This single-page-application (SPA) uses a REACT front-end and a RAILS back-end with a PostgreSQL database to create a forum style application that allows users to signup/login in order to create questions associated with a course. Once questions are created users can add comments to either their own questions or questions created by others.
Additional features for users include the ability to HIDE their question from the "open questions" page, where others can see questions that are open for comments. In addition, only users can delete or hide questions that they created. These permissions are not afforded to other users.
- React
- Ruby 2.7.4
- NodeJS (v16), and npm
- Postgresql
- BCrypt
Verify which version of Ruby you're running by entering this in the terminal:
ruby -v
Make sure that the Ruby version you're running is listed in the supported runtimes by Heroku. At the time of writing, supported versions are 2.6.8, 2.7.4, or 3.0.2. Our recommendation is 2.7.4, but make sure to check the site for the latest supported versions.
If it's not, you can use rvm
to install a newer version of Ruby:
rvm install 2.7.4 --default
You should also install the latest versions of bundler
and rails
:
gem install bundler
gem install rails
Verify you are running a recent version of Node with:
node -v
If your Node version is not 16.x.x, install it and set it as the current and default version with:
nvm install 16
nvm use 16
nvm alias default 16
You can also update your npm version with:
npm i -g npm
Heroku requires that you use PostgreSQL for your database instead of SQLite. PostgreSQL (or just Postgres for short) is an advanced database management system with more features than SQLite. If you don't already have it installed, you'll need to set it up.
To install Postgres for WSL, run the following commands from your Ubuntu terminal:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev
Then confirm that Postgres was installed successfully:
psql --version
Run this command to start the Postgres service:
sudo service postgresql start
Finally, you'll also need to create a database user so that you are able to connect to the database from Rails. First, check what your operating system username is:
whoami
If your username is "ian", for example, you'd need to create a Postgres user with that same name. To do so, run this command to open the Postgres CLI:
sudo -u postgres -i
From the Postgres CLI, run this command (replacing "ian" with your username):
createuser -sr ian
Then enter control + d
or type logout
to exit.
This guide has more info on setting up Postgres on WSL if you get stuck.
To install Postgres for OSX, you can use Homebrew:
brew install postgresql
Once Postgres has been installed, run this command to start the Postgres service:
brew services start postgresql
If you ran into any errors along the way, here are some things you can try to troubleshoot:
-
If you're on a Mac and got a server connection error when you tried to run
rails db:create
, one option for solving this problem for Mac users is to install the Postgres app. To do this, first uninstallpostgresql
by runningbrew remove postgresql
. Next, download the app from the Postgres downloads page and install it. Launch the app and click "Initialize" to create a new server. You should now be able to runrails db:create
. -
If you're using WSL and got the following error running
rails db:create
:PG::ConnectionBad: FATAL: role "yourusername" does not exist
The issue is that you did not create a role in Postgres for the default user account. Check this video for one possible fix.
Once you have the repository stored locally, you can launch the application by running a rails server and starting the client in a local environment.
From there, creating a username and login will give you access to the application from a user perspective. In order to test the full functionality of the application, having two accounts is idea so that you can make sure permissions are set properly and that the user-only features are not provided to other non-users.
This application is NOT deployed, as there are other features such as search and filter options would ideally be included in a more complete version.