Welcome to DDIY

Live link: ddiy

DDIY, inspired by Stack Overflow, is a web application that allows users to ask STEM related questions with the hope of getting professional help. As a register user you can ask, answer and vote questions. And if you have not register yet, you can still view questions and answers.

Table of content

Technologies Used

Front End

JavaScript
HTML/Pug.js
Css
Favicon.io
Fontawesome
Heroku

Back End

Express.js
Sequelize.js
Faker.js
Node.js
Bcryptjs
PostgreSQL and Postbird
AJAX

Key Features

Utilizes AJAX to send fetches to database based on value retrieved from searchbar with JavaScript event listeners.
Uses AJAX and Faker.js to generate hundred of random generated questions/users/votes.
Uses form validation, auth and csrfProtection to prevent csrf attacks and add user validation.
Has a demo page that allows visitors to log in and have registered user privileges.

Code Snippets

Query for finding a question by its id with its associated answers

The following code allows us to get to a specific question based on its id. Once the question is displayed, the associated answers should be displayed.

const questionId = parseInt(req.params.id, 10);
const question = await Question.findByPk(questionId, {
  include: [User, Answer],
});

const answers = await Answer.findAll({
  where: {
    questionId: question.id,
  },
  include: [User, Vote],
});

Query for modifying an answer

By using post, an answer can successfully be modified by the answer's owner. Most of the logic can be found in the associated pug.js file which ensures that only the answer owner can modified and even delete his/her answer

const answerId = parseInt(req.params.id, 10);
const answer = await Answer.findByPk(answerId);
await answer.update({ answer: req.body.answer });
await answer.save();
res.redirect(`/questions/${answer.questionId}`);

Query for down voting an answer

The following code snippet allows a user to down vote an answer. Below there are steps on how to find a vote by id, and let JavaScript decide weather to validate the down vote or not. This will be updated in the future to make voting dynamic by using a fetch call and DOM manipulation

const answerId = req.params.answerId;
    const ownerId = req.session.auth.userId;
    const questionId = parseInt(req.params.id, 10);
    const question = await Question.findByPk(questionId, {
      include: [User, Answer],
    });
    const vote = await Vote.findOne({
      where: {
        answerId,
        ownerId,
      },
    });
    let downVote;

    if (vote) {
      await vote.destroy();
    } else {
      if (vote != null) {
        downVote = Vote.build({
          ownerId,
          answerId,
          value: false,
        });
        await downVote.save();
      }

Wiki

Getting Started

Clone this repository
Install dependencies (npm install)
Create a .env file based on the .env.example and replace the value of SESSION_SECRET with your own SESSION_SECRET value. You can generate a value by using UUID to have a more secure value.
Set up your PostgreSQL ddiy_app user, a password and database and make sure it matches the .env file. Make sure to give CREATEDB privileges to your ddiy_app user.
Enter the following commands:

npx dotenv sequelize-cli db:create
npx dotenv sequelize-cli db:migrate
npx dotenv sequelize-cli db:seed:all
npm start

Future Goals

Allow users to insert a code snippet
Make the answer voting system be dynamic
Question Categories

jdaniel01/ddiy-overflow-clone