The jslectureplanner bundle
Jürgen Spitzmüller
∗Version 1.12, 2020/12/08
Abstract
Thejslectureplannerbundle provides a collection of packages I have written in order to facilitate, and somewhat systematize, the planning of my university courses and the generation of course material (and thus, ultimately, to relieve me from some of the more boring and time-consuming part of teaching work).
Currently, the bundle consists of the main, title-giving packagejslectureplanner that provides an interface to central, partly dynamically generated course metadata as well as routines to generate programs, bibliographies etc., and one smaller companion package:jsmembertable, a package that can construct course member and presence tables. This manual documents these packages.
Contents
I The jslectureplanner package 3
1 Aim of this package 3
2 Requirements ofjslectureplanner 3
3 General idea 4
4 Setting up course metadata 4
4.1 Via package options . . . 4
4.2 Via macros . . . 6
5 Setting up a course schedule 8 6 Retrieving general course information 10 6.1 Course data . . . 10
6.2 Generating course programs . . . 12
6.3 Generating bibliographies . . . 13
6.4 Generating student presentation lists . . . 13
∗Please report issues viahttps://github.com/jspitz/jslectureplanner.
7 Retrieving session-specific information 14
7.1 Setting the current session . . . 14
7.2 Generating session-specific information for the current session . . . . 15
7.3 Generating session-specific information for adjacent sessions . . . 16
7.4 Generating session-specific information for an arbitrary session . . . 17
8 Customizing the output 18 8.1 Defining and customizing course types . . . 18
8.2 Defining and customizing term types . . . 18
8.3 Customizing the date and time format . . . 19
8.4 Customizing program and presentation list appearance . . . 20
8.5 Using styles . . . 23
II Companion packages 25
9 Thejsmembertablepackage 25 9.1 Aim of this package . . . 259.2 Requirements ofjsmembertable . . . 25
9.3 Loading the package . . . 25
9.4 Loading external data . . . 26
9.5 Generating a course member table . . . 26
9.6 Generating a presence table . . . 27
III Appendix 29
A Acknowledgements 29
B Release History 29
Part I
The jslectureplanner package
This part of the manual describes the basic user interface of thejslectureplanner package. Please also refer to the example files included in the bundle in order to see howjslectureplanneris supposed to be used “in practice”.
1 Aim of this package
The basic idea of thejslectureplannerpackage is that you record all general data of a course (date, semester, type, course title, session titles, general information etc.) in a central tex file and then input this file to all documents related to the course (such as the course program, bibliography, scripts, handouts, beamer presentations, exercises etc.), in order to re-use the recorded data. This is particularly helpful if you have standard courses which are held every other semester: instead of changing the data in every single file, you just need to change it once, in the metadata file.
To further facilitate the planning, thejslectureplannerpackage is able to calculate the session dates of a whole semester, if the sessions of the course follow at regular intervals. You only need to set the date of the first session, the package does the rest.
Moreover, the package can be used to generate a sectioned bibliography for the course viabiblatex.
Since the package has been written for my own needs, it is somewhat tied to my workflow. Particularly, it is tied to my context: teaching in the Humanities at a German-speaking university. Hence, the categorization of the package draws on this context. In particular, all default strings and formats are German. However, it is possible to add new categories as well as to customize and translate the strings. This is described later in this manual.
2 Requirements of jslectureplanner
The following packages are required and loaded byjslectureplanner:
• calc
• datetime2
• etoolbox
• ifthen
• xkeyval
• xparse
3 General idea
The general idea goes as follows:
• Set up ametadata.tex file (or whatever name you prefer) and record all meta information of the course in it (as described in sec. 4 and 5).
• In your documents, load the package (\usepackage{jslectureplanner}) and/or1 input the metadata file (\input{metadata.tex}).
• Finally, use the macros described in sec. 6 and 7 to retrieve the respective data and re-use the recorded information in your documents.
The procedure is detailed in the following sections.
4 Setting up course metadata
You can set up the course metadata either via package options (if you load the package in the metadata file; see sec. 4.1) or via specific macros (see sec. 4.2).
4.1 Via package options
\usepackage[hcomma-separated optionsi]{jslectureplanner}
4.1.1 Course classification
The default course classification draws on the conventions at German-speaking uni- versities (or those where I have worked, for that matter). Each type is connected to a verbose string (such asSeminar), a short form (such asSE) and a form that is used to denote individual sessions (as in “the secondsessionof this course”).
type=htypei defines the course type. Predefined values are:
• vl: A lecture (verbose form:Vorlesung, short form:VL, session form:Vor- lesung)
• ps: Undergraduate seminar (verbose form: Proseminar, short form: PS, session form:Sitzung)
• se: Seminar (verbose form:Seminar, short form:SE, session form:Sitzung)
• ue: Practical course (verbose form:Übung, short form:UE, session form:
Sitzung)
• ko: Colloquium (verbose form:Kolloquium, short form:KO, session form:
Sitzung)
• pv: Research seminar (verbose form:Privatissimum, short form:PV, session form:Sitzung)
Section 8 explains how to extend this list and how to customize the strings.
Please also cf. sec. 8.5 on the concept of “styles”.
1If you prefer to record the data via package options (see sec. 4.1) instead of macros (see sec. 4.2), you need to load the package in the metadata file itself.
4.1.2 Course title
title=htitlei Main title of the course
titlesep=hseparatori Separator between title and subtitle
subtitle=hsubtitlei Subtitle of the course
shorttitle=hshorttitlei Short title of the course (for headings etc.) 4.1.3 Date and place
semester=htermi, wherehtermiis one of
• fs: Spring term (Frühjahrssemester, short form:FS)
• hs: Fall term (Herbstsemester, short form:HS)
• ss: Summer term (Sommersemester, short form:SoSe)
• ws: Winter term (Wintersemester, short form:WS)
Sec. 8 explains how to customize and extend this list. Also cf. sec. 8.5.
year=hyeari (Start) year of the term
endyear=hyeari End year of the term if applicable (in case of terms such asWinter Term 2020/21)
uni=huniversityi Your university
institute=hinstitutei Your institute/department
room=hroomi The room where the course generally takes place; it is possible to specify diverging rooms for individual sessions (see sec. 5)
startdate=hstartdatei The date of the first session (the argument must have the form YYYY-MM-DD or DD/MM/YYYY); if no startdate is given,\todayis used
starttime=hstarttimei The time the course generally starts (the argument must have the form HH:MM:SS)
duration=hdurationi The duration of individual course units in minutes. Default is 90.
interval=hintervali The interval (in days) between two sessions; the preset interval is 7 (= weekly courses)
4.1.4 Additional information
instructor=hnamei (General) course instructor’s name; it is possible to specify different or specific instructors for individual sessions (see sec. 5)
shortinstructor=hnamei Short form of the course instructor’s name (e. g., for headings)
platform=hdatai Information of the e-learning platform (such as the URL)
officehours=hdatai Date of your office hours
officenumber=hdatai Your office (room) number 4.1.5 Other global settings
sestitlesep=hseparatori Specifies a default separator between session title and subtitle
4.2 Via macros
The following macros provide an alternative way to set up the course metadata.
