Students’ Chord Library Now Shows Exactly the Right Chords

The Chords tab in a student’s Music Toolbox used to come up empty. It now fills itself with precisely the diagrams that matter: the chords used in the chord sheets assigned to that student.

• Their chords, not the whole catalogue: a beginner sees just the handful of chords from their own sheets — not every diagram their teacher has ever created.
• Matched to the instrument: a guitar sheet brings in guitar diagrams, a piano sheet piano diagrams — they never mix.
• All teachers combined: students with more than one teacher see the chords from all of their assigned sheets in one place, read-only.
• Parents too: the parent portal shows the same chord library the child sees.

Spidey-Sense — Automatic Alerts When a Student Goes Quiet

Exerzisor can now tap you on the shoulder when a student needs attention. A friendly built-in helper called Spidey 🕷️ keeps an eye on practice activity and sends teachers a chat message the moment a student drifts away — before weeks go by unnoticed.

• Gone-quiet alerts: when a student hasn’t practised for a set number of days, Spidey posts an alert into your chat — and follows up with a running day count if the silence continues.
• Practice-drop alerts: Spidey also warns you when a student’s weekly practice time falls well below their usual level, judged on the last completed week.
• Your admin sets the rules: the feature is off by default and enabled per organisation. Admins choose the thresholds and can either allow teachers to fine-tune them per student or lock them org-wide.
• One-way by design: Spidey’s messages arrive in the normal Chat tab of the Toolbox, clearly marked as system alerts — you can’t chat back, and students never see them.
• Available in English and German.

The Leaderboard Box Is Back for Every Student

After the new student dashboard launched, students who hadn’t joined the leaderboard had no way to find it — the Leaderboard box only appeared once you were already ranked. The box is now always there.

• Join in one tap: students who haven’t opted in see a Join Leaderboard button that takes them straight to the sign-up.
• Nothing changes for the ranked: opted-in students still see their rank and the top three, exactly as before.

Lesson Completion Stays in the Teacher’s Hands

A short-lived Mark as Complete button let students declare an entire lesson finished in one click — skipping the teacher’s confirmation. It has been removed, so lessons once again complete the proper way.

• How completion works: students mark each section as ready, the teacher confirms it — and when the last section is confirmed, the whole lesson completes automatically.
• Nothing else changes: completion dates, green check-marks, trophies, and dashboard badges all keep working exactly as before.

A New Student Dashboard — One Box for Everything

The student dashboard is now the home base. Instead of hunting through menus, students land on a clean, glanceable grid with a box for every part of Exerzisor — built mobile-first, because that’s where students are.

• A box for everything: Lessons, Courses, Trophies, Sheets, Games, and the Leaderboard each get their own tile with live counts and a one-tap way in, topped by the XP banner and personal greeting.
• A slimmer menu: since the boxes do the navigating, the student menu bar has been trimmed to the essentials — teacher, admin, and parent menus are untouched.
• Mark sections as ready from the full lesson page: the standalone lesson view now shows the same per-section Mark as Ready buttons as the dashboard timeline, and timeline cards gained an Open Full Page link.
• Truer leaderboard ranks: the rank shown on the dashboard and leaderboard page now matches the list itself, even when students are tied.

A Direct Trophies Link for Students

Students used to reach their trophies through a dropdown oddly labelled Teaching — with exactly one entry in it. They now get a plain Trophies link in the menu instead.

• One tap, no dropdown: the Trophies link sits directly in the menu bar, on desktop and mobile.
• Teachers and admins keep their full Teaching menu, unchanged.

The Chords Game Now Shows Your Own Chord Diagrams

In the Chords Practice Game, the chord diagram a student sees is now always your diagram from your Toolbox library. Previously a stored voicing could be skipped in favour of a generic built-in shape — so a student might see a different fingering than the one you taught them.

• Your fingerings win: if you have a diagram for a chord in your library, the game shows exactly that one — you no longer have to mark it as the “default” voicing for it to appear.
• No more surprise shapes: the game no longer falls back to a generic built-in diagram. If you haven’t added a diagram for a chord, it simply shows the chord symbol on its own.
• A helpful heads-up: while setting up a student’s game, a small note tells you which of their chords don’t have a diagram in your library yet, so you can add them in the Toolbox.

Messaging Moves into the Toolbox — and Parents Can Chat Too

Messaging is no longer a separate full-screen page. Teachers, students, and admins now open all their conversations straight from the floating Music Toolbox, and parents get their own messaging inside the parent portal — so everyone can stay in touch without leaving what they’re doing.

• Chat from the Toolbox: a new Chat tab in the Music Toolbox holds every conversation, with an unread badge on the Toolbox button so you never miss a message. New messages appear on their own, every few seconds, while you keep working.
• Parents can message the teacher: from the parent portal a parent can write to their child’s teacher and follow the child’s conversation with that teacher — the child’s side stays read-only, so nothing they wrote is ever changed or marked as read.
• Private by design: a parent only ever sees their own child’s conversation with that child’s current teacher — never other families, other students, or staff-only threads.
• Text messages for now: this first version is text-only; file attachments are coming in a later update.
• Admins can still turn messaging on or off per organisation from the admin console.

Students Can Now See Their Practice Day-Streak

Students can finally see their own day-streak right on their dashboard — a small flame chip next to the Leaderboard button showing how many days in a row they’ve practised. Until now this streak was only visible to teachers.

• At a glance: a flame chip in the dashboard banner shows the current run of consecutive practice days, nudging students to keep the habit going.
• Only when it counts: the chip stays hidden for brand-new students who don’t have a streak yet, so the dashboard stays clean.
• Fully translated: shows “day streak” in English and “Tage in Folge” in German.

A Personal Greeting on Your Dashboard

Everyone is now welcomed by name at the top of their dashboard, with a friendly “Good morning / afternoon / evening” that changes with the time of day.

• Time-aware: the greeting switches between morning, afternoon, and evening based on your own device’s clock.
• For everyone: teachers, students, parents, admins, and super admins all see the personalised greeting.
• Available in English and German.

Chords Practice Game — Moving-Chords Trainer

A new Toolbox game that turns chord changes into a fun, game-styled drill. Chords ride in on little trucks driving along a sunny highway, and the moment a chord reaches the centre line — on beat 1, in time with the metronome — that’s the student’s cue to play it. Teachers set it up per student, and any exercise can be shared with a public link.

• Play in time: a metronome counts the beat and each chord lands on the downbeat as its truck crosses the centre line — with a one-bar count-in so students start in tempo.
• Your chord pool, your tempo: pick the chords to drill, the tempo (BPM), the time signature (3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8…) and how many rest bars to leave between chords. Chords are drawn at random and never repeat twice in a row.
• See the shape, hear the chord: optionally show each chord’s diagram in a thought bubble above its truck, and optionally play the chord out loud when it hits the beat — for guitar, piano, ukulele, or bass.
• Counts as practice: time spent flows into each student’s statistics under the Games category, just like the other practice games.
• Share & embed — for free: send a public link (optionally password-protected) so anyone can open and play the exercise with no account, or embed it on your own site — just like sheets, chord sheets and fretboard diagrams.

Melodic Voice Leading: Practice Time Counts, Break Bars & a Next-Chord Preview

Three teacher-requested upgrades landed in the Melodic Voice Leading game shortly after its launch.

• Practice time counts: time a student spends playing the game now flows into their practice statistics under the Games category — only while they’re actively playing. Teacher previews and public share links don’t count anyone’s time.
• Break bars: teachers can insert up to four rest bars after each chord. The metronome keeps clicking so the student keeps time, but no notes sound — breathing room for slower chord changes.
• Next-chord preview: the upcoming chord is shown next to the current one, so the student always knows what’s coming — especially handy across a break.
• Available in English and German.

Cleaner, Roomier Tabs in the Toolbox & Lesson Library

The tab bars in the Music Toolbox and the lesson editor’s Library panel were getting crowded — with five tabs each, the labels no longer fit on narrower screens and some tabs could be cut off. They now use clear icons instead of text, so every tab always stays visible.

• Icon tabs everywhere: the Toolbox (Metronome, Tuner, Chords, Fretboard, Resources) and the Library (Sheets, Chords, Fretboards, Files, Studio) now show a recognisable symbol for each tab.
• Hover to see the name: point at any tab and its full title appears, so nothing is lost — and screen readers announce the name too.
• Always fits: all tabs stay on screen at every window size, on desktop and mobile.

Links in Lessons Are Now Clickable

When you type a web or email address into a lesson, it now turns into a real clickable link for everyone who reads it — students, parents, and you. Previously these addresses showed up as plain text that nobody could click.

• Automatic links: web addresses (https:// and www.) and email addresses (mailto:) typed into lesson content become clickable on their own — no extra formatting needed.
• Everywhere a lesson appears: the lesson page, the timeline card, the parent portal, and the lesson preview all show the links the same way.
• Safe by design: only standard web and email links are created, so lesson content stays secure.
• Existing internal wiki links keep working exactly as before.

Melodic Voice Leading — Arpeggio Connection Game

A new Toolbox game for practising smooth arpeggios across chord changes. Over a metronome and backing chords, students play one chord tone per beat up and down the neck; when the chord changes, the line moves to the nearest tone of the next chord instead of restarting on the root. Teachers configure it per student, and any exercise can be shared with a public link.

• Ready-made or custom progressions: Circle of Fourths/Fifths, ii–V–I, I–vi–ii–V, 12-bar blues, chromatic — or build your own chord-by-chord. Functional progressions use the correct chord qualities automatically.
• Set the box & feel: fret and string range, starting note, tempo, quarter or eighth notes, and bars per chord.
• Adjustable difficulty: show and play the notes for beginners, or hide them so students play from ear; optionally show the whole arpeggio shape with the played note glowing.
• Start on a random note so it never turns into rote memory.
• Share with anyone — no account needed: send a public link (optionally password-protected) or embed the exercise on your own website, just like sheets and chord sheets.

Fretboard Visualizer — Interactive Guitar Diagrams

A new tool in the Toolbox lets you build interactive guitar-neck diagrams: click frets to place notes, name a root, and every note instantly shows its interval, colour-coded so scale and chord shapes are easy to read. You can save them, drop them into lessons, and share them with anyone.

• Click to build, intervals automatic: place notes on the neck, choose a root, and each note is labelled and coloured by its interval (root, ♭3, 4, 5, ♭7…) with a live legend.
• Enharmonic spelling, your way: click a note to switch its spelling (for example ♭5 ↔ ♯4) or type a completely custom label — so a diagram reads the way you actually teach the chord or scale.
• Save as an image: store any diagram as a PNG in your File Manager with a friendly name.
• Attach to a lesson — and it stays interactive: students don't just see a picture; they can click around the live neck in the lesson to explore how the shapes work and watch the intervals change. Their exploring is private — it never edits your original and resets when they refresh.
• Share with anyone — no account needed: send a public link (optionally password-protected) so people outside Exerzisor can open the interactive diagram, or grab an embed snippet for your own website — the same way sheets and chord sheets work.
• Resizable & touch-friendly: size the board to the screen; works great on iPad.

