Simpl for Windows — Windows 11 look, preview (v281)

What's new in 0.3.51 (beta)

• Crash log — the developer tools have a Crashes page: a run of Simpl that goes down, or ends without quitting, is kept the next time it opens, with what stopped it, Windows' own report of it and the last of simpl.log; Copy, Save, Delete and Crash now… (to try it).

What's new in 0.3.50 (beta)

• Submit as ZIP — with two or more files in Hand In, a Submit as ZIP button sits beside Submit (the "Send as one .zip" box is gone): Submit hands them in as they are, Submit as ZIP as one .zip named after the assignment. A file the assignment takes only zipped is handed in with Submit as ZIP.

What's new in 0.3.49 (beta)

• Hand in as a .zip — Hand In takes a folder (Choose folder…, or drop one) and sends it as a .zip of it, and two or more files can go as one .zip ("Send as one .zip"); where an assignment takes .zip files, any file can go zipped.

What's new in 0.3.48 (beta)

• A tidier skyline — each course's tower on the Dashboard shows at most four windows across; what doesn't fit is hidden instead of squeezed in smaller.

What's new in 0.3.47 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, Browser on top — the Browser button is now in the popup's top bar, left of your tools, as in Knewton Alta (it was in the left rail).

What's new in 0.3.46 (beta)

• The real logo — the app, taskbar and installer icons are now drawn from the official logo artwork itself.

What's new in 0.3.45 (beta)

• A new look — Simpl has a new icon: a bold white S with a blue dot on a black tile, on the app, the taskbar and the installer.

What's new in 0.3.44 (beta)

• Instant search — results from your school (assignments, announcements, pages, discussions, files and people) now show under the search box as you type, before you press Enter.

What's new in 0.3.43 (beta)

• Knewton Alta, graphs show — a question with a Desmos graph (like "Consider the graph of f′(x) below") showed a blank box; the graph now shows, drawn small, and opens large when you click it.

What's new in 0.3.42 (beta)

• Knewton Alta, a sun and moon switch — the sun and moon are now inside the Light/Dark switch: the knob slides to the side you pick and carries its icon.

What's new in 0.3.41 (beta)

• Knewton Alta, controls on top — Light and Dark are now one switch, and it sits with Browser in the popup's top bar, left of your tools, instead of above the objectives.

What's new in 0.3.40 (beta)

• Windows Hello, far less often — once your face, fingerprint or PIN has opened your saved sign-in, Simpl doesn't ask again for 30 days. It asks sooner only if you sign in anew, forget the sign-in, your school stops taking the password, or you lock it again in Settings.
• Setup: pick your courses — the first setup starts with no courses ticked, so you choose the ones you're taking instead of unticking old ones.

What's new in 0.3.39 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, the math keyboard — on a question answered with an expression (θ = arctan…), Macmillan's math keyboard now sits under the answer field instead of on top of it, and the question below moves down to make room.
• Macmillan Learning, the final score — once an assignment is finished, Macmillan shows its final score as a percentage instead of points; that score is now read and shown instead of a dash.

What's new in 0.3.38 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, pictures on a narrower window — a question's picture is a smaller preview on a narrower window, and measured as drawn so it never runs past the right edge, whatever width Macmillan draws it at.

What's new in 0.3.37 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, pictures and units — a number's unit sits right beside its field, the whole question is drawn a little smaller so more of it fits, and a picture shows smaller with a ⤢ badge: click it to see it full size (click or press Escape to close).

What's new in 0.3.36 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, diagrams and widgets — a question with a picture keeps the picture on the right and the question with its answers down the left, whatever layout Macmillan gives it; parts that draw themselves (a labelling with its answer bank, a graph) stay readable in dark on a white plate and scroll in place instead of being cut off; nothing of the page runs past the right edge.

