PROJECT: contactHeRo

Overview

contactHeRo is a desktop contact management application made for Human Resource (HR) recruiters in a company. It contains several useful functions for the user like a Login system, Job listings system, Calendar and appointment system, and an Email system.

This portfolio is here to showcase my development of software engineering skills throughout the course of CS2103T as well as how I have applied these skills and knowledge into developing a real product with real users.

Summary of contributions

  • Major enhancement: added the ability to send out email in contactHeRo, using the Google API. Also provided a framework to integrate Google API.

    • What it does: allows the user to send email to their contact, using an in-app editor. To use the Google API to send email, users will have to login to Google. Our app provides a built-in browser to handle the user login and a framework to integrate Google API.

    • Justification: As we all know, recruiters will usually send out emails to potential employees to inform them of their job application progress or arranging for interviews. This feature lets user take advantage of the fact that the information of the potential employees are already in the app, therefore it will be easier to draft an email than using other email applications. It also provides a better user experience as users do not need to switch to another application.

    • Highlights: This enhancement provides a framework for future feature which requires Google API, like Google Contacts, Google Drive or Google Calendar. It required the programming ability to integrate third-party API and third-party code into our own app. The implementation was challenging as you do not have control over the source code in the third-party API, which means you have to work your own code around it.

    • Credits: stackoverflow.com, googledevelopers.com

  • Minor enhancement: added the ability to find by tag, which allows the user to find their contact using the skills tag.

    • What it does: It allows the user to search for a contact based on their skills tag.

    • Justification: Sometimes the user might not remember the name of the person they have shortlisted. The skills required for the job is easier to remember and therefore, this feature is very useful in helping them find a contact easily.

    • Highlights: This enhancement allows me to familiarise myself with the code base of Addressbook Level 4, as the Find command touches on multiple components of the app. It required the ability to read and understand codes written by others and also adding your own contributions to the codebase.

  • Code contributed: [Functional code] [Test code]

  • Other contributions:

    • Project management:

      • Reach all the milestones v1.1 - v1.5 on GitHub.

      • Created issues and milestones for the team.

      • Help to merge and review team member’s PR.

    • Enhancements to existing features:

      • Minor enhancements to the GUI: (Pull requests #34).

      • Enhancement to the Find command: #50.

    • Documentation:

      • Did cosmetic tweaks and updates to existing contents of the User Guide: #55, #89.

      • Did cosmetic tweaks to the README file: #60.

    • Community:

    • Tools:

      • Integrated Google API to the project: #117, #213.

Contributions to the User Guide

Given below are sections I contributed to the User Guide. They showcase my ability to write documentation targeting end-users.

Login to Google : googlelogin

You will have to login to google in order to use features like emailing. This process is simple and fast like how you would normally login using the web browser.
Format: googlelogin

  • Opens up the Google tab. This is contactHeRo’s built-in browser for Google logins. Simply enter your email and password to login.

  • You will have to login in order to use the Email command to send email.

  • IMPORTANT: Please do not go to other webpage in the Google tab after you have logged in.

    This is because contactHeRo has to use the login information from the webpage after you have login to send your email.

  • NOTE: We do not save or log any of your Google credentials or information as we respect your privacy. Therefore, everytime you restart contactHeRo, you have to login again.

Examples:

  • googlelogin
    This will open up the Google tab for you to login. On running the above command, you should see the following success message:

    Please log in to Google.

    You should also see the login screen as shown below.

googlelogin1
Figure 1. The Google log in page
Please do not go to any other webpages in the Google tab after you have logged in.

Now that you have logged in, you are ready to use the Email feature to send out emails!

Emailing your contact : email

You can send email to any person you have saved in contactHeRo using the following format.
Format: email INDEX [sub/EMAIL_SUBJECT]

  • Opens up the Draft Email tab. This is an User Interface for you to draft your emails.

  • Collects the information of the person at the specified INDEX.

  • The index refers to the index number shown in the most recent listing.

  • The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

  • The collected information will be used to help you fill up details in the draft like the person’s email address.

  • The email subject title is optional.

Examples:

  • list
    email 2
    This will open up the Draft Email tab and then collect the information of the 2nd person in the list.

  • list
    email 2 sub/Interview on 13 May 2018
    This will open up the Draft Email tab and then collect the information of the 2nd person in the list. It will also set the email subject title to "Interview on 13 May 2018".

