User‐Manual
Returning to first page/list of charities
Navigating to the user account settings page
Console window is filled with errors at launch
Nothing happens when I click a button
Application is not in full screen view
Application opens before database is finished setting up
Before referring to this manual, the user should first review and follow the installation manual.
This application was developed as part of the course “IDATT1005, Systemutvikling” at NTNU. Its purpose is to help users discover charities they may wish to support by presenting relevant information in a structured and accessible way.
The application retrieves its data by a trusted source known as “Informasjonskontrollen” (IK). The information comes both from their API and their webpage (https://www.innsamlingskontrollen.no/). Only verified charities with a reliable and well-documented track record are included in the system.
This application is intended for individuals who are interested in donating to a charity, but are a bit unsure as to where to begin. It provides a friendly and intuitive interface, as well as tools for browsing, searching and filtering charities based on the user’s preferences.
Users can view an overview of registered charities, filter them by categories, search by keywords, and find more details and information about each charity. The application also features a secure login system and a mock donation feature as proof of concept.
A computer that supports java 25 and can run maven are minimum requirements to run the application (further requirements and installation instructions are included in the installation manual).
The application stores its information in a database managed by NTNU. To be able to access this information, a connection to NTNUs network is required (either directly or through a VPN).
To launch the application, run the command mvn clean javafx:run. The application will then start by checking whether you are connected to NTNUs network and then proceed with getting the relevant information and updating its database to ensure authenticity of charity data. This can take anywhere from 20-30 minutes. You can see the progress of the application in the console window.
Once the database is finished setting up, the application is ready to start, and will open shortly. This is shown with a “innit complete” message in your console window.
Once the application has been launched, you will be presented with a full screen view of all the charities. From here, you can scroll down to see further charities, presented as a collection of “cards”, showing the name of the charity and a part of its description.
Near the top of the screen, below the top navigation bar, a counter for the amount of registered charities, the amount of (mock) donated money, and the statistics of how many charities are pre-verified.
Figure 1 – View of the list of charities
Near the top of the screen, is a section showing a picked charity. This is to expose the user to charities they might otherwise miss. The charity is randomly picked with each launch of the application.
On the left side of the screen, you can see a list labeled “categories”. From here, you can tick one (or more) of the boxes to filter the viewed charities to only match the categories that you have selected. Once a box is ticked, a checkmark will fill the box, indicating that the category is selected. To unselect the category, simply click on the box again. Only charities that match ALL the selected categories will be shown.
Figure 2 - Example filter for "afrika" and "aids"
At the very top of the screen is a text field/search bar that can be used to search for a given charity. The search term will search both the name and the description of the charity. After having written your search term, press the enter key on your keyboard, and you will be taken to a page showing all the charities that matches the term.
Figure 3 - Example of searching for all charities with the term "ghana"
From here you can filter/search in real time by using the search bar below the one in the navigation bar.
To return to the first page of the application, simply click the logo in the top left corner of the screen/top navigation bar.
For every charity, there is a blue button labeled “view details”. By clicking on it, you will be transported to a new page featuring all the relevant information for the charity.
At the top, you will see the name of the charity. On the left, a list of the categories for the charity, and a link to the URL of the charities entry in the IK website labeled “homepage”. The entries labeled “socials” and “verification report” are not implemented. Below these, you can find two button labeled “donation” and “feedback”. To use these, you must be logged in. In the middle, the logo of the charity can be seen, and the description of the charity is given in a field below. Both the category field, description field, and the page itself, are scrollable. If you scroll down to the bottom, you will find 3 circles, giving information about money collected, percentage of collected money going to the administration of the charity, and how much of the money make it to the charity’s cause.
To the left of the screen, you will see a verified symbol and a list of all the categories the charity belongs to. In the middle, you will see the logo of the charity, as well as a description of the charity.
Figure 4 - Top part of charity details page
If you scroll down, you will then see a list of links labeled “homepage”, “socials” and “verification report”. If you click the “homepage” link, you will be taken to the URL of the charity entry on IK’s website. To get back into the application, simply click on the application icon in your task bar. The “socials” and “verification report” links are not implemented. You will also see an orange button labeled “feedbacks” and a green button labeled “donate”. These require an account to use, and will be discussed in their own section. Finally, in the bottom middle of the page, you will be presented with 3 circles, showing the percentage accumulated by the charity, how much of the accumulated amount goes to the administration of the charity, and how much of the accumulated amount goes to the cause of the charity.
Figure 5 - Bottom part of the charity details page
To create a user account, click the blue “login” button in the top navigation bar, and you will be taken to the login page.
Figure 6 - Overview of the login page
From here, simply click the “sign up” link right below the blue “sign in” button, and you will be taken to the sign-up page.