What's new in 0.3.35 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, polished — the whole question sits on one panel; Macmillan's Solved bar is replaced by the same Correct or Incorrect pill Knewton Alta shows, and each answer's own Correct is easy to read in dark too; questions that put each prompt beside its answer are one readable column (the answers no longer run off the edge); a number's answer is a field-sized box and its ×10ʸ tools menu matches the app; the words use the app's font; Switch to new layout is gone.

What's new in 0.3.34 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, laid on the window — the question fills the popup's width (no more scroll bar along the foot), a two-column question keeps its diagram on the right (one column when the popup is narrow), the page sits on the popup's own ground with each part on a card, and it follows the app's light or dark look.

What's new in 0.3.33 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, fixed on the real assignment — the assessment now takes the whole window (Macmillan's own Assessment bar put away), the list of questions, how many are done and the grading settings fill in even when Macmillan's side menu was left folded, and nothing of Macmillan's inner frames stands in for the question.

What's new in 0.3.32 (beta)

• Macmillan Learning, redesigned — a Macmillan assessment opens as a Knewton Alta one does: its cover as a start screen (its questions, when it is due, its grading settings, Open assignment); then the score and how many questions are done down the left, every question as a tile you can open (the one shown filled, a solved one ticked, one tried and not yet right in orange), and the grading settings; Macmillan's own question in the rest, its parts on cards; and along its foot the arrows, Question or My answer, Resources, AI Tutor, Solution, Switch to new layout and Submit answer or Next question. Show browser puts Macmillan's page back as it draws it.

What's new in 0.3.31 (beta)

• Appearance, on the window itself — the account menu's Appearance… shows the Dashboard and darkens the window but for the navigation pane and the Dashboard's cards, each with a photo button (upload a photo, pick a drawing, zoom it, put it back, remove it); a bar rises at the foot for light or dark, the themes, the accent colour, and each course's colour (Canvas's palette or any colour, saved to your school as your own colour for the course). Done or Escape puts it away. Settings no longer has an Appearance page.

What's new in 0.3.30 (beta)

• The Calculator is GeoGebra — the Calculator opens GeoGebra's own Calculator Suite (graphing, geometry, 3D, CAS, probability and the scientific calculator), loaded from geogebra.org, in a window narrower than Simpl's; its pin is GeoGebra's scientific calculator. It needs the internet: without it, a note and Try again.

What's new in 0.3.29 (beta)

• A calculator that solves, step by step — the Calculator is now a solver, as Mathway works: type a problem (or build it on the maths keypad — Basic, Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus) and send it; it is read back as maths, then offered the ways it can be worked — solve for x, simplify, factor, expand, the derivative, the integral, a limit, graph — and the one picked is worked out with its answer exact and as a decimal, every step of the working, and its graph. It solves linear, quadratic and polynomial equations, ones with fractions, roots, powers, logarithms, absolute values and trig, inequalities and systems; differentiates with every rule named; integrates by the table, substitution, parts and partial fractions (a definite integral exactly, or as a number); and finds limits by substitution, L'Hôpital and at infinity. The pin's is the same, narrow, and carries what was typed to the whole calculator.

What's new in 0.3.28 (beta)

• Element at a glance — pressing an element in the Periodic Table (the whole tool, or its pin) opens a small window beside it: the element's square, name, kind, electrons, state, electronegativity, density, melting and boiling points, valence electrons and a line about it, with ← and → for its neighbours, and Full page or Atom in 3D to go on.
• Easier-to-read colours — the words on the table's coloured squares are near-black where white would not read (the yellows, the pale greens of a scale), the squares are solid, and a kind written in its own colour is deepened by day and lightened by night until it reads.
• Precise atomic masses — every atomic mass in the Periodic Table as precisely as it is known, every digit: the CIAAW's standard atomic weight where an element has one value (sodium 22.98976928 u), the most precise single value published where its isotopes vary (carbon 12.0107 u); an element with no stable isotope keeps its longest-lived one's mass number in brackets.

