User Guide

Introduction

(Contributed by all members)

Welcome to ProductiveNUS User Guide!

ProductiveNUS is a desktop application made for you, a School of Computing (SoC) student in National University of Singapore (NUS), to manage and schedule your academic tasks more effectively. It makes use of a Graphical User Interface (GUI), which provides you with an intuitive interface and immediate visual feedback. ProductiveNUS uses a Command Line Interface (CLI); this means that you operate the application by typing commands into a Command Box. If you are fast at typing, you can manage your academic tasks more efficiently.

As a student in NUS SoC, you tend to have a heavy workload. ProductiveNUS helps improve your productivity by enhancing your organisational skills. Apart from simply keeping track of your tasks, ProductiveNUS is capable of scheduling them for you so you will never miss any deadlines. ProductiveNUS is also compatible with NUSMods. This means that your timetable information can be easily imported into the application and all your academic tasks can be found in just one application.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Table of Contents
• About
  • GUI terminologies
  • Icon usages
  • Command syntax
  • Date and time format
    • Date
    • Time
• Getting started
• Features
  • Adding an assignment: add
  • Deleting assignments : delete
  • Importing your timetable : import
  • Listing assignments : list
  • Finding assignments : find
  • Editing an assignment : edit
  • Setting reminders for assignments : remind
  • Removing reminders for assignments : unremind
  • Setting priority for assignments : prioritise
  • Removing priority for assignments : unprioritise
  • Marking assignments as done : done
  • Marking assignments as not done : undone
  • Scheduling assignments: schedule
  • Removing suggested time for assignments: unschedule
  • Undoing commands: undo
  • Clearing all assignments: clear
  • Accessing help: help
  • Exiting the program : exit
  • Automated features and enhancements
    • Upcoming tasks
    • Remarks on deadline of assignments and start time of lessons
    • Saving the data
• Command summary
• FAQ

About

(Contributed by Jia Xin and Andrea)

This user guide provides you with the necessary information on how to become an expert user of ProductiveNUS. You can familiarize yourself with the terminologies, syntax and icons used in this user guide by reading the following sub-sections.

GUI terminologies

The figure below shows the GUI of ProductiveNUS, with its sections labelled. Figure 1: Labelled GUI sections

Icon usages

Wondering what each icon is used for? You can refer to the table below to find out.

Icon	Icon usage	Box color
	- Notes about the command format - Pointers to note	Blue
	- Tip	Green

Command syntax

All the commands and their examples are formatted as markups.

Date and time format

All commands with date and/or time parameters have a specific format you must follow, else your input will be deemed as invalid.

Date

Date parameters must be in the format dd-MM-yyyy, where dd is day of the month, MM is month and yyyy is year. The number of repeated letters indicate the number of digits required for day of the month, month and year.

For example, dd means that the day of the month has to be a 2-digit number. Hence, for dates you want to input from the 1st to the 9th of any month, you must key in 09-01-2020. 9-01-2020 will be deemed as invalid. Likewise for month and year, 09-1-2020 and 09-01-20 will be deemed as invalid.

Time

Time parameters must be in the format HHmm, where HH is the hour of the day and mm is the minute of the hour. You must input the time according to the 24-hour clock system.

For example, 7:00 AM is 0700 while 7:00 PM is 1900.

Getting started

1. Ensure you have Java 11 or above installed in your Computer.

2. Download the latest productivenus.jar from here.

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

4. Double-click the file to start the app. The GUI similar to the below should appear in a few seconds. Note how the app contains some sample data. If the app does not start, please refer to our FAQ section for other ways to start the app.
   

   Figure 2: ProductiveNUS GUI

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

Features

Adding an assignment: add

(Contributed by Jerry)

Format: add n/NAME_OF_ASSIGNMENT d/DEADLINE_OF_ASSIGNMENT mod/MODULE_CODE_OF_ASSIGNMENT [p/PRIORITY_OF_ASSIGNMENT] [remind]

You can add assignments into your Assignment List to manage and keep track of all your academic tasks.

For example, to add a lab report assignment that is due on 23th April 2020 12.30pm and associated with the module CS2100, you can simply enter add n/Lab report d/23-04-2020 1230 mod/CS2100. Once the assignment is added, it will appear in the Assignment List and all its information will be displayed as shown in the figure below.

