Hello NUS School of Computing (SoC) students! Welcome to the User Guide for ModContacts!

TIRED of constantly needing to remember what your NUS friends are up to? ModContacts is a desktop app for keeping track of your peers and the modules that they take so that you can keep in contact with them amidst your journey in NUS!

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• About ModContacts
  • Who is ModContacts for?
  • What does ModContacts do?
  • What is the Purpose of this User Guide?
    • New Users
    • Experienced Users
  • How should I use this guide?
  • Conventions
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Quick start
    • Usage
    • What is a Command?
    • Summary
  • Tutorial
• Features
  • Adding a friend: add
  • Listing all friends : list
  • Editing a friend : edit
  • Adding a Module: add_module
  • Deleting a Module: delete_module
  • Adding a Module Timing: add_timing
  • Deleting a Module Timing: delete_timing
  • Locating friends by name: find
  • Find friends who are free to meet: find_free_time
  • Learn more about modules: list_modules
  • Find friends with modules: module_search
  • Deleting a friend : delete
  • Clearing all entries : clear
  • Exiting the program : exit
• FAQ
• Glossary
  • Known issues
• Command summary

About ModContacts

Who is ModContacts for?

ModContacts tailored specifically for:

1. NUS School of Computing students,
2. people who want to keep in touch with their NUS friends easily,
3. people who desire academic success by utilising their social connections,
4. people quick on the keyboard, tired of moving constantly between the mouse and keyboard

What does ModContacts do?

ModContacts is designed to help School of Computing students:

• Effortlessly keep track of all their friend’s modules and schedules
  • Our one-stop solution to keeping track of our friend’s timetables!
• Find out common timings when everyone is free to meet
  • Say goodbye to painting when2meets!
• Discover who is taking the same module as you
  • No more constantly asking: “hey bro, what mods are you doing this sem?”

What is the Purpose of this User Guide?

Some of you are definitely thinking: What is the point of this User Guide?

The ModContacts User Guide serves as a quick, efficient, all-in-one manual for both new and experienced users.

New Users

It is great to see that you’re interested in using ModContacts!

Head to the Getting Started section and follow the guide to get ModContacts up and running!

Then check out the Tutorial some Features, and the handy Command Summary.

Experienced Users

Head over to the Command Summary, FAQ or Troubleshooting sections.

How should I use this guide?

The guide includes information on how users can effectively navigate the document, clarifies the meaning of icons and formatting used, and provides guidance on understanding features, functions, or commands. These can be quickly referenced from the Table of Contents.

Conventions

Convention	Description
Link	These are links to sections within the user guide
Command	Commands are represented with this text
	These are tips that might be useful during the operation of ModContacts
	These are warnings to take note of during the operation of ModContacts
m/FIELD	These are required fields in a command
[i/FIELD]	These are optional fields in a command

Getting Started

Prerequisites

For ModContacts to work, you need to have Java 11 or above installed on your computer!

Follow this guide for your OS of choice:

• Windows
• MacOS
• Linux

Quick start

1. Ensure you have Java 11 or above installed in your computer from the Prerequisites Section.

2. Download the latest modcontacts.jar from here.

3. Opening the app:

   1. If you are using Windows: Simply double-click on modcontacts.jar within your file explorer and a GUI similar to what is shown below should appear!
   2. If you are using MacOS / Linux: Open a terminal window. Navigate to the folder containing modcontacts.jar using the cd [relative/absolute folder path] command. Then run java -jar modcontacts.jar.

Tip: For MacOS and Linux users: If you are new to using the terminal, this guide may be useful for navigating to the folder in step 3.

