Go-Pool: A Carpool Connection App

Purpose

Go-Pool is an application designed for parents to connect with other parents whose children attend the same school. Parents are able to create an account using a school-provided access code. Once they have an account, they are able to arrange carpools to school events through a message board system.

About this project

• what it does
• why chosen tech was used
• challenges faced and features hope to add

Getting Started

This application requires:

• a connection to a SQL database (we used ElephantSQL)
• a connection to a NoSQL database (we used MongoDB)
• a Google Maps API key (sign up free by following the Google Maps documentation)

Install the dependencies and start the server

npm install

To launch the program in production mode:

npm run start

To launch the program in development mode:

npm run dev

Add a .env file with the following info:

PG_Username = ...
PG_Password = ...
API_KEY = ...

• PG_Username and Password are used in userModel.js to connect to your database. Enter your username and password strings in the .env file.
• API_KEY should be set equal to your Google API Key and is used in the userInfo.jsx component to access the Google Maps API in order to display a user's location.

Features

• Sign-up page to create an account
• Log-in page to access your account
• User Dashboard that displays upcoming event threads, a calendar of event threads, and a form for creating a new thread for an event.
• When you click on an event thread, you can view messages that have been posted about the event. You can also reply to existing messages here.
• Direct Messages (in progress): send and receive private messages to other users
• User Info: Click on a person's name to send them a message or see their location.

Tech

Go-Pool uses a number of open source projects to work properly:

• React
• react-calendar
• google-maps-react
• Bootstrap
• Sass
• react-modal