Chitter Challenge

User stories:

As a Maker
So that I can post messages on Chitter as me
I want to sign up for Chitter

As a Maker
So that I can post messages on Chitter as me
I want to log in to Chitter

As a Maker
So that I can avoid others posting messages on Chitter as me
I want to log out of Chitter

As a Maker
So that I can let people know what I am doing  
I want to post a message (peep) to chitter

As a maker
So that I can see what others are saying  
I want to see all peeps in reverse chronological order

As a maker
So that I can better appreciate the context of a peep
I want to see the time at which it was made

Design and implementation:

Features/languages used:

Ruby
HTML
CSS
Sinatra
Postgres database
DataMapper
RSpec unit testing
Capybara feature testing.

I completed the app by following each user story above in order. I started by creating two databases, chitter_test and chitter_development. The test database was used for testing and uses a gem called database_cleaner to wipe the database after each test. The development database was for running the web app on a local server. The gem data_mapper is used to use basic SQL commands in the Ruby code.

In the databases are two models: User and Peep. The User model contains the following properties:

id
username
email
password.

It also has a one-to-many relationship to the Peep model (user can have many peeps). The Peep model has the following properties:

id
message
time_stamp
user_id.

The controller is split from one large controller to four small controllers: home, peeps, sessions and users. Each controller has many view files including layout.erb, the main layout which yields all of the views. The flash error messages are implemented with the sinatra/flash gem and are implemented in the layout.erb using partials.

When a user signs up to a new account, DataMapper validations gem dm-validations is used to validate the password and password confirmation given. It is also used to validate the format of an email address inputted. Additionally, both the username and email have to be unique. If the username given is already taken an error message pops up using the sinatra/flash gem.

Test driven development was used with the BDD cycle to complete the app. Feature testing is implemented with Capybara and unit testing of the models is with RSpec. Testing coveralls are currently at 100%.

Installation and usage instructions:

Setup:
- git clone https://github.com/yasgreen93/chitter-challenge.git
- run bundle install
Testing with RSpec:
- to test, run rspec
- to see coveralls report, run coveralls report
To view web app:
- run rackup in your terminal
- in your browser visit localhost:9292
- or visit the live version on heroku here
- alternatively, see screenshots below.