4.2.1 Course classification
• \LecType{hcourse typei}: Set course type;hcourse typeiis one of2 – vl: Lecture (Vorlesung)
– ps: Undergraduate seminar (Proseminar) – se: Seminar (Seminar)
– ue: Practical course (Übung) – ko: Colloquium (Kolloquium)
– pv: Research seminar (Privatissimum) 4.2.2 Course title
• \LecTitle[hpackage optionsi]{htitlei}: Record course title and options;hpackage
optionsimight be any set of package options described in sec. 4.1, so this macro can actually be used to record all metadata.
• \LecTitleSep{htitle separatori}: Specify a separator between course title and subtitle (e. g., “. ” or “ – ”)
• \LecSubTitle{hsubtitlei}: Record course subtitle
2See above sec. 4.1.1 for a detailed description.
4.2.3 Date and place
• \LecYear{htermi}{hyeari}, Record term and year of the course;htermiis one of3 – fs: Spring term (Frühjahrssemester)
– hs: Fall term (Herbstsemester) – ss: Summer term (Sommersemester) – ws: Winter term (Wintersemester)
If thehyearispans multiple years, always use a slash as separator (e. g., 2020/21) for parsing purposes in the input. The separator that is used in the output can be customized (see sec. 8.4.3).
• \LecUni{huniversityi}: Record the name of your university
• \LecInstitute{hinstitutei}: Record your institute’s/department’s name
• \LecRoom{hroomi}: Record the room where the course (generally) takes place
• \LecStartDate{hstartdatei}: Set the date of the first session (the argument must have the form YYYY-MM-DD or DD/MM/YYYY)
• \LecStartTime{hstarttimei}: Set the time the course generally starts (the argu- ment must have the form HH:MM:SS)
• \LecDuration{hdurationi}: The duration of individual course units in minutes.
Default is 90.
• \LecInterval{hintervali}: Adjust the interval (in days) between two sessions.
The preset interval is 7 (= weekly courses).
• \SetAutoOffset[hfirsti]{hni}{hdaysi}: Automatically shift all subsequent sessions byhdaysiextra days after everyhnith session, counting the first session as the
hfirstith session for this purpose. This is useful if your course meets multiple times a week. For instance, a course meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays could be defined via\LecInterval{2}and\SetAutoOffset{2}{3}, a course meeting Monday, Wednesday, Friday using\LecInterval{2}and\SetAutoOffset{3}{1}.hnimust be a positive integer,hdaysican also be a negative integer value. Use the optional
hfirstiif the first session in the course is not the first session in a group. For instance, if your course meets Monday/Wednesday/Friday but the first day of term is a Wednesday, use\SetAutoOffset[2]{3}{1}.
3See above sec. 4.1.3 for a detailed description.
4.2.4 Additional information
• \LecInstructor[hshort namei]{hnamei}: Record the (general) instructor’s name, including an optional short form for headings etc.
• \SetOfficeHours{hoffice hoursi}: Record date of your office hours
• \SetOfficeNumber{hoffice numberi}: Record your office (room) number
• \SetPlatform{hplatform informationi}: Record information (such as URL) of the e-learning platform
4.2.5 Other global settings
• \SessionTitleSep{hseparatori}: Specify a default separator between session title and subtitle (e. g., “. ” or “ – ”). This is used if no specific separator has been specified in the session entry (see sec. 5); by default, no separator is defined.
5 Setting up a course schedule
In the metadata file, you can set up a schedule for the course by entering session information in chronological order. This is done via the following macro:
• \NewSession[hoptionsi]{Session title}
Validhoptionsiinclude:
– draft=htrue|falsei: Iftrue, a placeholder text (by default: “Themahni”, see sec. 8.4) will be output if no session title is defined. This might be handy for planning the schedule.
– topicnumber=hni: In draft mode, reset the current topic number of this ses- sion tohni. All subsequent topics will be calculated from this unless reset again. This might be useful if only part of the schedule is still drafted.
– titlesep=hseparatori: Separator between session title and subtitle (e. g.,
titlesep={.\ }); this overrides any global separator set viasestitlesep
option or\SessionTitleSepmacro for the current session – subtitle=hsubtitlei: Subtitle of the session
– shorttitle=hshorttitlei: Short title (for headings etc.)
– instructor=hnamei: Specific instructor for this session (if it differs from the usual course instructor)
– shortinstructor=hnamei: Short form of the specific instructor for this session – presstudents=hnamesi: Students presenting in this session (used for student
presentation lists, see below sec. 6.4)
– room=hroomi: Room for this session (if it differs from the usual course room) – starttime=hstarttimei: Start time for this session (if it differs from the usual
start time). Input must have the form HH:MM.SS.
– duration=hdurationi: Duration of this session in minutes (if it differs from the usual duration).
– bibsec=hkeywordi: Session keyword for the bibliography (see below sec. 6.3 for its use)
– cancel=htrue|falsei: Marks this session as “canceled”. If you specify
cancel=true, the session will be printed in the program in bold type and appended by a verbal comment. For example,
\NewSession[cancel=true]{Dies Academicus}
will expand to
15. 05.: Dies Academicus – keine Sitzung (i. e., “Dies Academicus – no session”).
Furthermore, a canceled session is not counted in the session counter that is used to retrieve session-specific information (see below sec. 7).
– exam=htrue|falsei: Marker for exam dates. If true, this session is put to the exam rather than the program list (see sec. 6.2) Useful if you want to list the exam dates separately. Note that exam sessions also get their own additional exam number, which makes them accessible independently from the number of preceding sessions (see sec. 7.4 on macro\examsesno).