Figure 3: Information of the assignment added labelled

More examples:

• add n/Lab report d/23-04-2020 1230 mod/CS2100 remind
• add n/Lab report d/23-04-2020 1230 mod/CS2100 p/HIGH remind

Deleting assignments : delete

(Contributed by Andrea)

Format: delete INDEX [MORE_INDEXES]

You can delete one or more assignments from your Assignment List by specifying the INDEX of each assignment you want to delete as shown in your list.

Here is an example with steps for you to follow:

1) To delete assignments with the name “Statistics tutorial” and “Biology lab report” as shown in the figure below, you can simply enter delete 1 3 into the Command Box which corresponds to their indexes in the Assignment List.

Figure 4: delete 1 3 inputted by user and location of assignment indexes

2) You have successfully deleted both assignments from the Assignment List, and they are no longer displayed.

3) A “Deleted Assignment(s)” message that includes the information of your deleted assignments will be displayed in the Message Box.

Figure 5: The displayed message and the updated list

More examples:

• delete 1
• delete 2 3 1

Importing your timetable : import

(Contributed by Yong Kang)

Format: import url/YOUR_NUSMODS_URL

It is tedious to have to constantly switch between your browser and ProductiveNUS when you want to refer to your timetable. But, you can transfer your timetable into ProductiveNUS using import.

You can transfer your timetable into ProductiveNUS by providing the URL to your NUSMods timetable share link.

Follow these steps and try importing your timetable:

1) At your NUSMods timetable website, click on the “Share/Sync” button to obtain your timetable share link URL.

Figure 6: The “Share/Sync” at the NUSMods website highlighted in green

2) The URL obtained will be YOUR_NUSMODS_URL to be used in the import command. Key in import url/YOUR_NUSMODS_URL.

3) This may take a few seconds. After the import process, the added lesson information can be found in your Upcoming tasks list.

Figure 7: Added lesson information can be found in the Upcoming tasks list highlighted in red

An example:

• import url/https://nusmods.com/timetable/sem-1/share?CS2100=TUT:01,LAB:11,LEC:1&CS2101=&CS2103T=LEC:G16&CS2105=TUT:14,LEC:1&EC1301=TUT:S28,LEC:1&IS1103=

Listing assignments : list

(Contributed by Andrea)

Format: list [NUMBER_OF_DAYS]

You can list all your assignments with list. Alternatively, you can type list followed by an index NUMBER_OF_DAYS, which must be from 1 to 50. list NUMBER_OF_DAYS will list your assignments with deadlines that fall within this number of days from the current date.

Here is an example with steps for you to follow:

1) You can enter list 3 into the Command Box as shown in the diagram below to list your assignments that are due within 3 days from the current date.

Figure 8: list 3 inputted by user

2) Assignments found are displayed in the Assignment List.

3) A message that indicates the number of assignments listed is displayed in the Message Box.

Figure 9: The displayed message and the updated list

More examples:

• list
• list 7

Finding assignments : find

(Contributed by Andrea)

Format: find PREFIX/KEYWORD [MORE_KEYWORDS]

You can find your assignments based on keywords you enter. The types of keywords are the name, module code, deadline and priority of an assignment.

This is the table of prefixes used:

Prefix	Syntax	Example
n/	n/NAME_OF_ASSIGNMENT [MORE_NAME_OF_ASSIGNMENT]	-n/Tutorial
mod/	mod/MODULE_CODE_OF_ASSIGNMENT [MORE_MODULE_CODE_OF_ASSIGNMENT]	-mod/ST2334
d/	d/DUE_DATE_OR_TIME_OF_ASSIGNMENT [MORE_DUE_DATE_OR_TIME_OF_ASSIGNMENT]	-d/24-10-2020 1300
p/	p/PRIORITY_OF_ASSIGNMENT [MORE_PRIORITY_OF_ASSIGNMENT]	-p/HIGH

Here is an example with steps for you to follow:

1) To find assignments from the modules CS2100 and ST2334, you can simply key in find mod/CS2100 ST2334 into the Command Box.

Figure 10: find mod/CS2100 ST2334 inputted by user

2) Assignments from the modules CS2100 and ST2334 will appear in the Assignment List.

3) A message that indicates the number of assignments found is displayed in the Message Box.

Figure 11: The displayed message and the updated list

More examples:

• find p/medium low
• find d/12-12-2020 13-10-2020

Editing an assignment : edit

(Contributed by Andrea)

Format: edit INDEX PREFIX/EDITED_FIELD [MORE_PREFIX/EDITED_FIELD]

You can specify an assignment’s index to edit its fields. These fields are the name, module code and deadline of an assignment.

