Book Store - ASP.NET Core (MVC)

• Noah Hicks

Summary

This web application is an online bookstore built using ASP.NET Core MVC framework. It allows users to browse through a collection of books, view book details, and navigate through the book catalog using pagination. The application follows a clean architecture, separating concerns into models, repositories, interfaces, and controllers. It utilizes a SQLite database to store book information and Entity Framework Core for data access.

Features

• Book Catalog: The application displays a list of books with their details, including title, author, publisher, ISBN, classification, category, page count, and price.
• Pagination: The book catalog is paginated, allowing users to navigate through the list of books easily. The number of books per page can be customized.
• Repository Pattern: The application uses the repository pattern to abstract the data access layer, providing a clean and maintainable architecture.
• Dependency Injection: The application leverages dependency injection to manage dependencies between classes, promoting loose coupling and testability.
• Bootstrap Styling: The user interface is styled using Bootstrap, providing a responsive and modern design that adapts to different screen sizes.

Technical Details

• Framework: ASP.NET Core MVC
• Database: SQLite
• ORM: Entity Framework Core
• Front-end: HTML, CSS, Bootstrap
• Programming Language: C#

Implementation

The application follows a structured architecture, utilizing the following components:

• Models: The Book model represents the structure of a book entity in the database, with properties such as Title, Author, Publisher, ISBN, Classification, Category, PageCount, and Price.
• Repository: The IBookRepository interface defines the contract for retrieving book data, while the BookRepository class implements this interface, interacting with the database using Entity Framework Core.
• Controller: The BookController handles HTTP requests related to books, interacts with the repository to retrieve book data, and returns the appropriate views to the user.
• Views: The Index view displays the list of books in a tabular format, with pagination links at the bottom. The _Layout view provides a consistent layout for all pages, including the navigation bar and footer.

Future Enhancements

While the current version of the application provides basic functionality for browsing books, several potential enhancements could easily be implemented in the future:

• Search functionality: Allow users to search for books based on title, author, or other criteria.
• User authentication and authorization: Implement user registration, login, and role-based access control to personalize the user experience and restrict certain actions to authorized users.
• Shopping cart and checkout: Enable users to add books to a shopping cart and complete the purchase process.
• Book details page: Create a dedicated page for each book, displaying more detailed information and user reviews.

Conclusion

The Book Store web application demonstrates my skills in developing a functional and visually appealing ASP.NET Core MVC application. It showcases my understanding of core concepts such as data modeling, repository pattern, dependency injection, and Bootstrap styling. Through this project, I have gained valuable experience in building web applications using the ASP.NET Core framework and working with databases using Entity Framework Core.