User Guide

About TeachMeSenpai

TeachMeSenpai is a desktop app targeted at NUS teaching assistants who have many students to keep track of. It is tailored to assist you in monitoring your students’ progress, and details.

As a teaching assistant, you can add all your students’ particulars, make notes about them, quickly navigate through your long list of students and so much more! If using our app seems daunting to you at first, don’t worry, we even have an autocomplete feature to guide you through every step of the way! Tailored to fast-typists, TeachMeSenpai is built around a Command Line Interface (CLI), complete with an autocomplete feature and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to help you manage your students quicker than a traditional point-and-click app can.

About this User Guide

This user guide provides everything you need to know to set up TeachMeSenpai and how to use its features. Head over to the Quick Start section to get started with setting up, or the Features section to learn more about what TeachMeSenpai can do for you! If at any point there are any unfamiliar terms, you may head over to the Glossary for an explanation.

Navigating the User Guide

Note Box

Note: Provides information that is useful to know.

Tip Box

Tip: Provides information that can help enhance the user experience but is not necessary to know.

Warning Box

Warning: Important information to take note of to avoid any unintended effects!

Hyperlinks

Links: Words highlighted in blue are clickable and will direct you to a relevant section within this user guide for more information, or to external websites to learn more!

Table of Contents

• About TeachMeSenpai
• About this User Guide
  • Navigating the User Guide
• Quick start
• Guide to TeachMeSenpai’s GUI
  • Adjusting the size of TeachMeSenpai
• Guide on using Features
• Parameter descriptions
• Features
  • Autocompletion
  • Viewing help: help
  • Exiting the program: exit
  • Listing all students: list
  • Adding a student: add
  • Delete a student: delete
  • Editing a student: edit
  • Editing remark of student: remark
  • Showing a student’s remark: show
  • Find/filter students: find/filter
  • Undo a previous command: undo
  • Redo a previous undo: redo
  • Clearing all entries: clear
  • Saving the data
  • Editing the data file
• Glossary
• Command summary
• Prefix summary
• Appendix: Editing the data file

Quick start

TeachMeSenpai has been designed to work for all Operating Systems (Mac, Windows, or Linux etc.)!

1. Ensure you have Java 11 or above installed in your computer (you may refer to Java Help Resources if you’re not sure how to do so).
2. Download the latest teachmesenpai.jar from here.
3. Copy or move the file to the folder you want to use as the home folder for your application.
4. Double-click the file to start the app.
5. If everything works well, you should be able to see the following User Interface.

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Guide to TeachMeSenpai’s GUI

TeachMeSenpai has several important components as part of its display. Here is a quick walk-through each component.

Menu bar

• Clicking File will give you the option to exit the app
• Clicking Help will show Help F1, clicking it will provide you a link to this User Guide!

Command line

• This is where you will be typing all the commands for TeachMeSenpai! To learn more about the commands TeachMeSenpai has, head over to Features.

Feedback Box

• This is where TeachMeSenpai will provide you with feedback for your commands! Whether they were successfully done or not. You will see more examples of the feedback TeachMeSenpai provides in the Features section.

Result Box

• This is where the results for commands like show and edit will show up!
• This section is scrollable when necessary.

Student List

• This is where you can view all your student entries and their details!
• This section is scrollable as well.

Adjusting the size of TeachMeSenpai

If the app is too small for your liking, you may resize it by dragging the sides of the window with your cursor! The red lines in the image below are moveable so feel free to adjust the app however you like!

Tip: Hover your mouse over the red lines indicated by the image on your app under you see an arrow cursor, this will allow you to adjust the size of the window

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Guide on using Features

Parameter descriptions

Firstly, parameters are the inputs/information you have to fill in together with their respective commands in the command line when using TeachMeSenpai!

Here is an exhaustive table for you to refer to if you’re unsure of what to input when using the various features below this section!

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Features

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Autocompletion

TeachMeSenpai has a lot of features for you to experiment with, and we understand that it might take some getting used to. Hence, we’ve included an autocompletion feature!

Start typing the first letters of a command to get shadow-like autocomplete suggestions. The format of the suggested parameters are as described in the Guide on using Features.

Tip: You can press your TAB key to fill in the next suggested word!

Additionally, for the module, tag and education parameters, it will also suggest all the existing values to you!

Note: The | seen above are not part of the commands TeachMeSenpai accepts. They’re simply there to separate the different existing modules/education/tags you have in the current student list.

