📝 Smart Task Manager (Vanilla JavaScript)

A lightweight, fully client-side task management application built using HTML, CSS, and Vanilla JavaScript, with a strong focus on user experience, predictable state handling, and maintainable UI logic — without relying on external frameworks.

This project explores practical frontend engineering patterns, including isolated animations, persistent storage, inline editing, undo actions, and time-based task expiry.

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📌 Table of Contents

1. Project Overview
2. Features
3. UX & Design Principles
4. Project Structure
5. Core Logic Overview
6. Animation Handling Strategy
7. Data Persistence
8. Edge Cases Considered
9. Installation & Usage
10. Technology Stack
11. Future Enhancements
12. Learning Outcomes
13. License

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Project Overview

Smart Task Manager is a feature-focused to-do application designed to behave like a real product rather than a simple demo.

The project emphasizes:

• Intentional UI behavior
• Predictable state transitions
• Minimal but effective visual feedback
• Zero external dependencies

The goal is to demonstrate how core frontend concepts can be implemented cleanly using vanilla JavaScript.

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Features

➕ Task Creation

• Add tasks via button click or Enter key
• Input validation prevents empty submissions
• Automatic capitalization for consistency

✔ Task Completion

• Custom animated checkbox
• Visual feedback for completed tasks
• State updates without full list re-render

✏ Inline Editing

• Double-click to edit tasks
• Enter to save
• Escape or blur to cancel changes

🗑 Delete with Undo

• Smooth delete animation
• Undo toast available for 5 seconds
• Task restoration handled safely

⏱ Task Expiry

• Tasks older than 24 hours move to an Expired section
• Expired tasks can be restored manually

💾 Persistent Storage

• Tasks stored using browser localStorage
• Data persists across refreshes and browser restarts

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UX & Design Principles

This project follows practical UX guidelines:

• No unnecessary re-renders
• Only affected items animate
• Keyboard-friendly interactions
• Clear visual hierarchy
• Animations used for feedback, not decoration

The interface is designed to remain responsive and predictable during frequent user actions.

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Project Structure

├── index.html      # Application structure
├── style.css       # Styling, layout, and animations
├── script.js       # Core logic and state handling
└── README.md       # Documentation

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Core Logic Overview

Task Creation Flow

1. User enters task text
2. Input validation occurs
3. Task object created with timestamp
4. State updated immutably
5. UI re-rendered with targeted animation

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Task Completion

• State toggled immutably
• Only the updated task receives animation
• List remains stable

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Inline Editing

• Task text replaced with an input field
• Original task metadata preserved
• Clean save/cancel handling

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Delete with Undo

• Task removed visually
• Temporarily stored in memory
• Restored if undo action is triggered within timeout

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Animation Handling Strategy

Problem Addressed:
Avoiding full list animations on every state update.

Approach Used:

• No default animations on list items
• Animation classes applied conditionally:
  • animate-in for newly added tasks
  • animate-check for completion toggles
• Animation flags reset after render

This mirrors component-level updates seen in modern frameworks, implemented manually.

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Data Persistence

• Uses browser localStorage
• Stores full task objects including timestamps
• JSON serialization for safety
• No backend or external services required

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Edge Cases Considered

• Empty task submissions
• Rapid add/delete operations
• Undo timeout cleanup
• Editing tasks to empty values
• Conflicts between editing and completion
• Restoring expired tasks

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Installation & Usage

Option 1: Run Locally

git clone <repo-url>
cd smart-task-manager
open index.html

Option 2: Direct Use

Open index.html in any modern browser.

No build steps or dependencies required.

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Technology Stack

Layer	Technology
Markup	HTML5
Styling	CSS3 (Flexbox, animations)
Logic	Vanilla JavaScript (ES6+)
Storage	Browser LocalStorage
Icons	Font Awesome

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Future Enhancements

• Drag-and-drop task reordering
• System-aware dark mode
• Task priorities
• Due dates and reminders
• Basic task analytics

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Learning Outcomes

This project helped reinforce:

• State-driven UI updates
• Non-trivial DOM manipulation
• Controlled animation patterns
• UX-focused frontend decisions
• Writing maintainable vanilla JavaScript

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License

This project is open-source and available for learning and portfolio use.

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Final Note

This project focuses on understanding fundamentals and building predictable user interfaces without depending on frameworks, emphasizing clarity, maintainability, and user experience.