What's new in 0.3.27 (beta)

• Developer tools — hidden until you click Settings ▸ About ▸ Version seven times (or press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D): a Developer window with the logs as they are written (search, problems only, follow, copy, save, clear), system use (Simpl's and WebView2's processor and memory over the last two minutes, threads, handles, .NET's heap, stalls, disk), stats for every call into the page (count, failed, mean, middle, 95th, longest), a call console, updates and every preference. Knewton Alta's and Macmillan Learning's popups get Save Page Code.
• Critical updates sooner — Simpl looks for a critical update every minute instead of every five (asking the site only whether its small feed changed; every five minutes still on a metered connection).

What's new in 0.3.26 (beta)

• Front page first — a course's home leads with its front page, in the wide column, with its latest announcements (three at most, a line each) just above it; with no front page, the announcements take its place. The work still to do moves to the narrow column beside it.
• Every link a button — a course's tools and other links are buttons beside its sections, instead of a More list.
• Course up top — choosing a course in the side pane brings it to the top of the pane, its sections opening under it.

What's new in 0.3.25 (beta)

• Alta Even Faster — for an account that uses Knewton Alta, the popup's page is made ready ahead, at a quiet moment, so an assignment opens without waiting for it to be made; and Alta's page script does much less while Alta draws and while you work — it looks again only when something on the page has changed, rather than several times a second — so Alta uses less battery.

What's new in 0.3.24 (beta)

• Tools open straight away — some tools (Smartwork among them) can't be opened by Canvas's one-time launch, so Open Tool showed Canvas's own page for the tool with a "Load … in a new window" button. Simpl now presses on with that launch itself, in the same window, so the tool opens without the extra click.

What's new in 0.3.23 (beta)

• Files open again — a file linked in an assignment's instructions (or in an announcement, a discussion or a page) now opens the way a module's file does: Simpl asks your school for that file by its id and opens it under its real name, rather than fetching an address made from the link, which at some schools gave nothing or a file named "download"; when the school will not say, the link's own key is kept on the address it fetches.
• Alta's maths drawn whole — between questions, Simpl no longer hides Alta's next question so completely that its answer box measures its brackets and root signs at zero size; they now show right away, with no need to switch to Light and back to Dark. A question whose page changes without Simpl noticing is now shown anyway, and if a question is ever still out of sight after a while, Simpl shows Alta's page as it is.

What's new in 0.3.22 (beta)

• Critical updates — Simpl now looks for a critical update every five minutes while it runs (and as the PC wakes from sleep), not only once an hour, so one reaches you within minutes; the look reads one small file from simplcourses.com rather than asking GitHub, so it never uses up a shared school network's allowance of GitHub requests, shows nothing unless a critical update is found, and other updates still come with the hourly look.

What's new in 0.3.21 (beta)

• Faster Alta — a Knewton Alta assignment opens noticeably faster: its launch is asked of your school at once, while the popup and its page are still being made (before, only once they were ready), its due date comes from the screen you opened it from instead of a second request, and its question shows as soon as it has finished drawing — its answer box and its maths in, then a tenth of a second still, where it waited 350 ms — however much the rest of Alta's page is still moving.

What's new in 0.3.20 (beta)

• Alta verdict — Correct or Incorrect beside Continue shows only once Alta has said so in its own words; 0.3.19 could show Correct on a question not yet answered.

What's new in 0.3.19 (beta)

• Alta verdict — when Knewton Alta says a question was right or wrong, the popup shows Correct (green) or Incorrect (red) beside its own buttons, until the next question.

What's new in 0.3.18 (beta)

• Larger Alta graphs — a graph in what a question asks is drawn twice as large as before (up to 600 × 440 instead of 300 × 220); Enlarge beside it still opens it large.

What's new in 0.3.17 (beta)

• Module files open — a file in a module opens as one from the Files screen does (by the file's own record, in the preview), where before the module's own address was fetched and could come back with nothing.
• Rubric ring — one band of colour, without the dark seams between criteria; and on an open criterion each level sits beside the bar at the height of its points, moved only where two would overlap.

