User Guide

Welcome to Arrow User Guide! This user guide will give you a descriptive instruction on how to use Arrow. The words in italic are terms you may be unfamiliar with. And if that is the case, do not hesitate to check them out in Glossary.

Arrow is a desktop app that help software project managers keep track of their members’ tasks and deliverables. By associating tasks to specific teammates, users can keep track of what needs to be done and have quick access to contact information should they wish to reach out to the teammate. More specifically, apart from the command box, there are two main lists which store the tasks list and the teammates list. In this way, our users can use two lists to organize the team project easily.

Arrow uses a Command Line Interface (CLI) and at the same time possesses the convenience of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The main target users are software project managers, who should be equipped with Command Line Interface (CLI) skills. And if you can type fast, Arrow can help you manage your tasks in an exceptionally quick way.

Note

Table of Contents

1. Quick Start
2. Overview of Features
   1. Basic Commands
      • Clear all Teammate records
      • Clear all Task records
      • Help
      • Exit the program
   2. Teammate Commands
      • Add a Teammate
      • List all Teammates
      • Delete a Teammate
      • Edit a Teammate
      • Find Teammate
   3. Task Management Commands
      • Add a Task
      • Assign a Task to a Teammate
      • Mark a Task
      • Unmark a Task
      • Delete a task
      • Set deadline to Task
      • Sort Task by deadline
      • Filter Task by parameters
      • Edit a Task
      • List all project title
3. Command Summary
4. FAQ
5. Tutorial for CLI
6. Behind Everything
7. Glossary

Quick Start

1. Ensure you have Java 11 or above installed in your Computer. If you are unsure of how to check, refer to the FAQ.

2. Download the latest arrow.jar from here.

3. Copy the file to the folder you want to use as the home folder for Arrow.

4. Double-click the file to start the app. The GUI or main window should appear in a few seconds. Note how the app contains some sample data. If the app does not start and an error appears on your screen, do refer to the FAQ.
   

5. The picture below shows the main window of Arrow.
   • The command box is boxed in red, where you enter commands.
   • The task panel is boxed in blue, where you can see the current task list.
   • The address book is boxed in green, where you can see the contact information of your teammates.

6. 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 teammates.

   • exit : Exits the app.
7. Refer to the Features section below for details of each command.

Overview of Features

1. Basic functionality
   1. Clear all Teammates’ records
   2. Clear all Task records
   3. Get Help
   4. Exit app
2. Managing Teammate Information
   1. Adding a new Teammate
   2. Listing all Teammates
   3. Deleting a Teammate
   4. Editing a Teammate’s information
   5. Finding Teammate(s) based on name/keyword/tag
3. Managing Task Information
   1. Adding a new Task
   2. Assigning a Task to a Teammate
   3. Viewing all Tasks assigned to a Teammate
   4. Marking completed Tasks
   5. Unmarking incomplete Tasks
   6. Deleting a Task
   7. Setting deadlines to a Task
   8. Sorting Task by deadline
   9. Filtering Task by
      1. Description
      2. Project Title
      3. Assigned Contacts to Task
      4. Deadline
      5. Completion Status
   10. Editing a Task
   11. Listing all project title

Features

If you are new to Arrow, here provides some tips for you to enter commands efficiently.

Basic Commands

This section covers basic application-related commands.

Clearing all Teammates : clear

Clears all Teammates from the address book.

Format: clear

Clearing all tasks from Task Panel: task clear

Clears the tasks from tasks list.

Format: task clear

Examples:

• task list followed by task clear to delete all incomplete tasks.

Viewing help : help

Shows a message explaining how to access the help page.

Format: help

Exiting the program : exit

Exits the program.

Format: exit

Teammate Commands

Teammate entails all the members that you can assign tasks to in the future. This section documents how to use add, delete, edit and list operations on teammate records.

Adding a new Teammate: add

Adds a new Teammate to the address book.

Format: add n/NAME p/PHONE_NUMBER e/EMAIL a/ADDRESS [t/TAG]…​

• TAG can only be 1 word.

Tip: A teammate can have 0 or more tags.