Click a Bar in a Song with Repeats — and Land on the Right One

In sheet music that repeats a section (the 𝄆𝄇 repeat signs), clicking a bar after the repeat could jump the playback marker to the wrong place — for example, clicking bar 6 would land on bar 2. Now a click takes you to exactly the bar you tapped, every time.

• Right bar, every click: bars after a repeated section now seek correctly during synthesizer playback.
• No setup needed: works automatically on every sheet — songs without repeats are unaffected.

Practice Loops Now Snap to the Beat — Not Just Whole Bars

Until now, a practice loop in the sheet music player could only span whole bars. You can now drag across the exact notes you’re working on and get a loop that starts and ends right on the beat — just like the big dedicated practice tools.

• Drag across the notes: the selection snaps to beat boundaries, so you can loop “the second note to the fourth note” instead of the whole bar.
• Fine-tune with handles: grab either end of the loop and drag to resize it, beat by beat.
• No more accidental text selection: dragging across the score no longer highlights the page like a copy‑paste — on desktop, iPad, and iPhone alike.
• Works everywhere: beat-level loops play back with both the synthesizer and synced audio recordings, and classic whole-bar loops still work exactly as before.

Sight Reading Training, Leveled Up: Colour-Coded Notes & a Play-Along Button

The Sight Reading game grew from a quick drill into a proper practice tool. Exercises are longer, notes can be colour-coded, and students can now hear exactly how each one should sound.

• Longer exercises: every drill now spans four bars instead of two, so students read through a real musical phrase rather than a quick snippet.
• Colour-coded notes (optional): teachers can switch on Synthesia-style colours, where every note has its own hue — and the same note in a higher or lower octave gets its own shade. Patterns jump off the page for younger or newer readers. Off by default; teachers turn it on per student.
• Play along: a green Play button counts the student in, then plays the exercise note by note at the tempo you set, lighting up each note as it sounds — so they always know how it should go.
• Tap any note for help: tapping a note on the staff opens a panel with its name, octave, where to find it on the fretboard, and a “play this note” button — plus an always-on colour legend under the music.
• Set the pace: teachers choose each student’s practice tempo, so the play-along matches their level.

Sheet Music That Can’t Load Now Says So — Instead of Showing a Blank Page

Once in a while a sheet’s underlying music file can go missing behind the scenes. When that happened, the viewer simply showed a blank screen with no explanation. Now it displays a clear “This score is unavailable” message instead, so you immediately know it’s the sheet — not your connection — that needs attention.

A Much Better Sheet Music Player — Cleaner, Smoother, and Now You Can Sync the Audio Yourself

The sheet music player got a top-to-bottom upgrade focused on the things you do every day — reading, practising along, and (for teachers) lining the recording up with the notation.

• A calmer, less cluttered player: the controls that crowded the bar now live behind a single settings button — view (Score / Tab / Both / Chords), instruments, chord names & diagrams, and video are tucked into a tidy panel, so the music gets the space.
• Zoom that finally feels right — especially on iPad: pinch‑to‑zoom is smooth and never gets “stuck”, and the music stays put under your fingers instead of jumping back to the top. One‑finger scrolling keeps working as normal.
• Controls stay within reach: when a sheet has no audio, the play/pause bar now stays pinned as you scroll, so you can stop playback without scrolling back up. Playback itself glides more smoothly and respects your device’s “reduce motion” setting.
• Sync your own audio to the notation, right on the waveform (teachers): in Sync mode the waveform opens up and you can click to place a bar, drag a marker to fine‑tune its timing, nudge it, or delete it — no more guessing. Tap‑along on each beat still works too. Once it’s synced, the cursor follows the real recording as it plays.

Exerzisor Now Speaks German

The entire interface is now available in German, and it appears automatically — there’s no setting to change. If your browser or device is set to German, Exerzisor shows up in German; everyone else keeps seeing English.

• Automatic: the language follows your browser’s preferred language, so German-speaking students, parents, and teachers feel at home from the very first screen.
• Complete: menus, buttons, dashboards, and form messages are all translated — including the wording you see when a form needs fixing.
• More languages later: the groundwork is now in place to add further languages over time.

Student Levels & Progress Now Show Correctly

Some students were stuck showing Level 1 with a progress bar that looked permanently full and “0 XP to next level”, even after lots of practice. Their experience points were always counted correctly — only the level and progress were displayed wrong. Everyone’s level and progress bar now reflect their real XP, and existing students were corrected automatically.

New Game: Sight Reading Training — Built Right Into Exerzisor

Reading notes fluently is half the battle of learning an instrument — and the only way to get there is reps. The new Sight Reading game, found under the new Tools menu in the navigation bar, turns those reps into a game your students can play anytime.

• You decide who plays, and what: the game is off for every student until their teacher switches it on. In the configuration view you pick exactly which notes, strings, and rhythms each student gets — a beginner might see only open strings and whole notes, an advanced student the whole fretboard. A live preview shows what their exercises will look like.
• Endless fresh exercises: the student gets a randomized two-bar exercise rendered as real notation. Played it? Hit Next and a brand-new one appears — no two sessions are the same.
• Stuck on a note? The Help button reveals where each note lives on the fretboard, so the game teaches instead of frustrates.
• It counts as practice: time spent in the game flows into the student’s practice statistics under a new Games category — visible in the same charts and totals teachers already use. The timer pauses automatically after a minute of inactivity, so idle tabs don’t inflate anyone’s numbers.
• Room to grow: the Tools menu is built to host more games and trainers in the future — Sight Reading is the first resident.

The Leaderboard Goes Incognito: Game Names & Fantasy Avatars Protect Your Students

Most of our students are kids — and kids love a good leaderboard. What they (and their parents) don’t need is their real name and photo visible to every other student in the school. From today, the XP leaderboard is pseudonymous: students compete as Shadow Dragon, Silver Falcon, or Mystic Fox — never as themselves.

• Join with a game name: clicking “Join Leaderboard” now opens a friendly dialog where the student picks a game name (2–30 characters) and one of 24 fantasy avatars — wizards, dragons, foxes, rockets, guitars and more. Only that identity is ever shown to other students. Profile photos are gone from the board entirely.
• One name per school: game names are unique within your organization (capitalization doesn’t fool it), so nobody can impersonate a classmate’s alias.
• Leave and come back anytime: hiding from the leaderboard keeps the chosen name — re-joining is one click, no retyping. Editing the name later is just as easy.
• Teachers see the full picture: a new Leaderboard entry in the Teaching menu shows every participant with their real name right under the game name — so you always know who’s behind the dragon.
• Moderation built in: an inappropriate game name? One click on “Reset name” removes it and takes the student off the board until they re-join with a better one.
• A fresh start for everyone: students who joined the leaderboard before this update are taken off it once — they simply see the “Join Leaderboard” button again and pick their new secret identity. Nothing else changes; XP, levels, and trophies all stay exactly as they were.

Award a Trophy Without Leaving the Lesson Editor

Your student just nailed the piece they’ve been fighting with for weeks — that’s a trophy moment, and it shouldn’t require leaving the lesson you’re writing. There’s now a trophy button right in the lesson editor header.

• One click, done: the button opens a small dialog with all of your school’s manually awardable trophies — click one and it’s awarded to the selected student instantly. You stay exactly where you were, mid-lesson.
• See what they already have: trophies the student has earned before show a little “awarded N×” badge, so you know whether this is their first or their fifth.
• Everything still counts: the student gets their XP and the usual notification, exactly as if you’d awarded it from the trophy library.

Editing a Trophy Now Rewards Everyone Who Already Qualifies

Until now, automatic trophies only looked backwards when they were first created. Lower the threshold of an existing trophy from 20 lessons to 10, and students who already had 15 lessons got… nothing. That’s fixed.

• Easier trophy = instant awards: lowering a threshold, reactivating a trophy, or switching it to automatic now immediately awards every student who already meets the criteria — no waiting for their next lesson.
• Never the other way around: raising a threshold or tweaking the title, points, or icon never takes a trophy away from anyone. Earned stays earned.
• A safety net for the past: awards that were missed before this fix have been healed retroactively, so every trophy cabinet is now complete.

Lesson Autosave, Rebuilt: One Clean Safety Net Instead of a Pile of Drafts

Autosave in the lesson editor has one job: if your browser crashes or your laptop dies mid-lesson, your work survives. It now does exactly that — and only that.

• One snapshot, not a draft graveyard: autosave keeps a single crash-recovery snapshot per teacher. Opening the editor, loading a template, and leaving again no longer mints empty drafts that clutter your lesson list.
• It saves when there’s something to save: the snapshot is taken once you’ve picked a student and actually written content — typed-then-deleted text doesn’t count.
• Recovery is one click: after a crash, the editor offers to restore the exact snapshot. Saving, publishing, or cancelling cleans it up automatically.
• And the gremlin is gone: we root-caused the bug where a brand-new draft could get stuck rejecting every subsequent autosave (the dreaded persistent “Autosave failed”). Failed saves now also retry gently in the background instead of hammering the server.

Open Files Right Inside the Lesson Preview

The Preview window on the Lessons page used to show attached files as a dead list — you could see them, but not open them, and lesson-level attachments didn’t appear at all. Now the preview behaves like the real lesson page.

• Every file is clickable: audio opens with the waveform player, videos play, PDFs and images display — all in a viewer stacked right on top of the preview.
• Lesson-level files included: attachments on the lesson itself (not just on its sections) now show up in their own Files block.
• Tidy keyboard flow: Escape closes the file first, then the preview — no surprises.

Multi-Page PDFs Now Show Every Page — Especially on iPad

On iPad, opening a multi-page PDF inside the app showed only the first page, with no way to scroll — a Safari quirk that desktop browsers happened to hide. We’ve replaced the built-in browser preview with a proper PDF viewer on every inline surface.

• All pages, everywhere: file previews, lessons, the student timeline, course content, and wiki pages all render the full document with smooth scrolling and a “Page x of y” indicator.
• Same on every device: iPad, phone, and desktop now show identical, complete PDFs.
• Download rules unchanged: students with download-restricted files can still view them, exactly as before.

Recent Lessons on the Teacher Dashboard: Readable at Last

The Recent Lessons card on the teacher dashboard showed a raw technical timestamp (2026-06-09T00:00:00.000000Z) and the student info was missing entirely. It now reads the way you’d say it: 09 Jun 2026 • John Smith and 2 others.

• Clean date: the same friendly format students already see on their dashboard.
• Who the lesson was for: one student shows their name; group lessons show “…and N others”.

New Trophy Type: Automatic Awards for Completed Sections

Until now, automatic trophies counted whole lessons — but most of the actual work happens one section at a time. Teachers can now create a trophy with the award type Automatic (Sections).

