Project Journal.net

[shivraj]

I am going to develop new Journaling software inspired by "The Journal" with
better look and feel and use of state of the art .NET technologies and languages like C# 4.0, Linq, WWF, WPF, WCF, Handwritting recognition, Voice recognition, Text to speech, some AI, Data mining etc..

My motto will be "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. !!!!!!!"

This is my self learning project to study all those technologies and languages.
I will go as far as possible.

Software will be available as windows/web/web service app.

Just created my project website on codeplex.

Features of Journaldotnet will be..

1)Action Planning: Easily schedule one-time or recurring tasks and appointments on your path to success.

2)Reports and Graphs:Reports and Graphs give you a quick look at how you are doing on your path to success.

3)ScratchPad:Record new ideas and plans that become part of your path to success.

4)State-of-the-art encryption and password protection

5)Sharing ideas, creating artifacts, making things together.

6)Powerful search features

7)Handwritting recognition, Voice recognition, Text to speech

8)Blogging tool

9)Prioritize and manage tasks and your to-do list more efficiently

10)Address book

11)Review your past entries easily

12)full text formatting and font control

14)Store anything in an Entry: photos, or videos or files..

15)Ribbon GUI

16)Thinking software: Use of AI and ability to change itself using powerful
reflection features of .NET. Learn User's habits and evolve.

17)Customised GUI, Themes, Skins support

18)Localization support. Support for different languages.

19)XML database

20)Templates support.

21)Web datamining for relevant information

22)Ajax support

23)Silverlight streaming.

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Journey of thousand miles begins with the "Hello, World!" Program.

[Bleicke]

That is seriously bloated. The best apps are those that do only one thing, and do it perfect. All the technologies you mention make me cringe:

Sharing a journal?
AJAX in an offline app?
Data Mining off the web in a journal?
AI? Wtf? Btw: if reflection does in .net what it does in Java, it's not gonna help you do an AI.
XML? Just put everything in a sqlite database and save as a file.

If I were you, I'd focus on one thing:
Making the easiest to use Journal app.

It would probably look like Memoires for Mac, which I use. To the left is a calendar view, to the right is a title and your entry.

[shivraj]

Main goal is to learn the technology by incremental development. That's why I have choosen simple theme like developing the journaling software.

Obviously It's bloated but it will work. It will be a great learning experience to manage overwhelming complexity. This journal will be my guinea pig to experiment with different technologies.

I am going to create web app in asp.net as well as windows app. using great Windows presentaton foundation(WPF).

Database will be xml because I want to experiment with system.xml namespace. It's a great library. I will have 2 choices as xml data will be stored in Sql server or as a plain xml file.

AI : I will create basic Object Oriented (OOP) Framework for Neural Networks
for pattern recognition.

AJAX is for web app. not for windows.

Sharing a journal? : Yes, You can share your journal with trusted people!same as Microsoft Onenote does sharing.

[Bleicke]

Good luck and have fun.. I'd never buy such an app, though. But then I'm a Mac fanboy.

[shivraj]

lol It's not for sale.. It's open source..

I am a .Net fan. It's sooo awesome.

also

I am a iPhone fan. Submitted many apps to apple app store..

[shivraj]

I am going to make this as a 30 days challenge,

By the end of 30 days from today. I will create working app. (Atleast implement most of the features of "The Journal", if not all).

Start date = 20 May 2009
End date = 18 June 2009.

[Asten]

I'm a fan of OneNote, but have been frustrated by some lack of features and some irritating quirks. The idea and presentation I like though (rare, MS usually pisses me off when it comes to presentation).

So I'm very interested to see how this works out. A lot of features isn't bad, as long as the software is intuitive and comfortable for the user. If the features are woven into the software in the right way--won't even think twice about how many features there are.

To me, bloating happens when features are poorly worked into the program; it doesn't necessarily have to mean a lot of features.

Good luck. I'd love to see a really wicked journaling/planning/etc. open-source software get out there.

[spirit4711]

@Shivraj, good luck with the project!

I want my software to work easy and intuitively. Whatever the technology you use, that's my first concern. I hope you put this high on the feature list .

[fionamydear]

hi,
shivraj, this is priya from banglore

all the best for your project ,are you from India?

[VIPFaktor]

Hi, Shivraj.

That's one very ambitious project and i don't see how it is possible for one man to integrate even 50% of those feature in one month. And i agree with the guy above, the software has some features which are far from necessary. If you want to learn these technologies, you could start another project which will need them.

