifications in docs.

0.14.3 - 2023-09-15

Fixed

Fix crash on start of the provided macOS client binaries.
Manager can login to Client before the server has a spec.

0.14.2 - 2023-09-13

Added

Absolute rubrics are no longer considered experimental and can be created in the Add Rubric dialog by default.

Changed

The legacy sidToTest API call (rarely used) now reports whether the paper is IDed or prenamed. This is documented in msgr.sid_to_paper_number().
Many next-gen server changes.

Fixed

Client: crash from invalid version restrictions specified in the Add Rubric dialog.
Legacy server was not creating backup files on regrade since sometime in 2022.
Fix regrading on next-gen servers.
Client: rubric tabs now hide properly when all rubrics inside them are hidden.

0.14.1 - 2023-09-01

Added

The next-gen web-based Plom Server is ready for wider testing. Production use should probably remain on the "Legacy Plom Server" for the time being.
Plom Client can connect to both the next-gen server and the legacy server.
Plom Client supports http:// URLs, if specified explicitly, e.g., for development. The default remains https://

Changed

On the next-gen server, papers can be graded in a random but predetermined order.
On the next-gen server, the priority for papers to be graded can be changed.
Plom now requires at least Python 3.8.

Fixed

Shared "group tabs" can now be re-ordered on a per-user basis.
Crash fixes when multiple clients are tagging.

0.13.3 - 2023-04-25

Changed

Client: when a rubric group tab is selected, adding a new rubric defaults to that group.
Manager: the Dangling Pages tab must be manually refreshed.

Fixed

Manager: no longer checks for "Dangling Pages" on start-up b/c this was very slow on large servers.

0.13.2 - 2023-04-03

Changed

Client: "sync" button doesn't pop up a dialog unless there are changes to rubrics.
Client: "sync" button shows "diffs" of changes to rubrics.
Non-user-facing changes to how images and image metadata is handled.

Fixed

Client: "sync" button was not indicating changes made to existing rubrics.
Manager: partial fix (no more crash) when trying to create synthetic substitute ID pages.
Client: clicking "cancel" in options dialog no longer applies the options anyway.
Misc UI fixes.

0.13.1 - 2023-02-24

Changed

Cover pages of returned work now include the "long name" of the exam.

Fixed

Manager: assigning papers to "reviewer" was broken server-side (older clients should work with 0.13.1 server).
Manager: re-assembling papers works again in distributed binaries on Windows and macOS platforms.
Rubrics should render correctly in dialogs, even if they contain HTML.
Misc UI fixes.

0.13.0 - 2023-02-13

Fixed

Ensure Client <= 0.12.2 cannot connect to servers, ensures client bug #2521 (fixed in 0.12.3) cannot mismatch IDs.
Misc UI fixes.

0.12.3 - 2023-02-11

Changed

Rubrics: suggest new group name from existing, e.g., have (a), (b) then suggest (c).
Client: prevent lots of new tabs, which fills the tab bar and could be confusing.

Fixed

Identifier client bug #2521: "Accept Prediction" button now saves the correct student ID.
Group names must not have spaces, but client no longer crashes if you make one.
Remove empty tab on removal of last rubric from group.
Only "custom user tabs" can be renamed: fix context menus to reflect this.
Misc fixes.

0.12.2 - 2023-02-05

Changed

Identifier displays more meaningful certainty values for the Assignment Problem predictions.

Fixed

Fixed a crash when explicitly syncing rubrics.
"Experimental features" is now persistent during a single session.

0.12.1 - 2023-01-27

Added

plom-create command line tool can list and clear paper id prediction tables.
Plom-Client has an "experimental" menu item: currently creates a bit of friction before using the new parameterized rubrics and absolute rubrics.

Changed

Revamp Chooser dialog, add "about" dialog.
Add "about" dialog and version info to Manager tool.
Possible (if somewhat ill-advised) to replace the prenaming after papers have been created.
Sadly, the "cat break" feature is currently disabled as the external service is not currently reliable.

Fixed

Fix rendering of parameterized rubrics.
Fix modifying group of initially non-grouped rubrics.
Add notice to UI that macOS packaged binaries cannot reassemble, link to issue.
Misc fixes.