• Set a goal, let it run: “Award 50 points after 25 completed sections” — the trophy lands automatically the moment a teacher confirms the qualifying section. No manual bookkeeping.
• Only confirmed work counts: the counter uses sections a teacher has actually reviewed and confirmed — a student marking things done by themselves doesn’t inflate it.
• Fair from day one: creating the trophy retroactively awards every student who already passed the threshold.

Stuck Audio Conversions: Root Cause Fixed — Plus a Watchdog That Never Sleeps

Some of you hit uploads or audio transposes that sat on “converting” forever until we kicked the server. We found the real culprit — a background-worker incompatibility introduced by a dependency update that silently stopped all media processing while reporting everything as healthy — and fixed it for good.

• Conversions flow again: audio/video conversion and transpose jobs process reliably; the failure can’t recur from a routine update.
• A watchdog with trust issues: an independent monitor now checks the processing queue every minute — and deliberately ignores the worker’s own “I’m fine” status. If any job waits more than 5 minutes, we’re alerted immediately instead of finding out from you.

“Autosave Failed” No Longer Gets Stuck on a Stale Attachment

If a lesson draft referenced something that had quietly changed underneath it — say a colleague deleted a shared file while you were editing — every autosave from that moment on failed with “Autosave failed”, forever. Autosave is a background safety net, and it now acts like one.

• It saves what it can: instead of rejecting your entire draft over one stale reference, autosave quietly drops what no longer exists and keeps saving everything else.
• Manual save still speaks up: when you actually hit Save or Publish, real problems are still reported clearly — only the background saves became forgiving.
• Hardened against odd data: a malformed attachment reference (the other way this bug could strike) is dropped safely too, instead of poisoning the draft.

The Lesson Editor No Longer Logs You Out Mid-Lesson

The classic heartbreak: open the lesson editor, teach for an hour, type up your notes, hit Save — and land on the login page with your work gone. The editor was idle long enough for the session to expire. Not anymore.

• Your session stays warm: while the lesson editor is open, Exerzisor quietly keeps your login alive — even if the tab is in the background or your screen is locked. Open editor = no logout, period.
• A local safety copy, just in case: the editor also mirrors your unsaved work to your browser. If the session is ever cut short anyway (say, a server restart), the editor offers your unsaved changes back with a restore banner the next time you open it.
• Longer leash overall: the base session lifetime was raised as extra insurance.

The Lesson Editor Now Knows Who You’re Teaching Right Now

It’s Monday, 9:58. Emma’s lesson starts at 10:00 — same as every Monday. You open the lesson editor and… Emma is already waiting at the top. Right below her: John, whose lesson starts at 10:15. No scrolling through 60 names. No typing. No thinking. The two students you’re about to teach are simply there, under a little sparkle that says “Suggested now” — each with their usual time next to their name, like the editor checked your watch for you.

The first time it happens, it feels like the app read your mind. It didn’t — it just paid attention. Every lesson you publish quietly leaves a tiny trace: which weekday, around what time. A few weeks of normal teaching and a pattern forms all by itself: “Emma’s slot is Monday around 10:00.” From then on, whenever you open the editor, Exerzisor glances at the clock, compares it with everyone’s usual slot, and lifts the students whose lesson is happening right about now to the top — at most five, closest first. You never told it anyone’s schedule. You never will have to.

• It gets smarter every single week: each lesson at the same day and time makes that slot “heavier”. Ten Mondays in a row and Emma owns her Monday-morning spot — the suggestion becomes rock solid precisely because you teach the way you teach.
• And it’s impossible to confuse: one make-up lesson on a random Wednesday? Ignored with a shrug. Emma still appears on Mondays, and she will not ghost-appear on Wednesdays. Only her one true slot counts — outliers bounce right off.
• New semester? It just… follows: recent lessons count double, old ones fade away. When Emma moves to Friday 16:00, her suggestion quietly migrates with her over the next few weeks — no button, no settings, no “please update the schedule”. The app catches up with reality on its own, every single time.
• Quiet hour with no usual suspects? Then it shows your most recently taught students — which, on a random afternoon, is almost always exactly who you were about to pick anyway. And if you’re brand new with no lessons yet, everything looks like it always did. Nothing random, ever — every name shown has a reason.
• Zero control taken away from you: “Show all students” expands the complete roster with one tap (and the editor remembers your choice), while the search box always searches everyone — start typing and the suggestions step aside instantly.
• It even thinks in your time: matching runs on your local clock — summer time, winter time, teaching from a holiday flat in another country: your suggestions stay exactly on schedule.

And here’s the genius of it: there is nothing to set up. At all. No calendar to maintain, no times to type, no settings page to find. All of this grows out of lessons you’ve already given — the feature was technically working for you before it even existed. You keep teaching exactly the way you always have. Exerzisor just pays attention.

New for Teachers: Top Students on Your Dashboard & a Full Statistics Page with Charts

Your dashboard now celebrates the students who put in the work this week — and one click takes you to a complete statistics overview of everyone you teach, with beautiful charts on top.

• Top Students widget: right on your dashboard, see your top 3 students by practice time over the last 7 days — with their instrument, practice time, and current day streak (yes, with a little flame). Click a name to jump straight to the student’s page.
• “View all statistics” opens a dedicated page with one row per active student: total practice time, last 7 days, number of practice sessions, day streak, when they were last active, and how many lessons, sheets, chord sheets, files, and PDFs you’ve shared with them.
• Three charts at a glance: donut charts show your class’s Practice Mix (sheet practice vs. videos, audio, PDFs, and reading), Who Practiced How Much (each student’s share of the class’s practice time), and Session Types (lessons vs. free sheet and chord-sheet practice). Switch all three between Last 7 Days and All Time with one toggle, and hover any slice for exact times and percentages.
• Sort it your way: click the column headers to sort by name, practice time, streak, or last active — by default the most recently active students are on top.
• Honest numbers: the charts and the table are computed from the same data with the same rules, and practice time matches exactly what you see on each student’s profile page. Streaks reset to zero when a student hasn’t practiced since the day before yesterday, and students with no activity yet simply show “Never” — no surprises.

Wiki Tags Now Light Up for Parents — and in the Lesson Preview

The wiki-tag highlighting introduced on June 04 reached the last two places lesson texts are read: the parent view of a child’s lesson and the teacher’s lesson preview window.

• Parents get answers too: when a lesson says “practice the C Major Scale”, parents now see the same highlighted phrase — hover for a short explanation, click to read the wiki page. Helping with practice at home just got easier.
• Preview matches reality: teachers previewing a lesson now see exactly the tags their students will see.
• Privacy rules carry over: visibility follows the wiki page’s settings — pages limited to teachers stay invisible to parents, plain text and all.

No More Raw “{count}” Placeholders in Dialog Texts

A few texts in the app showed their internal placeholder instead of the actual value — most visibly the publish dialog, which said the lesson would be “visible to {count} assigned student(s)”. These now display the real numbers and names, and an automated guard makes sure this class of typo can’t sneak back in.

Recording Studio Switch Now Respected Everywhere

Schools can turn the Recording Studio on or off in their settings — but lessons didn’t fully get the memo: with the studio disabled, lesson pages could still show recording projects, and students saw links that led nowhere. The toggle now applies consistently across every lesson view.

• Off means off: with the studio disabled, recording projects disappear from lesson pages, the editor, and the student timeline — no more dead links.
• Nothing is lost: existing links between lessons and recording projects are preserved while disabled, and reappear untouched if the school re-enables the studio.

Wiki Tags: Lesson Texts Now Link to Your Knowledge Base

Teachers can add tags to wiki pages — a single keyword, a few words, or even a whole sentence, written naturally just like you’d write it in a lesson. Whenever that word or phrase shows up in a lesson text, it lights up for both teachers and students: hover to see a short preview of the wiki page, click to read the whole thing. Your lessons explain themselves.

• Natural language welcome: tag a page Cmajorscale, C Major Scale, or even This is cool — spaces and everyday wording are fine (up to 20 tags per page). Write “practice the C Major Scale daily” in a lesson and the phrase becomes a link — mid-sentence, in any casing like c major scale.
• Hover for a preview: a small tooltip shows the wiki page’s title and the first lines of its content — often that’s all a student needs to remember what a term means.
• Example: create a wiki page “Cool Things” with the tag This is cool, then write “Also remember: This is cool to know!” in a lesson — exactly the tagged phrase gets highlighted and links to the page, the rest of the sentence stays normal text.
• Privacy built in: highlights follow the wiki page’s visibility. If a page is private or limited to certain students, everyone else just sees plain text — no link, no preview, no hint that the page exists.
• Easy to manage: add or remove tags as little chips when creating or editing a wiki page; they’re shown on the page itself too. Works in the lesson view and in the student timeline.

New Settings Page: Pick Your Standard Lesson Template

Teachers now have a Settings entry in the menu under their name (next to Profile). The first setting is a big time-saver: choose a default lesson template that loads automatically every time you start a new lesson.

• Loads with your student: open the lesson editor, click a student’s name — their recent lessons, files and practice stats appear together with your template’s sections, ready to fill in.
• Your choice, always: the default is No template. Pick one of your school’s templates whenever you like, change it anytime, and remove a preloaded template from any single lesson with one click.
• School rules still apply: if your school requires a specific template, that requirement always wins — the settings page tells you so instead of letting the two collide.
• Works everywhere templates live: even if your school hasn’t enabled template pickers in the editor, your personal default still preloads.

Find Any Student Instantly in the Lesson Editor

Teachers with many students know the scroll. The Students sidebar in the lesson editor now has a search box that filters the list as you type — no Enter needed.

• Instant & forgiving: type an, An or aN and you’ll see Anna, Stefan and Marianne immediately. Accents don’t matter either — jose finds José.
• Search by name or instrument: first name, last name, full name (“anna m”), or the instrument they play.
• Keeps your place: after you pick a student, your search term stays — perfect for working through several students in a row. Clear it with one tap on the ×.
• Works on phones too: the same search lives in the mobile students drawer.

Found a Bug? Report It Right From the App — and Become a Bug Hunter

There’s a new bug icon in the top navigation bar, next to your name. Spot something that doesn’t work? Tell us right where it happened — students, teachers, parents and admins alike.

• Kid-friendly guided form: four simple questions — What is the problem? What should happen? What is happening instead? How can we repeat it? — each with an example, so even our youngest musicians can write a great report.
• Earn points: every report our team confirms as a real bug earns you a point. The Bug hunters tab shows the top bug finders across the whole platform (first names only).
• Stay in the loop: a little badge appears on the bug icon when your report has been reviewed. If it wasn’t a bug, you’ll get a friendly message explaining why.
• Track your reports: the Reported bugs tab lists everything you’ve sent and its status — open, accepted, or declined.

