Contacts Book

About
User Experience
Features
Testing
- Fixed bugs
- Validators
Deployment
Credits

About

Contacts book is a Python application connected to a google sheet spreadsheet, which runs in the Code Institute mock terminal on Heroku.

Users can create, access and delete records of their contacts including name, address, number and email.

A link to the live site can be found here.

The contact data is stored on googlesheets:

And the live site uses the Code Institute mock terminal on Heroku. The deployment terminal is set to 80 columns by 24 rows:

User Experience

Target Audiences

For users that want to compile their contacts
For users that already have a physical contact book, but are looking to transfer this to a digital version
For users that are familiar to accessing information on a digital spreadsheet
For users new to accessing information on a digital spreadsheet

User Stories

As a user, I am looking to store my contacts digitally
As a user, I need to be able to add contacts to the spreadsheet
As a user, I need to be see my list of contacts
As a user, I would like to be able to search for my contacts
As a user, I need to be able to update any changes to my contacts
As a user, I need an interface that lets me navigate my stored information
As a user, I need clear instructions how to navigate the spreadsheet

Contact Book Aims

To create a spreadsheet that runs in the terminal (in this case the Code Institute mock terminal run on Heroku)
To provide the user with a valuable spreadsheet where they can store their contact information
To provide the user with a means to navigate the spreadsheet and access their information
To provide clear navigation between different functions
To provide the user with a means to amend their stored information
To allow the user to delete any unwanted information
To make sure that the user is only entering valid information into the spreadsheet

First Time Visitors

Visitors are greeted by an initialisation title and a menu that displays the clear functionality of the contact book
Input commands and error messages guide the user through the experience of adding, updating and removing contacts
Messages confirming the completion of tasks appear in the terminal to confirm to the user what actions have been taken, thus improving user experience and understanding

Returning Visitors

Options to display all existing contacts and searching through contacts are of particular benefit to returning users who have returned to the contact book, as they provide a easy way to retrieve their stored information
Returning users also have the ability to update and information that may no longer be accurate

User Journey

As a user, I initialise my contact book in the terminal and am met by a menu that displays all the different things I am able to do
I see that the options are numbered and to choose one I need to input that number into the terminal
I choose to add a new contact so enter number 1, the terminal confirms my selection and I can see it is redirecting me
The terminal tells me what information to enter
I didn't enter enough values for the phone number, so this is returned to me as an error for me to try again
Once all the information is entered, the terminal confirms that the contact is successfully added and asks if I would like to add another contact or return to the main menu. It tells me I need to press y or n
I press y, as I want to add some more contacts then once I am finished return to the main menu
I need to get a number for one of my contacts, so I press 4 to search through my contacts
I see I can enter either their first or last name to search my contacts list. The contact is returned to me showing all information on that contact
I am done with the contacts for now, so when asked I press n to return to main menu and then 7 to exit
The system confirms it is shutting down

Whilst planning the functionality for the contacts book, I had to consider how I was going to achieve both the aims for the user and the contact book creators. This led to the creation of the features found in the Features section.

Features

Initialisation title

For visual effect upon initialisation
Welcomes user to program and confirms purpose

Contact book main menu

Plays a pivotal role in allowing the user to navigate around between functions
User can review the different functions of the contact book and choose which one(s) they would like to use
Numbered so that user can enter the number of the function the wish to use

Add contact function

Appears at the top of the contact list main menu as is the function most first time users will want to start with
Allows the user to add a new contact to their contacts book
User will need to input information for first name, last name, address, phone number and email. Each is presented to the user in its own input for ease- the user does not have to worry about formatting the data into a list
Each data type has it's own validation to ensure the user is inputting accurate data
Confirms back to the user when the contact has been succesfully added

Remove contact function

Allows the user to delete a stored contact
User can search for the contact through using either their first or last name
Terminal messages track the system searching for the contact and confirms if the user is found or not
The use of template literals confirms the search term to the user
If the contact is not found, the user gets to try the search again
If the contact is found, the user is asked to confirm whether they wish to delete the contact by pressing either 'y' to delete, or 'n' to cancel and return to the main menu. This helps safeguard the user against accidentally deleting a contact