0.12.0 - 2023-01-21

Added

"Tech preview" of a web-interface for configuring a Plom server.
Users can create "absolute rubrics" of the form "2 of 3: comment".
The "scope" of rubrics can be adjusted:
- Rubrics can be version-specific.
- Rubrics can be parameterized using per-version textual substitutions.
- Rubrics can be organized into groups such as "(a)" which correspond to shared tabs.
- Rubrics can be made "exclusive" within a group: at most one rubric can be used from each exclusive group.
Manager can "bulk-forgive" missing do-not-mark pages.
Support for external databases.

Changed

Server stores annotation data in the database instead of in .plom files.
Client no longer has a "No Answer" button: instead use the "no answer given" rubric.
Support for non-ascii names is much improved.
Client: simulated slow network mode for testing/debugging.
Manager sorts unknown pages by their position in the bundle.

Fixed

Client: fix potential UI crashes when grading is complete.
Longer question labels are possible.
Long names can fit on the prenamed pages by auto-shrinking font.
Output of plom-finish status is easier to understand.
Misc fixes.

0.11.1 - 2022-11-14

Added

Documentation improvements.

Changed

Client "Tips" screen has more information.
Command line tools document the available environment variables.
plom-scan and plom-hwscan now invisibly watermark PNG/JPEG files, making unique images from identical pages (#1573).

Fixed

Fix a client-side crash on unexpected identical images (same hash) within the same paper (#2331 and others).
Fix a manager crash when reassembling and current working directory is not writable (#2335).
Misc bug fixes and fixes for potential table sorting issues.

0.11.0 - 2022-09-24

Changed

classlist upload can be forced, allowing one to overwrite the server's classlist.

Fixed

Various other fixes.

0.10.1 - 2022-09-08

Added

manager: faster keyboard navigation of the Unknown Pages dialog.
re-enable the "review" feature.

Changed

plom-create newspec replaces plom-create new (although both work).
plom-create validatespec replaces the previously deprecated plom-create parse.
manager: respects question labels in most places.

Fixed

Fix macOS and Windows compiled clients crashes due to missing keyboard maps.
Fix errors about non-unique rubric keys during server init.
Various other fixes around server init.

0.10.0 - 2022-08-22

Added

Annotator: help dialog shows diagrams for keyboard shortcuts.
Annotator: help dialog shows some "getting started" info for click-drag.
Marker: can prefer papers tagged @user.
Marker: can start marking at a particular paper number.

Changed

Spec format has changed: [[question]] is now preferred to [question.1] (for now both are supported).
QR format changed, future proofing for more papers, versions and pages.
"Public Code" shortened from 6 digits to 5.
Closing Annotator now resets the current tool.
Annotator: some shortcut keys are now changeable in the help dialog, but this feature is still "beta".

Fixed

Some slow bottleneck API calls are faster, although more work is needed.
Annotator: shortcut keys should display correctly on macOS.
Annotator: keybindings are now saved between sessions (except for Custom mappings)
Annotator: many small UI fixes.
Various documentation fixes.

0.9.4 - 2022-08-04

Fixed

Fix various Manager UI paper creation functions when using precompiled binaries.
Fix several Manager UI crashes.

0.9.3 - 2022-07-18

Added

plom-create can manipulate tags.
Can tag while peeking at previously marked papers.

Fixed

Fixes on Python 3.7, and improved CI to ensure minimum Python is tested.
Fix build of papers with DMN on higher pages such as page 16.
Annotator: potentially less flaky PageScene due to many bug fixes.
Fix duplicated LaTeX error dialog.
LaTeX bounding box size fixes on modern systems.
Code and dependency cleanups, removal of deprecated code.

0.9.2 - 2022-06-14

Added

Manager UI tool can add spec and build papers, and download the marks.csv.

Fixed

Client: creating and modifying tabs is more obvious with context menus and + button.
Client Identifier zoom level is against persistent between papers (as in 0.8.x).
UI and other fixes.

