User Guide

Prof-iler is a desktop app for managing student research records, optimized for use via a Command Line Interface (CLI) while still having the benefits of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Designed for fast typing research professors at SoC, Prof-iler helps streamline research management by organizing, tracking, and maintaining student records over time. These tasks can be done faster than traditional GUI apps.

• Quick start
• Features
  • Changing Theme
  • Viewing help : help
  • Adding a student: add
  • Listing all students : list
  • Editing a student : edit
  • Editing the progress : progress
  • Entering log for a student: log
  • Locating students by name: find
  • Filter for specific projects: filter
  • Sorting based on progress: sort
  • Deleting students : delete
  • Clearing all entries : clear
  • Exiting the program : exit
  • Saving the data
  • Editing the data file
• FAQ
• Known issues
• Command summary
• Glossary

Quick start

1. Ensure you have Java 17 or above installed in your Computer.
   Mac users: Ensure you have the precise JDK version prescribed here.

2. Download the latest .jar file from here.

3. Copy the file to the folder you want to use as the home folder for your Prof-iler application.

4. Open a command terminal, cd into the folder you put the jar file in, and use the java -jar Prof-iler.jar command to run the application.
   A GUI similar to the below should appear in a few seconds. Note how the app contains some sample data.
   

5. Type the command in the command box and press Enter to execute it. e.g. typing help and pressing Enter will open the help window.
   Some example commands you can try:

   • list : Lists all students.

   • add n/John Doe p/98765432 id/A0253517M e/johnd@example.com pr/Prof-iler pb/72 t/Y3 : Adds a student named John Doe to Prof-iler

   • delete 3 : Deletes the 3rd student shown in the current list.

   • clear : Deletes all students.

   • exit : Exits the app.

6. Refer to the Features below for details of each command.

Features

Changing Theme

Clicking ‘Theme’ shows a drop-down box with options Dark and Light. A GUI similar to the below should appear on clicking Light.

Viewing help : help

Shows a link to the user guide and a list of all commands available in Prof-iler.

Format: help, can also be accessed via F1 function key

Adding a student: add

Adds a student to Prof-iler.

Format: add n/NAME id/STUDENT_ID p/PHONE e/EMAIL pr/PROJECT [pb/PROGRESS] [t/TAG]…​

• All included fields must not be blank.
• NAME should only contain alphanumeric characters and spaces.
• STUDENT_ID is unique, should start with A or a, followed by 7 digits, and end with a letter.
• PHONE should only contain numbers, and it should be 3 - 15 digits long.
• EMAIL should be of the format local-part@domain and adhere to the following constraints:
  • The local-part should only contain alphanumeric characters and the special characters +_.-.
  • The local-part may not start or end with any special characters.
  • The local-part may not contain consecutive special characters.
  • This is followed by @ and then a domain name.
  • The domain name is made up of domain labels separated by periods, and must:
    • end with a domain label at least 2 characters long,
    • have each domain label start and end with alphanumeric characters,
    • have each domain label consist of alphanumeric characters, separated only by hyphens (non-consecutive), if any.
  • A top-level domain (e.g. .com) is optional.
• PROJECT can be any value.
• PROGRESS should be a whole number between 0 and 100.
• Each TAG should be alphanumeric, contain no spaces and is case-sensitive (e.g. cs and Cs are counted as two different tags).

Tip:
A student can have any number of tags (including 0).
A student can have unmentioned progress (default = 0).
Duplicate students are detected by the same STUDENT_ID.

Examples:

• add n/John Doe id/A0253517M p/98765432 e/johnd@example.com pr/Project Prof-iler
• add n/Betsy Crowe t/Y4 id/A0055729D e/betsycrowe@example.com p/1234567 pr/Orbital

Listing all students : list

Shows a list of all students in Prof-iler.

Format: list

Editing a student : edit

Edits an existing student in Prof-iler.

Format: edit INDEX [n/NAME] [id/STUDENT_ID] [p/PHONE] [e/EMAIL] [pr/PROJECT] [pb/PROGRESS] [t/TAG]…​

• Edits the student at the specified INDEX. The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed student list. The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​
• At least one of the optional fields must be provided.
• Existing values will be updated to the input values.
• When editing tags, the existing tags of the student will be removed i.e adding of tags is not cumulative.
• You can remove all the student’s tags by typing t/ without specifying any tags after it.

Examples:

• edit 1 p/91234567 e/johndoe@example.com Edits the phone number and email address of the 1st student to be 91234567 and johndoe@example.com respectively.
• edit 2 n/Betsy Crower t/ Edits the name of the 2nd student to be Betsy Crower and clears all existing tags.

Editing the progress : progress

Edits the progress of an existing student in Prof-iler.

Format: progress INDEX pb/PROGRESS

• Edits the student at the specified INDEX.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed student list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​
• Existing progress will be updated to the input progress.

Example:

• progress 1 pb/45 Edits the progress of the 1st student to be 45.

Entering log for a student: log

Adds log for the student whose index is specified.

Format: log INDEX l/LOG

• Adds a log to the student at the specified INDEX.
• Student can only have one log at a time.
• To remove a log, use log INDEX l/.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed student list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

Examples:

• log 1 l/CS2103T tutor Edits the log of the 1st student to be CS2103T tutor.

