Research into exsisting systems

Once the decision had been made to undertaken based on the idea mentioned in my previous post. It was only logical to begin researching into existing systems that performed the same/similar functions as my app would.

I began by considering products that I was already familiar with. Such products included:

• Google Wave
• Google Docs
• TreePad
• Microsoft OneNote

I then began to search the internet for products that performed the same/similar functions that I was not aware of. This searching revealed a couple of products that companies had produced.

After using some of these products to get a better understanding of the way they performed certain actions that I believed may be useful in the development of my app. I began to draft an outline of the requirements I would want my app to meet. This was divided into, functional and non-functional requirements.

Functional requirements:

• Save edits to a note in real-time
• Display edits to a note in real-time when being viewed
• Display the data a tree structure with a node at the end of a branch storing the data
• Store the following properties for each note: title; creator; contributors; date created; date last modified
• Store the users log-in details
• Keep a user logged in until log out selected
• Provide a method for a user to view all of their note’s
• Allow for notes to be sorted by a property of the users choice
• Allow for the user to choose to open notes in a new window/tab or the same window
• Prompt the user to enter the notes properties when creating a new document
• Allow for the owner to view or edit the properties of a note from the main window
• Allow for notes to be viewed by selected other users
• Allow for notes to be edited by selected other users
• Handle multiple users attempting to edit a note simultaneously
• Allow for images etc. to be uploaded as part of a node to a note
• Allow for a list of links to be saved as part of a node
• Allow for links to be made between two nodes in addition to those between the node and its predecessor
• Allow for a node and its successors to be moved to another node

Non-functional requirements:

• Not store the users password in clear text
• Not allow unauthorised access to a document
• Be accessible from the web
• Be independent from: Device; Browser; Platform

The next stage of the project was is to research technologies and languages that can be used to best implement "the artefact".