Knobull Student News Website Documentation
Overview
This is a Student News Website for Knobull, designed to allow students to browse news articles.
Supervisor: Lynn (The Founder of Knobull)
Team Leader: Jiahong Liu
Preview
Current News Page
Current Management Page
Current Add Article Page
Architecture
This application follows the standard MERN Stack architecture
- MongDB (Database)
- Express.js (Backend)
- React.js (Frontend)
- Node.js (Backend)
P.S. 'react-ant-admin', an MIT licensed React.js based dashboard was used for the management system
It's not required to study the original dashboard to understand the current project, since the open source dashboard was documented in chinese. Instead, I will document this project throughly with detailed comments
Requirements
- Node.js v14+
- MongoDB v4.4+
Installation and Setup
1. Clone the repository and navigate into the main directory
2. To install dependencies, navigate to the "front" directory and run:
npm install
If encounter issues, try npm install --legacy-peer-deps
3. also, navigate to the the "server" directory and run:
npm install
4. To start the front, run:
npm run dev
5. To start the server, run:
npm run server
API Documentation
API Directory Structure
server
-api
- article.js
- category.js
- draft.js
- index.js
- login.js
- tag.js
- user.js
Database
The website uses MongoDB, a NoSQL database, as the primary data store.
Database Schema
The application consists of the following four collections:
1. User Collection: This collection stores information about the users of the system. Each document in the user collection has the following fields:
- name: String - The username of the user
- password: String - The hashed password of the user
- salt: String - The unique salt used in the password hashing process
- userType: Number - The type of the user (e.g., admin, regular user, etc.)
- avatar: String - The URL of the user's avatar image
- collectArticle: Array - An array storing the articles collected by the user
- collectComment: Array - An array storing the comments collected by the user
2. Category Collection: This collection is used to store various categories under which articles can be posted. It has the following field:
- name: String - The name of the category
3. Article Collection: This collection is used to store articles posted by users. Each document in the article collection has the following fields:
- title: String - The title of the article
- desc: String - A brief description of the article
- categoryId: ObjectId - A reference to the associated category in the Category Collection
- charge: Number - The cost to access the article, if applicable
- banner: String - The URL of the banner image for the article
- content: String - The content of the article
4. Pay Collection: This collection is used to record transactions where users pay to access certain articles. Each document in the pay collection has the following fields:
- userId: String - The user who made the payment
- articleId: String - The article for which the payment was made
Database Notes
1. Database operations are performed using the Mongoose API, which provides a simple and intuitive interface for creating, reading, updating, and deleting documents.
2. password storage is handled with security in mind. User passwords are hashed using the SHA1 algorithm, and a unique salt is generated for each user to prevent rainbow table attacks.
3. The database is initialized with an admin user when the application is first run, allowing immediate administrative access.
4. with MongoDB and Mongoose, data enforcement is done at the application level rather than the database level, offering flexibility in data structures and types.