– extradate=hdatei: Sets a fix date for this session. The date needs to be in- serted in ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD). Note that these sessions are excluded from the auto-offset set by\SetAutoOffset.
• \SetBreak[hspani]{Break}: Add a semester break (e. g., holidays) that affects one session. The macro increments the internal counters respectively and expands in the program to
(Break)
By means of the optional argument, the real time span of the break might be given if you want to print it on the program. If you pass an optional argument
hspani, the macro will expand to
(hspani: Break)
So for instance,\SetBreak[28.05.--3.06.]{Whitsun holidays}expands to (28.05.–3.06.: Whitsun holidays)
• \SetBreaks[hoptionsi]{Break}: Add a semester break that affects more than one session (e. g., two-week holidays). The output in the program is identical to the
\SetBreakmacro, but the counter incrementation can be adjusted to the needed time span.
Possiblehoptionsiare:
– units=hni: Number of interval units the break takes. Oneunitis the number of days as specified by theintervaloption (one week by default4). This
4The former optionweeksis deprecated as of v. 0.9, since the interval can be adjusted now.
value is needed in order to increment the internal counter that is used to calculate the session dates. If units is not specified, the counter is incremented by one.5hnimust be a positive integer.
– span=hspani: Real time span (verbally output on the program)
• \SetLecOffset{hni}: Shift the date of all subsequent sessions byhnidays.hnican also be negative.
• \SetBeamerFrameBreak: Add a frame break in the beamer program at this position (more precisely, start a new frame; see sec. 6.2 for details). This also increments the frame counter which is used for subsequent program frame titles. Note that you can insert maximally 3 breaks.
• \SetBeamerHook{hcodei}: Add arbitrary LaTeX code to the beamer program
• \begin{SessionBlock}{hBlock titlei}
...
\end{SessionBlock}:
Thematic block consisting of several sessions. Respective sessions are nested inside this block.
6 Retrieving general course information
Once the metadata file is set up as documented above and input to your document(s), you can retrieve the recorded as well as some concatenated information by means the following macros.
6.1 Course data
The following macros output general course-specific information:
• \lectype: Outputs the course type in short form (e. g., “SE”)
• \lectypeverb: Outputs the course type in verbose form (e. g., “Seminar”)
• \lectypesession: Outputs the appropriate “session” string (e. g., “Vorlesung” or
“Sitzung”)
• \lectitle: Outputs the main title of the course
• \lectitlesep: Outputs the separator between title and subtitle
• \lecsubtitle: Outputs the subtitle of the course
• \lecfulltitle: Outputs the course’s full title (title, separator, subtitle)
5That is:\SetBreak{Break}=\SetBreaks{Break}=\SetBreaks[units=1]{Break}.
• \lecshorttitle: Outputs the short version of the course title; if no explicit short title is specified, the normal title is output (you can check whether there is a unique short title by the test\iftoggle{uniquelecshorttitle}{htruei}{hfalsei})
• \lecsemshort: Outputs the short version of the term type (e. g., “WS”)
• \lecsemverb: Outputs the verbose version of the term type (such as “Winter- semester”)
• \lecyear: Outputs the (start) year
• \lecendyear: Outputs the end year if available
• \lecendyearsep: Outputs the separator between start and end year (slash by default)
• \lecsemester: Outputs the short version of the semester (e. g., “WS 2014/15”)
• \lecsemesterverb: Outputs the verbose version of the semester (such as “Winter- semester 2014/15”)
• \adjsemester: Outputs the short version of the semester thatfollowsthis one (e. g., “SoSe 2015”)
• \adjsemesterverb: Outputs the verbose version of the semester thatfollowsthis one (such as “Sommersemester 2015”)
• \lecuniversity: Outputs the university’s name
• \lecinstitute: Outputs the institute’s/department’s name
• \lecinstructor: Outputs the (general) instructor’s name
• \lecshortinstructor: Outputs short form of the (general) instructor’s name; if no explicit short name is given, the normal name will be out- put (you can check whether there is a unique short name by the test
\iftoggle{uniquelecshortinstructor}{htruei}{hfalsei})
• \lecroom: Outputs the (general) course room
• \lecstarttime: Outputs the (general) start time
• \lecduration: Outputs the (general) duration of single units
• \lecendtime: Outputs the (general) end time (this is calculated from the start time and duration)
• \lecslot: Outputs the time slot of the lecture (starttime – endtime). Please refer to sec. 8.3 for customization possibilities of the output.
• \lecplatform: Outputs information on the e-learning platform
• \officehours: Outputs the office hours
• \officenumber: Outputs the office (room) number
6.2 Generating course programs
• \makeprogram: Generates a course program that, by default, expands to the form:
\begin{labeling}{\lecprogramlistindent}
\item[hshort datei]hsession full titlei ...
(break) ...
\item[hshort datei]] hsession full titlei]
\end{labeling}
Thelabelingenvironment is defined by the KOMA classes. The package pro- vides a fallback, however, if a different class is used. The list type can also be customized. See sec. 8.4 for details.
• \makebeamerprogram[hoptionsi]: Generates a beamer-suited lecture program from the metadata in the form
\begin{frame}<overlayarghni>[label=beamerprogramhni,hbfoptionsi]
\frametitle{hHeadingi}
\begin{description}[\lecprogramlistindent]
\item[hshort datei]hsession full titlei ...
(break) ...
\item[hshort datei]hsession full titlei
\end{description}
\end{frame}
Again, see sec. 8.4 for customization possibilities.
Note that
– multiple subsequent frames (not just slides) are generated if the metadata file contains\SetBeamerFrameBreakmacros (this is because beamer frame breaks viaallowframebreaksand\framebreakdo not allow for overlays).
– you can refer to the frames via the automatically generated labelsbeamer- program(for the first frame),beamerprogram2for the second, etc.
– the number of program frames is currently limited to 4. If you need more, you should probably rethink your program structure.
hoptionsiinclude
– title=htitlei: Program title (hHeadingi)
– blocksonly=htrue|falsei: Iftrue, only the session blocks are output, not the sessions.
– uncover=htrue|falsei: Iftrue, the program will be uncovered item-wise.
