JAVA ASSIGNMENT 1: DEVELOPING AN INTERFACE FOR BANK LOAN APPLICATION FORM

UNIVERSITY OF MALAWI

THE POLYTECHNIC

FACULTY OF APPLIED SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS

DEVELOPING A BANK LOAN APPLICATION FORM

(Using Java Programming Language)

PRESENTED TO

MR. B. KANKUZI

BY

 PATRICK YOKAM

(MSE/06/NE/0012)

DUE DATE

08^TH OCTOBER, 2010

BANK LOAN APPLICATION FORM

Introduction

The aim of the program is to come up with an electronic interface of a loan application form to be used in banks for electronic or online loan application. It includes the attributes and some basic functionalities for the applicant to interact with the form easily.

 Attributes

The form includes the following attributes: the logo of the bank, its name, the motto of the bank, and the instructions. It also contains the fields which demand the applicant to fill in the personal and bank details. Also, it includes the type of enterprise the applicant is in: small, medium or large enterprises.  

The kind of enterprise will direct the applicant the amount he is eligible to apply for. For example, if the applicant has a small enterprise, he is only eligible to apply for the amount of up to K500 000. (Possibly, each customer of the bank will have his/her details kept in the database so that to cross-check on the personal/bank details and the enterprise he/she belongs to).

After filling in the details, the applicant will be able to confirm his/her entries by clicking on a CONFIRM button to display the entered details in the text area. In case the applicant entered the information incorrectly, he/she will be in position to clear the entries by clicking CLEAR and restart the process.

If satisfied, the applicant can save the information to the hard disk (or database) by clicking the SAVE button so that the bank can have access to the information.

When the bank wants to view the applicant’s information, it can just click the OPEN button.

SNAPSHOTS 

Different snap shots of the form have been taken to further explain how the form will work. The form has a fixed size and therefore will neither be enlarged nor minimized. Because the form can be wholly viewed by scrolling up and down, the upper part of the form will look as shown in Figure 1A below. From the figure, you can see how the applicant will interact with the form.  As already explained, the form contains the fields where the user will enter the details and the enterprise type. Also there are instructions which will guide the applicant through so that he/she enters as required.

The remaining lower part of the figure is as shown in Figure 1B.  The figure shows the buttons used in the program for different purposes. There are CONFIRM, CLEAR, SAVE, EXIT and OPEN buttons. Each button and its function will be explained in detail later.

Figure 1A: The general upper view of the loan application form

Figure 1B: The general lower view of the loan application form.

After the applicant has entered the details, the form will look as in the Figure 2 below (the only part which is important at a given time will be displayed).

Figure 2: The form with fields filled with the details.

The user may want to see if what he/she entered was correct. Thus he/she can view that when s/he clicks on CONFIRM button. This will display the details in the text area.

The details were displayed (in Figure 3 below) because they fulfilled the requirements, that is, all the conditions were met. Suppose for example, the user belongs to SMALL ENTERPRISE and s/he applies for more than K500, 000 or that the user forgets to enter the amount of money s/he is applying for. If this happens, the following messages in Figure 4A and Figure 4B using JOPTIONPANE will be displayed respectively.

Figure 3: Text area displaying the entered information

The dialog boxes in figures below are there to warn the user that s/he should apply for not more than K500 000 when he is in the small enterprise group (Figure 4A) and that the name and the amount applied for are key attributes that they should always be filled in (Figure 4B).

Figure 4A: How if you applied for more than the requirement of the enterprise?

Figure 4B: Name of the Applicant and the amount are key attributes.

The CLEAR button is there to erase the details in the fields if the user wants to restart to fill in the data.

The SAVE button, to the lowest end, is used to save the file to the hard disk. As a bank, they might need the person’s information at a later time. So if you have confirmed and the details are correct (i.e. they are displayed on the text area box), you can click on SAVE button to save the file. As soon as you click it, the Save dialog box pops up for you to enter the name of the file you are saving and the location you want to save your file (the default save location is Documents). The figure below, shows how the form looks after clicking the SAVE button.

Figure 5: The Save As dialog box after clicking on SAVE button

In case you are saving a file with a name that already exists in the preferred location, the diolog box will pop up to warn that the name already exists. Figure 6 below shows a file which was saved with a name that already is in Documents.

Figure 6: Saving a file with a name that already exists.

Also, if you want to save (that is clicking on SAVE button) a file that has not displayed anything in the Text Area, the dialog box will pop up warning you that you can’t save a blank file.

Figure 7 below shows the dialog box that pops up when you want to save a blank text area. So for you to save a file, you need to display the information in the text area by clicking the CONFIRM button (that is, after verifying that the details you are entering is correct).

Figure 7: Saving a file when the Text Area is blank

To view the saved file, you can click on OPEN button and an Open dialog box will be displayed (Figure 8) where you choose the location you saved your document. By default the location is Documents. You can type in the file name directly on File Name field or you can choose by clicking on the file name inside the diaolg box and then click on Open. If the file exists (that is if the file name you typed in is same as some file name in the location), the details will be displayed. Otherwise, a dialog box will be displayed informing you that the file does not exist (Figure 9).

Figure 8: An Open dialog box after clicking the Open Button on the form

Figure 9: A Message dialog box after the file typed in was not found in the specified location

After the applicant is done with everything, he/she may want to quit. This is simple: it is done by clicking on the EXIT button. But the customer may quit without saving the details in the text field. So, if you click on EXIT button, a dialog box will appear asking you if you want to save the changes before you really quit. If your response is YES, the program will call the save method to save the file; if the response is NO, the program will quit without saving; or if your response is CANCEL, the pop up menu will just disappear. Figure 10 below illustrates the dialog box after the EXIT button is selected.

Figure 10: The partial view of the form when EXIT button is selected

CONCLUSION

The major objective of the program was to develop an interface (using Java Programming Language), a bank can use online or electronically. It does some basic features like saving to and opening from the hard disk. There is, however, a need to develop it further so that the file can be saved to or retrieved from the database.