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CVWO Riding on Rails 2021/2022 Mid-Winter Assignment Submission

By Lee Zong Xun

This submission details the user stories and use cases for the application, database implementation and plans for the upcoming month.

Github Submission Repo: Frontend Repo, Backend Repo

Overview​

Groups and Steps 📝 is a web application built using Rails and React for CVWO 2021/2022 assignment. It allows you to manage your tasks into groups, and further break them down into steps.

Architecture​

This application adopted the use of MVC architecture for the backend and Flux architecture for the frontend.

Database Choice and design​

PostgreSQL

Implemented with Rails.

Schema

Schema

Modeling Relationship (One to Many)

ERD

User Story​

Description​

As an app user, I would like to use the application as a central knowledge and task management platform. So that i can plan my tasks effectively and efficiently.

Acceptance Criteria​

Build a task management application to allow real-time tasks updates and management. Allow users to perform basic CRUDs functionalities, a tagging system to categorise tasks and a search functionality to navigate between groups.

caution

Notes CRUDS functionality is dependent on API availability & integration.

Use Cases​

Create a group​

A new thread of steps will be created. Users will be prompted to start on their steps.

Edit and Delete a group​

Group's title will automatically be updated/deleted. All steps relevant to the group will also be deleted.

Create a step​

User will begin to input steps to track their tasks.

Editing and Deleting a step​

Step's name will be updated/deleted accordingly.

Search for groups​

If a group exists, the user will be directed to the page containing the group's information. Otherwise, the user will be prompted to create a new group.

Filter steps​

User will be able to filter the steps according to any keyword they typed in. Successful filters will filter the steps accordingly.

Adding tags​

Tags added will be placed right beside the input box.

Reflection​

So far, the experience has been absolutely amazing. Despite the numerous ups and downs, debugging, and internal screaming, I am really satisfied with the outcome of my mid-submission. While I had previous web programming experience (through my club activities), I had never built a full-stack web application from scratch nor have I worked with Ruby on Rails. As a result, the majority of my time was spent learning Rails syntax, reading documentation, and constructing the backend. Setting up the Linux Environment was also difficult, and I had to use Stack Overflow to debug several of the difficulties. Adopting the MVC design for the backend and the Flux architecture for the frontend has opened up my eyes to the many software engineering paradigms, particularly the notion of state management. Using Redux has made it exceedingly simple to maintain track of app-wide state with a single source of truth. This mid-assignment has helped me to further hone my understanding of web programming, and I intend to further improve it with the following features in the coming month.

Intended improvements over the next month​

  • Implement other ancillary enhancements (i.e markdown and code support)

  • Introduce testing

  • Refactor to Typescript