/Express-Newsletter

Newsletter website built with NodeJS, Express and SQLite

Primary LanguageHandlebars

Express-Newsletter

A fully functional newsletter website, where you can subscribe and receive a welcoming email, and then receive periodically the newsletter. It also allows unsubscribing through a dedicated page.

newsletter-full.mp4

🛠️ Built with :

  • CSS : all UI design is from me, container queries, variable font, grid, flexbox...
  • HTML : form best practice and validation, semantic...
  • Javascript : async/await, fetch API
  • NodeJS
  • Express
  • SQLite database and SQL queries

What I learned :

  • how to use Express
  • create and manage SQL database
  • handle HTTP requests and responses
  • work asynchronously and handle errors in Node.JS
  • setup backend routes and controllers
  • HTML emails (different support rules of the mail clients, specific CSS rules applying to it...)
  • create templating for content
  • organize a front-in-back architecture
  • deploy a front-in-back on an online server

In-depth details of the project :

  1. Subscription logic : Users can subscribe on homepage by filling and sending the form : lastName, firstName and email are added to SQLite Database. A notif confirms or infirms the subscription. An email confirms subscription and welcome new user.
  2. Unsubscription logic : Users can unsubscribe on the /unsubscribe page. It updates the database accordingly by removing. Checks if email is already in the DB, if not sends an error notif to user
  3. Newsletter Templates :
  • Each newsletter is created within a template using handlebars
  1. Composing Newsletters :
  • Each newsletter dynamically retrieve lastName and firstName to personalize the mail
  1. Sending newsletter :
  • Middleware retrieve subscribers' information from the SQL DB
  • Sendgrid npm package is used to send newsletters to the subscribers.
  1. Allowing the client to render the email in browser :
  • implemented a route that takes a query parameter to decide to render the "welcomeEmail" or the "newsletter" in a new tab.
  1. Scheduling Newsletter Sending:
  • Nodecron can send newsletters every Saturday. Not activating the function to not pollute email boxes of people trying the deployed version.
  1. Deploy on fly.io