What's new in 0.3.16 (beta)

• Study planner order — when two pieces of work share a deadline day (finishing a day early put one due tonight and one due tomorrow night on the same day), the one due sooner now takes the day's first blocks; before, the heavier one took the whole day and the one due tonight was said not to fit.

What's new in 0.3.15 (beta)

• Verb conjugations — a new Study tool: type a verb in Spanish, French, German, Italian or Portuguese and every main tense is laid out with its pronouns — regular verbs by rule, the most common irregular ones from a table, stem and spelling changes included — with a switch that tints the irregular forms, suggestions as you type, and Copy for a table; /verbs in the search box, and the present tense as a pin.

What's new in 0.3.14 (beta)

• Circuit Builder — the Physics section's third tool: place batteries, resistors, wires, switches, lamps, meters and a ground on a grid, join their terminals, and the circuit is solved as you build it — current arrows, lamps lit by their power, every part's V, I and P in a readout, and plain words when it can't be solved; quick builds (series, parallel, a voltage divider), save and load, Export PNG, and an Ohm's law and series/parallel strip; /circuit in the search box, and the strip as a pin.

What's new in 0.3.13 (beta)

• Solutions & pH — a new Chemistry tool with four tabs: Molarity (any two of amount, volume and molarity give the third, with mass % and ppm), Dilution (M1V1 = M2V2, "How much stock?"), pH (any one of pH, pOH, [H⁺] and [OH⁻] gives the others; strong and weak acids and bases from a concentration, the weak ones solved exactly with the % ionized, on a 0–14 colour strip) and Titration (the equivalence volume, the pH at the start, half-way, at equivalence and after, the curve drawn, and a Henderson–Hasselbalch buffer); /ph in the search box, and a pin.

What's new in 0.3.12 (beta)

• Molar Mass & Stoichiometry — a new Chemistry tool with four tabs: Molar mass (a formula's mass with each element's count, mass and percent), Convert (grams, moles, molecules and litres at STP from any one), Reaction (a balanced equation with what you have of each reactant gives the limiting reagent, every product's yield, what is left over and the percent yield) and Empirical (mass percents to an empirical and molecular formula); /moles in the search box, and a pin.
• Gas Laws — a new Chemistry tool: PV = nRT with units for each field, leave one blank and it is solved; the combined law with Boyle, Charles and Gay-Lussac chips; a piston drawing that follows the volume, the amount and the temperature; /gas in the search box, and a pin.

What's new in 0.3.11 (beta)

• Compress files — a new Files tool: drop in pictures and PDFs and they are made small enough to upload — Max quality, Balanced, Smallest or Fit under a size in MB — saved to Downloads as <name>-smaller, never over the original, with a before-and-after table and a preview; /compress in the search box, and a pin.
• Study planner — a new Study tool: the work due in the next six weeks shared out as study blocks over the days before each is due, weighted by points and kind (an exam most), with your hours per weekday, block length and preferred time of day; a week view and a list, blocks marked done, Regenerate, and Add to Calendar as an .ics file; /plan in the search box, and today's blocks as a pin.

What's new in 0.3.10 (beta)

• Word counter — a new Study tool: paste or type an essay and it is counted as it changes — words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, reading and speaking time, the longest word, a word target with "to go" and the ten words used most; /words in the search box, and a pin.
• Statistics — a new Math & science tool with four pages: Describe (mean, median, modes, quartiles, SD and variance, outliers, a histogram and a box plot), Regression (slope, intercept, r and r², a scatter with the line, predict y), Distributions (normal and t, with the curve shaded) and Tests (one-sample, two-sample and paired t-tests with a 95 % interval); /stats in the search box, and a pin.
• Matrix calculator — a new Math & science tool: A and B up to 6×6, with A + B, A − B, A × B, kA, the transpose, determinant, inverse, rank, RREF with its steps, trace, A·x = b, eigenvalues (real and complex) and Aⁿ, as exact fractions when the cells are; /matrix in the search box, and a pin.

