SmartEssays | Built for Thinkers

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A gorgeous AI-powered research companion that turns academic essays into conversations, insights, and understanding.

SmartEssays is an intelligent workspace designed to revolutionize the way students, researchers, and lifelong learners interact with academic papers. Instead of passively reading static PDFs, unlock a world where documents become dynamic, interactive learning experiences powered by cutting-edge AI.

📸 Project Snapshots

Here's a glimpse of the SmartEssays experience: a clean, welcoming homepage and a feature-rich main workspace designed for deep learning.

The landing page welcoming users to the intelligent workspace.

The main reading interface with AI chat, note-taking, and PDF viewer.

🎓 About This Project

1. Course Project: This is the final assignment for the "Human-Computer Interaction Systems" course at the School of Software, Nanjing University in 2025. It represents our exploration into the future of educational technology.
2. Inspiration: Inspired by the innovative NotebookLM, our vision is to democratize access to advanced AI tools. We aim to build a highly interactive paper note-taking platform that not only enhances comprehension but also empowers users with full autonomy to switch between different AI models to suit their needs.

🌐 Live Demo

Our website is deployed at http://smartessays.lowkeyyyy.cn. Dive in and experience the future of research with our demo account:

• Username: demo@smartessays.com
• Password: thisisademo

🌟 Key Features

📖 Immersive Reading & Analysis

• AI-Enhanced PDF Reader: Experience papers like never before. Upload your academic PDFs and interact with them instantly through a responsive, feature-rich viewer.
• Intelligent Chat: Engage in a Socratic dialogue with your documents. Ask probing questions, request concise summaries, and clarify complex technical concepts on the fly.
• Multi-language Translation: Break down language barriers. Instantly translate full papers or specific sections into your preferred language with high accuracy.

🧠 Visual & Audio Learning

• Mind Mapping: Visualize the knowledge structure. Automatically generate intuitive mind maps to grasp the logical flow, key arguments, and connections within a paper.
• Audio Overview: Learn on the go. Convert dense academic text into engaging, AI-generated audio summaries and podcasts—perfect for auditory learners.
• Slides Generation: From paper to presentation in seconds. Automatically extract key points and visuals to create professional presentation slides for quick sharing.

✍️ Study Tools & Assessment

• Smart Report: Get the gist in seconds. Generate comprehensive reading reports that distill a paper's core insights, methodology, and conclusions into a digestible format.
• Note Taking: Capture your thoughts seamlessly. Highlight critical text, annotate margins, and jot down ideas directly on the PDF canvas.
• Flashcards Generation: Master new concepts. Automatically turn key terms and definitions into digital flashcards for efficient spaced repetition and memorization.
• Quiz Mode: Validate your understanding. Challenge yourself with AI-generated quizzes tailored to the specific content of the paper you just read.
• Dark/Light Mode: Study comfortably at any hour. A beautiful, responsive UI that adapts to your environment with seamless theme switching.

🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend

• Framework: Vue 3 (Composition API)
• Build Tool: Vite
• Language: TypeScript
• Routing: Vue Router
• UI Components: Custom components with CSS variables for theming, Element Plus
• PDF Handling: PDF.js
• Markdown Rendering: Marked with KaTeX support

Backend

• Framework: Spring Boot 3.2.1
• Language: Java 17
• Database: MySQL
• ORM: Spring Data JPA
• Security: Spring Security
• Cloud Storage: Aliyun OSS (Object Storage Service)
• AI Integration: Integration with LLMs (Gemini, YunwuAI, MinerU)

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+ recommended)
• Java JDK 17
• MySQL Server
• Maven

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/Low-keyyyy/SmartEssays.git
   cd SmartEssays

2. Backend Setup Navigate to the backend directory:

   cd backend

   Configure your database and OSS settings in src/main/resources/application.properties.

   Run the application:

   bash
   mvn spring-boot:run
   

3. Frontend Setup Navigate to the frontend directory:

   cd frontend

   Install dependencies:

   npm install

   Start the development server:

   npm run dev

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

📄 License

MIT © 2025 SmartEssays