Player Management App - Node.js & MongoDB

🌐 Live Site: players.thomasscheiber.com

A full-stack web application for managing player profiles with CRUD operations, built with Node.js, Express, MongoDB, and EJS templating.

🚀 Features

• Create Players: Add new player profiles with username, full name, and bio
• View All Players: Browse through all registered players
• View Details: See individual player information
• Update Players: Edit existing player profiles
• Delete Players: Remove players from the database
• Responsive Design: Clean, user-friendly interface

🛠️ Technologies Used

• Node.js - JavaScript runtime
• Express.js - Web application framework
• MongoDB Atlas - Cloud database solution
• Mongoose - MongoDB object modeling
• EJS - Embedded JavaScript templating
• Morgan - HTTP request logger middleware
• Lodash - Utility library

📦 Installation & Setup

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start the server (requires MongoDB connection string)
npm start

The application will run on http://localhost:3000

No database handy?
Set DISABLE_DB=true (or simply omit MONGODB_URI) to boot the app with a small JSON-backed datastore that lives in data/localPlayers.json.

🏗️ Project Structure

Player Management App/
├── controllers/       # Route controllers
│   └── playerController.js
├── models/           # Database models
│   └── player.js
├── routes/           # Express routes
│   └── playerRoutes.js
├── views/            # EJS templates
│   ├── index.ejs
│   ├── create.ejs
│   ├── details.ejs
│   └── about.ejs
├── public/           # Static files (CSS, images)
├── docs/             # Blog documentation
└── index.js          # Main application file

🗄️ Database

The application uses MongoDB Atlas for cloud database storage with Mongoose as the ODM (Object Data Mapper).

When a MongoDB connection string is not provided (or DISABLE_DB=true), the server automatically falls back to a file-backed data store so you can still demo the UI and CRUD flows without any external services.

Player Schema

{
  username: String,
  fullname: String,
  bio: String
}

🌐 Routes

• GET / - Redirects to players list
• GET /players - View all players
• GET /players/create - Create new player form
• POST /players - Submit new player
• GET /players/:id - View player details
• DELETE /players/:id - Delete a player
• GET /about - About page

💡 Key Features

MVC Architecture

• Models: Mongoose schemas for data structure
• Views: EJS templates for dynamic HTML
• Controllers: Business logic and request handling

Middleware

• Morgan for request logging
• Express static for serving public files
• Body parser for form data

Database Operations

• Create, Read, Update, Delete (CRUD) operations
• MongoDB connection handling
• Error handling for database operations

📚 Learning Outcomes

This project demonstrates:

• RESTful API design
• Express.js middleware
• MongoDB database integration
• Server-side templating with EJS
• MVC architecture pattern
• Asynchronous JavaScript
• Environment configuration

🚀 Deployment

🌐 Live Site: players.thomasscheiber.com

To deploy this application:

1. Set up MongoDB Atlas cluster
2. Update connection string with your credentials
3. Configure environment variables
4. Deploy to your hosting platform (Coolify, Heroku, DigitalOcean, etc.)

⚠️ Note

Remember to:

• Update MongoDB connection string with your own credentials
• Never commit sensitive data (passwords, API keys) to version control
• Use environment variables for production deployment

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Built with Node.js 🟢 | Powered by MongoDB 🍃 | Styled with EJS 📄