Search for contact function

Function is the primary way that the user would access the information they had stored
Allows user to search for contact and retrieves the information for that contact
User can search for contact by using either their first name or their last name
If contact is found, all of the information for that contact is displayed to the terminal
If contact is not found, user has the option to return to the main menu or try another search

Display all contacts function

Useful for the user to review all of the contact information they hold
Prints the information for all contacts to the terminal as a list of dictionaries

Delete all contacts function

Allows the user to delete all of their current contact information
If selected from the main contacts menu, the user will have to confirm that they want to delete all contacts using 'y' or 'n'. This helps avoid the user accidentally clearing their contacts spreadsheet
Confirms deletion of all contacts in the terminal if user chooses 'y', or cancels deletion and returns user to the menu if the user selects 'n'
Displayed in a grid for better user readability using tabulate

Update contact function

Lets the user update information for an existing contact
First, the user searches for the contact they would like to update. If the contact is found, they are presented with a list of options containing the different contact information fields. If the contact is not found, the user is presented with the option to search again or return to the menu
The user chooses which information field they would like to update by entering a number. I decided this was more user friendly than the user having to input the whole contact again with the new changes, and the user can always run the function again if they have more than one change to implement
The user then inputs the new information for that contact, which is run through the validator for the respective data type
Terminal confirms update in contact information

Exit contact book function

Once the user has finished with the contact book, they can choose option '7' on the main contact menu to exit the program
Terminal displays message to thank user for using the contact book, and confirms the system exit

Return to menu option

After each function from the main menu has been executed (with the exception of exit contact book), the user is asked if they would like to perform their last function again by entering 'y', or they can choose to press 'n' to return to the main menu
This improves user experience as means that the user does not need to re-initialise the contact book after they complete a task. It also reduces contact points for those users wishing to repeat a function, and is less visually confusing, when compared to my original idea of automatically bringing up the menu
The only function from the main menu that the return to menu option does not appear for is the delete all contacts function as there is no point for the user to repeat this task, so the user is still automatically redirected back to the menu

Validation for user inputs

Each time the user enters an input, their response will be validated to ensure information accuracy and that the contacts book will run the required task
Each field is validated to ensure that they cannot enter an empty string
Choice validation
- Only accepts one character
- Will not accept a '0' or any number larger than the number of choices
- Only accepts numbers
Name validation
- Does not allow numbers or special characters (other than space and hyphen as these can occur in names)
- Minimum length requirement ('2')
- Will only accept if alphabet characters present (will not accept if user enters only hyphens or spaces)
Address validation
- Limits on special characters - allow numbers, hyphen, spaces that could be needed for addresses
- Minimum length requirement ('10')
- Will only accept if alphabet characters present
Number validation
- Only allow numbers
- Number of values must be either '10' or '11'
Email validation
- Minimum length value '10'
- Must include '@' and '.'
- Will only accept if alphabet characters present, will not accept if user only enters '@' and '.'
If a user input does not meet the validation requirements, an error message will be displayed to the user. This informs the user that there has been an error and improves user experience by telling them what they have done wrong

Search workbook function

Function to check if search term is in database and if there are any matching contacts
If only one user found, that user is returned to the terminal
If more than one user found, user can choose which contact they want to choose and continue on with (to be searched/deleted etc) by entering their index number

Python Logic

Once I had considered the needs of the user and the different functionalities I might need, I had to figure out how these would interact and work together to flow into an application.

I used Lucidchart to create a flowchart where I could plan out the python logic.

