Journal is a self-hosted application designed for photographers to publish their work. By leveraging the latest web technologies, this application provides a responsive and user-friendly interface that enhances the presentation of a photographic journal, with the freedom and control that comes from self-hosting.

Note: The theme is optimized for pictures with an aspect ratio of 3:2, 2:3, or 1:1.

Technical Stack

• Next.js
• PostgreSQL
• Vanilla Extract
• Tanstack Query
• Zod
• Jest
• Testing Library

Requirements for installation:

• Node v20
• zx
• PostgreSQL (for standalone installation)
• Docker (for Docker installation)

Installation

1/ Clone the repository

git clone git@github.com:claireso/journal.git

2/ Launch the installation

zx scripts/install/start.mjs

Choose between a standalone installation or an installation using Docker and follow the steps. At the end, a .env file will be created at the root of the project with all the variables used by the application.

Example:

3/ Launch the application

Standalone

Install dependencies

$ npm install

Run the application in a development environment

$ npm run dev

The application will be running at http://localhost:3000

To change the default port of the application, add it to the command as follows:

$ PORT=4000 npm run dev

Note:

• don't forget to update your .env

Build and run the application in a production environment

There are two ways to run the application in a production environment

1 - With a reverse proxy (recommanded)

By default the folder where your photos are uploaded (uploads) is not served by the server himself. You will need to configure a reverse proxy (with nginx for example)

When your reverse proxy is configured run the commands follow:

$ npm run build
$ npm run start

The application will be running at http://localhost:3000

To change the default port of the application, add it to the command as follow:

$ npm run start -- -p 4000

Note:

• don't forget to update your .env

2 - With express

If you can't use a reverse proxy just use the commands follow:

$ npm run build
$ npm run start:express

The application will be running at http://localhost:3000

To change the default port of the application, add it to the command as follow:

$ PORT=4000 npm run start:express

Note:

• remove option output: 'standalone' from next.config.js
• don't forget to update your .env

Launch with Docker

The installation created all necessary Docker images. To launch the application, run docker compose up and visit https://localhost.

Note:

• With Docker, HTTPS is used. You will need to generate SSL certificates in the certificates folder. Files must be named ${SERVER_NAME}.pem and ${SERVER_NAME}-key.pem (the same SERVER_NAME in your .env).
• You can use Next.js to generate certificates to launch the application in your local environment