forum

Forum

This project is a web forum that allows users to communicate, share posts, comment, and interact with one another through likes/dislikes, filtering, and more.

Objectives

• User Communication: Allow users to create posts and comments to facilitate discussion.
• Categorized Posts: Users can associate one or more categories to their posts, functioning similarly to subforums dedicated to specific topics.
• Likes and Dislikes: Registered users can like or dislike posts and comments. The total counts of likes and dislikes will be visible to all users.
• Filtering: Implement filtering for posts by:
  • Categories
  • Created posts (for the logged-in user)
  • Liked posts (for the logged-in user)

Technologies Used

• Language: Go (Golang), HTML, CSS, javascript
• Database: SQLite
  • SQLite is chosen for its simplicity as an embedded database and ease of integration in web applications.
• Authentication and Session Management:
  • User registration and login with email, username, and password.
  • Use cookies for session management with a 24-hour time period.
  • Encrypting passwords using bcrypt.
  • Implementing session identifiers using UUID.
• Docker:
  • Containerizing the application for consistent deployment and easy environment management.

Authentication

User Registration

• Input Requirements:
  • Email: Must be unique. Cannot register a user if the email is already registered.
  • Username
  • Password: Encrypted when stored (uses bcrypt for encryption).

Login

• Validate user credentials against stored records.
• Check that the password provided matches the encrypted password in the database.
• On successful login, it creates a session cookie with an expiration date; with only one active session per user.

Communication

• Posts & Comments:
  • Only registered users can create posts and comments.
  • Posts can be associated with one or more categories.
  • Both posts and comments are visible to all users, regardless of registration status.
  • Non-registered users can only view posts and comments but cannot interact with them (no reaction; like, dislike or comments).

Likes and Dislikes

• Functionality:
  • Only registered users can like or dislike posts and comments.
  • The count of likes and dislikes is visible to all users.

Filtering

• Categories: Users can filter posts by specific categories (similar to subforums).
• Created Posts: Registered users can filter posts that they have created.
• Liked Posts: Registered users can filter posts that they have liked.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://learn.zone01kisumu.ke/git/allkamau/forum.git
cd forum

Compile and run the program with a file as input:

go run main.go

Docker

To ensure ease of deployment and consistency across environments, this project uses Docker.

Building an Image:

docker build -t forum .

You can build using docker-compose.yml:

docker compose up --build

Contribution To make a contribution to the project, open an issue with a title, a tag, and a description of your idea on the repository issues' page.

License This project is licensed under MIT.