On First launch, the app should look like this:

Usage

1. Menubar: This is where you will find the File and Help options.
   1. File provides you a menu, which contains an option to exit the app.
   2. Help shows you a pop-up, using which you can access the User Guide.
2. CLI / Input: This is where you enter commands to interact with the app.
3. Command output panel: This is where you would see the output of the commmand that you have entered in the CLI.
4. Filtered contact list: This is the main information panel of the app. Here you will see a list of your contacts, that you can filter using commands.
   • Filtering the list is done using commands like find and find_free_time, which change the filtered contact list by reducing the number of contacts displayed.
   • After this, when you use other commands like edit, the command inputs are based on the contacts that are currently visible in the filtered contact list. You will learn more about this in a later section.
5. Name, Number, Module with timings: These are the details for a particular contact in the filtered contact list.

What is a Command?

A command is what you type into the app to execute your intentions (Adding a Friend or a Module)!

Here are some examples of commands that you’d be using:

• add n/Aditya p/98765432 e/adityab4@u.nus.edu a/2 College Ave West, Singapore 138607

• add_module i/1 m/MA2001

• delete_module i/2 m/CS1231S

You may notice a pattern here, and here is a rough breakdown of what a command composes of. Let’s use the first example!

add n/Aditya p/98765432 e/adityab4@u.nus.edu a/2 College Ave West, Singapore 138607

Our command composes of:

1. A Command Word (add)

   This is the first word of your command that carries the intention of your action! Examples would be using add when you want to add a Friend, add_module when you want to add a Module to your Friend, so on and so forth!

2. Prefixes (n/Aditya p/98765432 e/adityab4@u.nus.edu a/2 College Ave West, Singapore 138607)

   Prefixes are additional information that you add to your command. For example, when adding a friend you would want to add their name and their email.

   We can use Prefixes to accomplish this! They are usually marked with an unique identifier (n/ for name, p/ for phone number, etc). You can then add your values after the identifiers! (Aditya is the value supplied for the name when you type n/Aditya).

   (P.S) Different commands have different prefixes! Check out the Features section to see what prefixes exist for each command.

Summary

In summary, what this command (add n/Aditya p/98765432 e/adityab4@u.nus.edu a/2 College Ave West, Singapore 138607) does is that it adds a Friend whose name is Aditya, has a phone number 98765432, has an email is adityab4@u.nus.edu and stays at the address 2 College Ave West, Singapore 138607.

Refer to the Features below for details of each command.

Back to Table of Contents

Tutorial

Lets run through the first few steps of using ModContacts to get you started!

Lets start by clearing the data that comes with the app by default.

1. Run the clear command in the input box to clear the data.

Be careful! This will delete all contacts from ModContacts. Since we don’t have any contacts of our own yet, this is a safe command to run.

You should see something like this

2. We just had a chat with our friend Taufiq, and found out that he is taking the modules CS2103T and CS20? next semester. You remember that it’s the Data Structures module but don’t remember the exact module code. Firstly, lets add him to our contacts list. Since he Rock Climbs, lets add these details as tags into the application.

Taufiq’s Details:

With this details, we’ll run the command

  add n/Taufiq Mohammed p/81234567 e/taufiq@taufiq.com a/123, Clementi Road, 123456 t/friend t/rockClimbing

You can add multiple tags for each user. However, spaces in a tag are not supported. You’ll need to add a t/ prefix before each tag also.

3. We can now add the module CS2103T to Taufiq’s list of modules. We’ll use the command add_module i/1 m/CS2103T to add the module to Taufiq’s list of modules.

The 1 in the above command refers to the index of the friend in the list. Since Taufiq is the first friend in the list, he is at index 1.

4. Now, since we’re unsure which module Taufiq is taking, we can use the list_modules command to search for the module. We’ll use the command list_modules m/CS20 to search for modules starting with CS20.

From this, we can read the descriptions and find out that the module we’re looking for is CS2040S. Lets add that to Taufiq. add_module i/1 m/CS2040S.

Do note that if you try to add the same module again to the same person, it will give a warning that the module is already added.

5. Suppose you want to add the timing 1600h – 1800h on Wednesday and 1400h - 1600h on Thursday to the CS2103T and 0800h - 1000h on Wednesday to the CS2040S module Taufiq.

