The project's aim is to provide a scalable, parallelized and distributed Java application that implements an email service with a GUI. The source code contains both server and client implementations, uses MVC pattern and follows Observer pattern principles.
The project is structured with an email server, that handles both the user’s mailboxes and the necessary mail clients, that allows users to log into their respective mailboxes.
- Mail server handles a list of email boxes and maintains their persistency using a file (.txt or binary – no database) to memorize messages permanently
- Mail server is provided with a GUI that shows the logs of all actions, done by the mail clients, and all events occurred during interaction between clients and server
- E.g.: opening/closing connection between mail client and server, sending messages, receiving messages, errors for delivering messages
- Logs for local events are not included in this list (e.g. button pressed, window opened etc.)
- A single mail box contains:
- Name of the mail account associated with the mail box (e.g. george[at]mymail.com)
- List of messages (eventually empty). Messages are instances of a class named Email that specify ID, sender, receiver/s, object, message body and sending date
- The mail client associated to a single mailbox is provided with a GUI described as follows.
- GUI allows to:
- Create and send a message to one or more recipients (multiple recipients for a single message sent)
- Read all messages of the mailbox
- Reply to a received message: Reply (only to the sender), Reply-all (to the sender and all recipients that received the message)
- Forward a message to one or more email accounts
- Delete a message from mailbox
- GUI always shows the updated list of messages received in mailbox and, when a new message arrive, send a notification to the user through a dialog window
- Registration and login functionalities, even in the simplest way possible, are required
Mail clients should not crash if the server is switched off. Manage all possible connection problems, e.g. to the email server, sending appropriate messages to the user.
- The project should work at least with 3 email clients that sends messages each other. The project should be scalable for more than 3 users
- The application has to be developed using Java language and MVC pattern following basic principles of Observer pattern. Direct communication between View and Model is not allowed; every type of communication between these two layers has to be managed by the Controller
- The application must allow to correct any wrong inputs from the users (e.g. for nonexistent email addresses server has to send an error message to the sender; in case of syntactically wrong email address the client itself has to notify user without trying to send the message to the server)
- Client and server has to parallelize all the activities that does not needs sequential execution, managing any mutual access problem to shared resources. Client and server has to be separated Java applications; creation e management of messages has to be parallelized to the receipt of new messages
- The application has to be distributed (email clients and server has to be on distinct JVM) using Java Sockets
- GUI has to be:
- Understandable. E.g. for errors it has to notify the type of problem to the user
- Reasonably efficient to let the user to do basic operations with the minimum amount of click and data entry
- Implemented using Java FXML and, if necessary, Threads. Use of Java Beans, properties and binding properties is not required
It is recommended to pay attention to the design phase to obtain the easiest implementation of parallelism during the execution and distribution on distinct JVMs.
- Java SE 14
- Java FXML
- MVC pattern
- IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate
- Scene Builder
- GitHub Actions
