FLASHIES

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This is the sample application project
"Flashies"
v1.0

dev by The Bandits
Jarrod Dickinson, Patrick Snelgar, Tori Lane

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The Flashies app can help you prepare for tests, study for your papers, and view others notes about subjects

FEATURES: * Private login to keep flashcards and resources secure, * Create flashcards about topics you are studying or papers you are attending and store them in one place, * Attach resources and notes to your flashcards, resources can be any file; pdfs, word documents, images, and others, * Use the online storage to access your flashcards anywhere, * Search your flashcards for keywords, * Mark flashcards as public to let other users view them, * Assigning public status on a flashcard allows other users to add to them, but gives you authoritative access for editing or removing flashcards and their resources

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	HOW TO ACCESS 'FLASHIES' CODE ON A STANDALONE MACHINE

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The Flashies app can be run from a standalone machine. Download the source code and install the app by following these instructions.

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Prerequisites:

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Your machine must have the following installed to be able to run Flashies

* Ruby and Rails
	Rails 3.2 or above installed

* Image Processor
	ImageMagick must be installed and Flashies must have access to it. Download ImageMagick from 
	http://www.imagemagick.org/ 
	To ensure that it does, on your command line, run: 
		'which convert' 
	which is one of the ImageMagick utilities. This will give you the path where that utility is installed. 
	For example, it might return /usr/local/bin/convert.
	The Flashies configuration file may need to be ajdusted to tell Flashies where to access ImageMagick. 
	In the file'config/environments/development.rb', find the section of code:

		#allow access to ImageMagick
		Paperclip.options[:command_path] = "/c/windows/system32/"

	And change the file path from "/c/windows/system32/" to whatever 'which convert' returned.
	
	MAC OS X:
		If you're on Mac OS X, you'll want to run the following with Homebrew:
			brew install imagemagick
		If you are dealing with pdf uploads or running the test suite, you'll also need GhostScript to be installed. 
		On Mac OS X, you can also install that using Homebrew:
			brew install gs
			
* File command
	The Unix file command is required for content type checking.

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Installing:

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1. 	Extract the Flashies app file
		on windows, this is right click extract, on linux, unzip

2. 	Move this unzipped file to your the place you want to store the app, ie ../Rails/Flashies

3. 	In a rails terminal, navigate to the Flashies app folder
   	The following commands can be used to help navigation:
		dir 			list the files in the current directory
		cd ..			change directory to the parent directory
		cd <directory name>	change directory to the given directory

4. 	Run the command:
		bundle install
   	which will install the gems included in the Flashies app

5. 	Run the command 
		rake db:migrate
   	which will create the database for the app

6. 	Start the rails server. Run the command
		rails server
	- or -
		rails s

7. 	When the terminal that has run the server command returns with the line 'Ctrl-C to shutdown server' 
	(this may take a few seconds)
		=> Booting WEBrick
		=> ....more ...
		=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server

   	Open a browser window (ie, Chrome or Firefox), and type 'http://localhost:3000' into the url

8. 	You are now running the Flashies app!

9. 	Sign up to access Flashies in force

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	HOW TO USE 'FLASHIES' ON HEROKU

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You can use the Flashies app straight from Heroku's cloud server.

1. 	Open a browser window (ie, Chrome or Firefox), and type the following into the url
		http://flashies333.herokuapp.com/

2. 	Sign up to access Flashies in force

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	HOW TO ACCESS 'FLASHIES' CODE ON THE CLOUD (GIT HUB)

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The code for Flashies is accessible via GITHUB. The GitHub for the Flashies app source code was moved

from https://github.com/tors123/Flashies 
to https://github.com/jarrodd07/final_app

but the source code for accessing from a local machine should be accessible from either of these. Note that the version on "github.com/tors123/Flashies" does not include Rdocs or css styling, and that the version "github.com/jarrodd07/final_app" will include Rdocs and configuring for Heroku deployment.

We recommend using the "github.com/jarrodd07/final_app" version.

You can download the Flashies source code to your machine by following these instructions:

1. 	Open a browser window (ie, Chrome or Firefox), and type the following into the url
		https://github.com/jarrodd07/final_app
		

2. 	Select the button on the right column	
		"Download ZIP"
	Which will download the source code to your downloads folder.

3. 	Follow the 'Installing' instructions for 'HOW TO ACCESS 'FLASHIES' ON A STANDALONE MACHINE'

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	HOW TO ACCESS 'FLASHIES' API DOCUMENTATION

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The Flashies API documentation can be accessed form the Flashies app directories.

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	FEATURES INCLUDED IN 'FLASHIES'

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The following are features implemented as optional extras

1.	Upload Feature: Paperclip
	The Flashies app makes use of Paperclip by thoughtbot for file uploading.
	See https://github.com/thoughtbot/paperclip
	
2. 	Online File Storage: S3
	The Flashies app makes use of Amazons Web Storage 'Amazon S3' to allow users to store files and access them 
	online.See https://aws.amazon.com/s3/
	
3. 	Security/Signin in feature: Session tokens
	The Flashies app remembers a users login by using (permanent) session cookies, so the user will be 
	logged in next time they return to Flashies on the same machiine. The app requires a user to expicitly sign out to sign out. 
	The app stores the login data in a base64 token on the browser, and also a hash digest (the result of running it through a one-way 
	cryptographic hash funtion) stored in the database. A new session token is created each time the user signs in.
	
4.	Friendly Forwarding: 
	The app will forward a user where they were trying to go after they have signed in if they are trying to access a 
	part of the app that requires the user to be signed in.