Type the following commands:

• add_timing i/1 m/CS2103T d/Wed st/1600 et/1800
• add_timing i/1 m/CS2103T d/Thu st/1400 et/1600
• add_timing i/1 m/CS2040S d/Wed st/0800 et/1000

6. Now, using the above commands, we can add the rest of our friends, their modules and its timings. You can use the list command to see the entire list of friends in the application

7. Suppose that you’re looking for friends to eat lunch with on Wednesday from 1200 - 1400. With the command find_free_time d/Wed st/1200 et/1400, you can find friends who are free during that period.

This tutorial is not exhaustive and is just a preview of some of the commands you can use in ModContacts. For a full list of commands with a detailed explanation, refer to the Features section and for a quick overview of all the commands available, you can look at the Command Summary.

Features

Adding a friend: add

Adds a friend to the mod contacts list.

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

Tip: A friend can have any number of tags (including 0). Tags only accept alphanumeric values and do not include whitespaces. You can use capitalization such as camel casing to distinguish different words in a tag.

Examples:

• add n/John Doe p/98765432 e/johnd@example.com a/John street, block 123, #01-01
• add n/Betsy Crowe t/friend e/betsycrowe@example.com a/Newgate Prison p/1234567 t/criminal

Before command

Suppose you want to add a friend with the following details:

• Name: John Doe
• Phone No: 9999 1234
• Email: e1234567@u.nus.edu
• Address: Jurong

Type the following command: add n/John Doe p/9991234 e/e1234567@u.nus.edu a/Address

On Success

If the command is inputted the correctly, a message should appear informing you that the command was successful and a new entry is created.

On Error

If the command is improperly formatted or certain parameters are missing the app will show what fields are needed and how a properly inputted command should look like.

Listing all friends : list

Shows a list of all friends in the ModContacts list. You would need this command as sometimes you might commands (i.e find) which shows a filtered list instead of the entire list.

Format: list

On Success

A message should appear saying that all friends are being listed.

Editing a friend : edit

Edits an existing friend in the mod contacts list.

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

• Edits the friend at the specified INDEX. The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed friend list. The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​
• At least one of the optional fields must be provided.
• Existing values will be updated to the input values.
• When editing tags, the existing tags of the friend will be removed i.e adding of tags is not cumulative.
• You can remove all the friend’s tags by typing t/ without specifying any tags after it.

Examples:

• edit 1 p/91234567 e/johndoe@example.com Edits the phone number and email address of the 1st friend to be 91234567 and johndoe@example.com respectively.
• edit 2 n/Betsy Crower t/ Edits the name of the 2nd friend to be Betsy Crower and clears all existing tags.

Before command

Suppose you want to edit a friend’s name (Like John Doe who we added in this add example)

Let’s change his name from John Doe to Johnathan Doe.

Type the following command: edit 1 n/Johnathan Doe

On Success

If the command is inputted the correctly, a message should appear informing you that the command was successful and your friend’s name has been edited.

On Error

If the command is improperly formatted or certain parameters are missing the app will show what fields are needed and how a properly inputted command should look like. In this example we’ve accidentally written our name parameter as nn/.. instead of n/..

Adding a Module: add_module

Adds a module to your friend in the mod contacts list.

Format: add_module i/INDEX m/MODULE_CODE

• The INDEX refers to the index number shown in the displayed friend list. The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …
• The MODULE_CODE refers to the module code of the module you intend to add

Tip: If you are unsure of a module code, you can use List Modules to find it!

Examples:

• add_module i/1 m/MA2001 Adds the module MA2001 to the 1st friend

Before command

Suppose you want to add a module to the 1st friend on your list

Let’s add CS2101 to them!

Type the following command: add_module i/1 m/CS2101

On Success

If the command is inputted the correctly, a message should appear informing you that the command was successful and the module has been added.

On Error

If the command is improperly formatted or certain parameters are missing the app will show what fields are needed and how a properly inputted command should look like. In this example we’ve added a non-existent module code MA200002.

Reminder: Module codes that aren’t found in NUSMods will be considered invalid.

