Looking Ahead

Sprint one has finally come and gone. Here are the features we have implemented so far:

• Original logo and custom application launcher icon
• Night mode theme
• Email verification tools
• Password requirements
• Prohibit users from accessing certain screens before they have logged in
• Ability to log out once logged in
• Avoid having the application crash on some button clicks
• A "spinner" or dropdown menu to narrow the search for a chat partner

This is the Chinchilla Chat "Home" screen if one is not logged in.

Features in progress:

• Ability for users to keep and modify a list of blocked users
• A "Settings" screen with multiple settings for a user to personalize
• An attractive chat log, probably with chat bubbles and time stamps
• Ability for users to communicate with others
• Allow users to look back on old chats
• Prevent duplicates: Firebase prohibits an email from signing up twice, but we have not figured out how to prohibit the same username from being submitted

To do:

• Push notifications
• "Disguise" users from other users -- provide anonymity
• Allow users to enter their interests so that other users can find them based on common interests and initiate a new chat with them
• Create flag/block/mute features

Of course, these lists will likely grow over the next few weeks. We seem to be getting a grasp of what we are able to accomplish and what, in general, can be accomplished with Firebase and in Android Studio. As seniors, our schedules are busy like anyone else's. As a two-person team, however, our communication has been solid so far, which is key for an important group project such as this. We make sure to discuss the changes we've made as soon as we possibly can. Since we see each other almost daily and we communicate through a mobile app outside of class, it doesn't take long to be made aware of the changes the other person has made.

If the user enters their email and password on the Home screen, that information carries over if they press the "Register" button and reach this screen.

I believe we'll have a clean user interface across all activities in Chinchilla Chat because we are making consistency in appearance a priority.

We hope to allow at least two users to have a text conversation soon. Once that happens, we will clean that appearance up as well and use chat bubbles and time stamps to better separate each message. If we have time, we'd like to allow users to customize the colors of their chat bubbles, but, again, that would come much later. Functionality is most important to us.

The dropdown menu currently contains the strings "nonbinary," "male," and "female." We realize the wording is unappealing on this screen, so we're coming up with ways to restructure these phrase in the mean time. The toast message at the bottom was created for testing purposes and to inform others that the "Find a Match" button does not yet function properly.

We clearly have a lot of goals we'd like to accomplish in just under four weeks, but we're proud of how far we've come so far and we think that, if successful, Chinchilla Chat can be highly beneficial to our target audience at Augustana College.