What's new in 0.3.9 (beta)

• Physics — a new section on the Tools page, between Chemistry and Biology.
• Kinematics & Projectiles — 1D motion: fill any three of Δx, v₀, v, a and t and the other two are solved, with the equation used and position and velocity graphs; projectiles: speed, angle and height give the time of flight, range, highest point and the impact, drawn and animated, with the two angles that hit a target; /motion in the search box, and a pin.
• Vectors — up to six vectors by components or by magnitude and angle, in 2D or 3D: magnitudes, the resultant, dot and cross products, the angle between, unit vectors and projections, drawn; /vectors in the search box, and a pin.

What's new in 0.3.8 (beta)

• Equation balancer — a new Chemistry tool: type any chemical equation (phases, charges, brackets, hydrates) and it is balanced as you type, with each element's count on both sides, a mass check and plain words when it can't be balanced; /balance in the search box, and a pin.

What's new in 0.3.7 (beta)

• Always up to date — updates always install by themselves, at a quiet moment (never during a quiz, a tool or a dialog); the Install updates automatically switch is gone, and anyone who had it off gets updates by themselves again.
• Earlier versions stay — after you install an earlier version in Settings ▸ Updates ▸ Earlier versions, Simpl stays on it: the version you left doesn't come back by itself, a newer one does, and Update now installs the newest whenever you choose.

What's new in 0.3.6 (beta)

• Dark mode for Alta — a Light/Dark choice above the objectives in Knewton Alta's popup, remembered.
• Show browser — Knewton Alta's own page on the right, beside your objectives.
• Alta pop-ups in full — Alta's own pop-ups show their whole message: words, lists, formulas and pictures; one that can't be read is shown in Alta's page, never empty.

What's new in 0.3.5 (beta)

• Open pins full screen — the button at the top of a pinned tool's flyout opens the tool full screen (its popup across the window), not in a floating window.
• Pins keep your work — what you began in the flyout (a graph, numbers, a search) carries over to the full tool.

What's new in 0.3.4 (beta)

• Popups in the middle — What's New, Hand In, a new message and every other popup open in the middle of the window, not of the page beside the pane.

What's new in 0.3.3 (beta)

• Cleaner counter cards — the Dashboard's counter cards lose their coloured border; each keeps its own soft colour.

What's new in 0.3.2 (beta)

• Chemistry tools — the Periodic Table, Lewis Structures, Molecule Builder and Atoms & Orbitals, each its own tool in a new Chemistry section.
• Live updates — an open screen checks for new work every minute while Simpl is in view; course pages every 10 minutes.
• Dashboard cards — the counter cards grow into their lists again and fold back, are as tall as what is on them, and each wears its own colour.
• Wider tool popups — a tool opens across the whole window, over the pane; drag an edge to resize it, and it remembers the size.
• Only what changed — the Dashboard updates just the counters, cards and rows that changed, nothing else moves.
• Messages stay unread — a check never marks a message or reply read while you are away, and nothing is checked while the PC is locked.

What's new in 0.3.1

• More from Canvas — History, Help and your school's own tools in the sidebar.
• Beta updates — turn on Settings ▸ Updates ▸ Get beta updates to try new versions first; everyone else gets only the regular ones.
• Tools in popups — tools open over your work and never block the app (only a quiz does).
• Biology tools, fixed — controls and facts in sight at every window size, models full size, colours right from the start.
• Counters as before — square, coloured counters and the old counter panels and previews are back.
• Tools by provider — external tools grouped by their site (Macmillan Learning's links on one card), and their pages in light mode.

What's new in 0.3.0

• A biology toolkit — ten new tools, from a 3D cell to genetic crosses.
• Send from phone — scan a code to hand in photos; nothing leaves your Wi-Fi.
• Clearer screens — grades, dates and courses read one way everywhere.
• Updates on their own — new versions install themselves when you're not busy.
• Lighter and faster — much less memory when minimized; screens open 2–3x faster.
• Fewer PIN prompts — Windows Hello asks once, not every time.