Examples:

• add n/John Doe p/98765432 e/johnd@example.com a/John street, block 123, #01-01
• add n/Betsy Crowe t/friend e/betsycrowe@example.com a/Newgate Prison p/1234567 t/criminal

Listing all Teammates : list

Shows a list of all teammates in the address book.

Format: list

Deleting a Teammate : delete

Deletes the specified Teammate from the address book.

Format: delete INDEX

• Deletes the teammate at the specified INDEX.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed teammate list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

Examples:

• list followed by delete 2 deletes the 2nd teammate in the address book.
• find Betsy followed by delete 1 deletes the 1st teammate in the results of the find command.

Note:

• This teammate will also be deleted from all tasks he is assigned to. Task panel will be filtered to show you the affected tasks!
• Enter task list to view all tasks again.

Editing a Teammate’s information : edit

Edits an existing Teammate in the address book.

Format: edit INDEX [n/NAME] [p/PHONE] [e/EMAIL] [a/ADDRESS] [t/TAG]…​

• Edits the teammate at the specified INDEX. The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed teammate 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.
• TAG can only be 1 word.
• When editing tags, the existing tags of the teammate will be removed i.e. adding of tags is not cumulative.
• You can remove all the teammate’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 teammate to be 91234567 and johndoe@example.com respectively.
• edit 2 n/Betsy Crower t/ Edits the name of the 2nd teammate to be Betsy Crower and clears all existing tags.

Note:

• This teammate’s details will also be edited under all tasks he is assigned to. Task panel will be filtered to show you the affected tasks!
• Enter task list to view all tasks again.

Finding Teammate(s) based on name/keyword/tags: find

Finds teammates whose names contain any of the given name/keywords, or teammates who contain any of the given tags.

Format: find [NAME/KEYWORD]… [t/TAG]…

• At least one keyword/tag has to be provided.
• 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
• For names/keywords, only the name is searched.
• Partial names/keywords will be matched e.g. Han will match Hans
• Only full tags will be matched e.g. t/frontend will only match with t/frontend
• Teammates matching at least one keyword/tag 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 t/frontend returns Alex Yeoh
• find John t/frontend returns john, John Doe and Alex Yeoh
• find alex david returns Alex Yeoh, David Li
  

Task Management Commands

A team Leader in Arrow may have tasks to complete or assign to Teammates.

In the Task panel, all tasks are shown coupled with who it has been assigned to.

A Task has the ability to store these details:

• Index: The index of the task in the Tasks panel
• Title: Description of the task
• Deadline: Deadline given to the Task
• Project: Project of the task
• Assigned Teammates: Teammates who have been assigned

All task-related commands have the keyword task in front of them. These commands modify the Task panel of Arrow.

Adding a new Task: task add

Adds a new task to the task panel.

Format: task add TITLE

• TITLE refers to the task and cannot be empty.
• Tasks with the same TITLE cannot be added and will result in an error message.

Caution: If the current task list only shows completed task (via task list -c), the newly added task will not show up in the list. You can view it by running the command task list to show incomplete tasks or task list -a to show all tasks.

Examples:

• task add Task 1
• task add Finish GUI

Assigning a Task to a Teammate: task assign

Assigns or unassigns the specified teammate from address book to a task from task panel.

Format: task assign TASK_INDEX [+@TEAMMATE_INDEX]…​ [+@TEAMMATE_NAME]…​ [-@TEAMMATE_INDEX]…​ [-@TEAMMATE_NAME]…​

• +@: Assigns the teammates at the specified TEAMMATE_INDEXs, or with the TEAMMATE_NAME, from address book to task at the specified TASK_INDEX from task list.
• -@: Unassigns the teammates at the specified TEAMMATE_INDEXs, or with the TEAMMATE_NAME, from address book from task at the specified TASK_INDEX from task list.

Tip: A task can have 0 or more assigned teammates.

Examples:

• task assign 1 +@1 +@Alex Yeoh -@Bernice Yu assigns the 1st teammate and “Alex Yeoh” from the address book to the 1st task from task list, and unassigns “Bernice Yu” from the same task.

