Last Sunday Meeting and Discussions

We have met this Sunday for the last weekend as a group to figure out the final layouts for our project and what we want the final outcome to be. First, we decided to make some slight changes to the function of this project. We do not have to let the decision of choosing the meeting time be left to the computer algorithm. Instead, we would let the group leader choose the best time, although we can also let the computer display what the best times are to save the leader some of the thinking process. Although we have decided that this project will stay a group meeting interface, we realize that it is kind of an open ended work, where it has the potential to become a more specialized event planner such as... a sports planning event!

We can give it a specific function for the purpose of liesure activities so it feels more loose and casual. People will log into through their email to website and input times that they will be able to and like to attend. This is more loose because we don't have to force peopple to put down all the times that they are available, but instead put down times that they would like to be available. It would then be more loose and more casual rathre than a burden of responsibility.

We have then also decided that the user login page with name and password is only for the group project leader. All other users that will input their time will just login through their e-mail sent by the group leader. The link will take them to the time selection page. After they have put down their times and submit, it will redirect them to a message board type webpage that will notify them of successful submition and that they would be sent an e-mail at the deadline to notify them of the time it would take place.

So far these are some of the more major changes to the project, but we may decide to make more slight changes throughout the week upcoming to our project presentation.

--My main focus for now is to do a write up documentation of how our project has progressed throughout the quarter. Which means I will also be going through everyone's blog entries.

DOH

Ok, so I haven't been able to figure out how to have my output print the e-mail addresses like a list. But it turns out that it was so easy. I guess I didn't know how to use the operation '+='

That was basically all I needed. But good thing Ben figured it out, obviously he has a keener grasp on JavaScript than I do. He probably figured it out in 2 seconds in what took me 2 days of scratching my head. I just feel incredibly stupid.


I knew that the checkboxes would have been easily added, all i had to do was insert them, but the main problem was that I didn't know how to make it list the output instead of replacing them. But yah, i'm impressed and I feel stupid that I couldn't get it. That '+=' was pretty much the only thing that was missing from my source code. I wish I was better at javascript!

I would paste the code on this text box, but it seems this blog would read and process it as actual html code and it throws and error and won't let me.

AJAX

I started to look at AJAX more indepth last week, since our project was heavily javascript oriented. My task from the group meeting last Sunday was to make a simple textbox for entering an e-mail address, a button to enter it and have that same e-mail address be displayed on the webpage without refreshing the page itself and have the textbox be cleared.

I started to study how the response work, and what the XMLHttpRequest object is. It took me awhile to understand the code, and even now i don't really feel like I have a firm grasp on it - but at least a working knowledge.

Although I only figured out how to get the email print on the page, i need to figure out how to make it list multiple emails without clearing the first output. I suppose it'll have to do with assigning the string to an array of some sort and using a loop. I hope I will be able to figure it out this week.

Our group didn't have a meeting this week, but I'm sure we'll have something to discuss about on Tuesday this week.

Late

I have been so stressed this week with my other classes. I feel like there was so much bearing down my shoulders this week and was not able to make any significant progress on this project. Thankfully, the rough ride is over and I can relax a bit. But it seems late night is when i can actually concentrate on something and work on it. Thus, the reason for writing this entry at 2:30am.

Last weekend, my group met again to talk about the project. Jen and I are to make a textbox that would allow us to type in an e-mail address, submit, and have the e-mail address display on the page WITHOUT reloading the entire page. Seems pretty easy to do, but I am finding it to be very difficult. This can be easily done with regular html form and a javascript method to read it, but I find that I cannot get it to display the e-mail address without reloading the page.

It will have something to do with AJAX, but I can't figure out where to find the information on it. So, I am very disappointed to say that I am not making any breakthroughs - yet.

We had our first meeting today outside of class to discuss the layout of our calendar project. I suppose it is a good thing that we now have a foundation to work upon now, instead of just a concept that we had in the prior weeks. We ran various hypothetical simulations of possible scenarios and found some problems with how the scheduling system would work, ranging from who would get the final say in appoint times or if the computer should be able to choose.

Some of these should be worked out in the coming week or so. For now, the purpose of the group meeting was to work out a layout and plan -which we did, and to also prepare for the upcoming project presentation in class on Tuesday.

My overall feel for the project:

I don't even know what I feel. I can't say that I am feeling excited and optimistic because it's a lot of work. But I wish I was able to contribute a bit more to the group discussion. The bulk of it was Steffan and Ben talking.. but then again the project is Ben's idea and Steffan apparently has the most experience in programming - so they both were doing an excellent job of collaborating. I guess I feel like I am much more of an underdog in this case. Nevertheless, I will do the best of my abilities to do what is needed.

So far, we are planning to meet this weekend to work on the layout of the interface, distribute the work between members and prepare for the presentation next thursday. That is all i can think of right..

Project

I was going to check for any blog comments Patrick may have left, when I realized that my blog entry on my grou's project proposal somehow didn't get published. So, here I am getting another go at it to make sure it gets published on my blog. Hopefully it won't hurt my grade - I honestly dont know why it didn't get posted last night:

Team members are Jennifer L., Steffan M., and Ben L.

At this point, we have decided our project will be some sort of calendar that allows user to login with their user name and password. Select dates in which the user is available for a meeting or other purposes, and submit it to a server. Therefore, users who want to meet with each other will get to enter their information and it will be displayed for everyone to see - which would make setting up meetings easier.