Coming from 0.2.9 or earlier, update once from Settings ▸ Updates (Download, then Restart to Update); from 0.3.0 on, Simpl installs each new version by itself.

Download Simpl-Setup.exe and open it. It installs Simpl for you alone — no administrator needed — with a Start menu shortcut (and a desktop one if you tick it), then opens it. Simpl-Setup.exe is not code-signed yet: on "Windows protected your PC", choose More info → Run anyway. Once installed, Simpl updates itself — each new version downloads and goes in at a quiet moment, never over a quiz, a hand-in or a dialog (Settings ▸ Updates can turn that off, or put one in now with Restart to Update) — and you can uninstall it from Simpl's own Settings ▸ General ▸ Uninstall Simpl — where you can choose to erase your settings, grade history and saved sign-in too — or from Windows' Settings ▸ Apps, which keeps your settings and sign-in unless you erase them in Simpl first.

Simpl-Windows-x64.zip — the portable choice: unzip anywhere and run Simpl.exe (everything it needs is in the folder; it uses Microsoft Edge WebView2, which Windows 10 and 11 already have). The same "More info → Run anyway" applies.

Simpl for Windows, made again in Windows 11's look — an early preview. A test build for evaluation, not a release: the Mac app's updates and the first Windows preview's never offer it (this one's own Settings ▸ Updates offers the next Windows 11-look preview). The first Windows preview (windows-app-v…) stays available.

What is in it — the Mac app's screens and steps, in Windows 11's look:

• Windows 11's own look: Mica behind the window, rounded corners, the title bar with Back and snap layouts, Segoe UI Variable and Fluent icons, Windows 11's buttons, fields, toggles, cards and dialogs (the window dims behind each one), and Windows' motion;
• finding your school and signing in, as on the Mac: search for your school, see its sign-in page and confirm it, then sign in with Simpl's own card; "Logging you in", the note over a page you must finish yourself, Start Over, and "Stay logged in?" (kept in Windows' Credential Manager);
• the app laid out like Windows 11 Settings: the search box with its suggestions and commands (type / or press Ctrl+K), Dashboard, To Do, Calendar, Grades, Notifications, Inbox, Tools, your courses with their sections, your groups, and your account at the foot of the pane (Settings is in its menu); the page's title as a breadcrumb; Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+7 for the places;
• every screen drawn by Simpl: the Dashboard with its cards that open, To Do and New Task, the Calendar (month, week, list), Notifications, Grades with What-If, Inbox and New Message, Groups, All Courses, a course's home and every section, pages and files, an assignment with Hand In, its feedback and its rubric, Search, External Tools;
• a quick look at any piece of work: click a row and a card grows out of it; double-click to open it whole;
• quizzes, Knewton Alta and Macmillan in their own popups, as on the Mac;
• the tools: Citation generator, Focus timer, Calculator, Graphing calculator, the Periodic Table (with the electron cloud, the Lewis structure maker and the 3D molecule builder), Grade needed, File converter, Unit converter, Merge & split PDFs, PDF annotator, Image to text, Flashcards, and the biology tools (Cell Explorer, Gene Expression, Biomolecule Builder, DNA & RNA, Cell Division, Genetics Crosses, Hardy–Weinberg, Bio Lab Calculator, Enzyme Lab, Photosynthesis & Respiration) — each opens over the window, and any of them can be pinned to the title bar for its quick version;
• Settings laid out like Windows 11's Settings app, Guided Setup, What's New, the guided tour, themes and photos, reminders and new-activity alerts;
• an installer: Simpl-Setup.exe installs it for you alone, and updates it quietly by itself (or when you choose Restart to Update) — Simpl opens again on its own, where you were;
• on your taskbar: after the guided tour, Simpl asks once to be kept on the taskbar (and Settings ▸ General has Pin to taskbar… any time);
• runs in the background: closing the window keeps Simpl in the notification area (right-click its icon to quit);
• the window's size: it opens as you left it, never larger than your screen.