Marking a Task: task mark

Marks a task as complete.

Format: task mark TASK_INDEX

• Marks the task at the specified TASK_INDEX as complete.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed task list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

Examples:

• task list followed by task mark 1 marks the 1st task in the task list as complete.

Tip: Marking a complete task will not unmark the task.

Unmarking a Task: task unmark

Unmarks a task and sets it as incomplete.

Note;

• To unmark a task, we need to show the full list of tasks with the completed (disappeared) tasks.
• By executing task list -a command, we can fully display the task panel with both complete and incomplete tasks.
• Thus we can unmark a task from complete to incomplete.

Format: task unmark TASK_INDEX

• Show the full task lists by using task list -a.
• Unmarks the task at the specified TASK_INDEX.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed task list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

Examples:

• task list -a followed by task unmark 1 unmarks the 1st task in the task list and sets it as incomplete.

Deleting a Task: task delete

Deletes the specified task from the task panel.

Format: task delete TASK_INDEX

• Deletes the task at the specified TASK_INDEX.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed task list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

Examples:

• task list followed by task delete 2 deletes the 2nd task in the task panel.

Setting deadlines to a Task: task do ... by/

You can use the task do ... by/ command to set (or remove) a deadline for some task.

Format: task do TASK_INDEX by/DATE...

• The task do command sets the deadline specified by DATE to the task at the specified TASK_INDEX from the task list.
• You can only use plain English to describe the intended deadline, such as today, tomorrow, next Thursday, 14 November 2022, and so on.
• Dates containing non-alphanumeric characters such as 11-11-2022 will not be accepted and an error message will be thrown.
• If the application is unable to determine a date from your input, an error message will be displayed, and you will be prompted to try a different input.
• To remove the deadline from a task, you can use the special character ?.

Examples:

• task do 1 by/tomorrow sets the deadline for the 1st task in the list to tomorrow.
• task do 1 by/? removes the deadline from the 1st task in the list.

Sorting tasks by deadline: task sort

Sorts the task list by deadline. Tasks with earlier deadlines will be put at the top, while tasks without any deadlines will be at the bottom.

Format: task sort

Filtering the Tasks List: task list

The task list command is a powerful command that allows you to focus only on the tasks that matter to you.

Format: task list [KEYWORD] [#PROJECT_NAME]... [@TEAMMATE_INDEX]... [before/DATE] [after/DATE] [-a] [-c]

The format above may look daunting, but this is only because the task list command allows you to potentially describe complex queries.

However, all the parameters are optional, and in most cases, you will only need a simple query that uses just one or two parameters.

For ease of understanding, many of these common use cases have been detailed below.

1. Filtering by Completion Status

Format: task list [-a] [-c]

• The simplest form of the command is simply task list. This allows you to view all incomplete tasks.
• You may find this command useful to reset your task list back to its default state.

Examples

• task list -a returns all tasks, regardless of completion status.
• task list -c returns all completed tasks only.

2. Filtering by Description

Format: task list KEYWORD

• The KEYWORD parameter allows you to search for tasks that contain KEYWORD.

Example

• task list fix returns all tasks whose description contains the keyword fix.

3. Filtering by Project

Format: task list #PROJECT_NAME...

• The # parameter allows you to search for tasks that are assigned to any of the project(s) you specify.

Example

• task list #CS2101 #CS2103T returns all tasks that are either under the project CS2101 or CS2103T.

4. Filtering by Assigned Contact(s)

Format: task list @TEAMMATE_INDEX...

• The @ parameter allows you to search for tasks that are assigned to all the contact(s) you specify.
• Shows the tasks of the specified TEAMMATE_INDEX.
• The contact refers to the index number shown in the displayed teammate list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

Example

• task list @1 @2 returns all tasks that are assigned to both the 1st and 2nd teammates from the address book.

5. Filtering by Deadline

Format: task list before/DATE after/DATE

• The before/ and after/ parameters allow you to specify a date range to filter the tasks by, according to their deadline.
• • Tasks with unspecified deadlines will be displayed regardless of the filters.
• You can choose to use only one of the parameters, as shown in the examples below.