Students Can Open Sheets & Chord Sheets Attached to Lesson Sections

When a teacher attached a sheet or chord sheet to a section of a lesson (rather than the lesson as a whole), students hit a permission error — the score viewer was stuck on “loading score” and chord sheets showed “Forbidden.” That’s fixed.

• Opens everywhere: students (and their parents) can now open section-attached sheets and chord sheets right inside the lesson, on both mobile and desktop.
• Shows up in the library too: these items now also appear on the student’s Sheets and Chord Sheets pages, not just inside the lesson.
• Still private: access stays limited to the students the lesson is actually shared with — nothing is exposed beyond that.

Lesson Preview Now Shows Section Sheets & Chord Sheets

When previewing a lesson, the sheets and chord sheets attached to individual sections now appear in the preview, matching what students see.

• Accurate preview: each section’s sheets and chord sheets are listed in the preview modal, so what you check is what the student gets.
• No more blind spots: previously section-attached materials were missing from the preview even though they showed up for students.

Practice Minutes Now Count Accurately

Practice time is now recorded consistently for students and teachers, and is no longer over- or under-counted.

• Same number everywhere: the minutes a student sees on their dashboard now match what the teacher sees — previously a student could see 0 minutes while the teacher saw the real total.
• No phantom time: a session that has already ended can no longer keep adding seconds in the background, so totals stay correct.

Your Manual Save Is No Longer Overwritten by Autosave

When editing a lesson, a background autosave that was already in flight could overwrite a Save or Publish you just made — sometimes dropping your newest sections. That can no longer happen.

• Your latest edit wins: an explicit Save or Publish always takes precedence over a stale autosave.
• Nothing dropped: the sections you just added are kept, not silently reverted.

No More Duplicate Lesson Drafts

Editing a lesson no longer creates duplicate draft copies when several autosaves happen close together.

• One draft, not many: rapid autosaves now update the same draft instead of spawning extra copies you’d have to clean up.

The Cursor Now Follows Repeated Sections

During audio sync, the score cursor now correctly follows repeat signs — so when the music repeats a section, the highlight repeats with it.

• Repeats respected: previously the cursor ignored repeats and drifted out of place during repeated passages.

Live Cursor While Creating Sync Points

When setting up audio sync, the score cursor now follows the audio as you place marks, instead of only after you save.

• Immediate feedback: newly added sync marks take effect right away, making it much easier to line the score up with the recording.

Editing a Sheet Keeps Its Linked Video

Opening a sheet for editing no longer drops the attached video when that video isn’t among your 50 most recent files.

• Always shown: the currently linked video now stays selected in the picker, so saving won’t accidentally remove it.

Accurate Trophies & Experience Points

Automatic trophies are no longer awarded twice, and experience points are no longer inflated when several actions land at the same moment.

• Earned once: each automatic trophy is granted a single time.
• Correct XP: point totals now reflect what was actually earned.

Sheet & Chord-Sheet Picker No Longer Greyed Out

In the lesson editor, the Sheets and Chord Sheets picker stayed greyed out even after you’d picked a student and added a section. It now activates as expected.

• Add right away: the picker enables as soon as you have a section to attach to, so you can drop in sheets and chord sheets without getting stuck.

Students See Every File Sent to Them

The student Files page now gathers all the materials a student has been given — no matter how they were shared — in one place.

• Five sources, one list: files attached to lessons, to individual lesson sections, to course lessons, to whole courses, and files assigned directly to the student now all appear together.
• Nothing slips through: previously some of these files were only visible deep inside a lesson or course; now they surface on the Files page where students expect to find them.
• No duplicates: a file shared through more than one path is shown only once.

Chord-Sheet Practice Now Counts

Time spent practising chord sheets is now recorded in your practice stats, just like time spent on sheet music. Previously chord-sheet sessions were never tracked, so that practice time was silently lost.

• Every session counts: opening and practising a chord sheet now starts a practice session, earning experience points and feeding your streaks and trophies.
• Consistent with sheets: chord sheets and sheet music are now treated the same way for practice tracking.

Practice Time No Longer Lost on Refresh or Close

Practice sessions now end correctly when you refresh, close, or navigate away from a page. Before this fix, leaving a page without explicitly stopping could drop the practice time you had just earned.

• Reliable session end: the app now flushes the end of your session the moment the page unloads, so the minutes you practised are saved.
• Accurate stats & XP: your practice totals, streaks, and experience points now reflect the time you actually spent.

Email Is Now Optional When Adding Students

When a teacher adds a student from the Students page, an email address is no longer required — perfect for younger students or anyone without their own inbox.

• Add without an email: leave the email field blank and still create the student record.
• Still validated when provided: if you do enter an email, it is checked for a valid format as before.
• Parents unchanged: this applies to students only — parent accounts still require an email so they can sign in.

Attach Sheets to Individual Lesson Sections

Sheets and chord sheets can now be attached to a specific section of a lesson, instead of all piling up at the top. Each section shows its own materials, exactly where they belong.

• Open a section, then click to attach: open a section in the lesson editor and click any sheet or chord sheet in the right-hand library to attach it to that section.
• One sheet, one section: a sheet that is already used in another section is shown greyed out with a hint telling you where it lives, so the same material is never attached twice by mistake.
• Students see it in context: on both the lesson page and the student timeline, each section displays its own sheets and chord sheets inline — so students find the right material next to the step it relates to.
• Existing lesson-level sheets keep working unchanged.

Reuse a Past Lesson & Editable Lesson Titles

Teaching the same student week after week? Reuse Lesson now clones a previous lesson into a brand-new draft — without ever touching the original — and you can give every lesson its own title and subtitle.

• Full, non-destructive copy: reusing a lesson copies the title, subtitle, all section content, and the attached files, sheets, and chord sheets into a fresh draft dated today. The original lesson is left completely unchanged.
• Editable title & subtitle: add a clear title and an optional subtitle to any lesson. Leave the title blank and it falls back to a date-based default, just as before.
• Recording projects stay put: a Studio recording project belongs to a single lesson, so it is intentionally not copied — the reuse preview reminds you of this.

Live Score Cursor While Marking Bars

When syncing sheet music to audio, the score cursor now follows the recording as it plays, so you can see exactly where you are while marking each bar.

• Cursor follows the audio: the cursor line and the highlighted bar track the playback position while the sync editor is open — previously they stayed frozen.
• No more scroll fighting: automatic page scrolling stays switched off while you are marking bars, so the view no longer jumps around as you work.

Transpose Audio Without Leaving the Editor

You can now transpose the audio linked to a chord sheet or sheet directly from its edit page — no detour to the file manager required.

• Inline transpose widget: pick a number of semitones (from −12 to +12) and press Transpose. The new version is created and linked in place when it is ready.
• Originals are safe: the transposed track is added alongside your audio — the original file is never deleted.
• Patient with new uploads: if the audio is still being processed, the widget waits until it is ready before letting you transpose.

One-Tap Playback Speed Stepper

The playback-speed dropdown in every player has been replaced with a simpler − 100% + stepper, so adjusting tempo is now a single tap.

• Tap to adjust: the − and + buttons change speed in small 5% steps, with the current tempo always shown as a clear percentage.
• Sensible limits: speed ranges from 25% up to 200%, and each button greys out once you reach the limit.
• Everywhere you play: the new stepper appears across the audio player, video player, waveform player, and the sheet-music player.

Sticky Audio Player on Chord Sheets

On the chord-sheet page, the audio player now stays pinned to the bottom of the screen as you scroll, matching the sheets page and shared links.

• Always within reach: the waveform player no longer scrolls away at the top of long chord sheets — it stays docked at the bottom of the viewport while you read and play along.

Finer Playback Speed Control

You can now fine-tune playback speed in small 5% steps, making it far easier to practise tricky passages at just the right tempo.

• 0.25× to 2.0× in 5% steps: choose any speed from a quarter-tempo up to double-tempo, instead of being limited to a few coarse presets.
• Everywhere you play: the finer control is available across the audio player, video player, waveform player, and the sheet-music player.
• Great for slowing a passage to 80% or 90% to learn it, then nudging back up to full tempo as you improve.

Consistent Lowercase Usernames

Usernames are now kept consistent, preventing confusing or duplicate-looking accounts that differ only by capitalisation.

• Clear rules: a username may contain lowercase letters, numbers, dots, hyphens, and underscores (for example max.mueller).
• Helpful message: if an entered username doesn’t fit, you now get a clear explanation instead of a silent failure — when creating users in the admin area, during student creation, and at registration.

Easier Waveform Navigation in Student View

The audio waveform in a student’s lesson view is now easier to work with when following along to a recording.

• Zoom in: students can now zoom the waveform to focus on a specific section of the audio.
• Click to seek: the waveform shows a pointer cursor and responds to clicks, so jumping to a moment in the recording is more obvious and direct.

Smoother Follow Playback on Sheet Music

The follow-along cursor now keeps tracking all the way to the end of a piece, instead of freezing on the last synchronised bar.

• Continues past the last sync point: when the audio plays on beyond the final marked bar, the cursor now continues smoothly at the established tempo rather than stopping.
• Fixes a reported issue with Follow Playback when using imported MusicXML sheets.

Correct Percussion Notation on Imported Sheets

Sheet music imported from music files now shows percussion parts correctly, fixing notation that previously came through wrong.

• Accurate articulations & noteheads: percussion articulations are now corrected during import, so drum and percussion staves display as intended.
• Resolves a reported problem with faulty results when importing certain music files.

Strumming Patterns for Chord Sheets

You can now add up to 10 strumming patterns to any chord sheet, giving students a visual guide for the right-hand rhythm.

• Visual pattern editor: click through each beat slot to cycle between down-stroke, up-stroke, muted hit, and rest. The grid updates instantly as you build the pattern.
• Time signatures & subdivisions: choose from 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, or 7/8, and set quarter, eighth, triplet, or sixteenth subdivisions. The grid resizes automatically.
• Named patterns: give each pattern an optional label (e.g., “Verse” or “Chorus”) so students know which rhythm goes where.
• Visible on shared links: strumming patterns appear on shared and embedded chord sheets, so students can reference the rhythm without any extra setup.

Beat Counts on Chord Sheets

You can now annotate each chord in a chord sheet with a beat count, giving students an instant picture of how long to hold each chord — right on the sheet itself.

• Click any chord to annotate: while editing a chord sheet, click any chord in the live preview to open a small popover. Type a number from 1–32, press Enter, and the beat count is saved above that chord as a badge (e.g., ×3).
• Visible everywhere: beat count badges appear in the editor preview, on your own chord sheet page, and on any share link where you have enabled them.
• Share control: when creating or editing a share link, use the new Beat Counts toggle under Feature Toggles to decide whether students see the annotations.
• Student toggle: students viewing a shared sheet can show or hide beat counts at any time using the ♩ Beats button in the toolbar.
• Survives edits: beat annotations are stored separately from the chord text — minor edits leave them intact and they clear automatically only if you restructure the chord layout.