0.9.0 - 2022-05-25

Added

plom-server will autogenerate a manager password if it is started without one.
plom-create can manage user accounts of a running server.
Manager displays bundle name/page of unknown pages.
plom-scan status now displays information about bundles and unknown pages.
plom-finish audit produces a JSON file for post-grading checking/followup/etc
Annotator now has a crop tool (in menu) that allows user to excluded unwanted parts of page.
Annotator now has a "view previous" function that pops up a window that will show previously marked paper(s).
Clients can use ctrl-mousewheel to zoom in and out.
Manager: can tag questions and remove annotations, in bulk.
Demos and testing: randoMarker now also tags random selection of tasks.

Changed

Plom now requires Python 3.7.
Plom no longer supports older macOS 10.13 as we cannot reliably build binaries on that system.
plom-create DB creation now done one test at a time which avoids timeouts and enables future flexibility.
Manager: improvements to the prediction-related UI.
Classlists that are not from Canvas must now include a paper_number column, which can be left blank.
The Plom test-spec no longer uses numberToName, instead use the "paper_number" column in the classlist.
Reassembled files are now time-stamped.
It is easier to insert extra pages during marking and fewer annotations are wiped (only those in the question directly effected).
Manager: improved interface around IDing and predictions.
Manager: improved control of the automatic ID reader.
Prenamed papers and machine ID reading are in flux: currently both need to be confirmed by a human in the Identifier client. Expect further future changes.
Many API changes and tweaks.

Fixed

Non-zero initial orientations should now work properly.
Custom solutions had the wrong coverpage, showing instead the reassembled coverpage.
Rapid use of the Ctrl-R dialog no longer needs to wait on the background downloader.
Improved and hopefully less crashing in classlist validation.
Timezones are now made explicit.
Many UI fixes and tweaks.
Ongoing documentation improvements.
Many other fixes.

0.8.11 - 2022-04-12

Fixed

For now, only manager can change passwords.
Slow client during Rearrange Page dialog use immediately on new page should be fixed.

0.8.10 - 2022-03-27

Added

plom-create subcommand "status" reports server status.

Changed

We cannot no longer reliably build for macOS 10.13, will do so on a "best effort" basis. Users should upgrade to at least macOS 10.14.

Fixed

Don't pop up a spurious warning about duplicated pages when scanned data had duplicates.
Shorten overly long page name lists in Rearrange Pages dialog.
Build fixes on older macOS releases.
Minor bug fixes.

0.8.8 - 2022-03-14

Added

Manager shows totals and highlights tabs that need attention.
Add word "Test" to paper label: "Test 0123 Q1 p. 4".
Version numbers to Canvas-related scripts.

Fixed

Manager tool was broken on Windows.
Misc fixes and code cleanups.

0.8.7 - 2022-03-02

Added

plom-create get-ver-map command to extract the version map from a running server.
Canvas utilities can now take student lists from Sections not just Courses.

Fixed

Fixed double-undoing during drag-box creation.
Fixes in Canvas utilities.
Various other fixes.

0.8.6 - 2022-02-13

Fixed

"UnID" feature of manager was broken.
Other minor fixes.

0.8.5 - 2022-02-11

Changed

Increase read default read timeouts.
Clean up demo scripts.

0.8.2 - 2022-02-07

Fixed

Fix broken Windows client binary.
Fix few contrib scripts.
Fixed mockplom LaTeX style (for mocking up Plom's QR codes) on recent systems (which sadly breaks it on TexLive 2019 and earlier).
Misc fixes.

0.8.1 - 2022-02-03

Changed

Unknowns can be mapped to multiple HW Pages.

Fixed

Fix demos when used with invalid SSL certs.
Misc fixes.

0.8.0 - 2022-02-01

Added

Manager can "unidentify" papers including prenamed papers.
Solutions - can now optionally watermark solutions with the SID.
SSL verification enabled by default for releases.
Extra pages can optionally map onto more than one question.
Client Marker window can request any paper number with a long press on "Get next".
Mild warnings when user gives 0 but there are some ticks on page. Similar mild warnings when user gives full but there are crosses.
Manager and plom-finish now has list of "dangling" pages - ones which are attached to not-completely-scanned groups. Manager can remove those pages.
GNU/Linux binaries now using AppImage which should be more portable.
More checks especially around finishing and uploading.

