phpforum

Project Overview

This project is a discussion forum inspired by platforms like Stack Overflow. Users can create topics, participate in discussions, and exchange messages related to specific topics. The forum allows for user registration, authentication, and topic management. It is built using PHP and follows an MVC architecture, with Bootstrap and Bootswatch for styles and responsive design.

Key Features:

User registration and authentication
Topic creation and management
Messaging system for discussions
Responsive design for mobile and desktop users

Technologies Used:

PHP
MVC architecture
Bootstrap
Bootswatch

User Benefits: The forum provides a platform for users to engage in meaningful discussions, seek help, and share knowledge within specific topic areas. It encourages collaboration and learning among its community members.

Demo: Check out the live demo here.

Development planning

Core

Extra

Dependancies

vlucas/phpdotenv library for environment variable management (To install with composer)

Installation

Guide for local install

Install XAMPP
Clone the project within htdocs/
Create the database from phpforum.sql. Set it up with your own credentatials.
Ensure the web server user, normally daemon, has the permission of read & write for the folders:
- public/upload . This is important for the profil picture upload feature.
- error_log . This is important for errors log.
You can follow those steps:
- Identify the webserver user: Use PHP to identify the web server user by using the posix_getpwuid function:
```
<?php
$uid = posix_geteuid();
$info = posix_getpwuid($uid);
echo "Web server user: " . $info['name'];
?>
```
- Create a New Group: First, create a new group that both you and the daemon belong to. You can create a group using the groupadd command, for example:
```
sudo groupadd phpforum
```
- Add Users to the Group: Add both your user and the daemon user to the newly created group:
```
sudo usermod -aG phpforum your_user_name
sudo usermod -aG phpforum daemon
```
- Change Group Ownership: Change the group ownership of the upload directory to the new group (mygroup):
```
sudo chown :phpforum public # maybe not necessary
sudo chown :phpforum public/upload
sudo chown -R :phpforum error_log
```
Ensure VirtualHosts are enabled in Apache
- Open the httpd.conf file, which is typically located in /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf.
- Search for the line that includes the httpd-vhosts.conf file. It should look something like this:
```
Include etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
```
- If the line is commented out (i.e., it starts with a #), remove the # to enable it.
  - Save the httpd.conf file.

Check Your VirtualHost Configuration

Open your httpd-vhosts.conf file, which is typically located in /opt/lampp/etc/extra/.

Make sure you have a VirtualHost block for your phpforum project and that the DocumentRoot and Directory directives point to the public directory of your project. It should look something like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName phpforum
    DocumentRoot "/opt/lampp/htdocs/phpforum/public"
    <Directory "/opt/lampp/htdocs/phpforum/public">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

To be able to continue accessing regular websites via http://localhost (i.e. accessing your websites via /opt/lampp/htdocs/) , you should also add those lines:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/opt/lampp/htdocs"
    ServerName localhost
    <Directory "/opt/lampp/htdocs">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Check Your Hosts File
- Open your hosts file, which is typically located at /etc/hosts.
- Make sure you have a line that maps the phpforum domain name to your local IP address. It should look like this:
```
127.0.0.1    phpforum
```
  NB: if you are already running xampp for some reason, restart it to make the changes effective after the latter step. You can do it by running /opt/lampp/lampp restart.
VERY IMPORTANT: An admin user is set up by default. For security reason, you should update the password immediately after launching the website. The default credential are:
```
email:admin
password:admin
```

Usage

Website launching

If you cloned the project on your local machine, ensure you followed the install steps
Ensure you have xampp running. You can start the process with /opt/lampp/lampp start
go to http://phpforum in your browser
you can also access the website on live demo throught the following link: link to demo

Navigation

when you arrive on the homepage, you can view every topics created in the default forum
the navbar contains a link to the home page and the website logo. Login/logout - sign up button are included in the navbar on the right hand side. When the user is logged, a profile link is shown besides the home page link.
you can also view links to every created forums between the navbar and the list of topics. Not all links are viewable at first sight. You may have to click on a drop down to display every links

Topics creation and messages

To create a topic, you need to be connected. You will see just above the list of created topics a "create" button. Clicking on that button will lead you to topic creation page
To send a messsage related to a topic, you also need to be connected. Just access a topic, write a message in the text area and send it by clicking on the button.

Forum creation

Anybody can create its own forum, as long as it is registered. The website can host up to 20 supplementary forums, for 24h starting the creation time.
To create a forum, you need to be connected. A button 'Create a forum' will be on display within the "others forum" area.
Once you click on the button, you will be redirected to a creation page, where you can choose the forum name.
During the creation, you can asked to make this new forum the default forum when you login

User registration and authentication

Registration is done by clicking on the button 'signup', leading to a form. To register, the user needs to provide an email and a password. The use can also provide a profile picture.
authentication is done by clicking on the button 'login'. Email and password are asked.

User profil

When the user is logged, a profile link is besided the home page link. When clicking it, it accesses to the the profile management. The use can view
- Its profile picture
- Its name, surename and pseudo
- A list of created topics
- A list of created forums. A tag default is along the default forum
At the bottom, there is a 'change' button to proceed to some changes. When clicking on the button, a special for changes is loaded. Here are the possible changes:
- delete a created topics (delete button along the name)
- change default forum (radio button on the names with default in green. When a button is cheked, it is blue with a check symbol inside)
- delete a forum (delete button along the name)

Topics, messages and forum deletion

Topics: a button bellow the topic enable the creator of it to delete it. Topics can also be deleted via the list of topics created on the user profile. Confirmation before deletion.
~~Messages: a button bellow the message enable its author to delete it. No confirmation before deletion.~~
Forums: a small trash button along the forum name in the list of created forum enables the creator to delete its forum. Confirmation before deletion.