Recording Studio: Rock-Solid Multi-Track Playback on iPad

iPads are the natural home for the Recording Studio in a rehearsal room — but iOS Safari played by its own rules: tracks could slowly drift apart, and locking the screen or switching tabs threw the timeline off. A deep rework of the audio engine fixes all of it.

• Tracks stay locked together: all tracks now run on one shared audio clock, so a project with 3, 5, or 10 tracks plays in perfect sync on iPad — for the whole song.
• Interruptions handled: lock the screen or hop to another app mid-playback — the timeline resumes exactly where it should, without drift.
• Instant Mute & Solo: the M/S buttons now react the moment you tap them instead of after a noticeable pause.
• No more ghost audio: rapidly swapping track versions can no longer leave stray sounds playing in the background.

File Names in the Lesson Editor

Attached files in the lesson editor now display their actual file name instead of a raw internal ID.

• Readable file names: the Attached Files section on the lesson Create and Edit pages shows the original file name and a matching file-type icon for every attachment.
• Newly uploaded files: files you upload or attach during the current session resolve to their name immediately — no page reload required.
• Converted media: after a media file finishes converting, the editor refreshes its metadata so the correct name and icon appear automatically.

File Source Visibility & Deletion Safety

The Files page now shows the correct default view and warns you before deleting files that are still in use.

• Cleaner default view: the Files page now shows only general files by default instead of listing everything — use the source filter to browse all file types.
• Chord Sheet source filter: Chord Sheet audio files now appear under their own source category and can be filtered in the dropdown.
• Deletion warnings: when you delete a file that is linked to a Sheet or Chord Sheet, the confirmation dialog now lists exactly which items depend on it — so you don't accidentally remove a file that's still in use.

Recording Studio

A multi-track recording studio built right into Exerzisor. Create music projects, record audio, and collaborate with students — all in one place.

• Multi-track recording: add unlimited tracks with individual volume, pan, mute, and solo controls — record directly from your microphone or upload audio files.
• Version history: every track keeps a full history of uploads so you can restore any previous version at any time.
• Timeline comments: leave timestamped feedback at specific points in a recording — click a comment to jump straight to that moment.
• Collaboration roles: invite students as viewers, commenters, uploaders, or editors — assign individual tracks to specific students for focused practice.
• Lesson integration: attach a recording project to any lesson and students are automatically added as members.

Audio Player Loading Indicator

The audio player on sheet and chord sheet pages now shows a loading spinner while the waveform is being prepared.

• Visual feedback: a spinning indicator appears while the audio file loads, so you know the player is working — not stuck.
• Accessibility: the loading state is announced to screen readers with proper status labels.

Stale Sheet Score After Re-Upload

Re-uploading a score or video file now immediately shows the new version instead of the previously cached one.

• Cache busting: score and video URLs now include a version identifier that changes whenever you replace a file — your browser always fetches the latest version.
• All views covered: the fix applies to the sheet player, shared links, lesson views, and the student timeline.

Sync Mode Keyboard Shortcut Fix

Space and M keyboard shortcuts in sync mode now work reliably, even when a button or other control has focus.

• Exclusive capture: sync editors now intercept Space and M key presses before any other element can steal them — no more accidentally triggering buttons or dropdowns while syncing.
• Text fields respected: keyboard shortcuts are still disabled when you are typing in an input, text area, or inside a dialog.

Shared Links Now Open for Everyone — Including Logged-In Visitors From Other Schools

Public share links for sheets and chord sheets had a blind spot: a visitor who happened to be logged in to a different Exerzisor school got an error page instead of the music. Anonymous visitors were fine — which made the bug extra confusing to reproduce. Share links now work for every visitor, logged in or not, from any school.

Replacing a Sheet’s Audio File Now Shows Up Immediately

Swapping the audio on a sheet or chord sheet looked like it hadn’t worked: the “current file” label kept showing the old name, the delete button vanished, and the browser sometimes kept playing the old cached audio. All three are fixed.

• The editor tells the truth: the current-file indicator updates the moment you pick a replacement, and the delete button stays available whenever audio is attached.
• Fresh audio, guaranteed: players now always fetch the new file after a replacement — no stale cache, no mystery “why is it still the old recording?”.

Sheets Folders, Tags & Search

The sheets library now supports folders, tags, and instant search so you can organize and find your sheet music faster.

• Color-coded folders: create folders with custom colors to group related sheets — assign them when creating or editing a sheet.
• Tags: add tags like “Jazz” or “Beginner” to label sheets across folders, with inline create and edit directly from the sidebar.
• Instant search: a search bar filters sheets by title, description, folder, and tags in real time as you type.
• Filter chips: active filters appear as removable chips above the grid so you always know what is filtered, with a single click to clear all.
• Compact grid: a denser layout scales from one column on mobile up to five columns on large screens, showing more sheets at a glance.

Redesigned Sheet Player Toolbar

The sheet music player has a fresh, modern look with a sleek dark toolbar that makes controls easier to find and use.

• New dark toolbar: a polished design with clearly grouped controls — playback, view switching, tracks, display options, and zoom are all visually separated and easy to locate.
• Smarter view switcher: Score, Tab, Both, and Chords views are now displayed as a prominent segmented control, so switching between notation styles is faster.
• Easier track selection: when a piece has multiple instruments, each track appears as a labeled button you can toggle on or off at a glance.
• Cleaner zoom controls: the old zoom slider has been replaced with simple +/− buttons that clearly show when you have reached the minimum or maximum zoom level.
• Pinch-to-zoom: on tablets and laptops, you can now pinch or use Ctrl+scroll to zoom the sheet music directly — without accidentally zooming the entire page. Maximum zoom has been increased to 300%.
• Notification badges: the annotations and sync buttons now show a count badge so you can see at a glance how many items are available.

Audio File Management in Sheet Editor

You can now see, delete, and replace audio files attached to sheets and chord sheets directly from the edit form.

• See your current audio: the edit form now displays the filename of the attached audio recording, so you always know which file is linked.
• Delete audio in one click: a Delete button lets you remove the attached audio file instantly, without needing to recreate the sheet.
• Replace audio seamlessly: when audio is already attached, the upload label changes to “Replace audio file,” making it clear you can swap recordings at any time.

Saving Chord Diagrams No Longer Fails With a Server Error

Adding a new voicing to the chord diagram library could fail with an unexpected server error caused by a database quirk. Saving diagrams is reliable again — and we tightened our test setup so this category of database issue is caught before it ever reaches you.

Sticky Audio Player & Play Button Fix

The audio player on sheet pages now stays pinned correctly while scrolling, and the play button always controls the uploaded audio when one is present.

• Sticky player restored: a layout overflow issue caused the waveform player to scroll out of view — it now stays fixed at the bottom as intended.
• Play button priority: pressing play no longer triggers the built-in MIDI synthesizer when an uploaded audio file exists, even if sync points have not been saved yet.
• Auto-scroll in sync mode: when marking bars during audio sync, the score now scrolls to the just-marked bar so teachers always see where they are in the notation.
• Active bar highlight: an amber overlay marks the current bar during sync mode, giving clear visual feedback before sync points are saved.

Navbar Dropdowns & Mobile Fixes

The navigation bar is reorganized into dropdown groups, and several mobile layout issues are resolved across the app.

• Dropdown menus: eleven flat navigation items are now grouped into logical dropdowns (Teaching, Library, Sheets) with ARIA attributes and keyboard support.
• Mobile overflow fixes: scrollable tab navigation and corrected viewport heights prevent content from being cut off on mobile browsers.
• New branding: updated logo and favicon with the new Exerzisor design.
• Click-outside detection: dropdown menus close when clicking elsewhere — no more full-screen overlay blocking other nav items.

Chord Diagram Library

Build your own chord diagram library and see fingerings appear right next to your chord sheets. Supports guitar, ukulele, bass, and piano.

• Visual editor: create chord diagrams with finger placement, barre chords, open/muted string indicators, and custom tuning labels — rendered as clean SVG.
• Sidebar on chord sheets: when you open a chord sheet, a sidebar shows the diagrams for every chord used in the piece. Tap any chord name on mobile to see a popup.
• Auto-fill on transpose: when you transpose a chord sheet, diagrams for the new chords are fetched automatically so you never lose visual reference.
• Multiple voicings: store up to 10 voicings per chord and mark one as the default. Students see the default; teachers can browse all voicings.
• Toolbox integration: manage your full chord library from the new Chords tab in the Music Toolbox — search, filter by instrument, and edit in place. Available for both teachers and students; teachers can control whether students see chord diagrams.
• Shared & embedded views: chord diagrams appear on public shared links and embedded chord sheets too, so blog visitors see the same fingerings.
• Piano diagrams: for keyboard players, a piano-key visualisation highlights the notes instead of a fretboard grid.

Chord Sheet Import: Real-World Pastes Now Just Work

Right after launch, some pasted chord sheets refused to save — and worse, the form failed silently, leaving you staring at a button that did nothing. A trio of fixes makes the importer cope with chord sheets as they actually look in the wild.

• Dense songs accepted: sheets with many chords per line or very long lines — typical for real Ultimate-Guitar-style pastes — no longer trip internal limits.
• Messy metadata understood: lines like “Tuning: E A D G B E Key: F Capo: No capo” — everything crammed together, with or without colons — are now split and read correctly, key and all.
• Errors you can actually see: if something is genuinely wrong, the form now says so at the top in plain words (“Key”, “Capo”, “Tuning”) instead of failing without a word.

Chord Sheets with Lyrics & Audio Sync

You can now view chord sheets with lyrics and chords displayed inline. Copy-paste any lyrics with chords, optionally add an audio file, and sync them together in minutes — or simply use it as a standalone chord sheet without audio.

• Inline chords: chord names appear directly above the lyrics so you can read both at a glance.
• Sections & chords sidebar: quickly jump between song sections and see all chords used in the piece.
• Audio sync: play along with the audio player — sync points keep the music and chords aligned.
• Transpose & capo: shift the key up or down instantly, with capo position displayed alongside.
• Auto-scroll & print: enable auto-scroll to follow along hands-free, or print the chord sheet for offline use.

Chord Chart View for Sheets

Sheets now include a dedicated Chord Chart view that displays chords in a clean, bar-by-bar grid layout.

• Bar grid layout: chords are arranged in numbered bars with beat slashes, making it easy to follow the song structure at a glance.
• View switcher: toggle between Both, Score, Tab, and Chord Chart views using the toolbar buttons.
• Playback & tools: use zoom, speed control, chord diagrams, and annotations alongside the chord chart.

Pinned Resources in Music Toolbox

Teachers and admins can now pin frequently-used files to the Music Toolbox for instant access during lessons.