Figure 7 - Overview of the sign-up page
From here, enter your name, email address, and choose password. Once you are finished entering your information, click the blue “create account” button, and you will get a confirmation message stating that you have successfully created your account.
To log in to your account, navigate to the login page by clicking the blue button labeled “login” in the top navigation bar.
From here, enter your login details and click the blue “sign in” button. If you entered your details correctly, you will get a confirmation message stating that the login was successful, and you will be taken to the settings page of your account.
Once logged in, you will get a new icon in the top right corner of the screen that you can click to return to the user account settings page.
Figure 8 - Overview of user account settings page
To navigate to the user account settings page, simply click the icon in the top right corner of the screen.
To change your details like username, email and password, first, navigate to the user account settings page. Then fill out all the fields above the “confirm new profile” button, and click the button once you have entered your new desired details.
To change your user preferences, navigate to the user account settings page. From here, you can change your language and theme preferences (not implemented), and toggle whether your donation should show your username or be anonymous with the “anonymous mode” option. In anonymous mode, all your donations will be fully anonymous.
For starters, a proper donation system has not been implemented, so this is merely a proof of concept.
To donate to a charity, you first need to be logged in to a user account, then you can either click the green donate button (labeled as “donate now” for the featured charity) from the first page, from the search page, or from the view details page. This will take you to the donation page.
Figure 9 - Overview of donation page
From here, you can enter your desired donation amount into the text field with the text: “enter amount”, directly below the label: “Enter amount”. After entering your desired amount, you can click the green donate button, and a pop-up asking you to confirm your donation amount will show. After confirming your donation, a pop-up telling you the donated amount will show up. If you entered something other than numbers, or the number is negative, an error pop-up will show.
If you do not wish to donate after all, you can simply click the logo in the top left corner to return to the first page of the application, or click the red abort button, to return to the view details page for the charity.
To favorite a donation, first click the green “donate” button on the charity you wish to favorite, then click the red heart next to the green “donate” button on the donation page.
Your favorited charities can be viewed on your user page. Navigate to your user account settings page, then click “interests” on the left side of the screen, and all your favorited charities will be listed.
Figure 10 - Overview of favorite charities page
From the charity details page, you can click the orange button labeled “feedbacks”, and you will be taken to the feedback page for the given charity.
Figure 11 - Overview of charity feedback page
From here, you can leave feedback to the given charity, or read feedback other users have given this charity.
Every donation you make is saved to your donation history. To view your donation history, navigate to the user account settings page, and then click “donation history” from the left side of the screen.
Figure 12 - Overview of donation history page
From here, all your donations will be listed, with relevant information.
Once you have donated to a charity (with anonymous mode turned off), and if the charity has an account on the application, they can send a thank you message to you. To view messages from charities, go to your user account settings page, and click “inbox” on the left side of the screen.
Figure 13 - Overview of the user inbox page
The “new message” button is non-functional for user accounts.
By clicking the “about us” field in the footer/bottom navigation bar, you will be taken to the about us page for the application. From here you will be presented with information about the application, and the developers behind it.
Figure 14 - Overview of the about us page
To close the application, simply hit the escape key on your keyboard to exit the full screen view. Then right-click the application in your task bar and select close.
If you are trying to launch the application but only get a bunch of error messages at launch, then most likely you are not connected to NTNUs internet. To fix this, you need to connect to NTNUs internet, either directly or through a vpn, so the application can connect to the database containing the information necessary for the application.
If the page showing all charities is empty (and the counter for registered charities is 0), there was an error in connecting to the database. Please press the escape key on your keyboard to exit the full screen application view and refer to the console window for error messages telling you what went wrong.
Usually this is caused by not being connected to NTNUs network, so please ensure you are connected to their network before launching the application.
If nothing happens when you click a button in the application (e.g. view details button), the most likely culprit is a missing dependency. Please hit the escape key on your keyboard to exit the full screen view of the application, and have a look at your console window. There should be an error message there to point you in the right direction of what the problem is.
If you are still unsure as to what to do, it is recommended to reinstall the application following the installation manual, and/or rebooting the computer.
If the application does not launch, please look at your console window to look for relevant error messages to point you in the direction of the problem.
If you haven’t already, please check that you followed the installation manual for setting up the application. Double check that you followed all the instructions.
If the application launches in a minimized or limited view, simply click the rectangle left of the cross symbol at the top of the application window to maximize it.
In very rare cases, the javafx application might start before the database is finished setting up (signified by showing “init complete” in the console window. If this is the case, please press the escape key on your keyboard to exit the full screen application view, and hit the cross at the top right of the application window to close it. Continue to wait for the application to finish loading the database, and then the application will reopen.