Deleting a Module: delete_module

Deletes a module from your friend in the mod contacts list.

Format: delete_module i/INDEX m/MODULE_CODE

• The INDEX refers to the index number shown in the displayed friend list. The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …
• The MODULE_CODE refers to the module code of the module you intend to delete

Examples:

• delete_module i/1 m/MA2001 Deletes the module MA2001 to the 1st friend

Before command

Suppose you want to delete a module from the 1st friend on your list

Let’s remove CS2101

Type the following command: delete_module i/1 m/CS2101

On Success

If the command is inputted the correctly, a message should appear informing you that the command was successful and the module has been deleted. The changes should be reflected on the list as well.

On Error

If the command is improperly formatted or certain parameters are missing the app will show what fields are needed and how a properly inputted command should look like. In this example we are trying to delete the module CS2109 which was never added to the friend.

Adding a Module Timing: add_timing

Adds a module’s class timing to your friend in the mod contacts list.

Format: add_timing i/INDEX m/MODULE_CODE d/DAY st/START_TIME et/END_TIME

• The INDEX refers to the index number shown in the displayed student list. The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …
• The MODULE_CODE refers to the module code of the module you intend to add
• The DAY refers to the day of the class, i.e. Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun (This is case-sensitive!)
• The START_TIME refers to the start time of the class i.e. 0800, 1230, 1845, 2300
• The END_TIME refers to the end time of the class i.e. 0900, 1430, 2045, 2359

Reminder: You need to add the module first before you add the timing.

Examples:

• add_timing i/1 m/MA2001 d/Mon st/1200 et/1400 Adds a 1200h – 1400h timing for the module MA2001 to the 1st friend

Before command

Suppose you want to add the timing 1600h – 1800h to the CS2101 module for your 1st friend on the list

Type the following command: add_timing i/1 m/CS2101 d/Wed st/1600 et/1800

On Success

If the command is inputted the correctly, a message should appear informing you that the command was successful and the timing has been added. The changes should be reflected on the list as well.

On Error

If the command is improperly formatted or certain parameters are missing the app will show what fields are needed and how a properly inputted command should look like. In this example we used an incorrect time format (12h instead of 24h).

Deleting a Module Timing: delete_timing

Deletes a module’s class timing from your friend in the mod contacts list.

Format: delete_timing i/INDEX m/MODULE_CODE d/DAY st/START_TIME et/END_TIME

• The INDEX refers to the index number shown in the displayed student list. The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …
• The MODULE_CODE refers to the module code of the module you intend to add
• The DAY refers to the day of the class, i.e. Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun (This is case-sensitive!)
• The START_TIME refers to the start time of the class i.e. 0800, 1230, 1845, 2300
• The END_TIME refers to the end time of the class i.e. 0800, 1230, 1845, 2300

Examples:

• delete_timing i/1 m/MA2001 d/Mon st/1200 et/1400 Deletes the 1200h – 1400h timing for the module MA2001 to the 1st friend

Before command

Suppose you want to delete the timing 1600h – 1800h to the CS2101 module for your 1st friend on the list

Type the following command: delete_timing i/1 m/CS2101 d/Wed st/1600 et/1800

On Success

If the command is inputted the correctly, a message should appear informing you that the command was successful and the timing has been deleted. The changes should be reflected on the list as well.

On Error

If the command is improperly formatted or certain parameters are missing the app will show what fields are needed and how a properly inputted command should look like. In this example we inputted the wrong day (It should be Wed and not Thu) for the timing that we previously added.

Locating friends by name: find

Finds friends whose names contain any of the given keywords.

Format: find KEYWORD [MORE_KEYWORDS]

• The search is case-insensitive. e.g hans will match Hans
• The order of the keywords does not matter. e.g. Hans Bo will match Bo Hans
• Only the name is searched.
• Only full words will be matched e.g. Han will not match Hans
• Friends matching at least one keyword will be returned (i.e. OR search). e.g. Hans Bo will return Hans Gruber, Bo Yang

Examples:

• find John Finds a friend whose name contains John

Before command

Suppose you want to find your friend John Doe

Type the following command: find John

On Success

If the command is inputted the correctly, a message should appear informing you that the command was successful and how many friends whose names contains the keyword you are searching. A filtered list will then be shown showing who matches the name you are searching for.