Screenshots

Desktop

main

Home (disconnected)
Home (connected)
Topic discussion (disconnected)
Topic discussion (connected)
Connection
Registration
User settings
GIF Topic creation
GIF Topic deletion
GIF Reveal other forums
GIF Forum creation
GIF change default forum

optional

Mobile

main

Home (disconnected)
Home (connected)
Topic discussion (disconnected)
Topic discussion (connected)
Connection
Registration
User settings
GIF Topic creation
GIF Topic deletion
GIF Reveal other forums
GIF Forum creation
GIF change default forum

optional

Security Measures

Protection against:
- SQL injection
- CSS attacks
Password hashing

Error handling

Form edgecases: ...
Fatal error: ...
Non-fatal error:
- disturbing the display:
- non-disturbing the display:
PDO exceptions:

Technologies Used

PHP
Bootstrap
Bootswatch themes
SQL

Code Organization

base

The code adopt an Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. The main folders are:

config/: contains the configuration of the web app: database, routes, app name, etc.
public/: contains index.php, the main files of the project. This is by this file that the webpage is generated in the browser. The folder also contains the error 404 page and a folder containing uploaded files
src/: contains the controllers and the models (respectivelly in src/controllers and src/models/). Models are interfaces between the database and the app. Controllers are functions triggered by the web app which perform actions like page loading, database requests, etc.
views/: contains the views of the web app. Views are the webpages of the websites. There are organized within subfolders by common themes / purposes. For example, user related pages, connection related pages, etc.
- All webpages are structured like so : header - main - footer. The main can vary throughout pages, yet pages have (almost) the same header and footer. Therefore, to follow the DRY principle, the header and footer are coded in separate files within views/_partials/ and included with PHP following the structure stated above.

This code structure is directly taken from a course I followed at Doranco on PHP. I then made adjustment to the project requirements if it was necessary.

Additions

.env file at the root of the project containing sensitive information like database credentials. The environment are loaded thanks to vlucas/phpdotenv library.
error_log/ folder at the root of the project containing errors log.

Database architecture

The database contains 5 tables:

user: stores information about the users of the forum, such as their nickname, email address, password and profile picture.
forum: stores information about the forums in the forum, such as their name, creator (user id) and creation date.
default_forum: stores information about the default forums (forum id) of each users (user id). The forum id can be NULL, indicating that the user has the original forum as default one.
topic: stores information about the topics in the forum, such as their title, the creator (user id), the forum (forum id) and creation date.
message: stores information about the messages in the forum, such as their content, their author (user id), the related topic (topic id) and the creation date.

Relationships between tables are as follows:

The user table has a one-to-many relationship with:
- the topic table: this means that each user can create many topics, but each topic can only be created by one user.
- the message table: analog explanations as above.
- the forum table: analog explanations as above.
the default_forum table has:
- a one-to-one relationship with the user table. This means that each user has a corresponding and unique entry in the default_forum table.
- a one-to-many relationship with the forum table. This means that each forum can be set as default for many users, but each users can only have one forum set as default.
The forum table has a one-to-many relationship with the topic table: this means that each forum can have many topics, but each topic can only belong to one forum.
The topic table has a one-to-many relationship with the message table: this means that each topic can have many messages, but each message can only belong to one topic.

Routes structure

Here are the main routes:

phpforum/ is the root of the website. This route serves the default forum as homepage. Further information: it displays a list of all the topics in the current forum, ordered by the most recent creation date. A list of all accessible forums is also displayed, above the topic list. When a forum ID is passed as a parameter, this refer to the default forum of the connected user. The adequate forum is then displayed.
phpforum/chat/route displays the messages for a specific topic. The topic ID is passed to this route as a parameter.
phpforum/user/profil route displays the user information, such as the topics it created, the forum it created, its default forum, etc. The user ID is passed to this route as a parameter.
phpforum/user/setting route displays the user profile setting version. The page becomes a form.
phpforum/topic/add route is the topic creation page.
phpforum/topic/delete route deletes a topic. The topic ID is passed to this route as a parameter.
phpforum/add route is the forum creation page.
phpforum/delete route deletes a topic. The forum ID is passed to this route as a parameter.
phpforum/name_of_a_forum/ route displays the homepage of a hosted forum. The route logic is the same as the original forum, except for name_of_a_forum which adds in between.

Deployment

With a webhost

/!\ NB #1: the .env file MUST NOT be accessible to the public. It contains sensitive information like database credentials.
/!\ NB #2: the public/upload folder MUST BE be accessible to web server user with read & write rights. Otherwise, the profil picture upload won't work.
Send the files with filezilla for example
Integration
- Incorporate it to an existing domain:
- Dedicated domain:

Live version

Live version of the website is available here.

Demo

Here is live demo of the project: live demo.

Challenges and Solutions

Future Enhancements

add pagination for topics display and messages as well
Refactor the project with symphony or laravel

Feedback and Impact

About

A simple discussion forum coded with PHP

Languages

Language:PHP 97.3%Language:JavaScript 1.5%Language:CSS 1.2%