Accliptic Support Teacher's Pet Open Source
Frequently Asked Questions

Have questions about Teacher's Pet? The following are some of the more common questions asked about the software. If your questions are not addressed here, please let us know.

Q: Why Teacher's Pet, instead of product XYZ?
Many of our competitors provide very high quality software, some even providing features that we don't (yet!). However, we believe that our strong focus on improving the educational process by automating tedious work and empowering teaching professionals sets us apart. We don't try to offer a long list of features, we offer a streamlined tool to help you teach.
Q: How much does Teacher's Pet cost?
Pricing differs considerably depending on your specific school or district's needs. Note that this is a one-time fee (not a subscription type service), and provides you with free updates through the v1.X series. If you contact us directly and let us know what you need, though, we will be more than happy to work with you toward fulfulling those needs.
Q: Does Teacher's Pet licensing include support?
Yes. All licenses include support for the installation and usage of the software. If you have specific support requirements, please let us know.
Q: Is there a money-back refund policy if I am unsatisfied?
Yes. If you wish to receive a refund for your purchase for any reason whatsoever, we will provide one within the first 45 days after your purchase. This is to ensure that you are able to install the software, that it performs acceptably on your server, that you find its functionality useful for your purpose, etc.

Accliptic Technologies cares for its customers. We have no interest in making someone pay for something that they cannot or do not wish to use.
Q: What are the system requirements for Teacher's Pet?
In order to install the Teacher's Pet software, you will need to have access to a server running some sort of Unix variant (so far only Mac OS X, Fedora Linux and Debian Linux have been thoroughly tested, though other Unix-like operating systems will likely work with little or no extra configuration). Most web hosting services can provide this sort of environment.

You will also need to have the following software installed:
  • Apache web server v1.3 or newer (older versions may work).
  • MySQL database server v4.0 or newer (older versions may work) with database name, hostname, login and password.
  • PHP version 4.2 or newer (older versions will not work).
If you are not comfortable with installing this sort of software yourself or do not have access to dedicated hardware, you may wish to employ the services of a web hosting company.

The software listed above is extremely common, and will already be installed by most Unix-based web hosts. If you plan on utilizing the services of a web hosting company, though, we recommend verifying that they support the above prior to signing up (as well as inquiring about their refund policy, in case you have unresolvable problems with your installation).
Q: What web hosts are known to work with Teacher's Pet?
The above list of prerequisites can be a bit daunting, so we have compiled a short list of web hosting companies that are known to support everything you need to run the software:
This list is not comprehensive, so be sure to check with your current host to see if they have everything you need before switching.
Q: What web browsers work with Teacher's Pet?
As Teacher's Pet is a web-based application, access to it is through web browser software. The following web browsers have been tested and are known to work with Teacher's Pet: One of these browsers is used by almost all of the web-using public. It's possible that other browsers may work fine, but have not been fully tested - if you can offer reports of other browsers working or not working, we'd love to hear them.
Q: Will I need to install Teacher's Pet myself?
No. All purchases include installation at no additional cost. As long as you can provide a suitable hardware/software platform, this will not be a problem.
Q: How customizable is Teacher's Pet?
Teacher's Pet is extremely customizable. By changing just a few items in the main configuration file, you can integrate the software into just about any web site. Additional features (such as theme overrides) allow you to make substantial changes to the look and feel of the software.

Substantial changes can even be made by changing just three configuration settings (HTML header, HTML footer, and some cascading style sheet information in the <head></head> section).
Q: Can you help with integration/customization?
We provide such services for an additional fee. Please contact us and let us know a bit more about what you had in mind, and we'll see what we can do.
Q: Is Teacher's Pet theme-able/skinnable/templatized?
Yes and no. We did design Teacher's Pet with a clear separation of code logic and presentation, meaning that almost all of the 'look and feel' of the software is defined using templates containing HTML mark-up. This means that, technically, you can essentially completely overhaul the appearance of the software by writing your own theme and swapping out ours.

However, doing so may entail a lot of work for you in the future. The theme format hasn't been officially documented, and can change substantially in the future (without a formal explanation of each individual change). Trying to keep up with changes can be very difficult, and is only recommended for those with a lot of time on their hands.

As a somewhat easier alternative, if all you want to do is make a change to the way a single portion of the interface is displayed (perhaps add a few graphics, etc), we allow you to define 'theme overrides' which allow you to replace a portion of our main theme with one you have defined. This may still require you to make changes as new Teacher's Pet versions are released, but it's a lot easier to keep track of them this way.
Q: Is Teacher's Pet source code available?
Yes. As the software is written using PHP and Perl (and we do not use code obfuscators such as Zend Encoder), all source code is available to those who purchase it and can be freely edited. However, note that Teacher's Pet is not 'open source' and you cannot redistribute our code to others without permission. Also note that we are unable to officially support code that has been altered (though we'll certainly answer any questions you may have about modified code, to the extent that we can).
Q: Can I get a certain feature added?
We're always welcome to consider feature enhancement suggestions and requests, though we cannot guarantee whether or not a given feature will be added, or provide a firm timeframe as to when that may occur. If you really need a special feature added ASAP, let us know and we may be able implement it for you for an additional fee.












Accliptic Technologies