Investigate Existing PSD App

[lishaduck]

Premise

Both the PLTW Blog and the STL American report that in 2016-7 the capstone class made an app. What happened? How can we

• find it,
• reuse it, and
• make sure we don't suffer the same fate.

After all, it was another in-house PowerSchool wrapper.
For some reason, it's no longer on the App store or the Play store, despite both articles claiming that was the crowning triumph: that it was on both platforms.
Of course, we'll also be on the web.

If you know anything, @ParkerH27, please tell.

Investigations

Beta Give feedback

1. Look at PLTW
2. Look at Simmons's Twitter.
3. Look on GitHub
4. Ask Carson?

Notes (for posterity):

• There was an app, but it's no longer on the App Store or Play Store.
  • However, it was open-sourced at @Pattonville-App-Development-Team.
  • The Pete's Closet thing on the announcements has a website by @Pattonville-App-Development-Team (Pattonville-App-Development-Team/worldwidehackathon).
• Last year, the capstone class made a project codenamed "Ticketmaster." The iOS app was open-sourced at Conn-Lang/ticketmaster_iOS
  • Unlike the app by @Pattonville-App-Development-Team, it's still running on school servers, though it's unused.
  • The source for the web app was bundled by webpack 😖, which minifies the code so we can't read it.
    • It's also not open-source.
    • It's unused because it didn't have official backing.

Conclusions are in #14.

[PetalCat]

Supposedly Simmons took all that code with him and
A. Carson doesn't have access
B. She was told directly not to give those files to me
So preferably don't bring that up to her

[ParkerH27]

On the suffer the same fate part, from what I can speculate on, the students originally designed the app and got it out to the district. The upkeep must have been for Simmons to do and in all it crashed and burned when it reached a point of complexity where no one knew
A. How to upkeep
B. Simmons left
C. by then it was outdated

I think the way to make it redundant to those issues is to very clearly document Everything from how to modify the front end client sides(apps, website, ect) to how to interact with the backend server, and how the backend handles everything. To the point where one of the District Technology Specialists or Carson and a few students can sit down and start working with it if it ever needs a new feature or update. Keeping the code open source, easily modifiable, and obviously documented should ensure some sort of future integrity. The other part of that is adding features that keep the application easily integratabtle and switchable if the district ever moves to a new lms.

[ParkerH27]

The other part of that is pitching and making the district level highly aware of the system. That will make any future attempts to update, modify, or integrate with the software easier and more seamless for everyone.

[lishaduck]

Yes! We'll need to add extensive doc-comments and add regular comments to everything.

We should also build our server logic separate from the information and modularise that part of the code. If you can make it so you can make an adapter for anything, it should work.
I also see theming as a spot to modularise - it could be used for any school.

Also, getting Carson on board concerning getting student upkeep would be necessary, because I wouldn't just force it on one person. Other options include the Robotics team and TSA. Both of them have student bodies of technology-facing students. Finally, what about the Capstone class? Building it with their approval, for when they build stuff for the school would be useful. They would be building new "plugins." After all, that's what they do most years.

[lishaduck]

Umm, @ParkerH27, I just realized someone else has put the tag pattonville-school-district on a repo: @Pattonville-App-Development-Team 🤷

[PetalCat]

LMAO

[lishaduck]

Just linking this - PSDTools/.github#4

[lishaduck]

Also, if this works as an iOS/macOS app, then we could get the school to push it out through Manager. That would definitely lead to a somewhat higher adoption rate, seeing as people don't need to set it up or look for it. You could even get the school to add it to the taskbars (which are, sadly, managed).

[PetalCat]

As long as we build it within flutter... flutter basically lets you make any app you could ever dream of on any platform so Mac OS is definitely within scope

[PetalCat]

Supposedly according to my mom they never received anything about the original app that was made for Pirate code tickets. And according to Justin within the pattonville robotics discord said the project was never officially adopted by the school or the district. Adoption should be easy because a we can push out through manager and b we have the backing of administration such as Miss Ashford (who seems to be very enthusiastic about our app with new features)

[PetalCat]

At this point I would consider this issue closed. As we have explored as much as we can about the previous apps that they have built. I'm sure there's a tiny bit more we could do but at this point it would be a little redundant as we should shift focus to how we are going to develop this app. The current consensus is flutter but we need to talk how to set up an environment where we can all work in conjunction using flutter (what are the ways that it's possible, logistically speaking how could we work together on it, what is our to-do list? (When it comes to app development and all the prerequisites))

[PetalCat]

@lishaduck close If you agree

[lishaduck]

My WiFi's slow, so it won't post my reply from GitHub. However, Gmail's fine. Previous post:

Seems about right. The updated repo (made with Flutter for VSCode, not `dart create`), targets _everything_. Also, it seems like capstone just builds stuff, for the school, without the school's permission (mostly). Just a pattern I'm seeing. Finally, would this app be available for Elementary/Middle school? They have similar systems.

Also, yes I agree. I think you can close it, though I think maybe we could ask Carson if she knows of any other relevant projects that we could look into. Knowing that capstone didn't just make 3. (App, Pirate Code, Name Pronunciation). Oh, and the name pronunciation tool has been mentioned by a few teachers, but in the sense of "That would be cool if I knew how to find it and use it," not "This is really useful, I use it all the time." It also requires student input, which I don't know how to give. Might be interesting to give it a spin. Signing off for the night - @lishaduck

[lishaduck]

Oh, I forgot something.

The Instructure API Policy states that you may not make an application using Canvas that mimics Canvas. AKA, no new "nice" interfaces, although if you really want to, they're open-source, at instructure/canvas-ios, I believe. They're looking for someone to rewrite the react-native and cocoapods to Swift :)

Just reposted this to fix the formatting.

[PetalCat]

Yes! We'll need to add extensive doc-comments and add regular comments to everything.

We should also build our server logic separate from the information and modularise that part of the code. If you can make it so you can make an adapter for anything, it should work.
I also see theming as a spot to modularise - it could be used for any school.

Also, getting Carson on board concerning getting student upkeep would be necessary, because I wouldn't just force it on one person. Other options include the Robotics team and TSA. Both of them have student bodies of technology-facing students. Finally, what about the Capstone class? Building it with their approval, for when they build stuff for the school would be useful. They would be building new "plugins." After all, that's what they do most years.

Was reading back on this and I think the plugins are a great idea! If you saw my new discussion in PSDTools/app (#13) I think these plugins would be called "applets" for lack of a better term but should be easily addable to the app... My only worry with that is security because all it takes is a bad actor to throw some not-so-friendly code into one of these applets and the entire user base faces the wrath.

[lishaduck]

Was reading back on this and I think the plugins are a great idea! If you saw my new discussion in PSDTools/app (#13) I think these plugins would be called "applets" for lack of a better term but should be easily addable to the app... My only worry with that is security because all it takes is a bad actor to throw some not-so-friendly code into one of these applets and the entire user base faces the wrath.

Applets make me think of Java. And I was thinking it was more of an admin-y thing to add.

[PetalCat]

What do you mean by it was more of an admin-y thing to add

[lishaduck]

Something an admin would do, not something any user could just "toss in"

[PetalCat]

Okay I understand what you mean now... Yeah that would have to be a admin type thing but it would be pretty cool if other groups got into the tool building. What I kind of mean by all of that is being able to add apps to the app.