Changed

Command line tool plom-build has been renamed to plom-create and/or python3 -m plom.create.
Module plom.produce has been renamed to plom.create.
Tags have been overhauled, with bug fixes and improved functionality
Annotator can tag papers directly.
Server can now optionally start without a spec file.
Deprecated "LoosePages" have been removed.
Tests have exactly one ID page (before they could have more than one).
Spec files have more checks and some keys are now optional.
- Do not mark pages now specified directly as list "doNotMarkPages = [1,2,3]"
Misc plom-manager improvements.
API calls have a default 10s timeout (and 2 retries), so semi-inevitable failures fail faster.
Top-middle "stamp" on pages now shows the group label (question number, DNM, etc)
- and extra sheet templates have been updated to match.
Work in progress on updating annotation styles.
The history of connections between rubrics is tracked in their metadata.

Fixed

Potential memory leaks in Annotator, Manager, and dialogs.
JPEG support is no longer restricted to sizes in multiples of 16, better rotation support.
Improved disc-space usage due to JPEG use in more places.
Removing or adding pages is more selective about which annotations are invalidated.
A large number of modal dialog fixes.
Other misc changes.

0.7.12 - 2022-01-30

Fixed

Minor fixes.

0.7.11 - 2021-12-22

Changed

Client warns if its version is older than the server.

Fixed

Classlist import was broken when using multiple name fields.
MacOS continuous integration fixed.
Fix a crash in autoIDing related to unhandled errors.

0.7.9 - 2021-12-06

Added

Manager can "unidentify" papers including prenamed papers.
Horizontal position of the prenamed box can be tweaked from command line.

Fixed

Client: save user tabs on manual sync and on annotator close.
Workarounds for high memory use during reassembly and solution assembly.
Correctly stop background uploader thread on Marker close.
Client: refreshing solution view updates image from server.

0.7.7 - 2021-11-15

Changed

Client: fit-to-width and fit-to-height pan to the top and left respectively.

Fixed

Tweaks and fixes about reassembly and solution assembly.
Client: better dark theme support, other tweaks.
Other minor fixes, including potential crashes caught by pylint.

0.7.5 - 2021-11-07

Fixed

Upload queue length was misreported, potentially losing the last upload on rapid quit.
Cleanup of client shutdown, hopefully fewer crashes in corner cases.
Some database cleanup when pages are added to already annotated papers.
Other minor fixes about admissible usernames and passwords.

0.7.4 - 2021-10-28

Added

The question-version map can be passed into plom-build instead of building a random map.

Changed

Image download and reassembly is now interleaved instead of pre-downloading all images.
Can reassemble just one paper or just one solution.

Fixed

Ensure the margin box surrounding the page cannot be deleted.

0.7.3 - 2021-10-23

Changed

Marker -> View is now allowed to view any question, any paper.

Fixed

Clients can tag unannotated questions.
Various fixes to auto reading of student IDs.
Various fixes in generating and posting solutions.

0.7.2 - 2021-10-13

Added

Solutions can be attached to each question/version.
- client can view solution for the current question/version.
- solutions for individual students can be returned along with marked test via webpage

Changed

plom-scan and plom-hwscan can now list bundles.
Added a --no-scan option to plom-demo and plom-hwdemo so that fake-data created but not processed or uploaded.
More import and module improvements: one can now do python -m plom.client and python -m plom.server, and similarly for most other modules.

Fixed

Various CI cleanups that should help external contributors.
Fixed a crash in the page re-arranger dialog.
Various other fixes.

0.7.1 - 2021-09-23

Added

Client binaries for macOS are now distributed as standard .app bundles (still unsigned unfortunately).
plom-build make can now tweak the vertical position of the pre-printed name/ids.
plom-build make can build single papers.
The server manager UI is now accessible from PlomClient: just login with the manager account.

Changed

Classlists can contain additional columns.
Classlist-related API updates.
Ongoing improvements to scripting Plom via import and module improvements.