• Pin from Files: right-click any file and choose Pin to Toolbox to add it to your resources panel.
• Organization & personal pins: admins can pin files visible to all teachers, while teachers can keep their own personal set.
• Drag to reorder: rearrange pinned resources by dragging them into your preferred order.
• Inline preview: click a pinned file to open it in a preview modal — no need to leave the toolbox.

Student Page CSRF & Heartbeat Errors

Fixed several issues on the student lesson page that could cause errors when completing sections or tracking activity.

• Session expiry errors: resolved CSRF 419 errors caused by stale tokens, so section completion and activity tracking no longer fail after the page has been open for a while.
• Activity data preservation: activity data accumulated during a failed request is no longer lost — it is preserved and sent with the next heartbeat.
• Stuck buttons: the section completion button no longer gets stuck in a loading state when an error occurs.
• Error feedback: clear error messages now appear when something goes wrong, instead of failing silently.

Section-Level Completion

Students can now mark individual lesson sections as ready for review, and teachers confirm them one by one — replacing the old all-or-nothing lesson completion.

• Per-section workflow: each section has its own completion button with three states — unrequested, pending review, and confirmed.
• Teacher review queue: teachers see a dedicated page listing all pending section requests, with a badge count in the navigation bar.
• Auto-complete: when every section in a lesson is confirmed, the lesson automatically marks itself as complete.
• Email notifications: both the completion request and the teacher’s confirmation trigger an email to the other party.

Chord Display Controls

The sheet music viewer now lets you toggle chord names and fretboard diagrams on or off, and remembers your preference per sheet.

• Chords toggle: show or hide chord letter names (e.g. Am, G7) above the staff.
• Diagrams toggle: switch between text chord names and inline fretboard diagram grids.
• Settings persistence: your stave profile, zoom level, and chord preferences are saved per sheet so they carry over between sessions.

Student Lesson Timeline

Students now see all their lesson content in a single scrollable timeline — no more clicking into each lesson individually.

• Inline content: sections, audio players, video, sheets, and files are all displayed directly in the timeline feed.
• Pin lessons: pin important lessons to keep them at the top of the timeline for quick access.
• Infinite scroll: lessons load automatically as you scroll down, with cursor-based pagination for fast performance.
• Lazy media loading: audio, video, and sheet players only initialise when they scroll into view, keeping the page responsive.

Sheet Stave Profile Toggle

The Both / Score / Tab toggle in the sheet viewer now selects the correct stave layout — previously each option was mapped to the wrong view.

• Corrected mapping: “Both” shows score and tablature together, “Score” shows notation only, and “Tab” shows tablature only — matching their labels.
• The underlying issue was an off-by-one error in the AlphaTab StaveProfile enum values.

Mobile Audio Playback

Audio files attached to sheet music now play reliably on mobile devices — previously, playback could fail silently on Safari and Chrome for iOS/Android.

• Range request support: the server now responds with partial content (HTTP 206) when the browser asks for a byte range, which mobile Safari and Chrome require before they will start playing audio.
• Shared sheets included: publicly shared sheets benefit from the same fix, so anyone with a share link can listen on their phone.
• No behaviour change on desktop: desktop browsers continue to work exactly as before.

Storage Dashboard

Admins now have a dedicated storage overview on the Stats page that shows exactly how disk space is being used across the platform or organization.

• Quota bar: organization admins see a colour-coded progress bar showing how much of their storage quota is used — green, yellow, or red depending on usage.
• By file type: a breakdown by Audio, Video, Images, Sheet Scores, Documents, and Other shows how each category contributes to total storage.
• By source: see which areas of the app — Lessons, Courses, Wiki, Messages, Sheets — are consuming the most space.
• Storage by user: a sortable table of the top 50 users ranked by storage, file count, or name, with user type badges for quick identification.

Audio Transpose

You can now pitch-shift any audio file directly from the file manager — the original file stays untouched and a new transposed copy is created in the background.

• Right-click to transpose: select Transpose from the context menu on any audio file to open the transpose dialog.
• Semitone slider: choose anywhere from −12 to +12 semitones with a visual slider, minus/plus buttons, and a live output filename preview.
• Tempo-preserving: transposition uses high-quality pitch shifting so the tempo and duration of the audio stay the same.
• Background processing: the transposed file appears in your file list when ready — you can keep working while it processes.

Ephemeral Loop Selection for Sheet Music

You can now click and drag across bars in any sheet music view to create a practice loop that repeats the selected section automatically.

• Drag to loop: click and drag across one or more bars to instantly create a repeating practice loop — works with both audio and synthesizer playback.
• Visual feedback: selected bars are highlighted with an indigo overlay, and a loop indicator in the controls shows the active bar range and repeat count.
• Easy to clear: press Escape or click the × button to remove the loop — clicking outside the loop range also clears it.
• Ephemeral by design: loops are purely client-side and disappear when you navigate away — no clutter saved to your account.

Compact Audio Player & Sheet Scroll Fix

The audio player in the student view and in lessons has been redesigned into a slim, single-row bar, and the score now scrolls correctly when the player is visible.

• Compact player: play/pause, rewind, forward, progress bar, speed selector, and mute are now arranged in one horizontal strip instead of a tall block.
• Auto-expand on play: pressing play on a collapsed sheet automatically opens the score viewer and scrolls it into view.
• Scroll fix: active bars no longer scroll behind the sticky audio player at the bottom — the score dynamically adjusts for the player’s height using a ResizeObserver.

Sheet Bar Annotations

Teachers can now add notes to individual bars of a sheet, giving students targeted feedback directly on the score.

• Per-bar notes: select any bar on the score to add, edit, or delete an annotation — visible in a toggleable sidebar panel.
• Indicator dots: small colored dots appear on bars that have annotations, so students can spot feedback at a glance without obstructing the music.
• Click to navigate: clicking a dot opens the annotation panel and highlights the matching note, with auto-scroll for long lists.
• Works everywhere: annotations are available on the Sheets page, inside the Lesson viewer, and on shared public links.

Lesson Autosave

Lessons are now automatically saved as drafts every 5 seconds while you type, so you never lose work if your browser closes unexpectedly.

• Automatic drafts: changes are saved in the background after 5 seconds of inactivity — no manual save needed.
• Draft recovery: if you return to the lesson creator with an unsaved draft, a banner lets you pick up right where you left off.
• One draft per teacher: each teacher keeps a single autosave draft at a time, keeping the lesson list clean.
• Automatic cleanup: abandoned drafts older than 30 days are removed automatically.

Public Sheet Sharing

Teachers can share any sheet with anyone via a link — no account required. Recipients get a full interactive viewer with optional password protection.

• Share links: generate a unique link for any sheet directly from the Sheets page. Create multiple links per sheet, each with its own label and settings.
• Password protection: optionally require a password before the sheet can be viewed — useful for sharing with specific groups outside the platform.
• Feature toggles: control exactly what the recipient can do — enable or disable audio playback, video, practice loops, annotations, speed control, track selection, and score download on a per-link basis.
• Full viewer experience: shared sheets open in a standalone viewer with synced audio playback, the score renderer, and all enabled practice tools — no login or sign-up needed.
• Embeddable widget: copy an embed code to place the sheet viewer inside any website or blog as an iframe.
• Inline editing: update a share link’s label, password, or feature toggles at any time without creating a new link.
• Revoke & delete: disable a link instantly to cut off access, or delete it permanently when it is no longer needed.

Wiki Sorting, Import & Page Linking

The built-in Wiki gets sorting and filtering on the page index, Markdown import for bulk content migration, and inter-page linking with a visual graph.

• Sort & filter: sort wiki pages by title, creation date, last update, or view count, and filter by visibility level or author — your selections are preserved in the URL.
• Markdown import: upload up to 20 Markdown files at once — YAML frontmatter (title, visibility, tags) is parsed automatically and the content is converted to the rich editor format.
• Page linking: link to other wiki pages inside the editor and see which pages link back to the current one in a dedicated backlinks panel.
• Page graph: a visual graph shows how wiki pages are connected through links, making it easy to explore the knowledge base.
• Version history: every edit is tracked — view and compare previous versions of any wiki page.
• Wiki trash: deleted wiki pages are moved to a trash folder and can be restored before they are permanently removed.

Trophy Analytics & Student Timeline

Admins can now see detailed trophy statistics per teacher, and students see a visual timeline of their earned trophies on both the Trophies and Student Profile pages.

• Trophy stats modal: click the “Trophies Awarded” card on the admin stats page to see how many trophies each teacher has given, with a drill-down into individual trophy types.
• Students without trophies: the modal highlights which students have not yet received a trophy from each teacher — making it easy to spot gaps.
• Trophy timeline: a new horizontal timeline on the Trophies page and Student Profile shows each trophy earned (and unearned) with the number of days between awards.
• Filter pills: filter the timeline by trophy type to focus on a specific category and see a summary bar of progress at a glance.

Student Overview for Admins

Admins can now quickly access any student’s profile and view per-teacher lesson statistics from the admin area.

• View Student Profile button: when editing a student in the admin panel, a new button takes you directly to their student profile page.
• Student stats modal: click the “Students” card on the admin stats page to see a per-teacher overview of lessons assigned, lessons completed, completion rate, and trophies earned.
• Drill-down to individual students: click any teacher row in the modal to see detailed statistics for each of their students, with clickable names that link to the student profile.

Video Playback for Sheets

You can now attach a video file to any sheet and watch it in a floating player that stays in sync with the audio waveform.

• Video upload: add a video when creating or editing a sheet — the system automatically extracts the audio track so it plays through the waveform player.
• Floating video player: a draggable, resizable video window appears on the sheet page so you can watch and listen at the same time.
• Synced playback: the video stays in sync with the audio waveform using drift-based correction, so playback feels smooth without stuttering.
• Minimize to pill: collapse the video player into a small pill button to free up screen space, then expand it again with a single click.
• Automatic audio extraction: when a video is uploaded, the audio is extracted in the background — a progress indicator shows the extraction status.

Waveform Zoom for Sheets

You can now zoom into the audio waveform on the Sheets page to see fine detail and place comments with precision.

• Zoom slider: use the +/− buttons or drag the slider below the waveform to zoom in and out.
• Fit button: click “Fit” to instantly reset the zoom and see the full waveform again.
• Improved comment markers: comment pins on the waveform now stay in the correct position at any zoom level and show a tooltip on hover.

File Trash & Delete Warning

Deleted files now move to a trash folder where they can be restored for up to 30 days, and a new confirmation dialog shows exactly who will lose access before you delete.

• Smart delete warning: before a file is deleted, a dialog shows which students and lessons currently use it — so you know the impact up front.
• 30-day trash: when enabled by an admin, deleted files are kept in a trash folder for 30 days and can be restored with a single click.
• Full restore: restoring a file from the trash brings back all student and lesson associations exactly as they were before deletion.
• Bulk restore: select multiple trashed files and restore them all at once from the dedicated Trash view.
• Admin toggle: school admins can enable or disable the trash feature for their organisation in settings.
• Files that are not restored within 30 days are automatically purged from storage.

