Online shop built using Node.js, Express, and MongoDB/Mongoose. The user can create an account, reset their password, add and remove cart items, upload and delete products, update data for products they added, checkout their cart, place orders, and view past orders.
It follows the MVC design pattern, and renders views on the server using the EJS templating engine. The SendGrid API is used to send emails (confirmation of account creation and password reset instructions) and payments are handled using the Stripe API. Other features include pagination, error handling, validation of user input, sessions, authentication, and file storage.
Image files are hosted in an AWS S3 bucket. Uploading a new image for a product or deleting a product entirely deletes the respective image from the bucket.
Prior to the final version, I also used SQL (MySQL)/Sequelize, and output dynamic content with Pug and Handlebars. The code was refactored numerous times to try different approaches. In the course, files were uploaded using the filesystem and stored locally, but a cloud storage approach was necessary for a viable app due to the hosting provider Heroku's ephemeral filesystem.
When you place an order in the app, you'll be redirected to Stripe checkout in test mode. You can simulate a purchase using test card numbers. For a production app, live mode rather than test mode publishable and secret keys would be used.
Basic project structure/terminology notes: Middleware = methods/functions/operations that are called between processing the request and sending the response. An Express app contains multiple levels of middleware, such as application-level middleware (app.use(middleware) and router-level middleware (e.g., router.use(middleware)). app.use(middleware) is called every time a request is sent to the server. (app.get() is called when the HTTP method is set to GET, whereas app.use() is called regardless of the HTTP method.) These define a route handler file as middleware, which also contains middleware - the route files forward requests to controller "actions," methods that handle incoming requests (for example getNewPassword in controllers/auth.js).
- Install dependencies
npm install
-
Change the filename of
example-nodemon.jsontonodemon.json. Use the example as a guideline to replace keys with appropriate API keys, etc., from MongoDB, SendGrid, and Stripe. These can each be acquired using a free account. -
Start Nodemon server at http://localhost:3000 (the
start:devscript must be used sincenodemon.jsonis used to store environment variables, and the other scripts do not use Nodemon)
npm run start:dev