imgiitroorkee/noticeboard-mobile-app

The official revamped Noticeboard Mobile App of Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee

Noticeboard Mobile App

             

Download the app!

Click the below links to download.

• Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.img.noticeboard
• iOS:

About the app

The official digital noticeboard of IITR. Provides easy access to the Channel i notices, even from outside the campus or without intranet. You must have a Channel i account to use the app.

Features

• View notices without having to open Channel i, just login and you are set!
• Get notified about the latest notices.
• A separate tab for the ever important placement and intern notices.
• Use that search bar or filter for more fine results.
• Bookmark notices on the go!
• Now after many demands from the iPhone users, noticeboard finally comes on the app store!

Privacy Policy

Link to privacy policy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vsbooZi9PIiVIMaLts2wv0tODEJafCaRT41zsENYN3I/edit

Tech Stack

• Flutter for app code.
• Firebase for notifications.

Contributing

• Fork the repository to your account.
• Branch out to a_meaningful_branch_name.
• Commit your changes.
• Add your name to CONTRIBUTORS.md.
• File a Pull request.
• Get your pull request merged.

It's that simple!

Credits

noticeboard-mobile-app's Issues

[Suggestion] Increase the resolution/quality of the app icon

The app icon currently while suffices the purpose, can be improved as it appears somewhat pixelated in the user-end device.

[Feature/Request] Unit testing in noticeboard app

Unit tests make it safer and easier to refactor the code by putting tests into place that make sure refactoring occurs without problems and disruption and it would be great if we can have that in noticeboard app

Back button causing unexpected behaviour

Expected Behavior

Nothing should happen while pressing back after logging out. Nothing should happen when pressing back on the login screen.

Current Behavior

The user is redirected to the home screen while pressing the back button after clicking on logout. Also, pressing the back button on the login page causes the app to enter splash screen forever.

Possible Solution

We need to check the pop option used in navigator routing, as if the stack pops unexpectedly, such errors may occur.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Go to the Profile Section
2. Click on Logout
3. Press Back button

Possible Implementation

Try checking for possible edge cases in routing, and consider adding a conditional before popping off the navigation stack.

Add a queue which stores all the API calls when a device is offline and can be completed once device is back online

Shared Preferences queue for API calls

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
We show a snack bar currently whenever the device is offline. However, the user is still free to bookmark any open notice or any notices the user sees on the list. But this won't go through, and when the user is back online, and the notices are refetched, the notice will be removed from the bookmarks. To solve such a problem, I propose a queue of API calls the device makes offline. It should be cached and called once the device is back offline.

Describe the solution you'd like
Make a class for interacting with Shared preferences (using secure_storage) on the app, starting in the network interceptor. Once we know the app is online, start hitting all the cached API calls and deque them from the cache.

Fix the problem with displaying pdfs in web views

Currently there's an issue in display of PDFs in the onClick of "View this File" button. Sometimes, the pdfs are displayed, properly and sometimes not. Screenshots of working and not working case attached below.

[Suggested Alternative]
While we figure out the issue we can give a "Download this file" alternative using the open_file package.

API Service doesn't account for socket exceptions (shows generic errors always) leading to bad UX

Expected Behavior

The app shows network error's if any instead of a generic error anytime an exception is raised.

Actual Behavior

The app always shows generic error i.e Error Occoured which is not helpful , leading to bad UX.

Steps to Reproduce

Try refreshing or launching the app without internet connectivity

Suggested Way Ahead

I would like the implementation of a custom EMS (Error Management System) with a stream and an enum for different error types. Can use the network interceptor once implemented for connectivity status (#35 )

In notice navigation

Right Swipe after opening notice leads to next notice being opened

Notice state bug

If the notice is opened via a link in the noticeboard app it doesn’t update the status as read for that notice.

Fix Search

Add elastic search for searching notices.

Add required permissions in manifest for android

Detailed Description

The android version of the app has notification permissions off and isn't set as the default app to open deep links. This leads to bad UX. Add required permissions in the Manifest.xml file so that permissions for notifications are requested from the user on launch of the app and the app is set to open deep links by default.

Add connectivity interceptor when device is offline

When the device is offline , show a snackbar reg network status (may use connectivity_plus: ^5.0.2)

Integrate use of isolates in the app

Isolates increase efficiency by introducing parallelism over concurrency. We can use isolates for network calls.

Migrate UI to material 3.

Talk with the design team about the process.

Left Swipe IOS gesture

Implement the left swipe iOS gesture on opening a notice.

Add about us option in profile page.

Implement using flutter_web_view package

Bumping up flutter sdk version

The following error is observed on changing sdk variable in pubsec.yaml

So, because noticeboard depends on both flutter_form_builder ^6.1.0+1 and flutter_localizations from sdk, version solving failed.```

[Feature Request] Add deep-linking to the app

We should add deep linking for noticeboard links. For example a notice url should open the corresponding notice. Refer this.

Integrate the FCM service for iOS.

Currently, the login updates to channel i oauth apps aren't received on iOS.

Add sentry to app

Sentry helps us keep track of app performance by tracking exceptions raised, logs recorded etc.
https://docs.sentry.io/platforms/flutter/
https://pub.dev/packages/sentry_flutter

Bookmark icon isn't highlighted even after bookmarking a notice

After pressing the bookmark button from the notice detail screen and navigating to the home screen, the notice is not shown as bookmarked.

Expected Behavior

After pressing the bookmark button from the notice detail screen and navigating to the home screen, the user should see the notice bookmarked.

Current Behavior

After pressing the bookmark button from the notice detail screen and navigating to the home screen, the notice is not shown as bookmarked.

Possible Solution

We may need to add a call to the bookMarkNotices stream from the notice detail screen so that as soon as the API call returns a 200 status code, the notice is marked as bookmarked.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enter a notice by tapping on it
2. Press the bookmark from within the notice
3. On navigating back to the home screen, the notice is still not bookmarked and reloading the app fixes the issue

Dockerize the app

Try to add a way to add the flutter version in the image name. (Hint: Read output of flutter --version)

Add docstrings

Long-term issue, will be closed when an acceptable level of docstrings have been added to the codebase.

Add Github Actions workflows

Workflows for APK generation on commit on the main branch. (Run flutter analyze in a step before)

[README.md] Add a README

Currently there's no README for the repo, we should add a nice one!