New: A redesigned hand-in flow

[bmesuere]

Submitting a solution is the most-used action on Dodona, and the panel where you do it has been redesigned. Instead of the old three tabs (Submit, Submissions and Feedback) and the floating submit button, there is now a single hand-in panel that takes you from writing code, through judging, to reading your feedback and resubmitting, without leaving the page. The new flow is now enabled for all users.

Why we changed this

The old exercise page split handing in across three tabs: you wrote code in one, your list of submissions lived in another, and feedback opened in a third. After every submission the page jumped between them, and the round submit button floating in the corner was easy to miss. We wanted handing in to stay the primary action, with your previous submissions and their results within reach, and something sensible on screen while the judge is working.

How it works

The code editor is now always visible. Write or paste your solution and click Submit in the bottom corner of the panel; the bar next to it reminds you that you can submit as many times as you like and that only your latest submission counts. For Python exercises, the To sandbox button next to it opens your code in the sandbox, where you can run and debug it in the browser before submitting.

While the judge evaluates your code, the submit button itself shows the progress. As soon as the result is in, the feedback appears in the same panel, in place of the editor, with a bar on top showing the verdict, a short summary and when you submitted.

From the feedback you can go straight back to improving your code: Edit this submission (or Edit & resubmit at the bottom) loads the code of the submission you are viewing back into the editor. If you still had unsubmitted changes in the editor, Back to editor returns to them untouched.

Your earlier attempts are one click away: the button in the top right corner of the panel shows how many submissions you have made and opens your submission history, with the status and result summary of each attempt. Click one to view its feedback in place.

When you return to an exercise you have submitted for before, the editor already contains your latest submission, with a message above it saying so. Prefer a clean start? The button next to the message restores the exercise's initial code, or empties the editor if the exercise has none.

Finally, deadlines are harder to miss: when the deadline of the exercise series is less than five minutes away, an alert with the exact deadline appears above the editor, and once it has passed, the alert warns you that new submissions may no longer be taken into account.

The student guide has been updated to describe the new flow, in English and Dutch.

As always, let us know what you think! Feedback, bug reports and ideas for improvement are all welcome.