System to create examinations in LaTeX with permutations from a database of exercises and questions
To install simply run "make" and (as root) "make install". Adjustments in the makefile may be necessary (e.g. the INSTALLDIR variable may need to be changed).
To run a simple example, just enter the "example_simple" directory and enter the following command line: manyex -n -f desc-test
This will create the files "exam.tex", with the exams, "answer.tex" formatted answers, "mn-correct" with answer key and "mn-logfile" with a log of the operations performed.
A more complex example can be run from the example_normal directory. In this case almost all capabilities for normal LaTeX exam creation can be tested. See the test file description in "desc-test" and the master LaTeX file in that directory.
An example of web form creation can be found in example_web. Please check the files desc-test and master.sty in that subdirectory. To create the LaTeX web form exams give the following command: manyex -w -f desc-test
To create the html forms you need to download tth and filter the latex output through this program. If you want to actually use the forms you need access to a web server and knowledge on scripting to process the forms.
Error checking is quite limited for the exercise syntax. The syntax for exercises has to be rewritten completely to improve it, right now it works but syntax errors in the exercise definition produce unpredictable results. For instance commands in the execise files cannot have white space after the command and have to start at the beginning of the line. An error consisting of white space after a command in the exercise file is very difficult to debug, since the program reports an error at the end of the file.
Quite large strings are defined in vars.h. If compilation is succesful but the program fails to run most likely there is not enough memory to hold the strings. The size can be reduced in vars.h, making sure that no exercise exceeds these limits. String operation has to be rewritten, it works but the program is very inefficient.