Notification for unit changed

[TheCodingMathematician]

It would be very helpful if there was a notification (on the OTIS website, by email, or by Discord) for when a unit you have active is changed. For example, I've been working on BAY Alg Manip, and the version I printed out is different from the version that I used to create the Overleaf doc a little after I started, which is different from the current version on the OTIS website. I found it extremely annoying - yesterday, I did a problem from the Overleaf doc that wasn't on the unit when I started it, and then I discovered it had been removed when going through and working on a spreadsheet of my problems done in active units.

Is there a fairly simple way to implement this? I am not that experienced with Python so could probably not (and I don't know where the unit changelog comes from other than OTIS Overlord in Discord).

[vEnhance]

So I should clarify you're not expected to constantly check for unit updates. You can just submit for the version of the unit corresponding to when you downloaded it.

(It has to be this way because everyone is always working on different things, it's not a synchronous course. If I had to wait until no one was working on a unit to update it, then the units would never change.)

Right now #unit-changelog in Discord is just posting updates from the private Git repo where the contents of the OTIS handouts are stored. That's sort of the "if you really care, read this Discord channel" solution.

If you want a better notification system, we'd need to work out a spec first for what that would look like. For example, I'm personally reluctant to clutter OTIS-WEB with even more announcements of stuff, and would need some convincing that it'd be worth adding onto the main dashboard. (Email is probably not going to work operationally because of send limits and the like.)

[chessisdabest]

Maybe if the unit was changed within the last (insert time period) the unit has a random icon next to it(only when you have unlocked that unit), and theres a button to view version history

[Genius3435]

Version history would probably (?) be complicated to implement, but possibly just having a dot on the left of units that were recently updated (with that dot going away once a pdf was downloaded) would probably be better.

[vEnhance]

Version history would probably (?) be complicated to implement

I agree version history feels unfeasible.

possibly just having a dot on the left of units that were recently updated (with that dot going away once a pdf was downloaded) would probably be better.

I'd consider this but my initial concerns are that

1. I think such a dot would be super distracting and would make it so people feel compelled to continuously check OTIS-WEB to see if any of the units have dots. This feels like a waste of headspace.
2. And there would be a lot of dots. If you see how often #unit-changelog gets a post, that's how you know.
3. This would require me to create a database table mapping (last download, user) -> timestamp. That's a large number of database entries and accompanying code complexity for a feature this small.

Finally, I remain still unconvinced that this "feature" is even useful rather than distracting. I think people should just download the LaTeX template and unit PDF when they start, and then submit for whichever version of the unit they initially downloaded once they're done. There's no reason to insist people must work on the latest version of the unit.

[Genius3435]

Those are all fair reasons, I agree with them.

I think people should just download the LaTeX template and unit PDF when they start, and then submit for whichever version of the unit they initially downloaded once they're done. There's no reason to insist people must work on the latest version of the unit.

Could this be written somewhere in the syllabus?

[vEnhance]

Could this be written somewhere in the syllabus?

Seems reasonable, I'll make a note.

[chessisdabest]

So in the discord occasionaly we get a thing for each unit saying that some problems have been added/removed. If theres something else which posts it in a channel without people messaging in it, or a specific place on the otis dashboard, then its almost the same as having version history.