Contact-Manager

A Java Graphical-User-Interface (GUI) application that manages a list of contacts by interacting with an SQL database. Contact details may include name, multiple addresses, multiple phone numbers and birthday. User operations include:

1. Searching for a contact based on any field
2. Adding a new contact
3. Modifying an existing contact
4. Deleting an existing contact

Running the Application

1. Open Eclipse.

2. Select File -> Open Projects from file system -> Directory -> Choose the contact_manager folder -> Finish

3. In the Package Explorer tab on the left hand side, right click on contact_manager -> Java Build -> PathLibraries -> ClassPath

If the file mysql-connector-java-8.0.12.jar is already added in the ClassPath, select cancel. Else click Add JARs Select mysql-connector-java-8.0.12.jar which is located in folder ‘lib’ of the contact_manager project. Click on Apply and Close

4. Right click on the file ContactManagerApp.java -> Run as Java Application

5. Open MySQL Workbench. Run the createSchema.sql file to create the required tables

6. Run PopulateDatabase.java to load a list of sample contacts in your application to get started (optional). This code loads the entries from the contacts.csv file.

7. The application can be used now

Design

• The project consisted of implementing an application that interacts with a SQL database to store and retrieve and modify a user’s contacts

• The project has been implemented in Eclipse

• A Java GUI interface was chosen for implementing the contact manager application

• The Java application interacts with the SQL database to retrieve, add, or modify information about contacts.

• The application interacts with the SQL database using the Java Database Connection (JDBC) API in Java.

• The SQL database schema was implemented in MySQL Workbench.

• The schema for the application database was made as per the requirements given. The SQL database ‘contact_list’ consists of four relation tables: contact, address, phone, and date.

• The contents of the contacts.csv file given were imported into the MySQL database under different tables(relations).

• A JFrame Object was used to design the window which displays the contacts. The contacts are displayed in the JFrame using a JTable Object. It includes:

  • a Search button for searching for contact(s)
  • a Add Contact button for adding a new contact
  • a Modify Contact button for modifying a contact
  • A View Contact button for viewing a contact's information

• A JDialog object was used to retrieve information from the user to add a new contact/modify an existing contact. JLabels, JButtons and JTextField objects are used to acquire user input in the JDialog Object. It includes:

  • An OK button for saving the new/modifying information
  • A cancel button to return to the search interface

• The application code consists of 4 java classes:

  • ContactDAO.java, which contains methods to interact with the SQL database using JDBC
  • ContactForm.java, which creates an object that represents a contact every time we require to pass to and from the SQL database via the methods in ContactDAO
  • ContactTableModel.java, which is a class responsible for displaying all contacts/ contacts which are searched for in the JTable of the JFrame object
  • ContactManagerApp.java, which creates a JFrame object and starts the application
  • AddContact.java, which creates a JDialog object for adding a contact to the database

• The ContactDAO class contains methods such as searchForContact(contact), getAllContacts(), modifyContact(contact) and addContact(contact) which interface with the SQL database.

• The application can be accessed by running the ContactManagerApp.java class.