This is the table of prefixes used:

Prefix	Syntax	Example
n/	n/NAME_OF_ASSIGNMENT	-n/Tutorial
mod/	mod/MODULE_CODE_OF_ASSIGNMENT	-mod/ST2334
d/	d/DEADLINE_OF_ASSIGNMENT	-d/24-10-2020 1300

Here is an example with steps for you to follow:

1) To edit the name of the assignment with the first index in the Assignment List to “Statistics Lab”, you can simply key in edit 1 n/Statistics Lab into the Command Box.

Figure 12: edit 1 n/Statistics Lab inputted by user and location of assignment index

2) The name of the assignment is changed to “Statistics Lab”.

3) A message that indicates details of the edited assignment is displayed in the Message Box.

Figure 13: The displayed message and the edited assignment

More examples:

• edit 3 mod/CS2100
• edit 1 d/10-10-2020 1200 mod/CS2106

Setting reminders for assignments : remind

(Contributed by Jia Xin)

Format: remind INDEX [MORE_INDEXES]

You can set reminders for specific assignments which will be displayed in Your reminders (Highlighted in red in the figure below) for your easy referral.

Figure 14: Your reminders highlighted in red

You can use the INDEX of the assignment as shown in your Assignment List to set reminders for that assignment.

For example, remind 1 will set reminders for the first assignment in your assignment list (“Statistics tutorial” as shown in the figure below) and adds it to Your reminders.

Figure 15: Before “Statistics tutorial” is added into Your reminders

Figure 16: “Statistics tutorial” (highlighted in red) is added into Your reminders

You can set reminders for multiple assignments at a time as well. Here is an example with steps for you to follow:

1) To set reminders for assignments “Essay” and “Assignment 3” (the second and fourth assignment respectively in your assignment list as shown in the figure below), you can simply enter remind 2 4 into the Command Box.

Figure 17: Before “Essay” and “Assignment 3” are added into Your reminders

2) You have successfully set reminders for both assignments, and they can now be found under Your reminders.

Figure 18: “Essay” and “Assignment 3” (highlighted in red) are added into Your reminders

Removing reminders for assignments : unremind

(Contributed by Jia Xin)

Format: unremind INDEX

You can remove your reminded assignments from Your reminders by specifying the INDEX of the assignment as shown in Your reminders.

For example, unremind 1 will remove the first assignment in Your reminders (“Statistics tutorial” as shown in the figures below).

Figure 19: Before “Statistics tutorial” (highlighted in red) is removed from Your reminders

Figure 20: “Statistics tutorial” is removed fromYour reminders

Setting priority for assignments : prioritise

(Contributed by Yong Kang)

Format: prioritise INDEX p/PRIORITY_OF_ASSIGNMENT

You may have certain assignments that are of greater urgency than the others. It would be easier if you could categorise your assignments based on their priority.

You can set three different priority levels for assignments based on their urgency. Assignments tagged with a priority level will be shown with a coloured priority tag beside your assignment name (As shown highlighted in red in the figure below).

Figure 21: The priority tags of assignments highlighted in red

You can use the INDEX of the assignment as shown in your Assignment List to set priority tag for that assignment.

For example, prioritise 3 p/MEDIUM will set a low priority tag for the third assignment in your Assignment List. In the figure above, the third assignment, Biology lab report, is marked with a yellow medium priority tag.

Removing priority for assignments : unprioritise

(Contributed by Yong Kang)

Format: unprioritise INDEX

Suppose you no longer intend to categorise an assignment based on their urgency, or you would like to remove a priority tag for other reasons, you can remove them.

You can remove a priority tag from an assignment that has a priority tag by specifying the INDEX of the assignment you wish to have the priority tag removed.

For example, unprioritise 1 will remove the priority tag, if present, of the first assignment in your Assignment List. The assignment will now be displayed as usual, but without its priority tag.

Marking assignments as done : done

(Contributed by Jerry)

Format: done INDEX [MORE_INDEXES]

You can keep track of your completed assignments by marking the completed assignments as done.

You can mark one or multiple assignments as done by specifiying the assignment(s) INDEX shown in your list.

Here is an example with steps for you to follow:

1) To mark the assignments “Essay” and “Biology lab report” as done, you can simply enter done 2 3 into the Command Box. 2 3 refers to the indexes of the assignments as shown in the figure below.

