iiitNotes Platform 📚

iiitNotes is a modern, full-featured notes sharing platform built with the T3 Stack.

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❓ The Problem

In the current academic ecosystem, students face a significant challenge in accessing and sharing quality study materials.

• Fragmentation: Notes are scattered across WhatsApp groups, Google Drive links, and personal folders.
• Lack of Collaboration: Static PDFs don't allow for discussion, questions, or collaborative highlighting.
• Quality Control: It's hard to distinguish high-quality notes from poor ones without a rating or review system.

💡 Our Solution

We developed a centralized Collaborative Learning Hub that transforms how students interact with study materials.

• Interactive Viewing: Not just reading—students can annotate, highlight, and comment on specific pages.
• Community Driven: A leaderboard and voting system incentivizes uploading high-quality content.
• Socially Connected: Friends and Groups features allow for private sharing and collaborative study sessions.
• Structured Knowledge: An organized hierarchy (Branch > Semester > Course) makes finding resources effortless.

🛠️ Tech Stack & Architecture

We utilized the T3 Stack for end-to-end type safety and rapid development.

Category	Technology	Usage
Framework	Next.js 16 (App Router)	Full-stack React framework
Language	TypeScript	Strict type safety across the entire app
Styling	Tailwind CSS v4	Modern, utility-first styling with Glassmorphism
Database	PostgreSQL	Relational data for users, notes, and social graph
ORM	Prisma	Type-safe database access
Storage	MinIO (S3 Compatible)	Secure, self-hostable object storage for PDFs
API	tRPC	End-to-end typesafe APIs without schemas
Auth	NextAuth.js v5	Secure authentication sessions
PDF Engine	PDF.js	Client-side PDF rendering and interaction
AI Engine	Google Gemini	Multimodal AI for document analysis
Editor	BlockNote	Notion-style rich text editing
Math Engine	KaTeX	Fast, accessible math rendering

Architecture Diagram

flowchart TD
    Client[Next.js Client] <-->|tRPC Typed API| Server[Next.js / API Routes]
    Server <-->|Prisma ORM| DB[(PostgreSQL)]
    Server <-->|AWS SDK| Storage[(MinIO / S3)]
    Client <-->|NextAuth| Auth[Auth Provider]

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🌟 Key Features

🎨 Premium User Experience

• Glassmorphic Design: A visually stunning UI with background blurs, gradients, and a "premium" feel.
• Dark Mode: Fully supported system-aware dark/light themes.
• Responsive: Mobile-first design for studying on the go.

🤖 AI Study Assistant

• Chat with Document: Ask questions about your notes and get instant answers.
• Visual Understanding: The AI "sees" the exact page you're looking at to provide context-aware help.
• Powered by Gemini: Utilizes Google's latest Multimodal Gemini models.

📚 Advanced Content Management

• Smart PDF Viewer: Custom-built viewer supporting zoom, rotation, and lazy loading.
• Annotations: Draw, highlight, and add text directly on note pages.
• Granular Organization: File hierarchy supports Folders, Courses, and Semesters.
• Page-Level Interaction: Comment on and upvote specific pages, not just the whole document.
• Rich Text Editing: Notion-style block editor withslash commands (/).
• Math Support: Full LaTeX/KaTeX support for mathematical equations.

🤝 Social & Gamification

• Friend System: Send requests and follow peers.
• Groups: Create private study groups for focused collaboration.
• Leaderboards: Compete for "Top Contributor" status based on uploads and likes.

🛡️ Admin & Security

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Distinct USER and ADMIN roles.
• Admin Dashboard: Moderation tools for users and content.
• Secure Uploads: Presigned URLs ensure secure file transfer to storage.

🚀 Instructions to Run

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• Docker & Docker Compose

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/Entropy-rgb/NotesIIIT.git
   cd NotesIIIT
   npm install

2. Environment Setup

Create a .env file in the root directory:

# Database
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/notes_db"

# Auth
NEXTAUTH_SECRET="your-secret-here"
NEXTAUTH_URL="http://localhost:3000"

# Storage (MinIO Defaults for Docker)
S3_REGION="us-east-1"
S3_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:9000"
S3_ACCESS_KEY="minioadmin"
S3_SECRET_KEY="minioadmin"
S3_BUCKET_NAME="notes-bucket"

# AI (Optional - Users can also set their own key in settings)
GEMINI_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

3. Start Infrastructure

Run the database and storage services:

docker-compose up -d

4. Initialize Database

npx prisma db push

Note: This creates the tables in your local Postgres instance.

5. Start the App

npm run dev

Visit http://localhost:3000 to see the app in action!

🛡️ Admin Setup

Accessing the admin dashboard requires the ADMIN role. By default, all new users are assigned the USER role. You must manually promote the first admin using one of the methods below.

Option 1: Using Prisma Studio (Recommended)

1. Run npx prisma studio
2. Open http://localhost:5555
3. Select the User model
4. Find your user record and change role to ADMIN
5. Save changes

Option 2: Using SQL

docker exec -it notes-postgres psql -U user -d notes_db -c "UPDATE \"User\" SET role = 'ADMIN' WHERE email = 'your-email@example.com';"

Once promoted, you will see the Admin shield icon in the navigation bar.

👥 The Team

We are a team of passionate developers building cool things.

1. Somesh Kamad
2. Arjun Tikoo
3. Parth Nyati
4. Swayam Hadape Built with ❤️ by passionate developers.