This is a submission for the GitHub Copilot Challenge : New Beginnings
What I Built - Concept: FreshStart Simple and Easy Personal Journal
FreshStart2025 is a lightweight productivity tool that helps users focus on "new beginnings" by offering:
**Daily Focus Goals**: Prompts users to set a single goal each day to anchor their efforts.
**Habit Tracking**: Tracks habits with a simple streak system.
**Reflection Space**: Provides space for journaling and reflecting on progress.
Demo
Welcome to FreshStart 2025, a space designed to help you set meaningful goals, build healthy habits, and reflect on your personal growth journey. Whether you're looking to stay hydrated, exercise more, or cultivate mindfulness, this platform provides the tools to keep you on track.
Feature 1 - Set Your Daily Goal
Each day presents an opportunity for progress. In the Daily Goal section, you can take a moment to set your intentions by entering your goal for the day. Whether it's drinking more water, spending time outdoors, or finishing a book, writing it down makes it more achievable.
Once you submit your goal, it gets recorded and added to your Previous Goals, offering a snapshot of your progress and reminding you of the positive steps you've taken. Seeing your past achievements can serve as a powerful motivator to keep going.
Feature 2 - Track Your Habits
Building lasting habits takes time and consistency, and that's where the Habit Tracker comes in. Simply enter a habit you'd like to develop—whether it's a daily walk, practicing gratitude, or cutting down on screen time—and start tracking it day by day.
For each habit, you'll see how many consecutive days you've maintained it. Celebrate small wins by marking them as Complete, or adjust your focus by removing habits that no longer align with your goals. This feature helps you stay accountable and visualize your growth in real-time.
Feature 3 - Reflect and Grow
At the end of the day, reflection is key to recognizing your progress and understanding areas for improvement. The Reflection Journal allows you to jot down your thoughts, feelings, and insights about how your day went.
Perhaps you successfully completed all your goals, or maybe you encountered challenges. Writing it all down can offer clarity and motivation to push forward. Past reflections are stored as a reminder of your journey and a source of inspiration for future growth.
Repo
Prerequisites
Ensure the following tools are installed on your machine:
Python 3.x (for the backend)
Node.js and npm (for the frontend)
Git (for cloning the repository)
- Clone the Repository
First, clone your project repository from GitHub:
git clone https://github.com/QiaLin/FreshStart-2025.git cd FreshStart-2025
- Set Up the Backend (Python/Flask) Step 1: Create and Activate a Virtual Environment
Navigate to the backend folder and create a virtual environment to manage Python dependencies:
cd backend
python3 -m venv venv # Create a virtual environment
source venv/bin/activate # Activate the virtual environment (on Windows, use venv\Scripts\activate)
Step 2: Install Required Dependencies
You will need to install Flask and other required libraries. Run the following command to install the necessary packages:
pip install flask flask-cors
flask: The core framework for building your backend
flask-cors: A library to handle Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) if you're running the frontend and backend on different ports
Step 3: Set Up…
Copilot Experience
Prompt 1 to Copilot: "Give me some ideas of prototyping Goal Tracking WepApp"
I typed this prompt to chat with Github Copilot for prototyping the FreshStart2025 project, then nicely Github Copilot give me a boilerplate to implement this app using flask as backend framework using python, react as frontend framework using Nodejs. I had many experiences for using these two frameworks to start my projects before and easily I get my hands on.
Prompt 2 to Copilot: "My front-end is too dull and ugly. Make my front-end a more nice colorful and modernize style UI"
This prompt give me a very nice and ANIMATED web UI mostly in CSS which turns out to be very modern UI and user-friendly, which easy for front-end beginner to hands on and know the principles of how to create modern style front-end webpage.
Prompt 3 to Copilot: "Explain how can I connect back-end to front-end for my project"
This easily explain what the thought of AI had in its mind and help me to learn what I forgot of many syntax and codes in both language especially in requirement of implement both front end and back end in this project.
Auto Complete
Auto completion of Github Copilot give me the fastest way to learn the grammar or suggestion to complete some code. At least giving some hints for me to chat again with Copilot to see the best solution. For example, when I want to type what should I send from back end to front end using the json file. It hints me that I need to send the object details + the message as a completion json. Thats what I thought before but forgot the syntax. It give me a huge hint and I keep chatting with github copilot to find the best way to handle sending those important attribute of the object in between python and NodeJS javascript.
Conclusion
I would say it is a powerful EASY-TO-USE digital paperless personal journal in 2025!
As for the potential impact of FreshStart2025, the project has the ability to help users prioritize their daily goals, build meaningful habits, and reflect on their growth. By offering a simple yet powerful structure, the tool can create a lasting positive effect on individuals looking to improve themselves. Whether it’s through better time management, fostering discipline, or promoting mindfulness, this project provides users with practical tools for self-improvement. Its clean design and thoughtful features have the potential to resonate with anyone looking to cultivate a more productive and reflective lifestyle.
My project largely influenced on the Github Copilot. It just like a friend for you to solve the problem. Even sometimes it may not have the great solutions but at least give me some hints to begin the project without absorbing the huge amount of information online which usually takes time in software development.
Thanks DEV.TO for inviting me to participate in this competition!
Contact ME:
QIA LIN
linqia2020@gmail.com
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