CampusConnect User Guide

CampusConnect is the ultimate contact management app for NUS students with speedy typing skills. Our contact tagging, finding, and organisation features ensure that with just a few keystrokes, you never forget who you meet, where you met them, and what their contact details are.

CampusConnect offers a seamless and quick contact management experience using our Command Line Interface style of input, where commands are processed in the blink of an eye. If you can type quickly, we can get it done faster than any traditional point-and-click management app.


Quick start

  1. Ensure you have Java 17 or above installed in your Computer.

  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 CampusConnect.

  4. Open a command terminal, cd into the folder you put the jar file in, and use the java -jar CampusConnect.jar command to run the application.
    A GUI similar to the below should appear in a few seconds. Note how the app does not contain any sample data.
    EmptyUi

  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 contacts.

    • add n/John Doe p/98765432 e/johnd@example.com : Adds a contact named John Doe with phone number 98765432 and email johnd@example.com to CampusConnect.

    • delete 1 : Deletes the 1st contact shown in the current list.

    • clear : Deletes all contacts.

    • exit : Exits the app.

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


Features

**Notes about the command format:**
* Words in `UPPER_CASE` are the parameters to be supplied by the user.
e.g. in `add n/NAME`, `NAME` is a parameter which can be used as `add n/John Doe`. * Prefixes (for the contact information) refer to any of these: `n/`, `p/`, `e/`, `t/`, which are used for contact information (name, phone, email and tag respectively) * Items in square brackets are optional.
e.g. `n/NAME [t/TAG]` can be used as `n/John Doe t/friend` or as `n/John Doe`. * Items with `…`​ after them can be used multiple times including zero times.
e.g. `[t/TAG]…​` can be used as ` ` (i.e. 0 times), `t/friend`, `t/friend t/family` etc. * Parameters can be in any order.
e.g. if the command specifies `n/NAME p/PHONE_NUMBER`, `p/PHONE_NUMBER n/NAME` is also acceptable. * Extraneous parameters for commands that do not take in parameters (such as `help`, `list`, `exit` and `clear`) will be ignored.
e.g. if the command specifies `help 123`, it will be interpreted as `help`. * If you are using a PDF version of this document, be careful when copying and pasting commands that span multiple lines as space characters surrounding line-breaks may be omitted when copied over to the application.

Notes about duplicate contacts:

Notes about case sensitivity:

Notes about format of fields:

Command summary

Action Format, Examples
Add:link: add n/NAME p/PHONE_NUMBER e/EMAIL [t/TAG]…​
e.g., add n/James Ho p/91231234 e/jamesho@example.com t/friend t/classmate
Clear:link: clear
Delete:link: delete INDEX
e.g., delete 3
Edit:link: edit INDEX [n/NAME] [p/PHONE_NUMBER] [e/EMAIL] [t/TAG]…​
e.g.,edit 2 n/James Lee e/jameslee@example.com
Find by contact information:link: find PREFIX/KEYWORD [PREFIX/MORE_KEYWORDS]…​
e.g., find n/James t/floorball
Add tag:link: addtag INDEX t/KEYWORD [t/MORE_TAGS]…​
e.g. addtag 1 t/friend t/classmate
Delete tag:link: deltag INDEX t/KEYWORD
e.g. deltag 1 t/friend
Categorize tag:link: cattag t/TAG [t/MORE_TAGS…​] CATEGORY
e.g. cattag t/floorball t/mahjong activity
Undo action:link: undo
Redo action:link: redo
List:link: list
Help:link: help

Commands

Viewing help : help

Shows a message with a clickable hyperlink.

When clicked, this hyperlink will show the help page.

help message

Format: help

Adding a person : add

Adds a person to CampusConnect.

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

Examples:

Listing all persons : list

Shows a list of all persons in CampusConnect.

Format: list

Editing a person : edit

Edits an existing person in CampusConnect.

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

Examples:

Finding persons by contact information : find

Finds persons whose name, email address, contact number, or tags contain any of the given keywords, even if the keyword is only a part of the information stored.

Format:

find PREFIX/KEYWORD [PREFIX/MORE_KEYWORDS]…​

How find works with multiple parameters:

Examples:

Deleting a person : delete

Deletes the specified person from CampusConnect.

Format: delete INDEX

Examples:

Adding tags to a specific person : addtag

Adds the specified person’s tag.

Format: addtag INDEX t/TAG [t/MORE_TAGS]…​

Examples:

Deleting a person’s tag : deltag

Deletes the specified person’s tag.

Format: deltag INDEX t/TAG

Examples:

Categorizing a tag : cattag

Categorizes a tag under a defined category.

Format: cattag t/TAG [t/MORE_TAGS]…​ CATEGORY

Examples:

cattag response image{ width=”750px” }

Undo a command : undo

Undoes the previous command and reverts CampusConnect.

Format: undo

Redo a command : redo

Reapplies a command that was previously undone by undo.

Format: redo

Clearing all entries : clear

Clears all entries from CampusConnect.

Format: clear

Caution: * There will not be any confirmation message shown. </br> * If you have unintentionally executed the `clear` command, you can use the [`undo`:link:](#undo-a-command-undo) command to restore your data.

Exiting the program : exit

Exits the program.

Format: exit

Saving the data

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

Editing the data file

CampusConnect data is saved automatically as a JSON file [JAR file location]/data/CampusConnect.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, CampusConnect 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 CampusConnect to behave in unexpected ways (e.g., if a value entered is outside 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 CampusConnect home folder.

Q: How can I add contacts with the same name?
A: If two contacts share the same name, you can differentiate them by adding a number or adjusting the capitalization. For example, use “Mary” and “Mary 2” or “John” and “john” to keep each entry unique.

Q: What if I need to use special characters in tags?
A: You can work around this by using hyphens (-) to signify spacing and eliminate all special characters. For example, you can add “Cafe@NUS” as a tag using “Cafe-NUS”.

Q: Why can’t I find fields by whole words? There’s too much clutter!
A: We understand the importance of a neat and simple contact list. But, like search engines, we want to give you unparallelled control and flexibility over how you find contacts. As is often said, “It is better to give too much than to not give at all”, and we believe that finding by whole words is not enough and gives too little.

Q: Why are tags case-sensitive? Now I can just add tags with different cases and clutter up CampusConnect…
A: Again, we want to give you the flexibility to customise your own tags, so we allow this.

Q: Why does the tags list not update when I find something?
A: Our tags list is meant to span the entire contact list, which can serve as a reference if you require to find a contact to add a specific and easily-forgettable tag to.


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.
  3. If the value of a field is too long, the display will not render the full value properly. However, we expect that the average contact will not have such a long name nor require a long tag name.