MovieBox is a ruby powered CLI app that allows users to catalogue and record all the movies they have seen. It allows them to add, delete and update the movie data and offers a dynamic way to filter and view them.
0. System Requirements
Make sure you have Ruby installed because this is a ruby app. One way to install it easily is asdf.
1. Download MovieBox:
The Link to download is https://github.com/thangzathang/MovieBox
Git clone it or download the ZIP of the app to your machine/ laptop.
2. Install ruby gem dependencies:
Ensure you have Ruby bundler installed, then, install all the required ruby gem by typing bundle install in the terminal of your src folder.
3. Run MovieBox:
You will need to be in the src folder to execute code.
You will most likely need execution permission from bash, use the following code chmod +x ./movieBox.sh to gain this permission.
After that, type ./movieBox.sh and the program will execute.
4. Help
Type the command./mybooks.sh --help to display help message.
The purpose of my terminal app is to allow users the ability to store / save the movies they have seen. It will allow them to store it in a data format data for persistent data. They can add and delete movies as they please. They will also be given comprehensive data sorting functionality so that they may sort through the movies they have watched and use it as a tool to re-watch certain they loved.
- It is an app they can conveniently use to store their movies on the go on the terminal line which programmers use a lot.
- Offers a very basic but important details of movies that can sometimes be a hassle to remember. Details such as release year, all the directors, all the actors, the score they gave or the interesting thing they loved which they can put in the comments. Essentially is a personalized encyclopedia.
- People like to re-watch certain movies because of various reasons such as nostalgia or pure boredom - a behaviour observed during the 2020 - 2021 Covid lock-downs. This app allows for people to filter movies through actors, directors, genres and movie scores they gave in the past, such are the factors that are most considered when deciding what to watch. This app will help people decide what to re watch when lonely and bored - it can potentially pass off as a 'self-care' terminal app.
Avid movie lovers is the target audience for this app. Movie watchers with slight or intense case of OCD will now be able to properly store and catalogue their movies on the go on the terminal. They can use this app as a one stop shop to decide what movie they want to re-watch with their partner/ friends.
The heart of this application is CRUD. The main menu of this app is Add Movies, Display Movies, Delete Movies and Update Movies. These options presented to the user does precisely what it says to the user.
We can add and delete movies - this is saved to the JSON data file and can be just as easily be deleted from the JSON data file. These are checks when adding to check for duplicate content on a user level, and there are confirmation prompts to confirm user decisions when deleting data from the data base.
The display ( Read / Retrieve ) offers addition options to the reader by allowing the user to show all the movies in the data base or filter the movies by the fields they filled out earlier such as actor, director, genres and movie score.
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Finally, the update functionality allows the user to change the data they have inputted earlier so that if they have changed their mind or simply made a mistake, they can rectify it easily as they have added.
The JSON gem is a powerful tool for data persistency. When the program exits or user has decided to be done with it, the data is saved externally to an outside JSON file. This means when the user comes back on the program, all their data is saved and they can view their entries from last usage.
JSON does require a certain level of delicacy as to interact with JSON, it requires file reading which almost certainly means try and catch error handling. Read from JSON file is like any other file format with the need convert to json when saving data, and the need to parse JSON when reading from it. I believe I had handle it appropriately so the user does not need to worry about such crash or bugs.
The terminal app is visually adequate and very simple and minimalist. It is done by design through the help of ruby gems such as the 'tty-prompt', 'tty-box', 'terminal table', 'Rainbow' and 'Artii'. They have been integrated to give user a fun and simple user experience.
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All menu navigation should intuitive because users will understand the scroll up and down selection. The tty-prompt gem is used to achieve this ease of use. User must simply scroll up or down and press enter to access and execute each menu features as told by the prompt which is provided by tty-prompt.
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They can always go back to previous page by finding the 'Exit' option which will always be present. Users can opt out of any prompted features by typing in 'exit' in most cases.
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Error handling is done very well in this app because the app will prevent any errors from occurring in the first place because of the custom built 'messageBox' class which it's entire purpose is to prevent errors. Error handling usually means the programs halts - never fun for the user so I have decided to prevent errors occurring altogether except in the case of File reading. MessageBox is very comprehensive in the way it deals prevents errors using 'tty-box' and 'Rainbow' colours to show the user what they must do to proceed to the next step.
We were told to Trello project management platform.
The link to my Trello Board for this project is: https://trello.com/b/fapOKfqO/movie-termina-app
All the 4 main CRUD features and their checklist can be seen in the screenshot
While there were complications along the coding, the main steps I needed to take were very obvious because of this trello board.
Make sure you can add a movie object and that it is actually saved by quitting the program and starting it again.
The test data we will input is:
Movie title: Snatch Movie year: 1999 Movie ranking: S Movie director: Guy Ritchie Movie actors: Brad Pitt, Jason Statham, Benicio Del Toro, Alan Ford Movie genres: Crime, Comedy, Heist, Thriller Movie score: 95 Movie Comment: Do you know what nemesis means?
- Open Movie Box App.
- From the main menu, select Add Movie
- Fill out the required inputs and proceed until finished.
- From the main menu, select Display Movie, view all. You should see the movie.
- Restart the program. Then goto Display Movies again.
Expectation: The same movie should be there meaning the movie was really created and saved.
Actual Result: The same movie is still there with the same data so we know Adding works.
Status: passed
We want to make sure that we can update the movie objects.
The test data we will input is the movie data. It seems that Snatch was released in 2000, instead of 1999. So we will update the year of the movie snatch.
- Open Movie Box App.
- From the main menu, select Update Movie
- It will ask for movie title, and movie year. Fill it out as Snatch, 1999 because this is the old data it has been given.
- Once prompted to select which field we would like to update, select year. Update the year to 2000. Then save it.
- Now from the main menu, goto Display Movies, show all.
Expectation: We will see the movie Snatch with the new updated year value of 2000.
Actual Result: We see the movie Snatch with the year of 2000. Previously it was 1999, but now it is 2000, meaning the test was successful.
Status: passed