【INFO1112】 Just a friendly reminder

Students and tutors often have great suggestions to specifications. While no major

changes will be made after release, this assignment specification may be clarified up to

Week 4, 27/08/2023 . Revised versions will be clearly marked and accompanying

announcements made to Edstem.

In this assignment, you'll be creating a basic application called "Jafr" (short for "Just a

friendly reminder"). This application helps multiple users manage their tasks and meetings

on a Unix-like OS (a popular choice of OS in industry where developers might share a

computer system or host web applications).

Jafr is Unix-friendly. This means that

1. Users interact with Jafr by typing commands in a command-line interface.

2. Jafr assumes that all the tasks and meetings are stored in text files that are otherwise

managed by users of the shared system. Users simply edit these files themselves when

they want to make changes outside of Jafr.

You will implement Jafr in Python and write a simple start up script in Bash. You will then

write I/O end to end tests for Jafr.

These specifications first describe each behaviour of Jafr. The final sections describe error

handling, how to write tests for Jafr and provide some hints.

Overview

Jafr is designed to run whenever a user opens their terminal at the beginning of their day.

Users can choose to view reminders that are relevant to the current day, or make changes.

Changes can include sharing reminders with other users.

There are two kinds of reminders: tasks and meetings.

Setup

Jafr primarily relies on two text files for each user: tasks.md and meetings.md . These text

files are placed inside a master directory of the user's choosing.

The user chooses their master directory inside a JSON file called user-settings.json

located at ~/.jafr/user-settings.json . You may consider ~/.jafr/ a 'hidden' directory,

for Jafr's internal use only.

Hint

Notice that the hidden directory .jafr/ is inside a user's home directory which can be

symbolically referred to by ~ .

You can fetch the path referred to by ~ in Python by using os.path.expanduser('~')

user-settings.json has a single key value pair storing the absolute path to the master

directory.

Sample user-settings.json :

{

"master" : "/home/dailystuff"

}

Help! What's a JSON file?

JSON is a universal file format for easy data reading and writing. There are two kinds of

data structures possible to write in JSON: objects and arrays.

Curly braces are used to define an object: a collection of name/value pairs (exactly like

a dictionary in Python). Square brackets are used to define an array: an ordered list of

values (exactly like a list in Python).

You may use Python's json library in your implementation to read JSON files. See

json.load()

Note

tasks.md and meetings.md for each user are given inside your scaffold. Assume the

user creates these themselves using their preferred text editor.

The ~/.jafr/ directory for each user is also given inside your scaffold. You do not

have to handle the case where ~/.jafr/user-settings.json is missing for any user.

Assume Jafr has some installation script that handles this, outside of the scope of your

assignment.

Text files containing reminders

The two text files inside the master directory for each user are as follows.

tasks.md

This text file contains dot pointed tasks with the following format. Dates follow DD/MM/YY, or

more precisely the C standard format %d/%m/%y (see the datetime docs ). You will only ever

have to handle dates in the years 1969 - 2068 (inclusive).

- < task description > Due: < due date > < completion status >

For example

- Complete INFO1112 A1 Due: 01/10/23 not complete

- Acquire Twitter Due: 30/10/23 complete

- Study linux namespaces Due: 30/09/23 not complete

Hint

Notice that a task must end with complete or not complete !

Moreover, the format implies that a task description should never contain the string

Due: . You do not have to handle the case where a user does this.

meetings.md

This text file contains dot pointed meetings with the following format. Times follow HH:mm,

or more precisely the C standard format %H:%M (see the datetime docs ).

- < meeting description > Scheduled: < scheduled time > < scheduled date >

For example

- Michael Mai's welcome party Scheduled: 18:00 25/08/23

- A1 marking meeting Scheduled: 09:00 01/09/23

Hint

You do not have to handle the case where a user places Scheduled: inside the

meeting description.

Further, as suggested by the links above, it will be easiest to use datetime to handle

all dates/times!

Usage

Jafr runs when jafr.py is executed by the Python interpreter. There is one command line

argument which will contain a path (absolute or relative) to a given passwd file. More on this

below.

For example

python3 jafr.py passwd

Jafr first displays relevant reminders (tasks followed by meetings), before showing a menu.

The menu contains the following.

What would you like to do?

1. Complete tasks

2. Add a new meeting.

3. Share a task.

4. Share a meeting.

5. Change Jafr's master directory.

6. Exit

A user chooses one option only.

<menu num>

This invokes the relevant behaviour, described below. If the user enters 6 , Jafr exits. After

completing a behaviour, Jafr returns to the menu.

For example

Just a friendly reminder! You have these tasks to finish today.

- Read INFO1112 A1 specs

- Fix bug 1 inside Jafr

- Study ELEC1601

These tasks need to be finished in the next three days!

- Shower by 03/08/23

- Organise paul's brithday by 03/08/23

You have the following meetings today!

- Michael Mai's welcome party at 18:00

- Resume writing workshop at 09:00

- Jafr dev meeting at 13:30

You have the following meetings scheduled over the next week!

- Barbenheimer marathon on 06/08/23 at 17:00

- Academic advice on 02/08/23 at 14:30

- ELEC1601 group meeting on 03/08/23 at 11:00

What would you like to do?

1. Complete tasks

2. Add a new meeting.

3. Share a task.

4. Share a meeting.

5. Change Jafr's master directory.

6. Exit