Live Demo: MESSAGES
Messages is micro-blogging service that replicates the functionality of Twitter. I built this app with another apprentice at Qwasar Silicon Valley.
Features include:
- Custom user authentication using JSON Web Token (JWT) stored in the database
- Ability to post/delete 'tweets', comment on posted tweets, and 'like' or unlike posted tweets
- Ability to follow other users and see their tweets
- Ability to be followed by other users so they can see your tweets
- Ability to 'retweet' a post from another user
- Dynamic search of the user database
- React front end - state management with Redux
PostgreSQL
for data storage for Heroku deploy
My specific contributions include:
- Create basic framework for the application using Rails and Create-React-App
- Implement database logic for User, including model for
followers
andfollowing
- see this GIST for details - Implement logic to
like
and comment on tweets - Deploy app to Heroku
- Numerous bug fixes and minor tweaks to front-end
- Write unit tests for all aspects of the application
- Refactor front end for enhanced UX/UI
- Refactor React Router logic
- Improve performance with fewer API calls to database
We used this project to understand how to marry React on the front-end with Rails on the back-end. We also studied the structure of a relational database for allowing users to follow and be followed by other users (Twitter Model
), and tweets to be retweeted.