Background

whatsGood, is a platform for users to share lists of books. Users can create their own lists, follow other users, or follow other lists.

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Technologies Used

• MongoDB
• MongooseODM
• Express
• React
• Node
• Google Books API
• Webpack
• Babel
• Bcrypt
• Passport
• Passport-JWT
• JSON Web Token
• Validator
• Heroku
• Git feature branching workflow
• Trello KanBan project management
• Icons from Font Awesome

Technical Challenge

Backend Routing

As our application is built based on relational data structure, the below snippet illustrates that backend provides three-level deep relationship data object that reference documents in other collection for frontend API requests, which significantly reduced the need to make multiple API calls and frontend has all necessary data accessible.

router.get('/:id', async (req, res) => {
    try {
        const userId = req.params.id;
        const user = await User.findById(userId)
            .populate({
                path: "followingLists",
                model: "List",
                populate: {
                    path: "bookItems",
                    model: "Book"
                },
            })
            .populate({
                path: "followingLists",
                model: "List",
                populate: {
                    path: "followers",
                    model: "User"
                },
            })
            .populate({
                path: "followingLists",
                model: "List",
                populate: {
                    path: "owner",
                    model: "User"
                },
            })

            .populate({
                path: "myLists",
                model: "List",
                populate: {
                    path: "followers",
                    model: "User"
                },
            })
            .populate({
                path: "myLists",
                model: "List",
                populate: {
                    path: "bookItems",
                    model: "Book"
                },

            })

            .populate({
                path: "followingUsers",
                model: "User",
                populate: {
                    path: "myLists",
                    model: "User"
                },
            })
            .populate({
                path: "followingUsers",
                model: "User",
                populate: {
                    path: "followingLists",
                    model: "List"
                },
            })
            .populate({
                path: "followingUsers",
                model: "User",
                populate: {
                    path: "followingUsers",
                    model: "User"
                },
            })

        res.json(user)
    } catch (e) {
        res.status(404).json({ user: 'No user found' })
    }
})

Feature

Search bar with debounced API requests

Users can use the search bar to search for books or other users. The search bar debounces the API request and maps through the JSON response. When user clicks user or book, they are taken to the approriate show page.

  const fetch = React.useMemo(
    () =>
      debounce((request) => {
        fetchBooksAndUsers(request)
          .then(json => {
            return setOptions(Object
              .values(json.data)
              .reverse()
              .flat()
              .map((res) => {
                if (res.volumeInfo) {
                  return ({
                    id: res.id,
                    volumeInfo: res.volumeInfo
                  });
                } else if (res.username) {
                  return ({
                    id: res._id,
                    username: res.username
                  });
                } else {
                  return null;
                }
              })
            )
          });
      }, 200),
    [],
  );