– options=hbfoptionsi: Beamer frame options. Note that key-value beamer frame options need to be embraced, as in
\makebeamerprogram[options={shrink=10}]
– overlayarg=hoverlay specificationi: Beamer frame overlay specification (to be specified without angle brackets, e. g.overlayarg=1-3).
This option applies to the first program frame only. For subsequent frames, useoverlayarg2,overlayarg3andoverlayarg4, respectively.
If you want to separate the dates of your exams from the program, you can flag them with theexamoption of\NewSession. Those session entries will not be included in the output of the above two macros. However, there are the macros
• \makeexamprogram. This generates a list with exam dates in the same layout than
\makeprogram.
• \makebeamerexamprogram. This generates a list with exam dates in the same layout than\makebeamerprogram(and takes the same options).
6.3 Generating bibliographies
The package provides macros for easy generation of sectioned bibliographies via biblatex. The macro
• \makesessionbib
generates code in the form
\section{hsession full titlei}
\nocite{*}
\printbibliography[keyword=hsession keywordi,heading=none]
for each session of the lecture which has been linked to abiblatexkeyword via the
bibsecoption (see above sec. 5).
So if you specify your session with a keyword via thebibsecoption, and tag your BibTEX database entries with that keyword, you will get a list of session-specific literature.
6.4 Generating student presentation lists
The package provides macros to produce a list with the name of the students presenting stuff, or generally being particularly involved, in specific sessions.
The names of the presenting students are assigned in the metadata to specific sessions by means of thepresstudentsoption of the\NewSessioncommand (see above sec. 4.2.4). The macro
\makepreslist
outputs a list that consists of the session dates and titles as well as the names of the presenting students, i. e., it expands to code in the form:
\begin{labeling}{\lecprogramlistindent}
\item[hshort datei] hsession full titlei\par hpresenting studentsi ...
\end{labeling}
If no presenting students have been assigned to a given session, an em-dash (—) is output instead. This all can be customized (please refer to sec. 8.4 for details).
A starred version of the macro outputs a “blank” presentation list that just consists of the session dates and titles with enough space to fill in student names manually.
This version might be useful to schedule the presentations of your students in the first session:
\makepreslist*
For beamer presentations, finally, a specific macro
\makebeamerpreslist
is provided (with no starred version). The main difference is the more compact design that makes the list fit better on a slide.
If you want to start your presentation list only from a given session number (e. g., since you do not have any presentations in the first session of the course), you can use
\setfirstpressession{hsession numberi}
to set the first session number to be printed on the list. Likewise,
\setlastpressession{hsession numberi}
can be used to determine the last session number to be printed on the list.
7 Retrieving session-specific information
In session-specific documents, you also need information specific to the current session.
This is done as follows.
7.1 Setting the current session
Use\ThisSession{hni}to tell the package which session is current. hniis an integer value, e. g.\ThisSession{3}for the 3rd session of the lecture.
If you are looking for exam session particularly, you can also use\examsesno{hni}
with the number of the exam to get the corresponding session number. Thus,
\ThisSession{\examsesno{2}}will set the current session to the second exam session, notwithstanding the number of preceding (non-exam) sessions.
7.2 Generating session-specific information for the current ses- sion
If you have specified the current session via the macro\ThisSession, the following macros output general session-specific information:
• \sesdate: Date of the current session
• \sesshortdate: Date of the current session, short form (no year)
• \sesdtmdate: Date of the current session in the form of thedatetime2package, without explicit style setting. This can be used if you want to locally set another date style (via\DTMsetdatestyle, which is to be set before this macro then)
• \sesstarttime: Start time of the current session
• \sesendtime: End time of the current session (calculated from start time and duration).
• \seslot: Time slot of the current session (starttime – endtime). Please refer to sec. 8.3 for customization possibilities of the output.
• \sestitle: Main title of the current session
• \sesshorttitle: Short title of the current session; if no explicit short title is specified, the normal [main] title is output (you can check whether there is a unique short title by the test\iftoggle{uniquesesshorttitle}{htruei}{hfalsei})
• \sestitlesep: Title-subtitle separator of the current session
• \sessubtitle: Subtitle of the current session
• \sesfulltitle: Full title of the current session (title, separator, subtitle)
• \sesblocktitle: The title of the current session block (if available).
• \sesblocknumber: The number of the current session block (if available).
• \sesinstructor: Current session’s instructor’s name; if you want to output this name only if it differs from the general instructor (\lecinstructor), use the starred version\sesinstructor*(furthermore, you can check whether there is a unique session instructor by the test\iftoggle{uniquesesinstructor}{htruei}{hfalsei})
• \sesshortinstructor: Current session’s instructor’s short name; if you want to output this name only if it differs from the general instruc- tor (\lecshortinstructor), use the starred version \sesshortinstructor*; if no explicit instructor short name is given, the normal instructor name will be output (you can check whether there is a unique short instruc- tor [that differs from the long session instructor name] by the test
\iftoggle{uniquesesshortinstructor}{htruei}{hfalsei})
• \sespresstudents: Students presenting in this session
• \sesnr: Number of the current session
• \sesroom: Room of the current session
7.3 Generating session-specific information for adjacent ses- sions
Depending on the value of\ThisSession, you can retrieve the following information for sessions that follow or precede the current session by a specific interval unit via the following macros:
• \AdjSessionTitle[hoffseti]: Outputs the main title of the adjacent session
• \AdjSessionFullTitle[hoffseti]: Outputs the full title (main title, separator, sub- title) of the adjacent session
• \AdjSessionShortTitle[hoffseti]: Outputs the short title of the adjacent session;
if no explicit short title is specified, the normal main title is output
• \AdjSessionBlockTitle[hoffseti]: Outputs the session block title of the adjacent session (if available)
• \AdjSessionBlockNumber[hoffseti]: Outputs the session block number of the ad- jacent session (if available)
• \AdjSessionDate[hoffseti]: Outputs the date of the adjacent session
• \AdjSessionShortDate[hoffseti]: Outputs the short date (no year) of the adjacent session
• \AdjSessionDTMDate[hoffseti]: Date of the adjacent session in the form of the datetime2package, without explicit style setting. This can be used if you want to locally set another date style (via\DTMsetdatestyle, which is to be set before this macro then)
• \AdjSessionStartTime[hoffseti]: Outputs the start time of the adjacent session
• \AdjSessionEndTime[hoffseti]: Outputs the end time of the adjacent session
• \AdjSessionTimeSlot[hoffseti]: Outputs the time slot of the adjacent session (starttime – endtime). Please refer to sec. 8.3 for customization possibilities of the output.
