Horizon
Smart Study Planner — v1.2.0
Codename: Horizon
📖 Overview
Horizon represents the next stage in the evolution of Smart Study Planner, extending the application beyond task and study management into a more complete academic workspace. This release introduces a dedicated Notes Scratchpad, improves deployment through a console-free Windows executable, and reorganizes the repository to meet professional open-source development standards.
While previous releases focused on functionality and user experience, Horizon emphasizes maintainability, deployment, and long-term scalability. The project's internal structure has been redesigned to better support collaborative development, automated workflows, documentation, and future feature expansion without altering the core user experience.
This milestone also strengthens the application's cross-platform compatibility and reinforces its position as a polished desktop productivity solution.
🎯 Objectives
This milestone was developed with the following goals:
- Introduce an integrated note-taking workspace.
- Improve deployment for end users.
- Reorganize the repository according to open-source best practices.
- Strengthen project maintainability.
- Improve source code organization.
- Enhance Windows compatibility and packaging.
✨ Added
📝 Notes Scratchpad
Introduced a dedicated Notes Scratchpad, providing students with a distraction-free workspace for writing quick notes, lecture summaries, reminders, and study material.
Features include:
- Sidebar-accessible workspace
- Live word count
- Character count
- Paragraph count
- Automatic per-user saving
- SQLite-backed storage
- Export notes as
.txtfiles
Each user's notes remain fully isolated from every other account through the existing database architecture.
🌍 Fully Localized Notes
The Notes Scratchpad has been fully integrated into the application's localization framework.
Every interface element, label, and interaction has been translated across all 12 supported languages, ensuring a consistent multilingual experience.
🖥️ Console-Free Windows Executable
Introduced a packaged Windows executable built using the --noconsole configuration.
Users can now launch:
SmartStudyPlanner.exe
directly from Windows without an additional terminal window appearing in the background.
This significantly improves the application's desktop experience for non-technical users.
🔄 Changed
🚀 Default Launch Behavior
Updated the application's startup workflow.
main.py now launches the graphical desktop interface by default.
Alternative launch modes remain available through:
--cli--menu
This provides a more intuitive experience for end users while preserving flexibility for developers.
🌐 UTF-8 Console Support
Standard output is now explicitly configured to use UTF-8 encoding.
This prevents Windows terminal encoding issues that previously produced character display errors when working with multilingual content.
🚀 Improved
📁 Repository Organization
The entire repository has been reorganized into a professional open-source project structure.
Major improvements include:
- Source code moved into
src/ - Dedicated
docs/hierarchy - Versioned release documentation
- GitHub Issue Templates
- GitHub Actions workflows
- Cleaner directory organization
- Improved maintainability
The new structure provides a clearer separation between source code, documentation, assets, and project configuration.
🛠️ Source Code Organization
Internal modules have been reorganized without affecting application behavior.
This restructuring simplifies:
- Navigation
- Maintenance
- Future development
- Contributor onboarding
📦 Packaging Reliability
Improved resource resolution following the migration to the src/ directory.
Assets are now reliably located regardless of where the packaged application is launched.
📄 Documentation
Documentation has been expanded and standardized across the repository.
New documentation organization includes:
- Versioned release notes
- Structured documentation hierarchy
- Development documentation
- Project architecture
- Troubleshooting resources
This improves the overall developer experience and makes the project easier to understand and contribute to.
👥 Contributor Attribution
Contributor information has been reviewed and updated across:
- Source code headers
- Documentation
- Repository metadata
This ensures consistent attribution throughout the project.
🏛️ Architecture Progress
Horizon shifts development beyond feature expansion and toward professional software engineering practices.
Major architectural improvements include:
- Professional repository structure
- Improved deployment workflow
- Better source code organization
- Enhanced documentation hierarchy
- Stable asset resolution
- Improved packaging
- Better maintainability
These refinements prepare the project for larger feature additions while keeping the codebase organized and scalable.
💻 Compatibility
| Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| Windows | ✅ Verified |
| macOS | 🟢 Supported |
| Linux | 🟢 Supported |
Python: 3.8+
Dependencies:
- Pillow
👥 Contributors
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Mohammad Sufiyan Aasim | System Architecture, Repository Structure & Documentation |
| Taha Siddiqui | Networking & Cyber Security, Notes Data Isolation & Packaging |
🚀 What's Next
The next milestone, Smart Study Planner v1.2.5 — Apex, introduces collaborative networking capabilities through LAN Study Rooms, enabling students on the same local network to discover and host study sessions without requiring external servers or internet connectivity. In addition, user profiles are expanded with academic identity information, further strengthening collaboration within educational environments.