March 17: We completed our design document and put up our project webpage and timeline.
March 23: User registration and login/logout functionality is implemented on the web app. The iOS app has been scaffolded with the basic views and storyboards. We also have our Amazon EC2 server running.
March 25: We have put our code on GitHub to facilitate version control as we progress with our project. Interfacing with the VisionObjects website has proven to be a larger challenge than expected, so we are currently waiting on the VisionObjects SDK which we will use to recognize handwriting on the iOS app. On the web app, we can now query the database to get documents and equations owned by a user, and we display these when a user is logged in.
Mar 30: We put our code from GitHub on the AWS server. From now on we will test using this server, rather than a local machine. The iOS app can now log in and log out with the server. The web app now shows rendered latex next to each equation name. To display the rendered latex, we used MathJax, an open-source Javascript math rendering engine.
April 4: We have implemented the server-side interface with the iOS app. This includes functionality for getting, adding, and deleting documents and equations and registering new users. The methods for gettings documents and equations for the iOS required sending serialized JSON objects containing the requested data. There is still some work to be done to protect against SQL injection attacks when interacting with the database, validating data, and handling MySQL errors. However, the main functionality of the interface is in place so we can now implement the client side.
April 9: The iOS app can now interact completely with the server-- it can create, get, and delete documents and equations. We can also view rendered LaTeX and copy/paste the LaTeX code from the iOS app. The only major part missing is the handwriting recognition and converting to LaTeX. Currently, adding new equations just sends an empty string to the server. The next step is to begin working with the VisionObjects SDK to do the handwriting analysis, which is the main business logic behind our app.
April 11: We successfully tested against SQL injection attacks when creating documents and equations on the iOS app. The iOS app also checks against using the empty string when naming a document or equation. On the webapp, we modified the home screen to display the list of documents owned by the user. The user can then click on a document and is redirected to a page displaying the name, LaTeX code, and rendered LaTeX of each equation. We are currently working on using Ajax to accomplish this without having to reload the page.
April 15: We have hooked up the VisionObjects SDK into the iOS app. We can now write equations, convert them into LaTeX, and save that to the database. This is the core business logic of our app.
April 20: We have Ajax functionality implemented, so that now instead of redirecting to a new page, when a user selects a document, the page is dynamically updated with the list of equations for that document. Similarly, the user can then click on an equation name, and the page is dynamically updated to display the LaTeX in unrendered and rendered form.
April 23: We have been working with Twitter Bootstrap quite a bit, and finally it is beginning to pay off. We have customized the style on the login and registration pages, and are currently working on improving the layout of the main page using much of the customization functionality that Bootstrap has to offer.
May 2: The past week we have focused mostly on the frontend of the web app, as well as small bug fixes. As mentioned previously, we are using Twitter Bootstrap to give the web app a polished, professional look. We have also implemented sorting functionality, so that users can sort documents and equations by name or most recent (by default they are sorted alphabetically).
May 10: We are so excited to be demoing tomorrow! This past week has been mostly about testing and fixing bugs, as well as small frontend style changes (such as fonts). However, we did also accomplish two pretty significant things: buying a domain name and adding a Wolfram Alpha button. Now when you write an equation on the app, you can click the Wolfram Alpha button to solve the equation for you. Also, we purchased the domain name www.texscribe.me, which now points to our Amazon EC2 server. We've been working on our presentation, and are really excited to share our work with everyone who comes out to see it tomorrow!
May 12: We're working on tying up some of the loose ends of our project before the final submission. We have added an "About" page to our web app, added a registration view so that users can now register through the mobile app, and added some visual effects on the folders and equations pages of the mobile app for keeping track of user actions. To improve performance, we have implemented some basic caching to speed up page loads and implemented persistent connections to speed up database access (currently at 10 seconds). We have also configured static files for the admin views of the web app, so that the admin page now looks nicer than just raw HTML.