• \AdjSessionInstructor[hoffseti]: Outputs the name of the instructor of the adja- cent session
• \AdjSessionInstructor*[hoffseti]: Outputs the name of the instructor of the adjacent session if it differs from the general instructor (\lecinstructor)
• \AdjSessionShortInstructor[hoffseti]: Outputs the short name (or normal name, if no short name was specified) of the instructor of the adjacent session if it differs from the general instructor (\lecshortinstructor)
• \AdjSessionShortInstructor*[hoffseti]: Outputs the short name (or normal name, if no short name was specified) of the instructor of the adjacent session
• \AdjSessionPresStudents[hoffseti]: Outputs the name of the students presenting in the adjacent session
• \AdjSessionRoom[hoffseti]: Outputs the room of the adjacent session
Via the numericalhoffsetioption, you can specify which session, relative to the current one, you want to output. The default is1, i. e.,\AdjSessionTitlewithout argument outputs the title of thenextsession. Negative values are valid:\AdjSessionTitle[-1], thus, outputs the title of theprevioussession.
7.4 Generating session-specific information for an arbitrary session
Independent of the value of\ThisSession, you can retrieve the following information for arbitrary sessions (session numberhni) via the following macros:
• \SessionTitle{hni}: Outputs the main title of session numberhni
• \SessionFullTitle{hni}: Outputs the full title (main title, separator, subtitle) of session numberhni
• \SessionShortTitle{hni}: Outputs the short title of session number hni; if no explicit short title is specified, the normal main title is output
• \SessionBlockTitle{hni}: Outputs the session block title of session numberhni(if available)
• \SessionBlockNumber{hni}: Outputs the (formatted) session block number of ses- sion numberhni(if available)
• \SessionDate{hni}: Outputs the date of session numberhni
• \SessionShortDate{hni}: Outputs the short date (no year) of session numberhni
• \SessionDTMDate{hni}: Date of the session session numberhniin the form of the datetime2package, without explicit style setting. This can be used if you want to locally set another date style (via\DTMsetdatestyle, which is to be set before this macro then)
• \SessionStartTime{hni}: Outputs the start time of session numberhni
• \SessionEndTime{hni}: Outputs the end time of session numberhni
• \SessionTimeSlot{hni}: Outputs the time slot of session numberhni(starttime – endtime). Please refer to sec. 8.3 for customization possibilities of the output.
• \SessionInstructor{hni}: Outputs the name of the instructor of session number
hni
• \SessionInstructor*{hni}: Outputs the name of the instructor of session number
hniif it differs from the general instructor (\lecinstructor)
• \SessionShortInstructor{hni}: Outputs the short name (or normal name, if no short name was specified) of the instructor of session numberhni
• \SessionShortInstructor*{hni}: Outputs the short name (or normal name, if no short name was specified) of the instructor of session numberhniif it differs from the general instructor (\lecinstructor)
• \SessionPresStudents{hni}: Outputs the name of the students presenting in ses- sion numberhni
• \SessionRoom{hni}: Outputs the room of session numberhni
• \MakeProgramline{hni}: Outputs a list item line for session numberhniin the form
\item[{\bfseries hshort datei}] hsession full titlei
Note once more that if you are looking for exam session particularly, you can also use\examsesno{hni}with the number of the exam to get the corresponding session number. For instance,\SessionDate{\examsesno{2}}will return the date of the second exam session, notwithstanding the global session number of this session.
8 Customizing the output
8.1 Defining and customizing course types
The following macro allows to define new course types and redefine existing ones:
• \DefLecType{hkeyi}{hshort formi}{htitlei}{hsession titlei}
A new type, say summer school, thus, could be defined as follows:
• \DefLecType{ss}{SS}{Summer School}{Session}
This could then be set via\LecType{ss}or the package optiontype=ss, respectively.
Likewise, you can use the macro to redefine existing styles, e. g. change the “session”
string of typevlvia
• \DefLecType{vl}{VL}{Vorlesung}{Einheit}
If you need to change or add types, consider the use of styles (see sec. 8.5).
8.2 Defining and customizing term types
The available term (semester) types can be changed and extended via the macro:
• \DefSemType[hoptionsi]{hkeyi}{hshort formi}{hverbose formi}
Options are in key-value form and include:
• next=hkeyi: the key of the semester type that follows this one in the academic cycle. This is used for\adjsemesterand\adjsemesterverb.
• nextny=htrue|falsei: if true, the semester that follows this one is in a different year. This is used for\adjsemesterand\adjsemesterverb.
Thus, you could add a new term types “spring term” and “autumn term” via
\DefSemType[next=at]{st}{ST}{Spring Term}
\DefSemType[next=st,nextny=true]{at}{AT}{Autumn Term}
8.3 Customizing the date and time format
If you need to change the date format, redefine the date styleslecdate(for the long format) andlecshortdate(for the short format), using the syntax provided by the datetime2package. By default, the two formats are defined as follows:
\DTMnewdatestyle{lecdate}{% long date: DD.\,MM.~YYYY
\renewcommand*{\DTMdisplaydate}[4]{\DTMtwodigits{##3}.\,\DTMtwodigits{##2}.~##1}%
\renewcommand*{\DTMDisplaydate}{\DTMdisplaydate}% }
\DTMnewdatestyle{lecshortdate}{% short date: DD.\,MM.
\renewcommand*{\DTMdisplaydate}[4]{\DTMtwodigits{##3}.\,\DTMtwodigits{##2}.}%
\renewcommand*{\DTMDisplaydate}{\DTMdisplaydate}% }
\DTMtwodigits{##3}represents the day of the month (producing always two digits, i. e., 01not1),\DTMtwodigits{##2}represents the month (also in two-digit form) and##1 represents the year. Please refer to thedatetime2manual for details.