Fixed

Papers can be re-printed (without repopulating the database).
Misc fixes.

0.7.0 - 2021-09-04

Added

plom-server launch foo starts a plom server in the directory foo.
plom-server has new command line args to control logging.
New PlomServer, PlomDemoServer, and PlomLiteDemoServer objects for interactively running servers, or otherwise running a server in a background process.
plom-hwscan can now specify precise per-page mappings from the bundle to questions on the server.
plom-hwscan can override the bundle name.
LaTeX errors are now displayed to markers.
plom-build rubrics now supports csv in addition to json and toml.

Changed

plom-server launch --mastertoken aabbccdd... replaces the old way (without the keyword argument).
QR creation now uses segno instead of pyqrcode.
plom-hwscan is more flexible about filenames: you do not need to put PDF files in a special directory.
The plomgrading/server container (Docker image) is now based on Ubuntu 20.04.

Fixed

plom-finish reassemble not longer needs direct file access to the server (except when using the --ided-only option).
Low-level API changes and improvements.
Many bug fixes.

0.6.5 - 2021-07-19

Changed

The jpegtran-cffi package which is used for lossless jpeg rotations is not longer a hard dependency. Jpeg is still only used rarely and improvements to the client means its not a serious problem if a few pages are rotated.

Fixed

Client: better handling of rare upload failures: warning dialog pops up if the queue is growing, and a single timeout will no longer block the entire queue.
Misc bug fixes and doc updates.

0.6.4 - 2021-06-23

Added

Experimental support for writing graded papers and final marks to Canvas.

Changed

The userListRaw.csv file is no longer inside the serverConfiguration directory.
Server saves its log to a file automatically (as well as echoing to stdout).

Fixed

Misc bug fixes.

0.6.3 - 2021-05-28

Fixed

Minor bug fix to stop user being able to create 0-point relative rubrics. Related server-side rubric checking.
Fix Flatpak and source packaging to include icons and cursors.
Misc bug fixes.

0.6.2 - 2021-05-16

Changed

Packaging fixes including a revamp of .../share/plom.

Fixed

Workaround for blurry results from very tall scans.
Misc bug and documentation fixes.

0.6.1 - 2021-04-16

Changed

Client now has two tabs for + and - deltas, which improves their shortcut key access.
Minor tweaks and bug fixes.

0.6.0 - 2021-04-14

Added

Questions can be given custom labels in the spec file. These will generally be used instead of "Q1", "Q2", etc.
plom-demo now has --port option.
New plom-build rubric subcommand can upload/download rubric lists from the server.

Changed

The left-hand-on-mouse option has been removed from annotator/marker - replaced with general key-binding options.
Significant changes to rubrics: now shared between users and can be grouped into "tabs" within the user interface.
Client: "Deltas" are now a special kind of rubric with their own tab.
New client default keybindings involve a "spatial navigation" metaphor: left-right between tabs, up-down between rubrics.
Rubrics are not longer saved on disc on client systems.
Client: click-and-drag associates a rubric with a box on the page: no need for shift-modifier key as before.
Client: The escape-key will now cancel an annotation mid-draw (box, ellipse, line, arrows, rubric)
Client: There is no longer an explicit choice of "marking up/down mode" - it is determined by the rubrics used.
Changed order of commands to start server: plom-server init now should be run before plom-build parse.

0.5.21 - 2021-03-18

Changed

Server has more flexibility in creating demo/auto users with --auto and new --auto-named.

Fixed

Misc fixes.

0.5.19 - 2021-03-09

Changed

Client rubrics list can no longer use drag-n-drop to reorder: this feature will return in 0.6.0, but for now its too buggy.

Fixed

Misc bug fixes and UI tweaks.
LaTeX appears smoother on non-white backgrounds.
Important dependency bumps including a aiohttp security fix.

0.5.18 - 2021-03-02

Added

Client shows path information in the Options dialog.
Server: one can defer choosing number of papers until the classlist is uploaded by using "-1" for numberToName and/or numberToPrint.

Changed

Client background/uploader can operate in parallel.
Client no longer looks for config file in the current folder. The Options dialog shows config and log locations.

