Updates

11/8/2012
I've now managed to accomplish two major milestones - the "function" I use to populate the listbox is now complete and fully functional. I've tested it and it seems to react fine to both overflowing lines and less than 5 lines. The second milestone (which I would like to heavily thank Kerm for) is checking if an AppVar exists. This now works flawlessly. Thanks!

Finally, I am now using a program instead of an AppVar to store notes. This will not be included in the final program and is only being used as a debugging tool.

The rest of the program should be easy to finish now that I've finished these two objectives. I plan to add scrollbar functionality next.

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Hello all,


I'll be using this thread to post constant updates on the project as time goes on. You are of course free to ask questions about the project and participate in its development (just send me a PM). So, without further ado, here it is.

What is it?
NoteIT is a TI-BASIC app built for DCS7 that is used for taking notes. You can use it to quickly browse your notes and add on as well.

What makes it unique?
There are probably many notes apps out there, but this one is unique in that it is coded entirely in TI-BASIC and utilizes many DCS features such as icons, descriptions, Celtic III libs support, and, most importantly, GUIs. This gives you an awesome-looking GUI without lacking functionality.

Are my notes safe?
On my checklist are two features that deal with safety: password locks and handling archiving. First of all, each note is stored in the AppVar, which will (in the future) be automatically archived and unarchived as needed. The password will also be stored in a separate AppVar with its own archive handling. This allows you to have better protection against other people and RAM clears.

How does it look like?
Here's an early dev screenshot:



As you can see, it will have listbox-like functionality for browsing through your notes and a quick way to add notes without switching screens. I also plan to implement a larger note screen for writing large notes such as grocery lists (You wonder who would use a calculator as a grocery list, I point you towards gCn).

ETA?
None for now. This is a thing I'm doing in my free time so I don't plan time accordingly.


What do you need to add?

* Listbox functionality
* Password ability
* Archive handling
* Large input screen
* Note editing

If you would like to help in beta testing or development, please do not hesitate to ask! I'm very open to such things.

So, what do you guys think? Are you looking forward to this?


And in case you didn't notice...
It is named NoteIT because IT is TI spelled backwards. Ha-ha-ha.

It looks great so far; excellent use of the Doors CS GUI features for BASIC programs! I look forward to your progress and status updates, and feel free to use this topic for questions that are likely to be too brief for their own thread. Do you have any sort of planned timetable for the project?

How do you plan to handle password protecting the notes? Will you use actual encryption of some sort, or just require a password to access the user interface? If the latter, how will the password be stored?

@Kerm

Not really. However, I am pretty much dedicating 100% of my coding time to this (I haven't worked on anything else even though my to-do list seems to keep on getting bigger by the day :p)

@elfprince13

I had actually not thought about encryption. I planned to store the password in a separate AppVar. This would then be shown on its own small GUI before allowing access to the main GUI.

It is my opinion that password-protected data should be inextricably tied to the password, so that when you delete the password, you also delete the data. I can think of two ways to do this:
1) Store the password as the first line in the note file.
2) Don't store the password at all, but use the password (or 4-digit PIN, more likely) to encrypt the notes somehow. Also keep a 2-byte checksum at the end of the notes that is also encrypted, and if the sum of the bytes match the checksum, the password is most likely correct. (I know that this is probably impossible in TI-BASIC, even with Celtic III).

The idea wasn't really to protect the data, but to prevent the interface that works with the data. See, anyone who knows Celtic III can easily delete the entire AppVar without even needing to use the program and there's nothing I can do about that. With a password, newbies who don't know Celtic III libs can't harm the AppVar, even with a RAM clear. If it didn't have a password anybody can mess with the notes.


Bear in mind that the password will of course be optional if some of you feel that you don't need an annoying prompt every time you want to read your notes.