Ben Chatbot - Your Personal Task Manager 🐶

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started." – Mark Twain

Ben is a simple, text-based task management chatbot that helps you keep track of your todos, deadlines, and events. It's designed to be intuitive, complicated simple, and incredibly efficient for managing your daily tasks.

Features

Ben supports three types of tasks:

• Todo tasks - Simple tasks without time constraints
• Deadline tasks - Tasks with specific due dates
• Event tasks - Tasks with start and end times

Advanced Features

• Smart snoozing - Reschedule tasks with flexible date/time options
• Intelligent search - Find tasks by keywords or due dates
• Dual interface - Choose between CLI and GUI modes
• Auto-save - Your tasks persist automatically between sessions

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Java 17 or higher
• JavaFX (for GUI mode)

Installation

1. Clone this repository

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ben-chatbot.git
   cd ben-chatbot

2. Compile the Java files

   ./gradlew build

3. Run Ben:

   GUI:

    ./gradlew run

Usage Examples

Adding Tasks

Here's how to add different types of tasks:

// Add a simple todo task
todo Buy groceries for the week

// Add a deadline task with specific due date
deadline Submit CS2103T project /by 2024-12-15

// Add an event with start and end times
event Team meeting /from 2024-11-25 1400 /to 2024-11-25 1500

Managing Tasks

// List all tasks
list

// Mark task 2 as complete
mark 2

// Delete task 1
delete 1

// Find tasks containing "meeting"
find meeting

// View tasks due on a specific date
due 2024-12-01

Advanced Snoozing

// Postpone deadline by 3 days
snooze 1 +3

// Reschedule event to specific date/time
snooze 2 2024-12-25 1400

// Change only the start time (preserves duration)
snooze 3 /start 2024-12-01 1300

// Change event duration to 2 hours
snooze 3 /duration 120

// Set both start and end times
snooze 3 2024-12-01 1400 1600

Architecture Overview

The chatbot follows object-oriented principles with clear separation of concerns:

// Core class structure
public abstract class Task {
    private String description;
    private boolean isComplete;
    
    public abstract String getType();
    // ... other methods
}

public class Deadline extends Task {
    private LocalDate deadline;
    
    public Deadline(String description, String dateString) throws BenException {
        super(description);
        this.deadline = parseDate(dateString);
    }
}

// Command pattern implementation  
public abstract class Command {
    public abstract void execute(TaskList tasks, UI ui, Storage storage) 
        throws BenException;
    public abstract boolean isExit();
}

Key Components

• Task hierarchy - Task, ToDo, Deadline, Event classes for different task types
• Command pattern - Modular command system for user actions (AddCommand, SnoozeCommand, etc.)
• Storage system - File-based persistence with automatic save/load
• GUI - graphical User interfaces (GUI)
• Parser - Intelligent command parsing with comprehensive error handling

Task List Progress

• Implement basic todo functionality
• Add deadline support with date parsing
• Create event tasks with time ranges
• File-based storage system
• GUI implementation with JavaFX
• Advanced snoozing with flexible options
• Search and filtering capabilities
• Comprehensive error handling
• Data persistence across sessions

Command Reference

Command	Format	Example
todo	todo <description>	todo Buy milk
deadline	deadline <description> /by <date>	deadline Assignment /by 2024-12-01
event	event <description> /from <datetime> /to <datetime>	event Meeting /from 2024-12-01 1400 /to 2024-12-01 1500
list	list	list
mark	mark <task_number>	mark 1
unmark	unmark <task_number>	unmark 2
delete	delete <task_number>	delete 3
find	find <keyword>	find project
due	due <date>	due 2024-12-01
snooze	snooze <task_number> <options>	snooze 1 +7
bye	bye	bye

Date Formats

Ben uses ISO date formats for consistency:

• Dates: yyyy-MM-dd (e.g., 2024-12-25)
• Times: yyyy-MM-dd HHmm (e.g., 2024-12-25 1400)
• Relative: +<days> (e.g., +7 for one week later)

Technical Implementation

Storage Format

Tasks are stored in ./data/ben.txt using a pipe-separated format:

T | 0 | Buy groceries
D | 1 | Submit report | 2024-12-15  
E | 0 | Team meeting | 2024-11-25T14:00 | 2024-11-25T15:00

Error Handling

Ben provides comprehensive error messages for invalid inputs:

• Date format validation
• Task number bounds checking
• Command syntax verification
• File I/O error recovery

For more information about Java development best practices, visit the Oracle Java Documentation.

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

---

Ben makes task management fast, simple, and effective!