OVERVIEW: ReciPals is a social recipe-sharing web application where users can share, discover, and save recipes. The application is pre-loaded with 300+ recipes fetched from TheMealDB API (https://www.themealdb.com/) attributed to "recipeBot" to provide immediate content for users to explore.

CORE FEATURES:

• Home
  • Loads recipe post feed (login not required)
  • Loads followers’ posts first (login required)
• Login and Signup
  • Login with username and password
  • Signup required information include name, username, password, and tags
• Profile
• Display and edit profile information
• Display user posts and saved recipes
• Follow and unfollow users (login required)
• Search
  • Search recipes by name, ingredient, tags (login not required)
  • Search users by name and username (login not required)
• Recipe and Post
  • Create and edit recipes (login required)
  • View complete recipe details, including name, photo, ingredients, instructions, total time, and serving (login not required)
  • Interact with posts: like and comment (login required)
  • Save recipes (login required)
• Admin Management
  • Admin user type required
  • Update user role types and delete users
  • Edit and delete recipes and posts

This codebase provides the back-end implementation of ReciPals built with Node.js and Express. See repository for the front-end implementation with TypeScript and React: https://github.com/jasminduong/recipals

RUNNING THE APP: To run the app on the server: https://recipals.netlify.app/

To run the node.js and express app (back-end) locally:

1. Clone the repository, run on your terminal: git clone https://github.com/jasminduong/recipals-node-server-app.git cd recipals-node-server-app
2. Install dependencies npm install
3. Create an .env file with required variables: MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/recipals SESSION_SECRET=your-session-secret PORT=4000
4. Start the development server, run on your terminal: nodemon index.js
5. Server with run on http://localhost:4000

**The frontend React application connects to this backend. See the React frontend repository for frontend setup instructions: https://github.com/jasminduong/recipals

KEY COMPONENTS:

• API Routes: Express.js routes that handle HTTP requests and responses

  • User routes for authentication, profile management, and user operations
  • Recipe routes for recipe CRUD operations and recipe-related functionality
  • Post routes for recipe CRUD operations and post-related functionality

• Data Models: Mongoose schemas that define data structure and validation

  • User model with authentication, profile, and social features
  • Recipe model with recipe details and metadata
  • Post model with post details and metadata

• Database Access Objects (DAOs): Data access layer that handles database operations

  • User DAO for user-related database operations
  • Recipe DAO for recipe data management
  • Post DAO for post and social interaction data

• Database Integration: MongoDB database with Mongoose ODM for data persistence

  • User collection for storing user accounts and profiles
  • Recipe collection for storing recipe data
  • Post collection for storing social posts and interactions

Schema Validation: Mongoose schemas that enforce data structure and validation rules - User schema with authentication and profile validation - Recipe schema with recipe content validation - Post schema with social content validation

KEY SUB-COMPONENTS:

• Database Layer: MongoDB collections and data models

  • Database/index.js: Main database configuration and connection setup
  • Database/posts.js: Post data seeding and initial data
  • Database/recipes.js: Recipe data seeding and initial data
  • Database/users.js: User data seeding and initial data

• Posts Module: Social posting and interaction functionality

  • Posts/dao.js: Data access object for post operations
  • Posts/model.js: Mongoose model for post data structure
  • Posts/routes.js: Express routes for post API endpoints
  • Posts/schema.js: Mongoose schema for post validation

• Recipes Module: Recipe management and operations

  • Recipes/dao.js: Data access object for recipe operations
  • Recipes/model.js: Mongoose model for recipe data structure
  • Recipes/routes.js: Express routes for recipe API endpoints
  • Recipes/schema.js: Mongoose schema for recipe validation

• Users Module: User authentication and profile management

  • Users/dao.js: Data access object for user operations
  • Users/model.js: Mongoose model for user data structure
  • Users/routes.js: Express routes for user API endpoints
  • Users/schema.js: Mongoose schema for user validation

• Configuration: Server configuration and environment setup

  • .env: Environment variables for database and server configuration

SOURCE ORGANIZATION: The main application structure is organized as follows:

• Main Application:

  • Server entry point: index.js

• Database Layer:

  • Database configuration: Database/index.js
  • Initial data: Database/posts.js, Database/recipes.js, Database/users.js

• API Modules:

  • Posts API: Posts/dao.js, Posts/model.js, Posts/routes.js, Posts/schema.js
  • Recipes API: Recipes/dao.js, Recipes/model.js, Recipes/routes.js, Recipes/schema.js
  • Users API: Users/dao.js, Users/model.js, Users/routes.js, Users/schema.js

• Configuration:

  • Environment variables: .env