Teaching Locations & Instruments

Organizations can now manage structured lists of teaching locations and instruments, replacing the old free-text instrument field with a curated, reusable system.

• Teaching locations: define physical locations (with optional address) and assign students to them from their profile or during registration.
• Instrument management: maintain an organization-wide list of instruments with custom sort order, and assign one or more instruments to each student.
• Registration code presets: pre-fill a location and instrument on registration codes so new students are automatically assigned during sign-up.
• Automatic data migration: existing free-text instrument entries are converted into structured instrument records — no manual cleanup needed.

Per-File Download Restriction

Teachers can now restrict downloads on individual files while still allowing students and parents to preview them in the browser.

• Org-wide toggle: admins enable the feature in settings before teachers can use it — all existing files remain fully downloadable by default.
• Per-file control: when enabled, teachers can mark any file as non-downloadable from the file edit modal.
• Preview still works: restricted files stay visible and previewable (PDFs, images, audio, video) — only the download button is removed for students and parents.
• No impact on staff: teachers, admins, and super-admins can always download every file regardless of the restriction setting.

Email Notifications with Customizable Templates

Organizations can now send automated email notifications for key events, with fully customizable templates managed from the admin settings.

• 8 notification types: welcome emails, account creation, password reset, lesson published, trophy awarded, course enrollment, parent invitations, and message digests.
• Per-organization templates: each organization can customize the wording, toggle recipient types (student or parent), and enable or disable individual notifications.
• Placeholder chips: insert dynamic values like student name or lesson title directly into templates using easy-to-use placeholder chips.
• Test emails: send a test email from the settings page to preview exactly what recipients will see.
• Message digest: chat messages are batched into a single digest email instead of sending one notification per message.

Unified Parent Account System

Parent accounts are now automatically created and linked when you add parent details to a student form — no separate setup needed.

• Automatic account creation: enter a parent's email on the student create or edit form and the system creates a parent account, links it to the student, and sends an invitation email so the parent can set their password and log in.
• Smart linking: if a parent account with the same email already exists in your organization, the system reuses it instead of creating a duplicate.
• Live status on the edit form: the student edit page shows a green badge when a parent account is already linked, with details like how many students the parent is connected to.
• Parent accounts in the user list: parent accounts now appear in the admin user list with a distinct badge and can be filtered by type — they are managed through the student form, not edited directly.

Music Toolbox with Metronome & Tuner

A floating toolbox gives teachers and students quick access to essential music tools — right inside Exerzisor, on any page.

• Metronome: set BPM with a slider or tap tempo, choose a time signature (2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and more), and pick subdivisions — with visual beat indicators that pulse along.
• Chromatic tuner: uses the device microphone to detect pitch in real time, with a cents gauge for precise tuning and 12 instrument presets.
• Reference tone: tap any note in the tuner to hear the correct pitch played back.
• Always available: the toolbox floats as a draggable window that stays open while you navigate between pages.
• Available to teachers and students — no extra software or browser extensions needed.

Correct File Extension for Converted Media

Downloaded media files now have the correct file extension after conversion, so your browser and media player recognize them properly.

• Audio files: converted recordings now download with the correct .mp3 extension instead of keeping the original format name.
• Video files: converted videos now download with the correct .mp4 extension.
• Edge-case filenames with leading dots or multiple dots are handled correctly.

Session Stability Improvements

Resolved an issue where users could encounter “419 Session Expired” errors after logging out and back in, or when submitting forms after extended use.

• No more 419 errors: logging out and back in no longer causes session token mismatches that block subsequent actions.
• Secure cookies: session cookies are now always transmitted securely, improving reliability behind load balancers and CDNs.
• Forms and save actions work consistently without unexpected session expiration prompts.

Sheets Platform

Create and use digital sheet music directly in Exerzisor — with synced audio, interactive practice tools, and easy lesson integration.

• Supports Guitar Pro & MusicXML: upload .gp, .gpx, .gp5, and MusicXML files and view them instantly in the built-in score viewer.
• Audio-synced playback: connect an audio file and use the tap-along sync editor to link bars to the recording — the cursor then follows playback in real time.
• Built-in synthesizer: play back the score directly without uploading audio, using the AlphaTab synthesizer — admins can toggle this per organisation.
• Practice loops: select a range of bars to loop, making it easy to drill tricky passages.
• Use in lessons: teachers can attach sheets to lessons, and students can practise from the lesson page.
• XP & activity tracking: students earn progress and XP for viewing and interacting with sheets, just like other activities.
• Saved preferences: track selections are remembered per sheet, so each user keeps their preferred setup.
• Version history & backup: every uploaded score file is kept in a full version history, making Sheets a reliable backup for large music libraries.

Shared Files in the Lesson Editor

Teachers can now browse organisation-wide shared files directly inside the lesson editor, so they can attach them to lessons without leaving the page.

• Admin toggle: enable Show Shared Files in Lesson Editor under Settings → Permissions. When turned off (the default), teachers only see their own files.
• Visual distinction: shared files appear with an indigo highlight, a Shared badge, and the name of the person who uploaded them, so teachers can easily tell them apart from their own files.
• Filter toggle: a small Include shared files checkbox in the file sidebar lets teachers quickly show or hide shared files while browsing or searching.
• Works everywhere: shared files appear both when creating and when editing a lesson. File search also returns matching shared files alongside the teacher’s own results.

Lesson Templates

Admins can now create reusable lesson templates that give teachers a consistent structure to follow when building lessons. Create and manage templates under the new Templates tab in the admin area, then enable them under Settings → Permissions.

• Define sections up front: each template contains one or more named sections (e.g. Warmup, Technique, Repertoire) with optional default content and file attachments. Section titles are locked when a teacher uses the template, while the content remains editable.
• Three usage policies: under Settings → Permissions, admins choose how templates are enforced — None (teachers create lessons freely), Optional (templates appear in a sidebar for quick use), or Required (teachers must select a template before they can start a lesson).
• Per-teacher assignment: templates can be made available to all teachers or assigned to specific ones. For each assigned teacher, admins can override whether the template is required and whether extra sections are allowed.
• Extra sections toggle: a global setting under Permissions controls whether teachers may add their own sections below the template sections. Admins can override this per teacher from the template editor.
• Template management: the Templates tab shows all your templates with their section count, assigned teachers, and how many lessons use each one. From there you can create, edit, deactivate, or delete templates.

Student Groups

Admins can now organise students into reusable groups, making it faster to assign lessons, courses, and trophies to the same set of students.

• Create & manage groups: a new Groups page in the admin area lets you name a group, add an optional description, and pick which students belong to it.
• Quick selection everywhere: when creating or editing a lesson, course, or trophy, you can now click a group name to instantly select all its members instead of picking students one by one.
• Automatic per-teacher filtering: groups are organisation-wide, but each teacher only sees the students that are assigned to them. For example, if an admin creates a “Class 1” group with five students and a teacher has three of them, clicking that group selects just those three — no manual filtering needed.

Lesson Statistics Detail for Admins

Admins can now click the Lessons stat card on the dashboard to open a detailed breakdown of lesson activity per teacher, filtered by date range.

• Overview table: lists every teacher with their published lesson count, total active students, and how many students did not receive a lesson in the selected period.
• Teacher detail view: click any teacher row to see their individual stats and optionally reveal the names of students who had no lessons.
• Date range filter: defaults to the current week (Monday–Sunday) and updates results automatically when changed.
• Students without lessons: highlighted in red so admins can quickly spot gaps in lesson coverage.

Student Activity Tracking & XP Level System

Exerzisor now tracks how much time students spend practising and rewards them with XP and levels to keep them motivated.

• Automatic tracking: practice time is recorded in the background while students view lessons, play audio, watch videos, or read PDFs.
• XP & levels: students earn 1 XP per minute of active practice and progress through 50 levels, each with its own title and badge colour.
• Teacher visibility: practice statistics appear on the lesson creation page and the student profile, so teachers can see who is practising and for how long.
• Trophy points stay separate: trophies awarded by teachers are displayed alongside XP but do not affect the level or leaderboard ranking — keeping rankings fair and based on actual practice.
• XP-based trophies: teachers can create trophies that are automatically awarded when a student reaches a certain level, including retroactive awarding for students who already qualify.

Legacy Streak Trophy Cleanup

The old streak-based trophy system has been removed. It was incompatible with the new trophy and XP system and could not award trophies correctly.

• What changed: the outdated streak trophy settings page and its behind-the-scenes code have been removed. Daily streak recording still works as before.
• Why: the old system tried to create trophies without the required data, so streak-based trophies never worked properly. The new trophy system (with manual and XP-based trophies) replaces it entirely.
• No data lost: existing streak records and any previously awarded trophies are preserved.

Admin Trophy Management & Creation Toggle

Admins can now create and manage organization-wide trophies, and control whether teachers are allowed to create their own.

• Admins can create trophies: the Trophies section is now visible to admins. Any trophy created by an admin is marked with an “Organization” badge so teachers can tell it apart from their own.
• Trophy creation toggle: a new “Allow Teachers to Create Trophy Definitions” checkbox in Admin Settings. When disabled, only admins can create new trophies — teachers can still award existing ones and manage trophies they created before the toggle was turned off.
• Admins can edit and delete any trophy: admins have full control over all trophy definitions in the organization, including those created by teachers.
• Enabled by default: teachers keep full trophy creation access unless an admin explicitly turns it off.

Award Trophies to Multiple Students at Once

The trophy award page now lets you select several students in one go, so you no longer have to repeat the process for each student individually.

• Multi-select with search: a searchable checkbox list replaces the old single-student dropdown. Filter by name or instrument to quickly find the students you need.
• Selected students appear as tags: each chosen student is shown as a removable tag above the list, making it easy to review and adjust your selection before awarding.
• All-or-nothing awarding: the trophy is given to every selected student in a single action. If any student cannot receive the award, none of them do — so you never end up with a partial result.

Parent Contact Visibility Toggle

Admins can now control whether teachers see parent contact details on student profiles, helping organizations enforce privacy policies and platform-only communication.

• New admin setting: a “Allow Teachers to View Parent Information” checkbox in Admin Settings. When disabled, parent name, email, and phone fields are hidden from teachers on all student views.
• Enabled by default: existing organizations keep the current behavior unless an admin explicitly turns it off.
• Server-side enforcement: parent data is stripped before it reaches the browser — not just hidden in the UI — so the information cannot be accessed through developer tools or API calls.
• Admins always see everything: the toggle only affects teachers. Admins retain full visibility of parent details regardless of the setting.

Admin Controls for Wiki Visibility

Organization admins can now choose which wiki visibility levels are available to teachers, giving full control over how wiki content is shared.

