Change Log

v0.7.1 (2023-10-29)

Updated .bat file for generating Windows GUI executable to account for pyproject.toml and recent Python versions.

Switched packaging to pyproject.toml.
Updated dependencies: Python Markdown >=3.4.4 is now required to avoid HTML escaping bugs in prior 3.4.x releases. Require latest bespon (>=0.7.0).
Fixed bug that prevented indentation starting with a tab from being parsed correctly (#68).
Improved README explanation of indentation in the text2qti format (#59).
Setting a custom LaTeX rendering URL should typically not be necessary with recent versions of Canvas. The LaTeX rendering URL now defaults to /equation_images/. Improved config file handling related to LaTeX rendering URL. Updated LaTeX img template for recent Canvas. LaTeX URLs now escape the slash character / in equations.
Numbers in scientific notation with leading zeros in the exponent are now permitted for siunitx notation within Markdown. The zeros are stripped during processing.

Leading plus signs + are now stripped for siunitx notation within Markdown.
Added amsmath, amssymb, and siunitx to template for LaTeX solutions export.
Fixed a bug with error handling when Pandoc fails to export solutions (#47).
For question groups, the value of pick is now allowed to equal the total number of questions (#44).
Added support for Pandoc-style attributes on images: ![alt_text](image_file){#id .class1 .class2 width=10em height=5em} (#41).
Executable code blocks now use PATH to locate executables under Windows, and thus now work with Python environments. Previously PATH was ignored under Windows due to the implementation details of Python's subprocess.Popen() (#34, #42).
Added command-line options --solutions and --only-solutions to command-line application. These generate solutions in Pandoc Markdown, PDF, and HTML formats. Pandoc Markdown solutions are only suitable for use with LaTeX and HTML (#35).
Added quiz-level options feedback is solution, solutions sample groups, and solutions randomize groups for customizing solutions. Added group-level option solutions pick for customizing solutions. Added question-level syntax involving ! for providing solutions.
In quiz parsing, simplified question type handling and error checking.
Fixed bug in calculation of total points possible per quiz.

Added text2qti_tk executable, which provides a basic graphical user interface (GUI) via tkinter. Added build scripts in make_gui_exe/ for creating a standalone GUI executable under Windows with PyInstaller (#27).
In executable code blocks, .python now invokes python3 on systems where python is equivalent to python2 as well as on systems that lack a python executable. The README now suggests using .python3 and .python2 to be more explicit (#22).
Added a new keyword argument executable for executable code blocks, which allows a custom executable (including path) to be specified for running code. Added support for periods in code block language attributes, so that things like .python3.8 are now possible.
Fixed bug caused by swapped identifiers in QTI XML (#18, #19). Now quiz descriptions work with Canvas and question titles appear in Canvas in the quiz editor (but not in the student view). The following options now work with Canvas: Shuffle answers, Show correct answers, One question at a time, and Can't go back.
Installation (setup.py) now requires markdown >= 3.2 to ensure compatibility and avoid Markdown parsing bugs fixed in 3.2 (#31).
Fixed bug that produced incorrect QTI output paths when using quiz files outside the current working directory (#28, #29).
README now covers more options for installing the development version (#20).

Improved preprocessing for siunitx notation, LaTeX math, and HTML comments. Fixed catastrophic backtracking in LaTeX math regex (#11). Added support for newlines in HTML comments. The preprocessor now skips backslash escapes, inline code containing newlines, and fenced code blocks (as long as they do not start on the same line as a list marker). The preprocessor now handles the escape \$ itself, since Python-Markdown ignores it (#14).
Python-Markdown's Markdown-in-HTML extension is now enabled (#13).
Added quiz options Shuffle answers, Show correct answers, One question at a time, and Can't go back (#10). These options are apparently ignored by Canvas, but may work with some other systems.
Revised README to clarify that some features are apparently not supported by Canvas (#16).

Added support for multiple-answers questions.
Added support for short-answer (fill-in-the-blank) questions.
Added support for file-upload questions.
Added support for setting question titles and point values (#9).
Added support for text regions outside questions.
Added --pandoc-mathml command-line option. This converts LaTeX to MathML via Pandoc, rather than using a Canvas LaTeX rendering URL (#4).
Added support for comments at the top level of quiz files (outside Markdown content like questions, choices, or feedback). HTML comments within Markdown are now stripped and no longer appear in the final QTI file (#2).
For numerical questions, exact answers with allowed margin are now treated as exact answers, rather than being converted into ranges of values. This primarily affects how feedback for incorrect answers is worded (#7).
Essay questions now support general feedback.
Fixed a bug that prevented incorrect question feedback from working.
Relaxed indentation requirements for quiz titles spanning multiple lines. Indentation for wrapped lines must now be at least 2 spaces or 1 tab, rather than being equivalent to that of the first character in the title.
Fixed a bug that allowed trailing whitespace to cause incorrect indentation calculations, resulting in indentation errors in valid quizzes.

Added support for images, using standard Markdown syntax.
Added support for multi-paragraph descriptions, questions, choices, and feedback.
Added support for essay questions.
Added support for numerical questions.
Added support for question groups. A subset of the questions in a group is chosen at random when a quiz is taken.
Added support for executable code blocks. These can be used to generate questions automatically. This feature requires the command-line flag --run-code-blocks or setting run_code_blocks = true in the config file.
Quiz titles are now processed as plain text, rather than as Markdown, because QTI does not support HTML titles.
Fixed a bug that prevented source file names from appearing in error messages. Fixed misspelling of "imsmanifest.xml" in QTI output.