Bookmark! — Affordable Textbook Finder

Bookmark! is a Flask + Socket.IO web app that helps students find the cheapest textbook listings. It converts a title to ISBN with Google Books, scrapes multiple retailers, and surfaces the best price with a clean UI.

Live app: https://bookmark-latest.onrender.com/

Team

• Mehul Antony — mantony2@slu.edu
• Alexander Myers — amyersXX@slu.edu
• James Mueller — jmuellerXX@slu.edu
• Henry Wang — hwang59@slu.edu
• Revateesa Dammalapati — revateesa.dammalapati@slu.edu

Features

• Search by title or ISBN with Google Books enrichment (cover, description, metadata)
• Aggregates prices via pluggable parsers (AbeBooks, TextbookX, Macmillan, VitalSource, etc.)
• Real-time search updates through Socket.IO; session-scoped results
• REST endpoints for programmatic access and a simple health check
• Docker support and a small unittest suite

Requirements

• Python 3.11+ (tested with 3.11.5)
• pip
• Docker (optional for containerized runs)

Quickstart (local)

1. Clone the repo and enter it.`
2. Install deps: pip install -r requirements.txt
3. Run the server: python .\src\flask_server.py
4. Open http://localhost:3000 in a browser.

Running tests

Use the built-in unittest suite: python -m unittest discover -s tests

Docker

• Build: docker build -t bookmark:latest .
• Run: docker run --rm -p 3000:3000 bookmark:latest

The repo also includes helper scripts in control_scripts/ for building and pushing images.

API (HTTP)

• GET /api/health — service heartbeat
• POST /api/search/book — body: { "book_name": "Clean Code" }
• POST /api/search/isbn — body: { "isbn": "9780134685991" }

Responses include title, isbn, price, link, and, when available, description and image.

Realtime events (Socket.IO)

• Go_button_pushed — payload: { search: "9780134685991", condition: "new", medium: "physical" }
• Emits search_started, search_results, redirect (to /results), or search_error.
• AI recommendations: emit get_ai_recommendations with { currentBook, history }; listen for ai_recommendations or ai_error.

Project layout

src/
	flask_server.py      # Flask app + Socket.IO events
	book_finder.py       # Aggregates parser outputs to pick cheapest book
	parsers/             # Retailer-specific scrapers
	google_books_api.py  # Title -> ISBN + metadata
templates/, static/    # Jinja pages and client JS
control_scripts/       # Docker build/run helpers
tests/                 # unittest-based checks

Development notes

• Parsers live in src/parsers/ and are auto-imported by book_finder; add a parse(isbn, condition, medium) function to integrate a new source.
• Templates are loaded relative to project root; keep working directory at repo root when running tests or the server.
• Logging is set to INFO; adjust in flask_server.py if you need more verbosity.