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UMSL Veterans Center App

A Flutter application for student veterans at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Provides a semester checklist, BAH/MHA calculator, benefits calendar, VA resource directory, and direct access to Vet Center contact information — all on-device with no server required.

App Store description:

Checklist, BAH calculator & VA resources for UMSL student veterans.

Contact

UMSL Veterans Center 211 Clark Hall, 1 University Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63121 (314) 516-5705 | VeteransOffice@umsl.edu Mon–Thu 8:00 AM–7:00 PM | Fri 8:00 AM–4:00 PM https://www.umsl.edu/veterans/index.html

Project Structure

umsl-veteran-center/
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
└── umsl_veteran_center/               Flutter app
    ├── assets/
    │   ├── data/                      JSON content files — edit these, no recompile needed
    │   │   ├── contacts.json          Master contact directory — all phones, emails, addresses
    │   │   ├── calendar.json          Home screen calendar events
    │   │   ├── news.json              Home screen announcements
    │   │   ├── benefits.json          Benefit program definitions (Ch. 33, Ch. 30, etc.)
    │   │   ├── benefit_tasks.json     Per-benefit per-semester task lists
    │   │   ├── graduation_tasks.json  Fixed graduation checklist
    │   │   ├── semesters.json         Semester dates, sub-terms, lock dates
    │   │   └── bah_rates.json         BAH/MHA rates and summer session thresholds
    │   ├── images/                    UMSL Vet Center logo, lounge photo, app icon SVG
    │   ├── seals/                     Official US military branch seals (PNG, transparent)
    │   └── svg/                       NDSM ribbon SVG
    ├── lib/
    │   ├── main.dart
    │   ├── core/
    │   │   └── theme/                 AppTheme, VetTheme extension, ThemeProvider
    │   ├── shell/
    │   │   └── main_shell.dart        5-tab navigation shell
    │   ├── features/
    │   │   ├── onboarding/            Email, identity, welcome screens + provider
    │   │   ├── home/                  Home screen, calendar widget, news feed
    │   │   ├── checklist/             Semester checklist, setup, detail screens
    │   │   ├── bah/                   BAH/MHA calculator
    │   │   ├── resources/             Resources tab with Vet Center info and VA links
    │   │   └── settings/              Theme toggle, profile edit, data reset
    │   └── shared/
    │       └── services/
    │           ├── secure_storage_service.dart   iOS Keychain wrapper
    │           ├── storage_providers.dart        Riverpod providers for storage
    │           ├── contacts_service.dart         Loads contacts.json, exposes by ID
    │           └── report_service.dart           Pre-filled mailto for Vet Center reports
    ├── ios/Podfile
    ├── macos/Podfile
    └── pubspec.yaml

Features

Completed

  • Onboarding — email validation, student ID (not stored), secure Keychain storage
  • Home screen — interactive color-coded calendar and announcements feed
  • Semester checklist — full enrollment system with 6 benefit programs, degree levels, summer sub-terms, graduation tasks, custom tasks, and read-only locking
  • BAH/MHA calculator — Ch. 33, Ch. 30, Ch. 35, Ch. 1606, Ch. 31, Missouri Returning Heroes. Summer session complexity built in.
  • Resources tab — Vet Center info, quick links, VA contacts, crisis line
  • Settings — System/Light/Dark theme, profile editing, data reset options
  • Full light and dark mode support via VetTheme extension
  • App icon — UMSL crimson with gold trident, star bar, Veterans Center label

Planned

  • Push notifications for deadline reminders
  • go_router navigation (currently using Navigator directly)

Updating Content — No Recompile Required

All content the Vet Center manages lives in assets/data/. Edit a JSON file, rebuild and distribute the app. No Dart changes needed unless the data schema itself changes.

Adding or editing a calendar event

Open assets/data/calendar.json:

{
  "date": "2026-09-18",
  "type": "green",
  "name": "Coffee and connect",
  "time": "9:00 AM",
  "location": "MSC Room 219",
  "desc": "Monthly Vet Center coffee hour. Drop in any time between 9 and 11 AM.",
  "links": [
    { "label": "Vet Center", "url": "https://www.umsl.edu/veterans/index.html" }
  ]
}
JSON type Color Meaning
purple Purple #7B1FA2 Academic / school dates
light_blue Light blue #29B6F6 Holidays and campus closures
red Red #E53935 Deadlines
gold Gold #C0A060 Campus events
green Green #4CAF50 Veteran and Vet Center events

Adding an announcement

Open assets/data/news.json:

{
  "tag": "Vet Center",
  "title": "Your announcement title",
  "body": "Body text here.",
  "date": "2026-06-01",
  "link": { "label": "Learn more", "url": "https://vetcenter.umsl.edu" }
}

Set "link": null if no external link is needed. Keep the list sorted newest first.