If you want to redefine the styles, use\DTMrenewdatestyleand change the defi- nition accordingly. For instance, to get the typical American English date formats MM/DD/YYYYandMonth, DD, redefine the formats as follows:
\DTMrenewdatestyle{lecdate}{% long date: MM/DD/YYYY
\renewcommand*{\DTMdisplaydate}[4]{\DTMtwodigits{##2}/\DTMtwodigits{##3}/##1}%
}
\DTMrenewdatestyle{lecshortdate}{% short date: Month, DD
\renewcommand*{\DTMdisplaydate}[4]{\DTMenglishmonthname{##2}, ##3}% }
Note that it is not necessary to include the\DTMDisplaydateredefinition in the date format redefinition (since it does never change here). Note further that the macro
\DTMenglishmonthnameused in the short date redefinition requires thedatetime2-english module to be loaded (seedatetime2manual for details).
Note, further, that if you need another date style only locally, you can set an arbitrary date style on the dtm date provided by\lectdtmdateand friends, i. e.,
\DTMsetdatestyle{mydatestyle}\lecdtmdate.
Note, finally, that the date redefinition syntax used up tojslectureplanner1.2 is no longer supported, since it relied on thedatetimepackage, which is deprecated (and superseded bydatetime2). Thejslectureplannerpackage will issue a warning if you try to use the old syntax.
As for the time span, this is defined in the macro\jstimeslot, which is predefined as follows and can be adjusted to your needs:
\newcommand*\jstimeslot[2]{#1\,--\,#2}
The time format itself can be customized by the means ofdatetime2(timestyle). Please refer to the package’s manual for details.
8.4 Customizing program and presentation list appearance
8.4.1 List layout
The course program generated by\makeprogramis typeset using alabelinglist, i. e., a description list with a customizable indentation (see sec. 6.2). Sincejslectureplan- neruses customizable environments, this can be easily changed. Simply redefine the following environment (\lecprogramlistindentholds a string that represents the indentation width; see below):
\newenvironment{ProgramList}{\begin{labeling}{\lecprogramlistindent}}{\end{labeling}}
This will also change the list of the exam sessions generated by\makeexamprogramand the student presentation lists generated by\makepreslist. If you want these lists to look different from the normal program list, redefine:
\newenvironment{ProgramListExam}{\begin{ProgramList}}{\end{ProgramList}}
\newenvironment{PresList}{\begin{ProgramList}}{\end{ProgramList}}
For beamer programs, exam and presentation lists, a description environment is used instead, and the respective commands are
\newenvironment{BeamerProgramList}{\begin{description}[\lecprogramlistindent]}%
{\end{description}}
\newenvironment{BeamerPresList}{\begin{BeamerProgramList}}{\end{BeamerProgramList}}
\newenvironment{BeamerProgramListExam}{\begin{BeamerProgramList}}{\end{BeamerProgramList}}
The individual lines of the program are defined in the following macro that can be redefined (#1represents the date,#2the session title,#3the session title–subtitle separator, and#4the session subtitle; for the used text formatting macros, see sec. 8.4.2):
\newcommand*{\ProgramListItem}[4]{\item[\programdateformat{#1}] \sestitleformat{#2#3#4}}
This also redefines the presentation list items. If you want these lists to look different from the normal program list, redefine:
\newcommand*\PresListItem[4]{%
\ProgramListItem{#1}{#2}{#3}{#4}%
}
Analogous macros for canceled session items, exam items and presentation list items are:
\newcommand*{\ProgramListCancelItem}[4]{\item[\programdateformat{#1}]
\cansestitleformat{#2#3#4\leccancel}}
\newcommand*{\ProgramListExamItem}[4]{\item[\programdateformat{#1}]
\exsestitleformat{#2#3#4}}
For the beamer program, the respective macros are:
\newcommand*{\BeamerProgramListItem}[4]{\item[\programdateformat{#1}]
\sestitleformat{#2#3#4}}
\newcommand*\BeamerPresListItem[4]{%
\BeamerProgramListItem{#1}{#2}{#3}{#4}%
}
\newcommand*{\BeamerProgramListCancelItem}[4]{\item[\programdateformat{#1}]
\cansestitleformat{#2#3#4\leccancel}}
\newcommand*{\BeamerProgramListExamItem}[4]{\item[\programdateformat{#1}]
\exsestitleformat{#2#3#4}}
The program block titles are set in the embedding list via the following macro:
\newcommand*{\ProgramBlockItem}[2]{\item[\blocknumberformat{#1}.] \blocktitleformat{#2}}
For beamer, the following is used withblocksonly=false:
\newcommand*{\BeamerProgramBlockItem}[2]{\item[\blocknumberformat{#1}.]
\blocktitleformat{#2}}
and the following is used withblocksonly=true:
\newcommand*{\BeamerProgramBlockBlocksOnlyItem}[2]{\item[#1.] #2}
The indentation used in program lists can be changed by redefining
\newcommand*\lecprogramlistindent{\programdateformat{88.\,88.}}
The vertical space that separates lines in blank presentation lists can be changed by redefining
\setlength\blankpreslistvspace{2\baselineskip}
The separator between session title and presenting students in presentation lists can be adjusted by changing
\newcommand*\presseparator{\par}
For beamer presentation lists, the adaptation can be done by changing
\newcommand*\beamerpresseparator{:\ }
8.4.2 Text formatting
If you only want to change the formatting of lines, you do not need to redefine the whole macros describe above. You can simply adjust the respective markup macros, as described in what follows.
The dates in the program are bold by default. You can change this globally by redefining
\newcommand*\programdateformat[1]{\textbf{#1}}
Cancelled session titles in the program are bold by default as well. You can change this globally by redefining
\newcommand*\cansestitleformat[1]{\textbf{#1}}
Normal session titles, on the other hand, are by default not emphasized at all. You can also change this globally by redefining
\newcommand*\sestitleformat[1]{#1}
Exam session titles are copies of the above. You can also change this globally by redefining
\newcommand*\exsestitleformat[1]{\sestitleformat{#1}}
Session block titles and session block numbers can be redefined by changing
\newcommand*\blocktitleformat[1]{\textbf{#1}}
\newcommand*\blocknumberformat[1]{\textbf{#1}}
If you want to change the line in which semester breaks are output, redefine
\newcommand*{\ProgramListBreak}[2][\empty]%
{%
\begin{center}
(\breakevent{#1}{: }{#2})
\end{center}%
}
\breakeventthereby checks whether a date range has been given (#1), and if so, it is output followed by the separator given as second argument and the break title (#2). If not, only the break title (#2) is output.