On running the above commands, you should see similar message like the following:

Drafting email to: berniceyu@example.com

The collected information will be used automatically to fill up details as shown below in figure 5. If you have also used sub/Interview on 13 May 2018 in the command, the Subject textbox will also be fill with "Interview on 13 May 2018".

emailSS1
Figure 2. The User Interface to draft your email
You can use keyboard short-cuts like Ctrl-B to bold your text while drafting your email.

Finally, after you are done drafting up the email, simply hit the Send button to send your email. If the email is sent successfully, you should see a pop-up message as shown below.

emailSS2
Figure 3. Pop-up message

Contributions to the Developer Guide

Given below are sections I contributed to the Developer Guide. They showcase my ability to write technical documentation and the technical depth of my contributions to the project.

Emailing a contact using Google API

Current implementation

The sending of email will be implemented using the Google API.

Firstly, to access the Google API, the user must login to Google using the googlelogin command. The GoogleLoginCommand class will open the Google authentication webpage in the built-in web browser for user to login.

The GoogleAuthentication class will handle the authentication process of Google login. After authentication is successful, the user will be redirected to the Google homepage, where the Token is stored in the URL.

Below is the sequence diagram of the googlelogin command:

GoogleLoginSequence
Figure 4. Sequence Diagram of the GoogleLoginCommand

Next, a GmailClient is created using the GoogleAuthentication class and Token. The Token is obtained from the redirected URL, meaning that the user must not navigate to other URL after they have logged in.

Below is the class diagram of the GmailClient:

GmailClassDiagram
Figure 5. Class Diagram of GmailClient and GoogleAuthentication

This newly created GmailClient class will provide all the services that use the Google API.

Now that the GmailClient is created, we can use it send out emails!

The user will use the email command to start this process. The EmailCommand class will open an email interface to send email to the chosen contact. EmailCommand extends the Command class. It takes in an index and also an optional field EMAILSUBJECT through the EmailCommandParser, similar to the implementation of EditCommand and EditCommandParser.

The EmailPanel is the UI for user to draft their email. The UI has 3 inputs, To, Subject and Body. From is not needed here as we already have the authorised user’s email address in GoogleAuthentication.

The GmailMessage class will take in the values input by the user in the UI. These values will be stored in GmailMessage and packaged into a MimeMessage ready to be send out.

public static MimeMessage createEmailContent(String to, String from, String subject, String bodyText) throws MessagingException {
        Properties props = new Properties();
        Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
        MimeMessage emailContent = new MimeMessage(session);
        emailContent.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
        emailContent.addRecipient(javax.mail.Message.RecipientType.TO, new InternetAddress(to));
        emailContent.setSubject(subject);
        emailContent.setContent(bodyText, "text/html; charset=utf-8");
        return emailContent;
    }

Finally, GmailClient will send out the MimeMessage of GmailMessage as an email.

public static void sendEmail(MimeMessage emailContent) throws MessagingException, IOException {
        Message message = createMessageWithEmail(emailContent);
        message = service.users().messages().send("me", message).execute();
    }

Design Considerations

Aspect: How to login to Google

  • Alternative 1: Using GoogleAuthorizationCodeFlow to log in.

    • Pros: Very simple to implement and handle. Token and Credential are handled by the API.

    • Cons: It opens a default web browser, which the users are able to close. GoogleAuthorizationCodeFlow will stall the main thread in order to wait for the user to authenticate, if the user close the browser, the app will crash.

  • Alternative 2 (current choice): Using a built-in web browser to get the Token from the URL.

    • Pros: User cannot close the built in browser. The authentication process will not stall the main thread.

    • Cons: If the user changes the URL in the web browser, the Token is gone and the user have to re-login.

Aspect: How to send an email

  • Alternative 1 (current choice): Using Gmail API to send an email.

    • Pros: Able to customize the UI that the user will use to send out an email.

    • Cons: Will take more time to implement due to additional UI components.

  • Alternative 2: Using Webview to display the Gmail drafting url.

    • Pros: Faster implementation as similar feature has been done before.

    • Cons: Not customizable and text may appear small in Webview.

Enhancement Proposed (for Version 2.0)

  • Ability to add attachments for email.

  • Allow the user to set email content using the appointment in calendar.

Other Projects

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