0.5.17 - 2021-02-10

Added

plom-hwscan -q all will upload a paper to all questions, a common operation for self-scanned work.

Fixed

Fix a crash with rearranger dialog revisiting a view with re-orientated pages.
Rearranger dialog can load previously re-oriented pages.
Misc fixes.

0.5.16 - 2021-01-29

Changed

Rotations in the adjust-pages dialog are now done in metadata.

Fixed

Client: fixed regression loading the default comment file.
Improve testing of minimum versions of dependencies.

0.5.15 - 2021-01-25

Added

Annotation colour defaults to red but can be changed in the Annotator menu.

Changed

Untested scikit-learn used by default for digit recognition. Tensorflow code still present and could return as default, after someone tests both on real data.
Client: Ctrl-return forces LaTeX rendering of text annotations.
Client: saves config file and comments in a central location.

Fixed

Flatpak client can save config and comment files.
Fixed paper generation by working around a bug present in certain versions of pymupdf library.

0.5.13 - 2021-01-06

Fixed

Patched a memory leak when using the "adjust pages" dialog.
Small fixes for various crashes.

0.5.11 - 2020-12-16

Added

plom-hwscan can now upload pages to multiple questions, for use with self-scanned work.

Changed

plom-build make now outputs a csv file showing the test numbers, question/page versions and student-info if named paper.
plom-build make --without-qr builds pdf files without QR codes stamped on them.
plom-build make --no-pdf builds everything but the PDF files are 0-length files.

Fixed

Adjust-Pages: fix deduping when shared page not included in current question.
Fixed some times in manager tool.

0.5.10 - 2020-12-06

Fixed

Various fixes and minor refactoring.

0.5.9 - 2020-11-27

Changed

Adjust Pages dialog labels pages that are shared between questions.
Minor UI tweaks.

Fixed

Fixed a platform-specific crash on start-up due to invalid chars in log filename.

0.5.8 - 2020-11-25

Added

Annotator: shift-drag with comment tool draws a highlighting box which is then connected to the rubric element.
Annotator: page now has a margin to allow more space for annotations. The additional space is cropped on submission.
Finishing tools: support salted hashes for return codes on the command line.

Changed

Accept QR-coded pages that are landscape.
Returned PDF files are often much smaller b/c reassembly now tries both png and jpeg.
Server: more logging during authentication, including client version.
Adjust Pages: dialog allows multiple selections for add/remove.
Adjust Pages: you can have no pages transiently while re-arranging.
Adjust Pages: icons resize automatically on dialog resize.
Adjust Pages: middle bar can be dragged to resize top or bottom list.
Client generates log files by default (disable under More Options).

Fixed

Misc fixes and refactoring of the pagescene code.
API: refactoring for simpler image download code.
Adjust Pages: re-entering dialog shows the current state instead of the original state.

0.5.7 - 2020-11-07

Fixed

Fix stale-pages from previous papers appearing in the Adjust Pages dialog.

0.5.6 - 2020-11-06

Added

Preliminary support for changing the overall scale of annotations; adjust using the menu/shortcut keys.

Changed

"Rearrange Pages" is now called "Adjust Pages" with a more prominent button.

Fixed

"Adjust Pages" dialog now opens faster, in some cases much faster.
Other misc fixes and minor UI tweaks.

0.5.5 - 2020-10-23

Changed

Fix crash when drag-and-drop comments.

0.5.3 - 2020-10-22

Added

Scan now has command line arguments to enable/disable bitmap (jpeg) extraction.
Server now logs failed token authentication events.

Changed

Opening the "Rearrange Pages" dialog displays a wait cursor as it may take some time.
New command line arguments for plom-finish for digital return.
Canvas-related return code handing reduced from 12 digits to 9 by default.
Scan white balancing disabled by default (now matches hwscan behaviour).
Scan bitmap extraction disabled by default (again to match hwscan).
The database now creates Annotation entries upon client submission rather than task assignment.

Fixed

Fixed drag-and-drop reordering of the rubric/comment list.
Fixed a bug where reannotating a reannotated paper from previous session doubled the underlying pages.
Various bug fixes.