Locating students by name: find

Finds students whose names contain any of the given keywords.

Format: find KEYWORD [MORE_KEYWORDS]

• The search is case-insensitive. e.g hans will match Hans
• The order of the keywords does not matter. e.g. Hans Bo will match Bo Hans
• Only the name is searched.
• Only full words will be matched e.g. Han will not match Hans
• Students matching at least one keyword will be returned (i.e. OR search). e.g. Hans Bo will return Hans Gruber, Bo Yang

Examples:

• find John returns john and John Doe
• find alex david returns Alex Yeoh, David Li
  

Filter for specific projects: filter

Filters for projects that contain all the given keywords or tags that contain any of the given keywords. Format: filter pr/KEYWORD... or filter t/KEYWORD...

• The search is case-insensitive. e.g. PROF-ILER will match prof-iler
• The order of the given keywords does not matter. e.g. Project Orbital will match Orbital Project
• At least one fields must be provided, but not both. e.g. filter pr/Prof-iler t/Y4 will not work.
• Whitespaces in between each keywords separates the keywords. e.g. Project Orbital searches for both keywords Project and Orbital
• Only the full keyword will be matched. e.g. Prof-iler will not match Prof-ilers
• Filtering for project requires the project to contain all the given keywords. e.g.filter pr/Project Orbital will not match students with project Orbital while filter pr/Orbital will match student with Project Orbital
• Filtering for tag requires the student to contain any of the given tags. e.g. Y4 and CS will match any student that contain either Y4 or CS or both tags.
• All the filtered students will be shown in the displayed student list to the screen. Examples:
• filter pr/prof-iler returns Charlotte Oliveiro and David Li which are the two students under the project Prof-iler
• filter t/Y4 CS returns David Li and Irfan Ibrahim which are the students that contain at least one of the given keywords for the tag.

Sorting based on progress: sort

Sorts the student based on the progress, in either ascending or descending order.

Format: sort asc or sort desc

• The order asc or desc is case-insensitive.
• asc will sort the students based on ascending order of progress and desc will sort the students based on descending order of progress.
• All the sorted students will be shown in the displayed student list to the screen.

Tip:
Use list command to return to the original list after commands such as sort, filter and find.
The sort command works in conjunction with the filter command.
For example, the user can first apply a filter command (e.g. filter pr/Prof-iler) to view the students in the project that contains the word Prof-iler. After filtering, user can execute sort desc to arrange students in those project based on their progress in descending order.
This can also be done the other way round by applying the sort command first followed by filter command.

Example usage of filter pr/Prof-iler followed by sort desc:

Deleting students : delete

Deletes the specified student from Prof-iler.

Format: delete INDEX [,INDEXES] ...

• Deletes the student(s) at the specified INDEX or INDEXES.
• The indexes refer to the index numbers shown in the displayed student list.
• The indexes must be positive integers 1, 2, 3, …​
• Indexes can be specified in a list separated by commas ,, allowing for multiple deletions in a single command.

Examples:

• list followed by delete 2 deletes the 2nd student in Prof-iler.
• find Betsy followed by delete 1 deletes the 1st student in the results of the find command.
• delete 1, 3, 4 deletes the 1st, 3rd, and 4th students from the displayed list in Prof-iler.

Clearing all entries : clear

Clears all entries from Prof-iler, or clears a given project.

Format: clear [PROJECT]

• If no project is given, all the entries are cleared.
• The project field is case-insensitive.
• All the students under the project will be cleared.

A pop-up message to confirm your action will appear. It defaults to No to prevent accidental deletion.

Simply use keyboard tab or arrow keys to toggle between the options. Press enter on your keyboard to confirm the selection. Alternatively, you can also click on the buttons using your cursor.

Examples:

• clear clears all entries.
• clear prof-iler clears Charlotte Oliveiro and David Li which are the two students under the project Prof-iler.

Exiting the program : exit

Exits the program.

Format: exit

Saving the data

Prof-iler data are saved in the hard disk automatically after any command that changes the data. There is no need to save manually.

Editing the data file

Prof-iler data are saved automatically as a JSON file [JAR file location]/data/prof-iler.json. Advanced users are welcome to update data directly by editing that data file.

Caution: If your changes to the data file makes its format invalid, Prof-iler will discard all data and start with an empty data file at the next run. Hence, it is recommended to take a backup of the file before editing it.
Furthermore, certain edits can cause the Prof-iler application to behave in unexpected ways (e.g. if a value entered is outside of the acceptable range). Therefore, edit the data file only if you are confident that you can update it correctly.

FAQ

Q: How do I transfer my data to another Computer?
A: Install the app in the other computer and overwrite the empty data file it creates with the file that contains the data of your previous Prof-iler home folder.

Known issues

1. When using multiple screens, if you move the application to a secondary screen, and later switch to using only the primary screen, the GUI will open off-screen. The remedy is to delete the preferences.json file created by the application before running the application again.
2. If you minimize the Help Window and then run the help command (or use the Help menu, or the keyboard shortcut F1) again, the original Help Window will remain minimized, and no new Help Window will appear. The remedy is to manually restore the minimized Help Window.

Command summary

Glossary

This glossary defines key terms and abbreviations used in the Prof-iler User Guide.