On Error

If the command is improperly formatted or certain parameters are missing the app will show what fields are needed and how a properly inputted command should look like. In this example we did not include the keyword to search for.

Find friends who are free to meet: find_free_time

Finds friends who are free at this given time period.

Format: find_free_time d/DAY st/START_TIME et/END_TIME

• The DAY refers to the day of the class, i.e. Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun (This is case-sensitive!)
• The START_TIME refers to the start time of the class i.e. 0800, 1230, 1845, 2300
• The END_TIME refers to the end time of the class i.e. 0900, 1430, 2045, 2359

Examples:

• find_free_time d/Wed st/1500 et/1600 Find a list of friends who are free on Wednesday 1500h – 1600h

Before command

Suppose you are free on Monday 1200h – 1300h and you would like to find out which friends are free as well. Your two friends Alice and Bob are on ModContacts and these are their current schedules on Monday.

• Alice has a lesson from 1000h - 1200h
• Bob has a lesson from 1100h - 1300h

Type the following command: find_free_time d/Mon st/1200 et/1300

On Success

If the command is inputted the correctly, a message should appear informing you that the command was successful and how many friends whose names contains the keyword you are searching. A filtered list will then be shown showing which friends are free in the stipulated time.

On Error

If the command is improperly formatted or certain parameters are missing the app will show what fields are needed and how a properly inputted command should look like. In this example we did not key in the day in the proper format (Monday instead of Mon)

Learn more about modules: list_modules

List Modules allows you to search for the available modules in NUS and get its description.

Format: list_modules m/MODULE_CODE

• The MODULE_CODE refers to the prefix or the first few characters of the module you intend to search. This search case insensitive, which means searching with m/CS2103 and m/cs2103 will yield the same results.

For example, you can search for all modules starting with CS21 with the command list_modules m/cs21 and it will list all modules in NUS starting with the given module code.

Tip: This command is useful when you’re adding a friend to the addressbook. If you only remember the first few characters of their module code, you can search it up and read the descriptions to identify the correct module.

Caution: If no valid modules are found, the message “No modules found with prefix [MODULE_CODE]” will be displayed.

Find friends with modules: module_search

Looking for buddies to discuss schoowork? Finds friends who are taking the specified module.

Format: module_search m/MODULE_CODE

• The MODULE_CODE refers to the FULL module you intend to search. This is case insensitive, which means searching with m/CS2103T and m/cs2103T will yield the same results.

Tip: If you cannot remember the full module code, list_modules can be used to find the correct module

Caution: If no friends are found with the specified module, the message “0 students listed” will be displayed. However, if an invalid module code is given, an error message will show up, informing you that the module code is invalid and a valid module code can be found using the list_modules command.

Deleting a friend : delete

Deletes the specified friend from the mod contacts list.

Format: delete INDEX

• Deletes the friend at the specified INDEX.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed friend list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …​

Examples:

• list followed by delete 2 deletes the 2nd friend in the mod contacts list.
• find Betsy followed by delete 1 deletes the 1st friend in the results of the find command.

Clearing all entries : clear

Clears all entries from the mod contacts list.

Format: clear

Exiting the program : exit

Exits the program.

Format: exit

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 ModContacts home folder.

Q: How do I know if my data is saved?
A: ModContacts data are saved in the hard disk automatically after any command that changes the data. There is no need to save manually.

Q: Can I manually edit the data file?
A: ModContacts data are saved automatically as a JSON file [JAR file location]/data/modcontacts.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, ModContacts 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 the ModContacts to behave in unexpected ways (e.g., if a value entered is outside of the acceptable range). Therefore, edit the data file only if you are confident that you can update it correctly.

Glossary

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.

Command summary