** Using WeBWorK **

The whole "Library Browser" page is confusing and should be rethought.

Maybe. Last week I taught a webwork workshop for local high school and community college teachers. The feedback was that this page was easy to use. I haven't looked at the documentation for the page yet, but I imagine that could be improved.

I think this page should only appear when a new problem set is being 
created (or an existing one is being edited). The problem set editor 
page should show allow editing open/due/answer dates, headers, and 
existing problems in the set. In addition it should have a "Browse for 
more problems" button, which should then lead to the "Library Browser" 
page, which would only contain references to the current problem set 
(the one being edited).

I don't see the advantage of limiting access/use of the library browser page. We use it as the starting place for creating new sets, some are for students, and some are just to collect problems for later retreival. We also use it for cloning a set to a new name (create a new set there, select all problems from one set and add them to the new one).

Also there should be suitable warnings against editing a problem set 
which has already been assigned to somebody.

Maybe, but this is normal for some people - they assign the set to themselves on creation so that they can get hard copy at anytime. But, a warning isn't going to get in people's way, so that can be put in.

Also the "Library Browser" page should warn about assigning problems 
which are already assigned to that problem set. (It shouldn't be 
prohibited though, since occasionally an instructor might like to 
assign the same problem multiple times with different seeds to the 
same set.) Also there should be more flexibility in assigning the 
order in which library problems are added to the current set.

There are lots of things you might want to do when making a set. There was enough going on with the library browser page that the thinking was to have a second page where you would use it for just viewing problems and adding them to sets. Other refinements take place on another page. That is why there is the button to edit the current set. If you edit the problems from that page, you will get warnings about problems which use duplicate source files, and it should be easy to delete or renumber problems on that page.

I would like to see the page where you refine problem selections to be one step closer to the library browser. Also, as you pointed out in your posting, there is more than one page which are effectively "edit this set" which allow changing dates. That should probably be collapsed into a single page. I don't know whether that page should also have the list of problems on it, or just a link to it.

Finally a linguistic peeve on the library page. I had to do a double 
take before I realized that "me" in the checkboxes "Don't show me on 
the next update" and "Add me to the current set on the next update" 
referred to "this problem" not to "ME" (the person). I submit that 
this idiom, while it may be natural for object-oriented programmers, 
is not so natural for ordinary people, particularly for non-native 
English speakers.

OK, this is now changed in the CVS version.

John

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