ClientEase User Guide

ClientEase is a lightweight customer contact manager designed for tech-savvy home-based online business owners who manage a small to medium customer base, perform frequent daily updates to customer contact information, and prefer fast, command-line-style text input over GUI-driven interactions.

Instead of clicking through multiple menus, ClientEase lets you type short commands to add customers, search by fields, track products and deadlines, and retrieve information instantly, keeping your records organised without the overhead of full-scale business management systems.

• If you are new to ClientEase, start with the Quick Start section.
• If you are looking for a specific command, jump to the Command Summary.
• If you are a developer, refer to the Developer Guide.

Table of Contents

• Who Is This Guide For?
• Quick Start
  • Installation
  • Overview of the Interface
  • Your First Commands
• Features
  • Notes on Command Format
  • Viewing Help : help
  • Adding a Customer : add
  • Listing All Customers : list
  • Editing a Customer : edit
  • Locating Customers : find
  • Deleting a Customer : delete
  • Clearing All Customers : clear
  • Exiting the App : exit
• Saving the Data
• Editing the Data File
• FAQ
• Known Issues
• Command Summary
• Glossary

Who Is This Guide For?

ClientEase is built for home-based online business owners who:

• Manage a small to medium customer base (typically under a few hundred contacts)
• Perform frequent daily updates to customer information, such as new orders, contact changes, or delivery deadlines
• Prefer keyboard-driven workflows over clicking through menus

This guide assumes you are comfortable with:

Not sure if ClientEase is right for you? If you manage more than a few hundred customers with complex team workflows, you may want a full-scale CRM instead.

Quick Start

Installation

1. Ensure you have Java 17 or above installed. Verify by running:

   java -version
   

   Mac users: Ensure you have the precise JDK version prescribed here.

2. Download the latest clientease.jar file from the releases page here.

3. Move the file to a folder you want to use as your home folder (e.g., ~/ClientEase/).

4. Open a terminal and navigate to that folder:

   cd ~/ClientEase
   

5. Run the application:

   java -jar clientease.jar
   

   ClientEase will launch with a set of sample customer data so you can explore right away.

Overview of the Interface

Your First Commands

Here is a short walkthrough to get familiar with ClientEase. Try each command by typing it into the command box and pressing Enter.

Step 1 - See what’s already in the app:

list

Expected output: All sample customers are shown in the Customer List Panel.

Step 2 - Add your first real customer:

add name/Jane Tan contact/91234567;jane@mybusiness.com products/Chocolate Cake:2, Muffin:5 location/Tampines deadline/2025-12-31

Expected output: Added Customer: Jane Tan

Step 3 - Find a customer by name:

find Jane

Expected output: Only customers whose name matches “Jane” are shown.

Step 4 - Update a customer’s contact details:

edit 1 contact/99887766

Expected output: The first customer’s contact details are updated.

Step 5 - Delete a customer:

delete 1

Expected output: The 1st customer in the list is deleted.

Step 6 - Exit the app:

exit

Expected output: Goodbye! Exiting ClientEase. You have <N> customer(s) saved.

[!TIP] All your data is saved automatically after every command. You never need to press a “Save” button.

Features

Notes on Command Format

Read this before using any command.

• Words in UPPER_CASE are parameters you supply. For example, in add name/NAME, replace NAME with the actual name, e.g. add name/John Doe.
• Items in [square brackets] are optional. For example, name/NAME [contact/CONTACT] can be used with or without a contact.
• Parameters can be entered in any order. For example, add name/John Doe contact/98765432 is the same as add contact/98765432 name/John Doe.
• Commands that take no parameters (e.g. help, list, exit) will ignore any extra text you type after them.
• If you are using a PDF version of this guide, be careful when copying multi-line commands — line breaks may cause spaces to be omitted.

Viewing Help : help

Opens a help window that provides a quick overview of available commands and a link to the full User Guide.

Format: help

Notes

• The help window does not block the main application — you can continue using ClientEase while it is open.
• If the help window is already open, running help again will focus on the existing window.
• Command ignore extra space

[!TIP] Use the help window as a quick reference when you forget command formats, instead of searching through the full guide.

Adding a Customer : add

Adds a new customer record to ClientEase.

Format:

add name/NAME [products/PRODUCTS] [location/LOCATION] [deadline/DEADLINE] [contact/CONTACT]

Parameter details:

[!IMPORTANT] Priority Tagging: ClientEase automatically tags customers with a priority color based on the total quantity of products:

• Green (Low): 1–5 total items
• Yellow (Medium): 6–10 total items
• Red (High): 11 or more total items
• No priority tag is shown if the customer has no products.

Other constraints:

• Shorthands n/, p/, l/, d/, and c/ are accepted.
• Each prefix can appear at most once.
• Unrecognised <word>/ prefixes are rejected.
• Optional fields can be omitted.
• For optional fields, if a prefix is provided with no value (e.g. products/), the field is treated as empty.
• Non-ASCII characters (e.g. Chinese) are rejected in name/ and contact/. products/ values must match product names already in the product catalog (case-insensitive, spaces normalised). Product names cannot contain , or :. location/ accepts any characters as long as it is non-blank and within the length limit.

[!WARNING] If you try to add a customer with a name that already exists (case-insensitive, spaces normalised), ClientEase will reject the entry and display an error. Check the existing list with list before adding.

Products are shown as a bulleted list with quantities (e.g., - Muffin (x2)). If no products are provided, the card shows Products: None.