0.5.2 - 2020-10-06

Added

A collection of utility scripts now ships in share/plom/contrib.

Changed

Command-line utilities can load credentials from environment variables.

Fixed

There are now constraints on the returned image resolution preventing huge return images in some cases.
Fixed crashes related to deleting comments.
Various bug fixes.

0.5.1 - 2020-09-25

Added

Annotator: Ctrl-r shortcut key for Rearrange Pages tool.

Changed

plom-hwscan has command line arguments for gamma shift, off by default as it sometimes worsens already poor scans with large shadows.
plom-hwscan does not extract jpeg's by default (it may in the future).
plom-hwscan has new command line arguments for jpeg extraction.

Fixed

Workaround for bug in PyMuPDF 1.17.6.
Various packaging improvements and fixes.
"Rearrange Pages" dialog resizing improved.

0.5.0 - 2020-08-26

Added

Client now has a menu button for less-commonly used commands.
Client can now insert small images, see "insert image" in menu.
Client has experimental "Rearrange pages" dialog to fine-tune page selection and layout.
We again offer prebuilt client binaries for some OSes.
Server has new experimental "Homework mode" to deal with student-scanned images.
Server can use Scikit-learn (instead of the default TensorFlow) for reading student numbers.

Changed

Command line utilities can report their version.
Example demo data uses handwritten digits instead of fonts.
Annotator remains open between papers.
Totaller client was removed.
ID-subclient - student name + id is entered in single field which auto-completes on both.
Client sidebar can be set to the left or right (independent of mouse handedness).
Grades output filename is now "marks.csv".
Changes to various command-line tools to streamline uploading and other operations.
Scanning is now based more strongly on concept of "bundles" of papers.
Most tools now interact with the server via the API instead of using the file system.
Server docker image uses pinned dependency information for reproducibility.
Server, Manager and Client handling of "unknown" pages has improved.
Client has visual feedback for ctrl-, shift- tool alternatives via mouse cursor.
Various client UI tweaks.
Various improvements to the manager UI tool.

Fixed

Fix left-hand mouse mode.
Annotation font sizes no longer directly depend on UI font size (but some issues still remain).
Pan mode no longer incorrectly moves objections.
Many other bug fixes.

0.4.2 - 2020-04-21

Added

User-management can be performed by the manager client.

Changed

Greater fidelity to the original scan because JPEG files are (carefully) extracted and used directly.
JPEG transformations are done without lossy re-encoding, when possible.
PNG files should be a little smaller with fewer interpolation artifacts in the reass
User credentials now handled by database rather than separate authentication object.
Client can no longer revert; this feature may return later if needed.

Fixed

Various bug fixes.

0.4.1 - 2020-04-13

Added

Re-enabled the automatic IDing of papers using machine learning.
Python package has improved dependency information.
plom-demo checks if server is running and warns if directory isn't empty.
Appdata metadata added for Plom Client.

Changed

Manager UI tool has better reporting of what users are doing.
Manager and command line tools report papers that are marked "out"; this may be useful in case of client crashes, to identify (and reset) papers marking out for grading/IDing.
Update for new plomgrading.org domain name.
Remove testing tool dependencies on xvfb.

Fixed

Fixed toml dependency in Dockerfile.
Various misc fixes.

0.4.0 - 2020-04-04

Added

Plom is now a python package.
Annotator has a "no answer given" button which places crossed lines on page, leaves a comment, sets mark to 0.
Client can log to a file (set under "More options").
Client has expert option to disable background upload/download.
Client can generate a log file for debugging.
Server management UI.
Command-line scripts for creating tests, managing server, scanning, and finishing.
Simple toy test+server for demonstrating Plom.
Test-specification now has "do-not-mark" pages for formula-sheets and instruction pages.

Changed

Server: improved database.
Server: new upload procedure/tools.
Reassembly tasks are now faster.
Client: if there are annotations, confirm before closing/cancelling.

Fixed

Server: manager-related database locks fixed.
In some regrade cases, delta-comments did not apply correctly.
Client: fix ctrl-= zoom toggle.
Various bug fixes.