The autocompletion feature also hints to you if you’ve entered an invalid command-word or an invalid index!

Note: The above invalid-input hints does not check if the parameters you gave are actually valid. Just because the words aren’t red, does not imply that your input will execute when you press enter!

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Viewing help: help

Shows a URL to the User Guide page.

Tip: Click F1 as a keyboard shortcut to view the help pop-up!.

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Exiting the program: exit

Exits the program.

Format: exit

Note: This is the same as closing the app via the top-right x button.

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Listing all students: list

Shows a list of all students. This is useful for displaying the full list after using commands that modifies the list (eg. find).

Format: list

Above: Before and after entering list command

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Adding a student: add

Adds a student to the list, along with their education level and any student-specific notes.

Format: add n/NAME [a/ADDRESS] [p/PHONE] [e/EMAIL] [edu/EDUCATION] [tele/TELEGRAM] [r/REMARK] [t/TAG]... [m/MODULE]...

• NAME: Alphanumeric word(s).
• ADDRESS: The student’s address.
• PHONE: A student’s phone number that only contains numbers and is as least 3 numbers long.
• EMAIL: A valid email follows the local@domain format.
• EDUCATION: Alphanumeric word(s)
• TELEGRAM: A valid telegram handle must start with @ and follows Telegram’s username specifications
• REMARK: Can be sentences or even paragraphs.
• TAG: A detail about a student (limited to one word long).
• MODULE: The module code the student is taking (can be multiple words).

For more details and examples on the parameters, please refer to the Parameter descriptions!

Examples:

• add n/Shaun a/123 NUS Street r/Good in Japanese t/submitted m/CS2103T
• add n/Shao Hong edu/Bachelors y2 r/Good in German m/CS2101
• add n/Wen Li e/e07123456@u.nus.edu p/91234567 a/Kent Ridge PGPR tele/@wenlisan r/Very hardworking :)

Using the following input add n/Shao Hong edu/Bachelors y2 r/Good in german m/CS2101

Above: Before and after entering add command with student's details

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Delete a student: delete

Deletes the student(s) at the specified index(es) from the student list.

Format: delete INDEX [INDEX]...

• Deletes the student at the specified INDEX.
• More than 1 INDEX can be specified, and all of them will be deleted.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed student list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …
• There must not have any duplicate indexes.

Note: As a failsafe, if there’re duplicates of the same INDEX or if one of the INDEX specified are invalid (do not correspond to a student in the list), the command won’t execute.

Examples:

• list followed by delete 2 deletes the 2nd student in the student list.
• delete 1 4 deletes the 1st and 4th student in the student list.

Using the following input delete 1 4

Above: Before and after entering delete 1 4 command

Tip: You can combine find and delete when you have a very long list of students.
For instance, you can find the student(s) you want gone, and then delete using the index from the list displayed!

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Editing a student: edit

Edits a student’s information (all information except remarks). To remove a student’s parameter, leave the value after the prefix blank (eg. a/ p/ to remove address & phone number).

Format: edit INDEX [n/NAME] [a/ADDRESS] [p/PHONE] [e/EMAIL] [edu/EDUCATION] [tele/TELEGRAM] [t/TAG]... [m/MODULE]...

• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed student list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …
• NAME: Alphanumeric word(s).
• ADDRESS: The student’s address.
• PHONE: A student’s phone number that only contains numbers and is as least 3 numbers long.
• EMAIL: A valid email follows the local@domain format.
• EDUCATION: Alphanumeric word(s)
• TELEGRAM: A valid telegram handle must start with @ and follows Telegram’s username specifications
• TAG: A detail about a student (limited to one word long).
• MODULE: The module code the student is taking (can be multiple words).

For more details and examples on the parameters, please refer to the Parameter descriptions!

Examples:

• edit 2 n/Shaun Tan r/Not good in Japanese
• edit 1 n/Lao Hong
• edit 3 a/ p/ (removes student’s address & phone number)

Using the following input edit 1 edu/Year 1

Above: Before and after entering edit 1 edu/Year 1 command

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Editing remark of student: remark

Edits a student’s remarks.

Format: remark INDEX [REMARK]

• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed student list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …

With remark you can type your desired remarks and notes into the popup text box! The text box can take in multiple sentences, paragraphs etc. When you are done, you can simply press Ctrl + S and your remarks will be saved once the text box closes.

