The purpose of the Project Portfolio is to document and showcase my contributions to the software project, EzWatchList
Our team was initially tasked with enhancing a basic command line interface(CLI) desktop application for our Software Engineering project. We are also allowed to morph it to other application that uses command line interface. Thus, we chose to morph it into a movie records management system called EzWatchList. This enhanced version provides a unique, clean and simple way of organizing and keeping track of movie or TV show watch list.
Figure 1. The graphical interface for Ezwatchlist.
EzWatchList helps users to keep track and organise movie or TV show in a watch list. User can simply
interact with the application by inputting commands into the interface.
Main features of EzWatchList:
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Keep track of shows that users plan to watch
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Allows users to edit and mark down shows that they have watched
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Allows users to search for show online using
searchonline function or search within user’s watch list. -
Gives users statistics about their watching habits and recommend shows to them.
The following sections illustrate these enhancements in more detail, as well as the relevant documentation I have added to the user and developer guides in relation to these enhancements.
This section shows a summary of my challenges, coding, documentation, and other helpful contributions to the team project. |
My role was to design and implement the Add and Sync features. These commands are essential to the application as they are the
building block of the application. Before I can design these features, I have to understand
the application requirement first such as functional and non-function requirements. I also have to know who my target audience
is and study the use-cases properly to plan out and design these features.
1. Modifying and extension of add command
What it does:
There are two separate functions for Add command.
First, it allows the user to add movies or TV shows into the watch list.
User has to input several information of the show such as name, description, and
name of actors.
Beside this core function, the add command also allows user to add a movie found in search
result page after user has used the search online feature. Search page displays the search result of the movies the user
is interested to watch. The search feature is implemented by my team mate, Michelle.
Justification:
The purpose of this application is to allow user to track movie list. Thus, adding shows into watch list is a
fundamental and core function that runs the application. If the user wants to know more about a certain movie, he can
simply use the search function to search for it. The search function is able to gather information about movies online
and user can choose to ‘add’ a certain movie from the search list into his own watch list.
Highlights:
The addition of add command requires some understanding of both the implementation of the application and how to retrieve
the data from 3rd party API(TMDB).
Credits:
Since we are retrieving information on shows online, we have decided to use The Movie Database (TMDB) api.
2. Synchronise, Sync, command
What it does:
User may not have updated information about the show they want to add. They can use the search function to check the
details of the show they are interested to watch. Then, they are able to use the sync to synchronise a show found in
search page to their show which has already been added in watch list.
Justification:
User will definitely not know most of the information about a show. Hence, by implementing this sync function, users
will then be able to get updated information about the show.
Highlights:
This enhancement requires some understanding of both the implementation of the application and how to retrieve the data from 3rd party API(TMDB).
Credits:
Since we are retrieving information on shows online, we decided to use The Movie Database (TMDB) api.
What it does:
Users are able to press a single shortcut key button to move about the panels such as ‘Watchlist’, ‘Watched’, ‘Search’ and ‘Statistics’ without moving and clicking mouse.
Justification:
Our target user is one who prefers to type fast and complete tasks quickly. One of the non-functional requirement is to reduce the usage of the mouse as this is mainly a command line application. Adding shortcut keys will reduce the usage of the mouse.
Highlights:
This addition make it a lot easier for user to navigate through the different pages.
Code contributed:
My contributions to EzWatchList can be found in the following My Code Contribution
Project management:
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I am in charged of testing, so my responsibility is to plan, understand and write test codes for this project.
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My job is to understand the component logic as well so I am analyse the problems faced better.
Enhancements to existing features :
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I have added multi-threading when the user uses
searchcommand. Since, it might take some time to load the data, multi-threading allows the application to process these data in the background. Users will then be able to do other task in the application like usingaddcommand as well. -
I have added shortcut keys so users are able to navigate the pages easily.
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Since I am in charged of the unit testing, I have added test cases to improve test coverage.
Documentation:
Community:
Tools:
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Integrated a third party library (TMDB) to the project (TMDB Api)
This section is an excerpt from our EzWatchList User Guide, showing additions that I have made for the sync features. They showcase my ability to write documentation targeting end-users. |
Given below are sections I contributed to the Developer Guide, showing additions that I have made for the add and sync features. They showcase my ability to write technical documentation and the technical depth of my software engineering skills to the project. |