Paperlink

Home Page
Dashboard to view doc
Document editing page
version control in act
before version control
Info Page
login Page
Registration Page

Inspiration

Google docs and Github combined

What it does

Paperlink is a streamlined, all-in-one writing platform, primarily marketed towards students. Its key feature is the advanced version control framework the platform is built on. By saving and storing every edit and manipulation to a document, we can offer features to the user to help them both reflect on and take control of their writing process. The platform will be integrated with Canvas, TurnItIn, and other educational platforms to allow Paperlink to grow into the preferred platform for professors and students alike.

How we built it

We built using python and the Django web-framework, using Bootstrap for frontend styling, and building a rich text editor in pure HTML and JS from the ground up.

Challenges we ran into

Creating and managing a system of deltas for accurately tracking changes in user documents in a performant manner

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Version control, stylish interface, and improving meta cognition in the writing process.

What we learned

Aren: Because it was my first time working on any kind of big project and this being my first hackathon, I learned a ton. Although I have never worked on frontend or UI/UX on anything till now, I feel like I did a great job of making things look nice for our project. This project has taught me so much and really made me believe in my abilities! Sterling: I learned about the intricacies of version control and the complexity of creating an advanced rich text editor. I enjoyed the process of communicating with my peers and advancing my teamwork abilities. Evan: I learned that building a rich text editor is hard. Building one using completely new groundwork for text manipulation data, conceptualized and developed by me and my team within the past 36 hours, is harder. But in all my experience, Paperlink has been by far the most fascinating project I've developed with the most complex and interesting technology behind it, and I had a blast developing it the entire way. Gabe: I learned not to underestimate seemingly simple tasks. Going into this project, I felt as if a metacognitive text editor would be a fairly simple task, however, this failed to consider all of the algorithms that would have to be implemented to handle user input, process it clientside, further process it serverside, and allow for streaming of changes to document viewers. Our solution to this problem, Deltas, helped to build my problem solving skills.

What's next for Paperlink

We plan on iterating upon our platform to create an all-in-one writing platform to serve not only educational institutions, but also writing professionals and hobbyists. We plan to implement further version control methods, as well many features to inspire metacognition and rethink the writing process.