The background research on note-taking apps (including last year's group project) for our GRP.
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\huge Background Research\\
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Livia Florensia - 6519837\\[-3pt] \normalsize
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Before we begin creating our software, which will (hopefully) be a version 2.0 of the Notebook app, we did a background research on the related field. \\
\section{Research on Related Apps}
We did many research on similar type of apps. Each of us search about those apps and put in the functions in Worktile. So far, here is what we got.\\*
\paragraph{OneNote}
According to Eason, OneNote is the best note-taking app that has ever existed. It can be used anywhere like PC, mobile devices, and tablets. And since it is synced online, it can be shared among many people, and the notes that is accessible to us are kept up to date. It also has a function to clip a part of a screen and render it as an image. We can also put emails to our OneNote notebook by sending an email to me@onenote.com. \\*
\paragraph{EverNote}
Eason also looked up EverNote. He thinks it's the second best note-taking app. Compared to OneNote, it has many other interesting functions, but it lacks of the essential ones. And Eric looked up on Penultimate, which is a product by EverNote, where you can take notes using a pen instead of typing.\\*
\paragraph{GNotes}
Christine looked up on the note-taking apps, and found GNotes. It has several functions like file-manager and calendar, and it stores our notes in a very neat grid structure.\\*
\paragraph{iDailyDiary}
Crystal has been using this note-taking app, which functions more as a diary, for 2 years. It does have the basic essential functions like inserting graphics and URL's. It has a function to export our notes into an HTML format, so that they can become web pages. And it is also able to protect our notes with password. It supports the characters of many languages. That is all for the free version, but if you upgrade it to the professional version, it has even more functions than that, such as dictionary, the alignment of picture between text, themes, print function, smileys, tables, audio and video\\*
\paragraph{Google Keep}
According to Crystal, Google Keep is as good as OneNote and EverNote. And it can convert sound recording into text, and it also can search for keywords in the note, even when the keyword is not stored in the form of text.\\
\section{Past Year's Note-Taking App}
Two weeks ago, we went to a talk about last year's GRP note-taking app, conducted by Melissa and Angelo. The past year's app is quite good. It fulfill many amazing functions
\begin{itemize}
\item File Manager: Which they call the Notebook manager. We can decide whether we want to make a quick note or a notebook. If we make a notebook, then the app will create a folder named Notebook, with some notes inside it.
\item Open an Office document: We can open an Office document within the app, even though you will lose some of the formatting of the document.
\item Access the Internet: There is a textbox that can be used to access Moodle or to generate an e-mail address. There are 2 buttons below the textbox to decide which among the two you want to access.
\item Play Video: There is a place to browse a video from our computer and it will generate a window to play the video.
\item Audio and Video recording: The app can be used to record audio and video. There is a button used to start the recording, and it will generate a window for recording. We can stop the recording by closing the recording window.
\end{itemize}
And those are the functions available in Notebook 1.0.
\subsection{The Summer Intern Project}
They did an outstanding job for the GRP, but Melissa and Angelo continued working on the note-taking app on the summer holiday as an internship. They added several functions like being able to add tags to the individual notes, and we are able to search for the tags keywords, to make it easier for the users to look for their notes. The product outcome for the summer intern project is called the Notebook 1.1.
\subsection{What is Missing From This App}
\paragraph{According to them}
\begin{itemize}
\item Bold, italics, underline, and similar functions
\item The function to select words from the notes
\item A dictionary, complete with the translator
\item Referencing
\item A function to deal with privacy issues
\end{itemize}
\section{The Functions in Plan}
After we did so much background research, we did have some functions that we want to provide in our project. Here are some that we have in our mind
\paragraph{From the Project Brief}
\begin{itemize}
\item Easily integrate various content (like pictures, video, sound, text) into a single place
\item Share and collaborate notes
\item Teachers should have achieve a database
\item Could connect to Moodle (but this has been achieved last year)
\end{itemize}
\paragraph{Based on Our Creativity and Judgement from Last Year's App}
\begin{itemize}
\item Font color
\item Font face and size
\item Different type of papers as the background
\item Browse media within the app, and not in a new window
\item Screen clipping (like the one in OneNote)
\item Dictionary with translator
\item Merge multiple notebooks
\item Export notes as PDF
\item Name and rename the notebooks
\item Search by keywords
\end{itemize}
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