• New admin setting: a “Wiki Visibility Options” section in Admin Settings lets you enable or disable each level — School-wide, Teachers Only, My Students, and Private — with a simple checkbox.
• All levels enabled by default: nothing changes for existing organizations unless an admin explicitly turns a level off.
• Existing pages are safe: if you disable a visibility level, wiki pages that already use it continue to work. Teachers can still view and edit those pages without being forced to change the setting.
• Admins are not restricted: admins always have access to all four visibility levels, even when some are turned off for teachers.

Wiki Page Visibility Levels

Wiki pages now support four visibility levels, giving teachers fine-grained control over who can see each page.

• Private: only the page creator can view and edit the page — the same as before.
• My Students: the page is visible to the creator’s currently assigned students and their parents. If a student is no longer actively assigned, they lose access automatically.
• Teachers Only: every teacher and admin in the organization can see the page, but students and parents cannot. Useful for internal notes, pedagogy resources, or staff-only guides.
• School-wide: visible to everyone in the organization — teachers, students, parents, and admins.
• Admins always have full access to all wiki pages regardless of visibility level.
• Each visibility level is shown as a colour-coded badge on the wiki list and detail pages so you can see the audience at a glance.

Live Search for Files

The Files page now includes a search field in the left sidebar that instantly finds files as you type.

• Search everywhere: matches filenames, titles, descriptions, tags, categories, folders, and student names — all from a single search box.
• Instant results: results appear as you type (after 2 characters) and replace the file table, so you can quickly find what you need.
• Privacy-aware: search results respect the same visibility rules as the main file list — you only see files you have access to.

Rich Content Editor for Courses

Course lessons now use a full rich text editor, replacing the old block-based layout with a modern writing experience.

• Rich formatting: bold, italic, bullet lists, links, and tables — everything you need to create well-structured lesson content.
• Inline images: embed images from your file library directly into lesson text.
• File embeds: attach PDFs, audio, and video files inline so students can access them without leaving the lesson.
• Audio with waveform & practice loops: embedded audio files display a full waveform player with speed control and practice loops — the same experience students already know from lessons.
• Shared loops: the course creator’s practice loops are saved and visible to all enrolled students, so they can practise the exact sections the teacher intended.
• YouTube videos: paste a YouTube link to embed a video player right inside the lesson.

Improved Audio Loop & Practice UX

Creating a practice region in the audio player is now faster and more intuitive — loops start playing automatically so students can begin practising right away.

• Auto-loop on create: when you draw a new practice region, practice mode activates automatically and the selected section starts looping immediately.
• Practice button: the old status dot has been replaced with a clear “Practice” pill button that shows the number of saved regions at a glance.
• No more naming prompt: regions are created instantly without an interrupting dialog — just draw and play.

Lesson Editor File Selector Fix

The file picker in the lesson editor now shows all of your files, not just those uploaded from the Files page.

• All files visible: files uploaded directly inside a lesson are now included alongside general uploads, so you no longer have to re-upload them.
• Case-insensitive search: searching for files now matches regardless of upper or lower case, making it easier to find what you need.
• Search by tag: tags (also known as categories) are now searchable — type a tag name into the “search files” field inside a lesson and all files with that tag appear instantly.

Course Creation Permission Toggle

Admins can now control who is allowed to create new courses in their organization, directly from the Settings page.

• New Permissions tab: a dedicated “Permissions” tab in Admin Settings lets you manage what teachers can do.
• Restrict course creation: toggle a single setting to limit course creation to admins only — teachers will still be able to view, edit, and delete their existing courses.
• On by default: existing organizations keep their current behaviour — all teachers can create courses unless an admin turns the restriction on.

Organization Messages Toggle

Admins can now enable or disable the messaging system for their entire organization from the Settings page.

• New Features tab: a dedicated “Features” tab in Admin Settings lets you manage which features are available to your users.
• Messages toggle: turn messaging on or off with a single checkbox — when disabled, the Messages link is hidden from all navigation menus and all messaging endpoints are blocked.
• Applies to all user types in the organization — teachers, students, and parents.

Student Default Page Access Error

Students were seeing a "403 Forbidden" error when navigating to their default page if an admin had set it to a restricted page like Teachers or Students.

• Automatic fallback: students with a misconfigured default page are now redirected to the Dashboard instead of seeing an error.
• Admin settings updated: the default page dropdown for students now only shows pages that students can actually access — restricted options like Teachers and Students are no longer listed.
• Existing accounts with a restricted default page are automatically corrected on next login.

Admin User Creation & Parent Role

Users created by an admin now work correctly on first login, and a new parent role is available.

• Login fixed: new users created by admins could not log in due to a password issue — this is now resolved.
• Instant access: users created by an admin no longer need to verify their email before signing in.
• Roles assigned automatically: the correct permissions (admin, teacher, student, or parent) are now granted as soon as the account is created.
• Parent role: the parent role now exists with read-only access to lessons, courses, files, trophies, and messaging. Creating parent accounts is not yet possible — the UI for this is coming in a future update.

More Reliable Media Conversion

Audio and video files that occasionally got stuck during conversion are now automatically detected and retried.

• Automatic retry: files stuck in "converting" for more than 30 minutes are automatically re-queued every 10 minutes.
• Conversion now uses the same queue as all other background jobs, eliminating a configuration issue that could silently drop conversion tasks.
• Non-media files are no longer accidentally sent to the conversion pipeline.

Lesson Page Loading Fix for Large File Libraries

Teachers with many uploaded files could experience timeout errors when creating or editing lessons. The page now loads quickly and includes a search bar to find any file by name.

• Faster loading: the lesson create and edit pages now load only the 50 most recent files instead of every file, preventing timeouts.
• File search: a new search bar lets you find any file by name — just start typing and results appear instantly.
• Faster page loads everywhere: a database improvement to unread message counting speeds up every page across the application.

Optional Email for Student Accounts

Students can now be created and log in with just a username — no email address required. Email remains required for teachers, admins, and parents.

• Username-only login: students who don't have their own email address can sign in using just their username and password.
• Optional everywhere: the registration form, admin user creation page, and profile page all mark email as optional when the account is a student.
• Add email later: students can add an email address on their profile at any time — it is verified automatically once saved.
• Teachers, admins, and parents still require an email address as before.

Inline File Preview for Lessons

Students and parents can now preview files directly inside the lesson view without leaving the page.

• Audio files play inline with a visual waveform player.
• Video files play in an embedded player within the modal.
• PDFs open in a built-in document viewer.
• Images display at full size with a click-to-enlarge option.
• Other file types show a download button when no preview is available.
• Files that are still being converted display a progress bar with percentage.
• Parents see the same preview experience when viewing their child's lessons.

Files Page Redesign: Google Drive-Style Table

The /files page has been completely rebuilt with a clean, professional table layout inspired by Google Drive.

• Sortable columns: Name, Source, Date Modified, and Size — click any column header to sort.
• Right-click context menu: Preview, edit, download, or delete files with a right-click or the three-dot menu.
• "Shared With" column: See at a glance which students have access to each file through their lessons.
• Smarter source filtering: Filtering by "Lesson" or "Course" now includes general files attached to those contexts.
• Active filter chips: Applied filters appear as removable chips at the top for quick adjustments.
• Color-coded file type icons and source badges for easy scanning.
• The table responsively hides less-critical columns on smaller screens.

Lesson Draft/Publish Workflow

Teachers can now save lessons as drafts and publish them when they're ready. Draft lessons are completely hidden from students and parents.

• "Save Draft" and "Publish" buttons replace the old status selector on the create and edit pages.
• A confirmation dialog shows how many students will see the lesson before you publish.
• Published lessons display a notice that changes are immediately visible to students.
• Publishing is one-way — once published, a lesson cannot be reverted to draft.
• All existing draft lessons were automatically published during the migration to ensure no student lost access.

Improved Teacher Notes Experience

Teacher notes have been redesigned with better organisation, custom dating, and a streamlined editing interface.

• Custom note dates: Backdate or future-date notes independently from when they were created.
• Archive system: Move older notes to an archive to keep the active list clean while preserving them for reference.
• Modal-based editing: Click any note to open it in a dialog where you can edit the content, change the date, archive, or delete — all in one place.
• Notes show both the actual date and a relative timestamp (e.g. "2 days ago") for quick context.
• Admins can now create and manage notes alongside teachers.

Parent Contact Fields & Smarter CSV Imports

Store parent/guardian contact details directly on student profiles and import students without worrying about duplicates.

• New parent fields: First name, last name, email, phone, and secondary phone are now available on every student profile.
• Parent contact information can be set when creating or editing students in the admin panel.
• Name-based duplicate detection: CSV imports now match students by first + last name when no email is provided, preventing accidental duplicates on re-imports.
• The import preview shows exactly what will be created, updated, or flagged as a possible duplicate before you confirm.
• Existing parent data is never overwritten during imports — only missing fields are filled in.
• Parent contact fields are restricted to admins; teachers cannot modify them.

Case-Insensitive Login

Email and username fields are no longer case-sensitive when logging in.

• Entering John@Example.com, JOHN@EXAMPLE.COM, or john@example.com now all work the same way.
• The same applies to usernames — JohnDoe and johndoe both match.
• Passwords remain case-sensitive as expected.
• Database indexes were added to keep login performance fast.

Draft Lessons Hidden from Students

Draft lessons no longer appear anywhere in student or parent views.

• Student dashboards, profiles, and recent lessons lists now only show published lessons.
• Lesson counts and completion statistics no longer include drafts.
• Trophy milestone calculations are now based on published lessons only.
• Previously, clicking a visible draft lesson would result in an error page — this is fully resolved.

Automatic Media Conversion for Audio & Video

Uploaded audio and video files are now automatically converted to browser-friendly formats in the background. No manual conversion needed.

• Audio files (WAV, FLAC, OGG, M4A, etc.) are converted to MP3 at 320 kbps.
• Video files (AVI, MOV, MKV, WebM, etc.) are converted to MP4 (H.264) at up to 720p with streaming-optimized encoding.
• Files already in MP3 or MP4 format are left as-is.
• Conversion happens in a dedicated background queue so uploads remain fast.
• Real-time progress tracking shows conversion percentage on the file card.
• If conversion fails, the original file is preserved and an error message is shown.
• Teachers can upload any common audio/video format — the system handles the rest.

Practice Mode with Sheet Music & Audio

Students can open a dedicated practice view that displays sheet music (PDF) alongside a synchronized audio player — everything they need to practise in one screen.

• Side-by-side view: the PDF sheet music fills the screen while a sticky audio bar stays at the bottom for easy playback control.
• Playback speed: slow down or speed up the audio (0.5× to 2×) to match the student's level.
• Fullscreen mode: expand the practice view to remove all distractions.
• A "Practice" button appears automatically on any lesson section that contains both a PDF and an audio file.
• Works on desktop and tablets — touch controls are fully supported.
• Reference: PR #19 — branch available for future use.