Figure 22: Finding the INDEX of the assignments

2) The two assignments will be marked as done and each assignment will have a green tick displayed as labelled in the figure.

Figure 23: Ticks added to the completed assignments

3) A message containing the information of the assignments marked as done will also be displayed in the Message Box.

Figure 24: Message shown in Message Box

Marking assignments as not done : undone

(Contributed by Jerry)

Format: undone INDEX

If you realised that you’ve an uncompleted assignment marked as done, you can mark the assignment as not done.

Similar to done, you can mark an assignment as not done by specifying the assignment’s INDEX shown in your list.

Here is an example with steps for you to follow:

1) If you realised that the “Essay” assignment has been mistakenly marked as done, you can simply enter undone 2 into the Command Box. 2 refers to the INDEX of the assignment as shown in the figure below.

Figure 25: Finding the INDEX of the assignment

2) The green tick associated to the assignment is no longer displayed as shown in the figure below.

Figure 26: Tick associated to assignment is no longer displayed

3) A message containing the information of your assignment marked as not done will be displayed in the Message Box.

Figure 27: Message shown in Message Box

Scheduling assignments: schedule

(Contributed by Minh)

Format: schedule INDEX hrs/EXPECTED_HOUR af/AFTER_DATE AFTER_TIME by/BEFORE_DATE BEFORE_TIME

You can request for a possible suggested schedule to work on your assignments so that you will not be required to manually plan a time.

You can schedule an assignment by specifying the assignment INDEX as shown in your Assignment List, the expected hours to finish the assignment and the period of time you want to work on the assignment.

The suggested schedule with start time and end time will be displayed in the assignment card (Highlighted in red in the figure below).

You can be ensured that the suggested time slot will not clash with any of your lessons or the suggested time slots of other assignments.

Here is an example with steps to follow:

1) You want to schedule assignments with the name “CS2106 Lab” as shown in the figure below with an expected hour of 5 hours and need to be done by a week from now (although the actual deadline is longer). Figure 28: Assignment to schedule

2) You can simply enter schedule 3 hrs/5 af/01-01-2020 0000 by/23-12-2020 2359 into the command box. Figure 29: Command inputted by user

3) The suggested time slot will be displayed in the assignment card. Figure 30: Message shown in Command Box and suggested schedule displayed in the assignment card

More examples:

• schedule 1 hrs/2 af/23-12-2020 1800 by/23-12-2020 2359
• schedule 2 hrs/5 af/01-01-2020 0530 by/01-01-2021 0530

Removing suggested time for assignments: unschedule

(Contributed by Minh)

Format: unschedule INDEX

You can remove the suggested time slot of your assignments from the Assignment List by specifying the assignment INDEX as shown in your Assignment List.

For example, unschedule 3 will remove the suggested time slot of your third assignment. Figure 31: Assignment to remove the suggested schedule Figure 32: Message shown in Command Box and suggested schedule removed

More examples:

• unschedule 1
• unschedule 3

Undoing commands: undo

(Contributed by Minh)

Format: undo

You can undo all previous commands one at a time if you make mistakes in commands.

Here is an example with steps to follow:

1) You accidentally delete the first assignment by entering delete 1 command. Figure 33: Delete the first assignment Figure 34: Result after deleting the first assignment

2) You can enter undo to undo the delete 1 command. Figure 35: Undo the delete command Figure 36: Result after undoing the delete command

Clearing all assignments: clear

(Contributed by Jerry)

Format: clear

You can clear all your existing assignments and lessons at the start of every semester.

Accessing help: help

(Contributed by Jerry)

Format: help

If you are new to ProductiveNUS or want to have a quick overview of all the available commands, you can simply enter help and a Help Window will appear as shown in the labelled diagram below.

Figure 37: Help Window labelled

Exiting the program : exit

Format: exit

You can use this command to exit the program.

Automated features and enhancements

(Contributed by Jia Xin)

Upcoming tasks

Your Upcoming tasks are updated in real time.

If the current time is pass the deadline of an assignment or the end time of a lesson, ProductiveNUS automatically removes the assignment or lesson from Upcoming tasks.

As such, you do not need to worry about manually updating your Upcoming tasks as you will receive accurate information of your academic schedule in real time.

Remarks on deadline of assignments and start time of lessons

You can easily view how much time you have left before your assignment is due and when your lessons start. As such, you can better plan out your time to ensure you have enough time to complete your assignments and attend your lessons on time.

