Former

A social media app built with  Express.js and  React, running in  Docker using Docker Compose during development, and deployed directly to   Heroku using buildpacks.

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Features

• Monorepo structure utilising npm workspaces
• Backend, database, and frontend can all be built and started using a single Docker Compose command
• Backend is built in  Node.js using the  Express.js framework and the  Prisma ORM
• PostgreSQL is used as the database
• Frontend is built in  React using  Tailwind CSS for styling
• React Router is used for frontend routing
• Zustand is used for store management in the frontend
• Fully implemented user signup and log in system
• Posts are shown to users using a basic recommendation algorithm
• Users can vote on posts, and users earn points called 'Formits' based on their posts' scores
• Uses  GitHub Actions to deploy the application to   Heroku on every push and pull request

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Environment Variables

The project requires .env files in the roots of the former-backend, former-frontend, and packages/shared directories

Backend Variables

• PORT — the port that the server runs on, its value is 3000 by default if unset
• DATABASE_URL — the URL of the database e.g. postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/former
• JWT_SECRET — the JSON Web Token secret

Frontend Variables

• VITE_API_URL — the URL to the backend e.g. http://localhost:3000/api

Shared Variables

• DATABASE_URL — the same database URL that the backend uses

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Run Locally in Development Environment

Prerequisites

1. Node.js and npm
2. Docker Desktop

• At the project root, run docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up to start up the Database in docker
• Run npm install in the root directory to install dependencies
• Run npm run dev in both the former-backend and former-frontend directories to start the dev backend and frontend servers
• The project will be available on http://localhost:5173/
• (Optional) to seed data, run npm run seed in the root directory

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Build and Start Application Using Docker Compose

Prerequisites

1. Docker Desktop

• At the project root, run docker compose up to start up all the services in Docker
• The project will be available on http://localhost:5173/

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To Do List

• Show comments on posts
• Allow comment creation
• Add a profile page
• Add a search bar
• Add sorting and advanced search
• Add post and comment editing and deletion
• Add user profile editing and deletion
• Add custom error pages (404, 500)
• Add pagination to searching or infinite scrolling
• Add email verification
• Add Redis caching
• Create a logo and icon