Adding or editing a semester

Open assets/data/semesters.json:

Field Meaning
opens_date When students can start setting up their checklist
start_date First day of classes
end_date Last day of classes
lock_date After this date the checklist becomes read-only

Summer semesters include a sub_terms array. Students multi-select which sub-terms they are enrolled in.

Updating BAH/MHA rates

Open assets/data/bah_rates.json each August when the VA publishes new rates. Update the monthly_rate values for Ch. 30, Ch. 35, and Ch. 1606, and update mha_full_inperson for Ch. 33. Also update academic_year at the top.

Updating contact information

Open assets/data/contacts.json. This is the single source of truth for every phone number, email, office location, and hours across the entire app. Update here and it propagates everywhere on the next rebuild.

Development Setup

Prerequisites

  • Flutter SDK (stable channel)
  • Xcode 15 or later
  • CocoaPods — brew install cocoapods
  • Android Studio (for Android builds)

First run

cd umsl_veteran_center
flutter pub get
cd ios && pod install && cd ..
flutter run

Release builds

# iOS
flutter build ipa

# Android
flutter build appbundle

Clean build (run this if you see stale error messages)

flutter clean
flutter pub get
cd ios && pod install && cd ..
flutter run

Architecture

State management — Riverpod

Provider Location Purpose
onboardingProvider features/onboarding/providers/ Onboarding flow state
themeModeProvider core/theme/ Light/dark/system theme — persisted to Keychain
userProfileProvider shared/services/ User profile from Keychain
calendarProvider features/home/providers/ Calendar events from JSON
newsProvider features/home/providers/ Announcements from JSON
checklistProvider features/checklist/providers/ Full checklist state
bahProvider features/bah/providers/ BAH calculator state
contactsProvider shared/services/ Contact directory from JSON

Theme system

VetTheme is a Flutter ThemeExtension that provides semantic color tokens for both light and dark modes. Every widget reads colors via context.vetTheme — never hardcoded. Defined in lib/core/theme/vet_theme.dart.

Key tokens: pageBackground, cardBackground, cardBorder, textPrimary, textSecondary, textTertiary, textOnDark, accentGold, primaryRed, selectedBackground, divider.

Secure storage

All PII (email, name) and student checklist data is stored using flutter_secure_storage — the iOS Keychain on iPhone/iPad, and the Android Keystore backed by EncryptedSharedPreferences on Android. Both use hardware-backed encryption where available. Nothing is ever transmitted to a server.

Storage keys:

  • onboarding_complete — boolean flag
  • user_profile — JSON: email, firstName, lastName, studentId
  • theme_mode — light/dark/system
  • checklist_enrollments — JSON array of all semester enrollment data and completions
  • checklist_disclaimer_accepted — boolean flag

Data flow

JSON assets (read-only)           Keychain (read-write)
       |                                  |
  Riverpod Providers  <------------------+
       |
  Screens and Widgets

App Icon

The app icon is built from assets/images/app_icon.svg:

  • UMSL Triton Red Letters and Background (#ba0c2f)
  • UMSL in Oswald Bold
  • White stars on a blue field bar
  • Veterans Center label

Pre-exported PNG sizes live in the AppIcons/ and AppIcons_macOS/ folders (not committed — regenerate from the SVG using cairosvg if needed).

App Store

iOS App Store

  • Bundle ID: edu.umsl.veteranscenter
  • Category: Education
  • Age rating: 4+
  • Privacy policy required (collects name and email on-device )

Google Play Store

  • Package name: edu.umsl.veteranscenter
  • Category: Education
  • Content rating: Everyone
  • Signing keystore: keep the .jks file backed up permanently

Short description (80 chars):

Checklist, BAH calculator & VA resources for UMSL student veterans.

Promotional text (170 chars):

Your semester checklist, BAH calculator, VA resources, and Vet Center contacts — built for UMSL student veterans.

Assets

Military branch seals

The six official branch seals (assets/seals/) are public domain works of the United States federal government, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Each PNG has been processed to remove the black background and saved as transparent RGBA images.

NDSM ribbon

assets/svg/ndsm_ribbon.svg — National Defense Service Medal ribbon bar. Accurate stripe specification: Scarlet, White, Old Glory Blue, White, Scarlet, Gold center, mirrored.

Branch

Active development branch: Perfect_Storm

Privacy

This app stores all data locally on the student's device using platform-native encrypted storage — iOS Keychain on iPhone/iPad, MacOS Keychain, Android Keystore on Android. No analytics, no tracking, no external data transmission of any kind. The only outbound network activity is when a student taps an external link or uses the report feature which opens their mail app with a pre-filled email — the student reviews and sends it manually. Nothing is sent automatically.