8.4.3 Strings
For canceled sessions, the program outputs “hSession titlei– keinehSessioni” (“keine”
is German for “no”). To modify or translate this, redefine the following macro
\newcommand*\leccancel{\ -- keine \lectypesession}
The default program string used in beamer frames can be changed by redefining
\newcommand*\lecprogram{Programm}
The placeholder text for session without title withdraft=true(see sec. 5) is “Thema
hni” (“Thema” is German for “topic”). It can be changed by redefinition of this macro (\thesestopicoutputs the value of the internal topic counter).
\newcommand*\sestopic{Thema~\thesestopic}
The placeholder for presentation sessions with no students assigned (by default an em-dash), can be redefined by changing
\newcommand*\emptypressession{---}
The separator between start and end year of a term can be redefined by changing
\newcommand*\lecendyearsep{/}
8.5 Using styles
The most elegant way to do the customizing is to uselecture planner style(*.lps) files.
These files can be loaded via thestyle=hstyleipackage option, wherehstyleiis the file name without *.lps extension.
Currently, the package ships three styles:
1. german-defaultsimply includes the default strings. This style is meant to be used as a model for new styles.
2. englishis a proof-of-concept localization to English. This style can be used as a basis for English styles. The English examples included in thejslectureplanner bundle use this style.
3. cologneprovides some specifics current at the University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln):
• Additional course types:ak(AK,Arbeitskurs),as(AS,Aufbauseminar),es (ES,Einführungsseminar),evl(EVL,Einführungsvorlesung),hs(HS,Haupt- seminar).
If you provide me with other style files, in particular translations to other languages than German (but also other university conventions), I consider them for inclusion to the package.
Part II
Companion packages
9 The jsmembertable package
This section of the manual describes the user interface of thejsmembertablepackage.
Please also refer to the example files included in the bundle.
9.1 Aim of this package
This package provides a way to easily generate tables to track the members of a university course (a table where you, or your students, can fill in names, student IDs and e-mail adresses) and a table to record their presence, should this be a requisite at your institute.
The package somewhat integrates withjslectureplannerand can use the metadata and styles of that package where necessary (see part I of this manual for details on metadata and styles).
Since the package was written for my own needs, the table design might not fit yours. However, with some basic LaTeX knowledge, it should not be too hard to adapt it. Like forjslectureplanner, the default strings are German. However, it is possible to customize and translate them. This is described later in this manual.
9.2 Requirements of jsmembertable
The following packages are required and loaded byjsmembertable:
• datatool(only if the optiondatafileis used)
• ifthen
• calc
• longtable
• hhline
• xkeyval
jsmembertablecan be used independently of jslectureplannerto some degree. The latter package is only required for specific features (see below) and must be loaded explicitly in that case.
9.3 Loading the package
The package is loaded as usual:
\usepackage[hoptionsi]{jsmembertable}
Currently, the following package options are available:
• datafile=hcsv-filei: Use external student data file (see sec. 9.4).
• datakeys=hkeyorderi: Specify order of items in CSV data file (see sec. 9.4).
9.4 Loading external data
Both course member and presence tables can be filled with external student data. To this end, the package optiondatafile=hcsv-fileiis provided. If it is used, the package tries to access a comma-separated data file. Note that the external file must have the extension.csv, and the extension must be omitted in the option, so
\usepackage[datafile=mystudents]{jsmembertable}
loads the filemystudents.csv.
It is assumed that the external CSV file conforms to the following structure:
Prename1, Surname1, StudentID1, Email1 Prename2, Surname2, StudentID2, Email2 ...
The order if items can be adjusted via thedatakeyspackage option. The four items,
pname(prename),sname(surname),mid(student ID) andemail, can be freely re-ordered by that option. Note however, that all four items must be used. Thus, to change the order toSurname, Prename, Email, StudentID, use:
\usepackage[datafile=mystudents,
datakeys={sname,pname,email,mid}]{jsmembertable}
Note, finally, that the CSV file should have the same encoding than the tex file.
9.5 Generating a course member table
In order to generate a course member table, simply insert
\makemembertable{hnumber of blank rowsi}
If an external data file has been loaded,hnumber of blank rowsican either be empty or a positive integer value. If no external data file has been loaded,hnumber of blank rowsimustbe a positive integer value.
If no external data file has been loaded, the command generates a table withhnumber
of blank rowsiblank rows, to which your students can fill in their name, student ID and e-mail address.
If an external data file has been loaded, an appropriate number of rows is generated and the respective student data is filled in. Additionally,hnumber of blank rowsiblank rows areappendedafter the filled-in rows (for the late birds that have not registered themselves yet). If the command’s argument is empty or0, no extra rows are appended.
The number of columns of the member table is always 3, trackingstudent id,name ande-mail address. If you want to have more or less columns, you need to redefine the\makemembertablecommand. The header strings, though, can easily be changed by redefining the following three macros (using\renewcommand*), for instance like this:
% Student Name
\renewcommand*\jsmnameheader{\textbf{Student name}}
% Student ID
\renewcommand*\jsmidheader{\textbf{Student ID}}
\renewcommand*\jsemailheader{\textbf{Email address}}
If you use thejslectureplannerpackage, you can use thejslectureplannerstyle files in order to store those redefinitions globally. See thegerman-default.lpsstyle file for a model.6Of course, you need to loadjslectureplannerwith the respectivestyleoption then (beforejsmembertable). See above section 8.5 for details on styles.
9.6 Generating a presence table
Presence tables consist of rows with your students’ names and columns for each session of your course where each student can sign and mark her/his presence in the respective session. As with the member tables, the package can fill in student data (the student name in this case) from an external data file if thedatafilepackage option is used.
The package provides two kinds of presence tables: A presence table with real session dates and a simpler one just with session numbers (“Session 1” etc.). The first variant requires thejslectureplannerpackage, since it uses the course metadata in order to generate a matching number of columns with the respective session date in the column headers. The second one also works withoutjslectureplanner since the session numbers can be simply derived from an internal counter and you can manually set the total number of sessions.
Note that if you usejslectureplanner, you must load thejslectureplannerpackage and also input the metadata filebeforejsmembertable.
The first presence table variant (with real session dates) is produced with the following macro:
\makeprestable{hnumber of blank rowsi}
As with the member table, an appropriate number of rows, pre-filled with student data, is generated if an external data file has been loaded. Then,hnumber of blank rowsi
blank rows areappendedafter the filled-in rows (ifhnumber of blank rowsiis not empty or0). If no external data file has been loaded, simply a table withhnumber of blank rowsiblank rows is constructed.