Examples

• task list before/ next Monday after/ tomorrow returns all tasks whose deadline is after tomorrow but before next Monday.
• task list before/ end of the month returns all tasks whose deadline is before the end of the month.

Editing a task: task edit

Edits an existing task in the task list.

Format: task edit TASK_INDEX [ti/TITLE] [by/DEADLINE] [#/PROJECT]

• Edits the task at the specified TASK_INDEX. The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed task list. The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​
• At least one of the optional fields (TITLE, DEADLINE, PROJECT) must be provided. If none are provided, the application will give an error.
• Existing values will be updated to the input values.

Listing all projects: task project

Lists all the projects present in the task panel.
Projects of hidden tasks will also be shown.

The only way to add a project is to use the task edit command. The task panel will not be changed to show only tasks with project.

Format: task project

Saving the data

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

Arrow data are saved as JSON files, one for AddressBook (Teammates) and one for TaskPanel (Tasks).

• AddressBook: [JAR file location]/data/addressbook.json
• TaskPanel: [JAR file location]/data/taskpanel.json

Caution: Data file should not be edited manually!

Proposed Features

Features to implement in the coming versions.

Sort Teammates by name

Sort Teammates by alphabetical order of their names. Currently, it is difficult to search for specific Teammates if the list becomes too long. This feature would allow easier finding of Teammates as there is an order in the list of Teammates.

Recurring Tasks

Extensive project management is planned for future iterations, to allow for better planning. This will also add the ability to add tasks of the same name (different projects) since categorisation will be done by projects instead.

Command Summary

This summary provides a list of useful and straightforward instructions on how to use the command lines more efficiently.

Basic Commands Summary

Teammate Commands Summary

Task Commands Summary

FAQ

Q: How do I check my Java version?
A: Open Terminal if you’re on Mac or Command Prompt if you’re on Windows. Type “java -version” and press Enter.

Q: How do I install java 11?
A: Download java 11 to your computer via this link.

Q: If I already have java on my computer, but not java 11, how do I switch java version to java 11?
A: For MacOS user, check this tutorial. For Windows user, check this tutorial.

Q: What if the app does not open when I double-click it?
A: Follow the steps listed to open the app.

1. Ensure that you have done Step 1 to 3 in the Quick Start.
2. Open Terminal app if you are on a Mac or the Command Prompt if you are on Windows.
3. Type “java -jar “ into Terminal or Command Prompt (do not do anything else).
4. Go to the folder where you just copied arrow.jar to.
5. Drag arrow.jar and drop anywhere into Terminal or Command Prompt.
6. Press Enter and the command will run, the GUI will pop up.

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 Arrow home folder.

Tutorial for CLI

A command-line interface (CLI) is a text-based user interface (UI) used to run programs, manage computer files and interact with the computer.

This article showed you several “unknown-to-many” commands you can use to get access to hidden functionalities on your personal computer.

Some of our features

To improve the speed of your actions and quality of your life while using the application we have also implemented the below features

• When your command box is out of focus and empty, you can press the / key on your command to immediately put your cursor on the command box. The command box will be focused and appears as below. A slash will appear and you will have to delete it before entering the next command.
• When you enter a command, it disappears from the command box is run by the application. You may use the UP arrow key to go back to a previous command or DOWN arrow key to go to the next command. However, if there is text entered, then you cannot use this feature.

Behind Everything

Why we are using two different lists?

• Task Panel List

As software project team leaders, it is important to have a clear vision of tasks to be implemented, since there could be many projects and each project may have so many items to keep in track. Thus, Arrow has a task panel list to keep every task organized. Details of each task can be added, which helps the team managers no fear of leaving out any progress.

Also, the task panel list only shows the incomplete tasks.

• Teammate List

  The most important part of a software project is the team members serving at different positions, Arrow helps tracking details of every team member and links them to their tasks to be finished.

Glossary

This is the end of Arrow User Guide. If you have reached this far, thank you for reading and hope you have enjoyed using our app :)