0.3.0 - 2020-02-10

Added

saved comments are filtered per question and per test.
Marker has a "view" button to look at any test number.

Changed

The manual-identifier now has a "discard" option for unneeded page images, such as blank extra pages.
More robust networking by moving to https (rather than raw sockets). This is handled by the "requests" library on the client side and the "aiohttp" library on the server side.
Client: config and saved comments now more human-readable in toml files.
Client: can download test/server info before logging in.
Client is more pessimistic about errors and will crash instead of trying to continue in most cases.
Client checks for double-logins and can force logout a previous session.
Client: you must make at least one annotation on the page.

Fixed

Many fixes, especially related to client crashes due to networking.

0.2.2 - 2019-11-29

Added

Can now build papers with student Names/IDs pre-written on page 1.
Client now has a "view" button to quickly view other questions.

Changed

Warning given for non-Latin names in classlist (may cause problems in PDFs).

Fixed

Annotator mark up/down and handedness preferences now saved between sessions.

0.2.1 - 2019-11-11

Added

preliminary support for a canned user list.
autogenerate password suggestions for new users.
05 script now warns about potential extra pages.
Annotator - spacebar pans through paper (down and right), shift-space pans back (up and left). Ctrl+space, Ctrl-shift-space does similarly but more slowly.
Annotator - zoom-mode click-drag creates a (temp) rectangle to zoom into.

Changed

make 04 script less verbose.
Increase timeout on server ping test.
Annotator has more keybindings for grades of 0-10 (see "key help").
resizing annotator persists between papers.
zooming annotator persists between papers.
docs: changes for uploading to the new Canvas gradebook.
Annotator - can no longer click in region around score-box. This prevents accidentally pasting objects behind the scorebox.

Fixed

fixed race conditions when/uploading and downloading.
certain file transfers are more robust at reporting errors.
userManager was failing to start.
return to greeter dialog on e.g., wrong server or pagegroup/version out of range.
mark_reverter less fragile if files do not exist.
if you skip identifying a test, the client will defer it until the end.
identifying has various other UI fixes.

0.2.0 - 2019-10-11

Added

Client

delete tool: right-mouse button drag sweeps out a rectangle and deletes its contents.
improve zoom ("ctrl-=" cycles through zoom modes).
shift-click and control-click should now emulate right-click and middle-click.
middle-button in line/pen tools creates line/path with arrow-heads at both ends.
annotations are now saved in ".plom" files, supports continuing previously marked papers.
marker now uploads/downloads papers in the background.

Server

Handle upload/download of .plom files.
New 12_archive script makes a minimal zip file for archiving.
Support for Docker.
New templates for making your own tests.

Changed

Client

client not backward compatible with v0.1.0 servers.
mark-total mode is removed.
comment-delta is now its own grouped object, with many changes to encourage comment-reuse.
comment-add and edit is now via a pop-up window.
user can now make 0-point comments (for which the zero is pasted).
user can also make no-point comments which are pasted as just text.
general GUI improvements.

Server

Server not backward compatible with v0.1.0 clients.
More general support for student names.
Returned PDF files have better sizes for printing hardcopies.

Fixed

Many many bugfixes.

0.1.0 - 2019-06-26

This is the first release of Plom, Paperless Open Marking.

Files

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CHANGELOG.md

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Plom Changelog

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0.17.2 - 2025-02-03

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0.17.1 - 2025-01-29

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0.17.0 - 2025-01-24

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0.16.11 - 2024-12-10

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0.16.10 - 2024-11-06

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0.16.9 - 2024-10-23

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0.16.8 - 2024-10-15

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0.16.7 - 2024-10-14

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0.16.6 - 2024-10-10

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0.16.5 - 2024-10-08

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0.16.4 - 2024-10-02

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0.16.3 - 2024-09-24

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0.16.2 - 2024-09-17

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0.16.0 - 2024-09-12

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0.15.7 - 2024-08-14

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0.15.6 - 2024-07-30

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0.15.5 - 2024-06-12

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0.15.4 - 2024-05-21

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0.15.3 - 2024-05-11

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0.15.2 - 2024-03-11