What is the purpose of this editor?

This is an editor for an exchange format for programming exercises which is supported by a variety of tools from different universities. The format is documented at this GitHub site. Because different tools implement the format in different manners, not everything that is supported by this editor actually works in every tool.

What do the messages in red underneath the submit buttons mean?/ Why is no output produced?

These are error messages. They are generated when form elements are missing or when an XML file is read that contains missing information or incorrect tags.

How do I reload/start a new task?

In some browsers it is sufficient to reload the page of the editor. In Firefox one needs to use shift reload to empty the form content.

How do I give a code template to the students?

See the explanation for file/class below.

How do I specify a path for a file to be uploaded?

The filename can contain a relative path (in Unix notation using backslashes).

How do I check static details about the code? How do I prohibit students from using (or require them to use) a construct?

Checkstyle can be used. It is quite powerful and supports regular expressions. Examples can be found here.

I have a question about model solutions:

At least one model solution must be provided. It should be uploaded as a file. The reason for requiring a model solution is because it makes it easier to reuse a task at a later point. Some tools use the model solution for comparison with the students' submissions. (If it is really not feasible to upload a model solution in exceptional circumstances then an empty file could be provided instead.) If the students create their submission via a textarea, then the filename of the model solution is used as the filename of the student-submitted code.

Does the order of the tests matter? Why does my JUnit test/SetlX syntax test not work?

The order of the tests does matter. The order can be changed by clicking on a test and moving it up or down. A compile test/syntax test should come before any other tests, i.e. be moved to the top of the list.

There appears to be a crash when I try to test a task. ("The Checker caused an unexpected internal error.")

Please check whether all required fields of the editor have been filled in. If there is an error message showing when pressing 'save zip', the error needs to be fixed. A 'Schemas validity error' usually means that some required fields have not been filled in. It is recommended to run and test all tests in an IDE before using them in the editor. German umlauts can pose a problem (even in comments) because of incompatible encodings. The characters <, >, & may need to be presented as <, >, &. If it still crashes even though everything seems fine, please contact us at the address at the bottom of this page. Please send us a copy of the task zip file that causes the problem.

What about versions?

The select menus show which software versions are supported by the backend software.
The exchange format itself is versioned as well. The editor reads xml files in different versions (version 2.0 and 1.0.1).

What has not yet been implemented/does not work?

Export zip: only works in some browsers (such as Firefox and Chrome).
Reading files with the same filename one after the other: this does not work in some browsers. Some browsers will not reload if the file has the same name as the one before. Refreshing the browser solves this problem.
There must be at least one model solution and one test. (Without a test there is no reason to use this editor. The existence of a model solution is required by the exchange format which is implemented by this editor.)
Special characters (such as German umlauts) may not work properly in all fields. It may depend on the encoding of the characters that is used. For example, they might not work in JUnit tests, not even in comments.

Can I install and configure the editor myself?

Look at config.js to change configuration settings. You can remove/add tests or add support for other programming languages. There is more information about installation and configuration. The current version of the editor can be found on GitHub.

My question has not been answered/I found a bug:

Please send us an email: zell-proforma@ostfalia.de