Note: Do not edit or type commands into the command line of TeachMeSenpai while the remark text box is open! The current version of TeachMeSenpai requires you to close the remark text box before you continue with other commands :)

Examples:

• remark 2

Using the following input remark 2:

Above: Before entering remark 2 command

Above: Editing remarks using the remark 2 command

Above: After pressing CTRL + S

Note: Notice that remarks in the student list (right panel) are truncated to make your student list more succinct :) To view the remarks in detail, you may use the show feature!

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Showing a student’s remark: show

Displays all the details, including the full remark of a specified student. This is useful for when the remark is too long to be displayed fully in the student list panel.

Format: show INDEX

Examples:

• show 1

Using the following input show 1:

Above: Before and after entering show 1 command

Tip: After typing a long remark with remark, use show to view the full remark in the result box

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Find/filter students: find/filter

Finds students based on a keyword in the parameter that you want.

The find and filter commands allow you to match keywords or partial keywords with the entries, for example:

Find

The find command allows you to zoom in on entries that matches all search criterias!

find n/Sh n/Na displays the students with names containing both sh and na (case-insensitive), such as Shanna or Nashira. This partial-keyword matching (eg. matching sh in Shaun) applies to all parameters EXCEPT tags and modules, where you will have to enter the keywords in full.

Format:
find [n/NAME]... [p/PHONE]... [e/EMAIL]... [a/ADDRESS]... [edu/EDUCATION]... [tele/TELEGRAM]... [r/REMARK]... [t/TAG]... [m/MODULE]...

Filter

Unlike find, the filter command instead show entries that match at least one of the search criterias!

filter n/Sh n/Na displays the students with names containing either sh or na (case-insensitive), such as Sheryl or Nala. Same as find, partial-keyword matching doesn’t apply to tags and modules, where you will have to enter the keywords in full.

Format:
filter [n/NAME]... [p/PHONE]... [e/EMAIL]... [a/ADDRESS]... [edu/EDUCATION]... [tele/TELEGRAM]... [r/REMARK]... [t/TAG]... [m/MODULE]...

Please refer to the Prefix Summary for more details!

Examples:

• find n/Sh will display the students named “Shao Hong” & “Shaun”
• find a/pas will display students who stay at places which names that contain pas such as Pasir Ris
• find t/URGENT will display students who have the exact tag URGENT
• find m/CS2101 will display students who have the exact module CS2101

Using the following input find n/a m/CS2103T:

Above: Before and after entering find n/a m/CS2103T command

Using the following input filter n/a m/CS2103T :

Above: Before and after entering filter n/a m/CS2103T command

Note: Here, other entries that only match some criteria like Roy Balakrishnan, who only matches n/a are shown too.

Tip: find followed by an edit will result in the full student list being shown! (similar to running a third command list)

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Undo a previous command: undo

Did you make a mistake with a command? Don’t worry, simply undo it!

You can undo as many times as required, as long as any of your previous commmands were undoable. All undoable commands are given below!

Note: You can only undo add, edit, delete, remark, clear, and redo commands as these are the only commands that change the data of your TeachMeSenpai app! Trying to undo without having ANY of the above commands prior will cause TeachMeSenpai to show you an error message

Format: undo

Examples:

• delete 2 followed by ‘undo’ will delete the 2nd student in the list, but undo will reverse this deletion and add the student back.
• add n/Wen Li p/88889999 followed by undo will add a student Wen Li, but undo will remove this entry from the list.
• list followed by undo will cause TeachMeSenpai to give you an error message since list is not undoable
• delete 2 followed by list then undo will reverse the deletion done before list!

Using the following inputs delete 1 4 followed by undo:

Above: Original state before entering delete 1 4, before entering undo command and after entering undo command

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Redo a previous undo: redo

Did you undo a command on accident? Fret not, you may use redo to reverse the changes done by undo!

Note: You can only redo an undo command. Trying to redo without ANY prior undo command will simply cause TeachMeSenpai to give you an error message.

Format: redo

Examples:

• delete 2, followed by undo, then redo has the same effect as delete 2
• list followed by redo will result in an error message from TeachMeSenpai.
• delete 2 followed by redo will result in an error message from TeachMeSenpai.

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Clearing all entries: clear

Need to clear all your entries? Simply use clear to help you delete all your entries at once!