Examples:

add name/John Doe contact/98765432;johnd@example.com products/Chocolate Cake:2, Muffin:5 location/Clementi Ave 2 deadline/2025-12-31

Adds a customer named John Doe, with two unique products with specified quantities, a location, a deadline of 31 Dec 2025 at 23:59, and two contact details.

add name/Sarah Lim

Adds a customer named Sarah Lim with no other details. You can edit to fill in the rest later.

Listing All Customers : list

Shows a list of all persons in ClientEase.

Format: list

Managing Products : product

Manages the product catalog used by add and edit.

Formats:

product add product/NAME   (or p/NAME)
product delete product/NAME   (or p/NAME)
product list

Notes:

• Product names are case-insensitive with spaces normalised.
• Product names must be non-blank and cannot contain , or :.
• You cannot delete a product if any customer is currently using it.
• product commands, subcommands, and the product/ or p/ prefix are case-insensitive.
• product list shows products in alphabetical order.
• If the catalog is empty, add and edit will reject any products/ input and show “(no products in catalog)” in the allowed list.

Examples:

• product add product/Muffin
• product delete p/Muffin
• product list

Editing a Customer : edit

Edits an existing person in ClientEase.

Format:

edit INDEX [name/NAME] [products/PRODUCTS] [location/LOCATION] [deadline/DATE] [contact/CONTACT]

Short prefixes are supported: n/ for name/, p/ for products/, l/ for location/, d/ for deadline/, and c/ for contact/.

• Edits the person at the specified INDEX. The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed person list. The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …
• At least one of the optional fields must be provided.
• Existing values will be updated to the input values.
• Products follow the same constraints as add.

Examples:

• edit 1 contact/91234567 — Edits the contact of the 1st person to be 91234567.
• edit 2 name/Betsy Crower products/Muffin location/Newgate Prison — Edits the name, products, and location of the 2nd person.

Locating Customers : find

Finds persons whose names contain any of the given keywords.

Format:

find KEYWORD [MORE_KEYWORDS]

• The search is case-insensitive. e.g. hans will match Hans.
• The order of the keywords does not matter. e.g. Hans Bo will match Bo Hans.
• The name, contact and location of each users will be searched.
• For name and contact, only full words will be matched. e.g. Han will not match Hans.
• For location, words containing the keyword will be matched. e.g. gate will match Newgate.
• Persons matching at least one keyword will be returned (i.e. OR search). e.g. Hans Bo will return Hans Gruber, Bo Yang.

Examples:

• find John returns john and John Doe
• find alex david returns Alex Yeoh, David Li

Deleting a Customer : delete

Deletes a customer from ClientEase using either their displayed index or exact name.

Format:

delete INDEX

• Deletes the person at the specified INDEX.
• The index refers to the index number shown in the displayed person list.
• The index must be a positive integer 1, 2, 3, …

Examples:

• list followed by delete 2 deletes the 2nd customer in ClientEase.
• find Betsy followed by delete 1 deletes the 1st customer in the results of the find command.

delete NAME

• Deletes the customer with the given NAME.
• Matching is case-insensitive and ignores extra spaces.

Examples:

• delete John Doe delete john doe delete John Doe [extra space] All delete the same customer ‘John Doe’

Clearing All Customers : clear

Clears all entries from ClientEase.

Format: clear

[!WARNING] This action is irreversible and will permanently delete all customer records. Consider backing up data/ClientEase.json (see Saving the Data) before running this command.

Exiting the App : exit

Exits the program after displaying a farewell message with the current customer count.

Format: exit

• A farewell message will be displayed: Goodbye! Exiting ClientEase. You have <N> customer(s) saved.
• The app will close automatically after a short delay.

Saving the Data

ClientEase automatically saves your data to disk after every command that changes data. There is no Save button and no need to save manually.

Your data is stored at:

[home folder]/data/ClientEase.json

Editing the Data File

Advanced users may edit the data file directly using any text editor.

[!CAUTION] If your changes to the data file makes its format invalid, ClientEase will discard all data and start with an empty data file at the next run. Hence, it is recommended to take a backup of the file before editing it.

Furthermore, certain edits can cause ClientEase to behave in unexpected ways (e.g., if a value entered is outside the acceptable range). Therefore, edit the data file only if you are confident that you can update it correctly.

FAQ

Q: How do I transfer my data to another computer?

A: Install the app in the other computer and overwrite the empty data file it creates with the file that contains the data of your previous ClientEase home folder.

Q: Can I have two customers with the same name?

A: No. ClientEase treats names as unique identifiers (case-insensitive, spaces normalised). If two customers share a name, consider differentiating them, e.g. John Doe (Clementi) and John Doe (Tampines).

Known Issues

1. When using multiple screens, if you move the application to a secondary screen, and later switch to using only the primary screen, the GUI will open off-screen. The remedy is to delete the preferences.json file created by the application before running the application again.

2. If you minimize the Help Window and then run the help command (or use the Help menu, or the keyboard shortcut F1) again, the original Help Window will remain minimized, and no new Help Window will appear. The remedy is to manually restore the minimized Help Window.

Command Summary

[!TIP] Shorthand Prefixes: For the add and edit commands, you can use shorter versions of the prefixes to save time:

• n/ instead of name/
• p/ instead of products/
• l/ instead of location/
• d/ instead of deadline/
• c/ instead of contact/

Example: add n/John Doe p/Muffin is equivalent to add name/John Doe products/Muffin.

Glossary