Possible future features

Add a 'Favourites' List for user to add all their most used contacts

Technologies used

Pep8 validator to check my run.py file for errors
Github to host my repository
Gitpod as an open-source developer platform used to write my code (using VS Code)
Visual Code Studio (VS Code)
- Visual Studio Code is a streamlined code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running and version control
- I used several VS Code extensions to help make my work more efficient, such as:
  - Auto Open Preview Page (opens a preview panel when markdown file is opened)
  - Python exentsion to provide rich support and help with things like debugging, code navigation and code formatting
Python libraries
- gspread - Python API for google sheets. Allows user to open a spreadsheet, read/write/format cell ranges and provides sharing and access control
- google auth - the Google authentication library for Python. Provides the ability, to authenticate to Google APIs and integrate with HTTP libraries
- tabulate to create a table to display all contacts in for display_all function
Heroku for deployment and to host the Code Institute mock terminal to run the program

Testing

Throughout making this contact book, I was regularly testing my code. Using the terminal in Gitpod at each stage of a new function allowed me to pick up on and elimiate many bugs or errors as they started to form.

For example, when creating a new function, I ran simple tests such as trying to print 'connected' to the terminal to check it was correctly being called when needed.

As the contact book was becoming more whole, I could begin testing functionalities as whole, such as adding a new contact then searching for and deleting it. Trialling the different features in both the Gitpod terminal and the mock terminal on the live Heroku site allowed me to discover and explore the fixed bugs detailed below.

Fixed Bugs

Messages being printed to terminal more than once:
- One of the first bugs I discovered and fixed in my testing phase was to do with the search_workbook function. The print out to in the terminal to tell the user that the search was being carried out, and if the contact had been found was being repeated.
- After reviewing the code, I found the error inside the search_contact function. I had called upon the display_contact function twice - once to deliberately call upon the function, but I had also originally used the return value from the search_workbook function to define the confirmed_contact function, thus running the function again and causing it to print to the terminal twice.
- To fix this, I removed the inital line of code where I called the search_workbook function as it was the confirmed_contact variable that was required.
User input not running through validators in update_contact function:
- When I originally built the update_contact function, the variable containing the input (new_info) was passing through validators and the new data was getting updated to the spreadsheet even if it contained invalid data.
- The if loop for validation was nested inside the if loop to find the matching column number, and in turn these were nested inside single while loop for while True. It seemed to me that if the validation loop inside failed, it did not break the outer while loop, so the function continued and the new_info value was updated anyway.
- I rebuilt this function to mimic the validation used in the add_contact function, so this time the if loops for the column number are on the outside, and nested inside are individual while True loops, with the if loops for validation nested inside that.
- However, even after this the issue still persisted and whichever data type I wanted to update, the terminal was asking me to enter a new first or last name. This made me focus on the code for validating and updating new names and I found it was the use of the key word 'or' in the if condition "1" or "2".
- After removing the or keyword the function runs correctly.

Validators

To check that my python file had no syntax errors, I ran it through both the PEP8 Python Validator and the Extends Class Python Code Checker.

Deployment

This project was deployed using the Code Institute mock terminal on Heroku.

First you will need to fork or clone this repository from Github
You will then need to create a new Heroku app from the Heroku site
When you create the app, you will need to add two buildpacks from the Settings tab. The ordering is as follows:
1. 'heroku/python'
2. 'heroku/nodejs' You must then create a Config Var called 'PORT'. Set this to '8000'. If you have credentials you must create another Config Var called 'CREDS' and paste the JSON into the value field so that the deployed version has access to files it needs to run.
Link the Heroku app to the repository.
To deploy any code changes to Heroku, use the 'git push heroku main' command

Credits

To help form the basis for the different functions I would need for this project, I used this article from Geeks for Geeks as a shell, then build my own custom code using different technologies. I also used this as a basis for my main contacts menu
I took inspiration from the Code Institute's Love Sandwiches Project. In particular, I followed the videos to help with setting up APIs and credentials. Also for the use of the mock terminal
Websites such as Real Python were a good resource. I used this one for exploring the enumerate function
As always, Stack Overflow is a great reference when it comes to troubleshooting and helped me with code such as the validation functions
To help me navigate all of the different options available to me using the gspread library, I used the gspread user guide. This documentation was of great help when I was figuring out how to retrieve information from the google sheet
To create a table from the data retrieved by the display_all function, I used this article from Towards Data Science

code-institute-submissions / contact-book-2 Goto Github PK

contact-book-2's Introduction