Format: clear

Note: Don’t worry if you cleared all your entries by accident, simply use undo to reverse the change! Do note that if you exit the app immediately after clear, using undo upon relaunching the app can’t retrieve your data anymore :(

Saving the data

TeachMeSenpai data are saved in the hard disk automatically after any command that changes the data. There is no need to save manually 🙂 The file containing your data can be found in the same folder teachmesenpai.jar is found in on your computer.

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Editing the data file

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Glossary

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Command summary

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Prefix summary

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Appendix: Editing the data file

The default data file contains the sample data from TeachMeSenpai. To edit the data, simply follow the format for each parameter you’d like to edit.

The code below is a direct quote from the default data file.

{
  "persons" : [ {
    "name" : "Alex Yeoh",
    "phone" : "87438807",
    "email" : "alexyeoh@example.com",
    "address" : "Blk 30 Geylang Street 29, #06-40",
    "remark" : "Hasn't submitted tutorial worksheet for Week 10",
    "education" : "P6",
    "telegram" : "@alexyeoh30",
    "modules" : [ "CS2103T" ],
    "tagged" : [ "CS2101" ]
  }, {
    "name" : "Bernice Yu",
    "phone" : "99272758",
    "email" : "berniceyu@example.com",
    "address" : "Blk 30 Lorong 3 Serangoon Gardens, #07-18",
    "remark" : "Submitted an MC for tutorial on Week 8",
    "education" : "P1",
    "telegram" : "@berniceee30",
    "modules" : [ "CS2030" ],
    "tagged" : [ "colleagues", "friends" ]
  }, {
    "name" : "Charlotte Oliveiro",
    "phone" : "93210283",
    "email" : "charlotte@example.com",
    "address" : "Blk 11 Ang Mo Kio Street 74, #11-04",
    "remark" : "Remarks can take in multiple lines of input \nsee!",
    "education" : "Sec 1",
    "telegram" : "@charlotte_07",
    "modules" : [ "CS2040S", "CS2109" ],
    "tagged" : [ "neighbours" ]
  }, {
    "name" : "David Li",
    "phone" : "91031282",
    "email" : "lidavid@example.com",
    "address" : "Blk 436 Serangoon Gardens Street 26, #16-43",
    "remark" : "",
    "education" : "Sec 4",
    "telegram" : "@david_liiii",
    "modules" : [ "CS2107" ],
    "tagged" : [ "family" ]
  }, {
    "name" : "Irfan Ibrahim",
    "phone" : "92492021",
    "email" : "irfan@example.com",
    "address" : "Blk 47 Tampines Street 20, #17-35",
    "remark" : "",
    "education" : "P5",
    "telegram" : "@irfanlove",
    "modules" : [ "CS2040S", "CS2105" ],
    "tagged" : [ "classmates" ]
  }, {
    "name" : "Roy Balakrishnan",
    "phone" : "92624417",
    "email" : "royb@example.com",
    "address" : "Blk 45 Aljunied Street 85, #11-31",
    "remark" : "",
    "education" : "P3",
    "telegram" : "@royyy123",
    "modules" : [ "CS4243" ],
    "tagged" : [ "colleagues" ]
  } ]
}

persons is an array containing every student entry as an element. Each element is enclosed in curly braces {}

Warning: The values you input should adhere to the parameter requirements. Otherwise the app will display an empty student list.

The parameters in the braces indicate which parameter in the Parameter descriptions the input should adhere to.

• name: Represents the student’s name. Cannot be empty. (NAME)
• phone: Represents the student’s phone number. If the student entry lacks a phone value, omit the “phone” row. (PHONE)
• email: Represents the student’s email. If the student entry lacks an email value, omit the “email” row. (EMAIL)
• address: Represents the student’s address. If the student entry lacks an address value, omit the entire “address” row. (ADDRESS)
• remark: Represents the remark or notes for a student. If the student entry lacks a remark, input"" or omit the “remark” row. (REMARK)
• education: Represents the education level of a student. If the student entry lacks an education value, omit the “education” row. (EDUCATION)
• telegram: Represents the telegram handle of a student. If the student entry lacks a telegram value, omit the “telegram” row. (TELEGRAM)
• modules: Represents an array of modules the student takes. If the student entry lacks module values, input []. (MODULE)
• tagged: Represents an array of tags the student is labelled with. If the student entry lacks tags, input []. (TAG)

After making the desired changes, simply save the data file, and re-launch TeachMeSenpai again.

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