For your assignments and lessons, assignments due in more than a week’s time will be displayed in white, while assignments that are overdue or due in less than a day’s time will be displayed in red as shown in the figure below.
Figure 29: Hours or days due for assignments and lessons

Saving the data

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

Command summary

(Contributed by Jia Xin)

Action	Format	Examples
add	add n/NAME_OF_ASSIGNMENT d/DEADLINE_OF_ASSIGNMENT mod/MODULE_CODE_OF_ASSIGNMENT [p/PRIORITY_OF_ASSIGNMENT] [remind]	add n/PAQ d/21-03-2020 1100 mod/IS1103
delete	delete INDEX [MORE_INDEXES]	delete 3 delete 2 3 4
import	import url/YOUR_NUSMODS_URL	import url/https://nusmods.com/timetable/sem-2/share?CS2108=LEC:1
list	list [NUMBER_OF_DAYS]	list 2 list
find	find PREFIX/KEYWORD [MORE_KEYWORDS]	find mod/CS2103T CS2100 find p/HIGH
edit	edit INDEX PREFIX/EDITED_FIELD [MORE_PREFIX/EDITED_FIELD]	edit 3 mod/CS2100 edit 1 d/10-10-2020 1200
remind	remind INDEX [MORE_INDEXES]	remind 5 remind 2 4 5
unremind	unremind INDEX	unremind 2
prioritise	prioritise INDEX p/PRIORITY_OF_ASSIGNMENT	prioritise 3 p/HIGH prioritise 1 p/LOW
unprioritise	unprioritise INDEX	unprioritise 1
done	done INDEX [MORE_INDEXES]	done 4
undone	undone INDEX	undone 2
schedule	schedule INDEX hrs/EXPECTED_HOUR af/AFTER_DATE AFTER_TIME by/BEFORE_DATE BEFORE_TIME	schedule 1 hrs/2 af/23-12-2020 1800 by/23-12-2020 2359
unschedule	unschedule INDEX	unschedule 1
undo	undo	undo
clear	clear	clear
help	help	help
exit	exit	exit

FAQ

(Contributed by Jerry and Minh)

Q: How do I transfer my data to another Computer?
A:
A refers to the computer that you are transferring your data from, B refers to the computer that you are transferring your data to.

1. Install ProductiveNUS in B and start the app.
2. Notice that a data file named productivenus.json is created under the /data folder in B.
3. Close ProductiveNUS in B.
4. Overwrite the newly created data file in B with the productivenus.json data file from A.
5. Start ProductiveNUS in B and you should see that all your existing data has been transferred!

Q: I am not free during the time my assignment has been scheduled. How do I reschedule?
A: You can reschedule by using the schedule command on the assignment again.

1. Type the schedule command into the Command Box with the index of the assignment that you want to reschedule. You can refer to the figure below.
   Figure 38: Entering schedule command into Command Box

   Tip: You can select and copy the entire command if you intend to reschedule the assignment more than once. You can paste the command into the Command Box after step 2 and repeat step 1-2 until you have obtained your ideal schedule.

2. Press ENTER to reschedule your assignment and your assignment will be scheduled to another time or day as shown in the figure below.
   Figure 39: Assignment has been rescheduled successfully
   

Q: I double-clicked the productivenus.jar file but the app is not starting. What should I do?
A: This is most likely caused by the Security and Privacy Settings of your operating system. You can either modify your Security and Privacy Settings (depends on your operating system) to accept anonymous files or run ProductiveNUS with the Command Prompt.

Below are the instructions for using the Command Prompt to open ProductiveNUS for Windows Users. If your computer runs Ubuntu or MacOS, the following instructions is also applicable. However, in order to open the Command Prompt, you need to run the Terminal application.

For Windows Users:

1. Open the folder where you have downloaded and saved the productivenus.jar file.

2. Copy the file directory of the folder. You can refer to the labelled diagram below.
   Figure 40: Finding your file directory

3. Open your Command Prompt. To do so, press the Windows key on your keyboard, type in cmd and press ENTER.

4. Your Command Prompt will start, and it should look something similar to the diagram below.
   Figure 41: Starting the Command Prompt

5. In the Command Prompt, type cd and paste the file directory that you have copied in step 2.
   For example, cd C:\Users\YourUserName\Desktop\ProductiveNUS.

6. Press ENTER and the file directory will be shown in the Command Prompt as shown in the diagram below.
   Figure 42: Changing file directory in Command Prompt

7. Finally, type java -jar productivenus.jar and press ENTER to start the app.