My Simple Postboard

A postboard website with a client/server model which supports CRUD operations by using HTTP GET, POST, PUT, DELETE requests. It's mobile compatible too.

• Now deployable on Heroku:
  • Deployment on Heroku - see it working here! 😀
  • Branch for Heroku deployment - because the master branch uses MySQL and a free MySQL database on Heroku requires credit card info.
• TODO: Support for emoji posts.
• TOOD: Post using AJAX instead of traditional forms for better script control?
• TOOD: Make a preview picture.

Prerequisites

• Node v8.10.0 or higher
• MySQL 5.7

Usage

Installation

In project directory, call the following node command to install the necessary dependencies:

node install

Create config.js in the project directory with the following content:

module.exports = {
    host: 'localhost',
    user: 'USERNAME HERE', // put your username here
    password: 'PASSWORD HERE', // put your password here
    database: 'my-simple-postboard'
};

Run the setup.sql in MySQL to prepare the necessary tables.

Execution

In project directory, call the following node command to start the server:

node index.js
# Output:
# My Simple Postboard listening on port 3000! (or another port if specified)
# Connected to database!

Navigate to localhost:3000 (or a corresponding port) to visit the postboard.

Technologies used

Frontend - stylesheets and JavaScript libraries

There are imported in head.pug and scripts.pug from their official CDNs.

• Boostrap 4 - a easily reusable CSS stylesheet sheet with optionally Javascript interactivity.
• jQuery - a JavaScript library for DOM manipulation.
• SweetAlert 2 - a beautiful JavaScript replacement for vanilla popup boxes.

Backend - Node dependencies

• Express - a Node framework for setting up the web server.
  • body-parser - a Express.js middleware for interpreting HTTP request bodies.
• mysqljs - a Node module for connecting to the MySQL database.
• Pug - a template engine and language to dynamically generate HTML web pages.