The number of columns/sessions is automatically calculated from the metadata. If you want a different number, you can use the optional argument of the command to override this calculation:
\makeprestable[hnumber of sessionsi]{hnumber of blank rowsi}
The second kind of presence table (with session numbers instead of session dates) is provided via the starred version of the command:
6Note that within styles, you must use\newcommand*instead of\renewcommand*, since the styles are loaded before thejsmembertablepackage.
\makeprestable*[hnumber of sessionsi]{hnumber of blank rowsi}
Like with the unstarred version, if thejslectureplannermetadata is used/available, the number of columns/sessions is calculated from the metadata. Again, the optional argument can be used to override this calculation. If thejslectureplannermetadata is not used/available, and no session number is given via the optional argument, the table will use a preset number of sessions, namely 15. The starred version uses, like the unstarred variant, the external student data if thedatafileoption has been used.
For courses of 2–16 sessions, the package tries to produce reasonably sized tables that fit the page width (more than 16 sessions are currently not supported). From 7 sessions upwards, two separate tables, each for half a term, are produced. In general, it is assumed that you use landscape page format for presence tables. The tables will be too wide for portrait page format. Also, the tables have been optimized for A4 page size.
The header strings of the presence tables can be adjusted by redefining the following macros (using\renewcommand*), for instance like this:
% Student Name
\renewcommand*\jsmnameheader{\textbf{Student name}}
% "Session" string for the starred macro version
\renewcommand*\jsmsession{Session}}
% Session header for the starred macro version
% (\thesession outputs the counter value)
\renewcommand*\jsmsessionheader{\textbf{\jsmsession\ \thesession}}
% The advice for students to sign
\renewcommand*\jssigheader{Students’ signature}
Again, if you usejslectureplanner, you can use thejslectureplannerstyle files in order to store those redefinitions globally. See thegerman-default.lpsandenglish.lpsstyle files for a model.7 Of course, you need to loadjslectureplannerwith the respective
styleoption then (beforejsmembertable). See above section 8.5 for details on styles.
Note, furthermore, that the “Session” string (value of \jsmsession) is by default linked tojslectureplanner’s\lectypesessionvalue ifjslectureplanneris loaded before jsmembertable. So if\lectypesessionfits, you do not have to redefine\jsmsession.
7Note that within styles, you must use\newcommand*instead of\renewcommand*, since the styles are loaded before thejsmembertablepackage.
Part III
Appendix
A Acknowledgements
I could not have written the packages of thejslectureplannerbundle without the expertise of the incredible LATEX community. The packages heavily rely on functions and features provided by other packages (which are listed in sec. 2 and 9.2). I am deeply indebted to the authors of those packages. Furthermore,stackexchangeproved to be a great source of knowledge which provided me with solutions for specific tasks:
jsmembertableheavily draws on code for dynamic table generation that has been provided by Herbert Voss (http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/7594);jslectureplannerand jsmembertableuse code to test for\romannumeralarguments which has been taken from astackexchangepost by Enrico Gregorio (http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/50131).
The time span calculation uses code provided by Christian Hupfer athttps://tex.
stackexchange.com/a/473552/19291. Thank you, Herbert, Enrico and Christian! Richard Zach provided a fix and enhancement to\SetAutoOffsetand code to customize the program list. Many thanks for this. Finally, Dominik Waßenhoven tested the package and provided me with multiple suggestions, which effectively manifested in major new features such as thejslectureplannerstyle files. Thanks, Dominik.
B Release History
• 2020/12/08 (v. 1.12):
– Correctly parse staryear/endyear.
• 2020/05/11 (v. 1.11):
– Allow for customization of program and presentation lists (see sec. 8.4).
– Correctly set first session in presentation list.
• 2020/04/30 (v. 1.10):
– Do not increment session topic counter for cancelled sessions and breaks.
– Add session optiontopicnumberto reset topic number in draft mode.
– Recode this manual in utf8.
• 2020/02/04 (v. 1.9):
– Allow\SetBeamerFrameBreakwithinSessionBlock.
– Fix\SetAutoOffsetat first session and add optional argument to alter first session (fix contributed by Richard Zach).
• 2019/02/06 (v. 1.8):
– Add support for displaying the next semester (macros\adjsemesterand
\adjsemesterverb).
– Add support for lecture and session start time, duration and thus also end time calculation.
– Add unstyled date formats which allow preceding\DTMsetdatestyle(the short and long date formats would override such settings).
– Addextradateoption to\NewSessionto support fix dates. See sec. 5.
– Add possibility to enter exam dates that are not added to the standard program (optionexamof\NewSession); see sec. 5. Also add macros to display them separately (\makeexamprogram,\makebeamerexamprogram; see sec. 6.2) and to access their session number (\examsesno; see sec. 7.4).
– Switch input format of \LecStartDateto ISO (YYYY-MM-DD). The old format (DD/MM/YYYY) is still supported for backwards compatibility.
– Add macros to receive session block numbers (\sesblocknumber,
\SessionBlockNumber{hsession noi}and\AdjSessionBlockNumber).
• 2018/12/14 (v. 1.7):
– Allowoptionsin\makebeamerprogramalso withblocksonly. – Addoverlayargoption to\makebeamerprogram. See sec. 6.1.
– Add macros to receive session block titles (\sesblocktitle,
\SessionBlockTitle{hsession noi}and\AdjSessionBlockTitle).
• 2018/09/26 (v. 1.6):
– Bugfix: Do not output session title-subtitle separator if there is no subtitle.
– Addblocksonlyanduncoveroptions to\makebeamerprogram. – Adddraftoption to\NewSession.
• 2017/03/12 (v. 1.5):
– Addenglishstyle file (proof of concept).
– Adddatakeysoption tojsmembertable.
– Add package optionsestitlesepand macro\SessionTitleSepthat allow for the definition of a global session title-subtitle separator.
• 2016/10/19 (v. 1.4):
– Add instructor short forms for lecture and session.
– Add starred versions of the \sesinstructor, \SessionInstructor and
\AdjSessionInstructor macros that only produce output if the session instructor differs from the general course instructor.
– All short{instructor|title} macros now output the long version if no short form was defined.