One of the most important things in project like this one is planning. You need to research everything carefully, from the target audience, necessary features, UI prototypes, to more concrete stuff such as software architecture.
Many of my hobby projects failed because of my lack of formal architecture theory and training.

By the way, I'm not in this .net and programming world for 4-5 months. When did they release the .NET framework 4.0???
I'll need to research it's features a bit. This platform is becoming unreasonably complex.

[Niki]

I once started a project like this, with a ribbon interface (in wpf). If you want I'll see if I have the code somewhere, and I'll give it to you. It is maybe a great startin point. It had a basic interface to build on, and it has a small uncomplete backend that serializes journal entrys to xml and saves it to the disk.

[shivraj]

Thanks to everybody for your encouragement and suggetions. I will certainly work on them.

Originally Posted by VIPFaktor

When did they release the .NET framework 4.0???
I'll need to research it's features a bit. This platform is becoming unreasonably complex.

I have free MSDN subcription of VS2010 CTP with framework 4.0... Beta will be out in this week. .Net platform is not a single technology, It's a collection of technologies so it is complex.

Actually a journaling app is not difficult to make. But as I will start adding new things then certainly a neat and very thoughtful design will require. It's later part.

Current goal is to build a core minimalist feature journaling app using windows form. within 30 days.

Current Progress:
Created a working prototype of the app. in last 3 days.

Implemented Features are,

1) Multiple Users support.
2) Creation, Saving, Searching of entries datewise, categorywise.
3) Encryption of entries.
4) XML file for storing data.

Next goals are:

1) Good USER INTERFACE Design. (1 day)
2) Experiment with Access database and xml file db. and find respose time
and select one of them or both for the rest of the project.(1 day)
3) Text editor.(This may be take 3 to 4 days. I guess.)

'Start by doing what's necessary then do what's possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible': Saint Francis of Assisi.
That's my motivation and guideline.

[VIPFaktor]

I hate developing these multi-user modules... but once you make some good ones, you always recycle them.

You're fast, btw. Did you make a formal software architecture plan (UML diagramming, use case, etc...)?

[shivraj]

Originally Posted by VIPFaktor

I hate developing these multi-user modules... but once you make some good ones, you always recycle them.

You're fast, btw. Did you make a formal software architecture plan (UML diagramming, use case, etc...)?

Yes I do have a plan.

[shivraj]

Originally Posted by Niki

I once started a project like this, with a ribbon interface (in wpf). If you want I'll see if I have the code somewhere, and I'll give it to you. It is maybe a great startin point. It had a basic interface to build on, and it has a small uncomplete backend that serializes journal entrys to xml and saves it to the disk.

Thanks for it. I have all modules ready. Just need to integrate with each other.

[dinc]

Wow..that's some high speed coding. Good luck to ya.

[shivraj]

Originally Posted by dinc

Wow..that's some high speed coding. Good luck to ya.

Thank you!.. I am fast because I am not reinventing the wheel.
Smart work is better than hard work or no work...

Real challenge is integration and usability.

[shivraj]

Day 18:

Fully Implemented Features are:

1>
Multiple Calendars, Multiple Categories and Subcategories, Outlook styled calendars with day view, week view and month view.

2> Fully featured text editor.

3> Search features

4> MS Access Database with xml export option.

I have removed following features for simplicity.. I will add them later ..

1> Multiple users support

2> Password protection and encryption

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Next target is to add blogging features...
also need to update project page on codeplex.



NAMASTE !

[shivraj]

As I am getting more clear about "what, why, how, when" should be there in the journal.net

I have created a following to do list for this project..

Development Phase I: "1 Month"

1) Most required features of Windows Calendar. {Vista}

2) Most required Intuitive features of "The Journal" , Key note.

3) Most required Features of Windows Live writter for blogging

4) Ribbon GUI

with multiple user support and with PGP like encryption.

Development Phase II: "3 Months"

1) Mind Mapping features along with tabular form entries
2) voice command, Text to speech, Handwritting recoginition
3) Features of COMPENDIUM for Collaborative thinking and Journaling.

Development Phase III: "6 Months"
1) Implementation of AI, Data Minining
2) Web application etc.



NAMASTE

[shivraj]

This project's 30% objectives has been completed and This is ongoing project.
I will not release first version until complete testing is done.

Goal was to get started.. and this 30 days trial served very well..

Thank You.