WebNook

A modern, customizable, self-hosted social platform for friend groups — inspired by classic MySpace.

📌 Overview

WebNook brings back personal expression, cozy vibes, and privacy to social networking. Designed specifically for friend groups and self-hosters, WebNook lets each user create a cute, highly customized personal page ("Nook") at website.com/nook/username.

Featuring 12 curated themes (Cozy Cat Café, Fluffy Cloud Dream, 8-Bit Pixel Arcade, Magical Girl Kawaii, Windows 9x Classic, Frutiger Aero, Cyberpunk Y2K, etc.), toggleable Web Audio API theme sound effects, laser sweep & file transfer micro-animations, a real-time Visual Sticker Studio, custom MP3 audio playlists, Movies & TV Showcases, Books & StoryGraph Reading Nooks, Spotify & Steam integrations, hardware Passkey / 2FA security, and auto-reloading Docker container self-upgrades.

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🔥 Key Features

Category	Highlights
💬 Direct & Group Messaging	Real-time 1-on-1 and group chats with custom group icons, markdown formatting, and per-Nook theme bubble styling!
😍 Emoji Reactions & Replies	Quick emoji reactions, double-tap shortcuts, custom user reaction preferences, and threaded message replies with cancelable quote previews.
🐛 Bug Reports & Admin Channel	Isolated private support stream where users can report issues directly to site admins, plus locked system announcement broadcasts.
🎵 Continuous Music & Autoplay	Playlist track #1 autoplay toggle, continuous auto-next playback, looping, and theme-styled browser unmute toast banners.
🎨 12 Whimsical Themes	12 curated themes with custom card shapes, 3D pixel borders, paw print backgrounds, and scalloped edges.
🔊 Theme Sound FX Engine	Web Audio API sound synthesizer producing retro 95 clicks, 8-bit arcade blips, cat purrs, and magical guestbook chimes (toggleable).
🖼️ Visual Sticker Studio	Live interactive canvas to drag, scale, rotate, and layer cute preset or custom stickers anywhere over your profile!
🎬 Movies & TV Showcase	Search film & series databases (TMDB/OMDb) to display poster art, release years, and personal star ratings.
📚 Books & Reading Nook	Search books (Open Library) or import your reading lists directly from StoryGraph CSV files with 1 click.
🤝 Social Mechanics	MySpace-style Top Friends grids, unidirectional favoriting with ⭐ Favorited You badges, and full-width guestbooks.
🔒 Privacy & Security	Private by default profile viewing, fine-grained card visibility controls, email/password + TOTP 2FA & WebAuthn Passkeys.
📦 Scheduled Backups & Recovery	Automated hourly/daily/weekly backups with configurable retention limits, bundling database, branding, and all uploaded media files.

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🚀 Quick Start

Option 1: Docker Compose (Recommended)

WebNook is published on Docker Hub as tylerhats/webnook.

Create a docker-compose.yml file:

version: '3.8'

services:
  webnook:
    image: tylerhats/webnook:latest
    container_name: webnook
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "4000:4000"
    environment:
      - PORT=4000
      - NODE_ENV=production
      - JWT_SECRET=replace_with_secure_random_key
    volumes:
      - webnook-data:/app/backend/data
      - webnook-uploads:/app/backend/uploads

volumes:
  webnook-data:
  webnook-uploads:

Start the container:

docker compose up -d

Option 2: Local Installation Script

For Linux servers running directly without Docker:

git clone https://github.com/TylerHats/WebNook.git
cd WebNook

# Execute installer
./install.sh

# Start WebNook server
npm start

Access WebNook at http://localhost:4000.

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🔒 SSL & Reverse Proxy Setup

Reverse Proxy SSL Termination (Nginx, Caddy, Cloudflare)

WebNook natively detects reverse proxies with trust proxy enabled. Protocol headers (X-Forwarded-Proto and X-Forwarded-Host) are automatically used to match WebAuthn Passkey origins across custom domains.

Bare Host Let's Encrypt SSL

For bare installations needing automated Let's Encrypt SSL certificates:

sudo ./setup-ssl.sh

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🛠️ Tech Stack & Architecture

• Backend: Node.js, TypeScript, Express.js.
• Database: SQLite (WAL mode) with automated version tracking (schema_migrations).
• Frontend: React, TypeScript, Vite, Vanilla CSS Theme Engine.
• Authentication: Argon2/bcrypt, otplib (TOTP), @simplewebauthn (Passkeys / FIDO2).
• Containerization: Alpine Multi-stage Docker image.

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🗑️ Uninstallation

To cleanly remove build dependencies or purge local data:

./uninstall.sh

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0).