Lesson Planner for Mac manual:

New features in version 1.3

  • Color tags: mark students and their lessons with colors
  • Duplicate entire schools
  • Much faster timetable computation
  • UI improvements

Please send bug reports and questions to: support@lessonplanner.ch

School Column

The School Column is where you manage the schools you're teaching at. Here you can do the following:

Add new schools to Lesson Planner

To add a new school to Lesson Planner do the following:

  • Tap the '+' button in the lower left corner or choose Schools > Add New School... and enter the school name in the following popup box.

Edit your schools

To delete, rename or copy a school, select it and do one of the following:

  • Delete: click the 'delete' button in the lower right corner of the school column or choose Schools > Delete Selected School
  • Rename: choose Schools > Rename School...
  • Duplicate: choose Schools > Duplicate School...

Hide / Show the school column

You can hide / show the school column by clicking the arrow button above the School Column or by choosing View > Hide Schools (or press alt+cmd+S).

People View

The People View is where you add the students and their spare time to Lesson Planner.
To compute a timetable enter your desired teaching time and the free time frames of your students. You can see a red dot next to the student's name if you and the student have not enough overlapping spare time.

Add students to Lesson Planner

To add your students to Lesson Planner do one of the following:

  • Add students manually: tap the 'add' button above the People List or choose People > Add (or press cmd+N). Enter the student's name in the following dialog box with the keyboard.
  • Import from contacts: tap the 'import' button above the People List or choose People > Import (or press cmd+I).

Enter your desired teaching time frame

Select 'Me' in the People List and enter your desired teaching time frames on the right side.

  • Enter new: to enter a new free time do one of the following:
    • Click and drag from start to end time or vice versa. Adapt start or end time as shown below.
    • Double-click and enter the times with the keyboard. Adapt start or end time as shown below.

    Double-click inside the corresponding day to enter the free time with the keyboard. Press ⇥ to move the focus.

    To adjust the start / end time move your cursor to the border of the free time frame. As soon as the curser changes its appearance as shown above, you can click and drag to change the time.
  • Delete: to delete a free time do one of the following:
    • Select one or more free times (extend the selection with shift-click) and press ←
    • Right-click / ctr-click the time entry you'd like to delete. Select 'delete' in the context menu.

Enter the free time frames of the students

Select each student in the People List and do one of the following:

  • Enter new: to enter a new free time do one of the following:
    • Click and drag from start to end time or vice versa. Adapt start or end time as shown above.
    • Double-click and enter the times with the keyboard. Adapt start or end time as shown above.
  • Copy: if some students have the same schedule, you can copy their free times to the clipboard and paste it to other students: select one or more free times (extend the selection with shift-click). Choose Edit > Copy (or press cmd+C). Then select a different student and Choose Edit > Paste (or press cmd+V).
  • Delete: to delete a free time do one of the following:
    • Select one or more free times (extend the selection with shift-click) and press ←
    • Right-click / ctr-click the time entry you'd like to delete. Select 'delete' in the context menu.

Select the lesson duration

Choose the appropriate lesson duration for each student in the Lesson Duration Bar. In case your desired lesson duration is not visible, you can change it as shown below.


Click on the appropriate lesson duration for the student...

or change it by ctrl-click / right-click on a lesson duration. This will open a context menu, where you can change the shown duration.

Change colors

To group or differentiate the students select the color. Also you can change the color of the lessons in the timetable tab.

ctrl-click / right-click a student and change the color in the context menu.

Delete students

To delete students do one of the following:

  • Select the student and click the 'remove' button above the People List.
  • ctrl-click / right-click a student and select 'delete' in the context menu.
  • Select the student and choose People > Delete [Student Name] (or press cmd+←).

Timetable View

The Timetable View is where you compute, edit and export the timetable for the current school. Before computing a new timetable, you have to enter the corresponding times in the People View.

Compute new timetable

To compute a new timetable do the following steps:

  • Click 'compute' in the upper right corner of the Timetable View.
  • Choose the appropriate settings in the Settings Window.
    • Select after how many students you'd like to have a break. If you don't need additional breaks select '-'
    • Choose the length of the breaks.
    • Decide if you want to search only for the best solution (the most compact one) or not. By selecting 'only search for the best solution' Lesson Planner will display only one timetable.
  • Click 'compute' in the Settings Window. Lesson Planner will now compute the timetable and show you the progress. Depending on the complexity the computation can take quite a while.

    • The progress bars tell you the following:

    • lesson alignment: this progress bar shows you how good lessons are aligned (fewer unwanted breaks in between is better).
    • overall compactness: this progress bar shows how compact the whole timetable is (earlier ending is better).

  • Depending on your setting and free time combination Lesson Planner will compute one or more timetables. Select the best one. You can still edit it later.

tips for getting the best result:

  • Lesson Planner searches for the most compact timetables. Also it prefers to start as early as possible. In case you get unwanted breaks at the beginning of a day, reduce your available teaching time at the start of this day and compute the timetable again.
  • The more free times you enter, the longer it takes to compute a timetable.

Edit the timetable

You can move a student's lessons to a new time as long as it's inside his free time. Swap lessons by dragging one over the other. Lesson Planner will show you what's possible.

  • Change lesson times:

Click and drag the lesson, you'd like to move. (e.g. Appleseed)

Lessons you can swap will remain colored. (e.g. Appleseed can swap with Higgins, but you can not move Appleseed to Bell or Haro's time)

Move the lesson to the desired position. (e.g. change Appleseed with Higgins)
  • Change lesson color: click the desired lesson and change the color in the context menu.

Export the timetable

To export your timetable into a new or existing calendar on your Mac do the following steps:

  • Click 'export' in the upper right corner of the Timetable View.
  • In the following popup window choose a start and end date and do one of the following:
    • Existing: chose the calendar you'd like to export into
    • New: scroll down and choose 'Export into new Calendar...'
  • Click 'Ok'

Attendance List View

The Attendance List View is where you keep track of your students' attendance.

Enter new attendance entry

Just click at the desired position in the grid and select the appropriate entry in the context menu.

tip: to change the sorting of the attendance list and how many weeks are shown choose Attendance List > Sorting resp. Attendance List > Number Of Weeks

Journal View

The Journal View is where you enter tasks for students and notes for each lesson. Tasks will appear in every new journal entry until you mark them as completed.

Add new journal entry

Select the desired student and click the 'new entry' tab on the upper right side.

Edit journal

Select the desired student and journal entry and do one of the following:

  • New task: click the 'new task' button and enter the task with the keyboard.
  • Delete task: click the 'X' button on the right side of the corresponding task.
  • Mark task as completed: click the square on the left side of the corresponding task.
  • Add notes: click somewhere into the notes field and enter the note with the keyboard.

Delete latest journal

Select the desired student and tap the trash bin icon. Independent of the selected journal entry, it will always delete the latest journal of the selected student.