SOStudent

A student discussion board created in PHP using CI4 framework.

This app was created during INFS3202 - Web Information Systems course at UQ during 2023 Semester 1 - (February 2023 - June 2023). This project was developed in one month under a deep schedule (see ProjectProposal.pdf)

You can find a deployed version here: UQCloud Deployment has been terminated.

• Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap
• Backend: PHP, CodeIgniter 4
• Database: MySQL

Many libraries were used, these include:

• Bootstrap
• JQuery
• JQuery UI
• Dropzone.js
• Imagick
• Google reCAPTCHA

Installation (Local)

1. Clone the repository
2. Download and install XAMPP
3. Start Apache and MySQL in XAMPP
4. Open phpMyAdmin and import the database file user_data.sql, ensure database is called user_data.
5. Fix index/Config/App.php to "localhost:8080":
6. Fix index/Config/Database.php to match your local database
7. Open the project folder in your IDE and run php spark serve in the terminal
8. Open localhost:8080 in your browser

Deploying to UQCloud

1. Clone the repository
2. Save the index folder in var/www/htdocs in your UQCloud account.
3. Open phpMyAdmin and import the database file user_data.sql, ensure database is called user_data.
4. Fix index/Config/App.php to match your UQCloud account
5. Fix index/Config/Database.php to match your local database
6. Accessing https://infs3202-########.uqcloud.net/index should now show the website

You may rename the domain by changing the index folder name to your desired domain name. Then, you must change the index/Config/App.php to match the new domain name.

Basic Features

• Remember me: Users can choose to be remembered for 30 days
• User profile updating: Users can update their profile information
• Web security: Passwords are hashed and salted
• Questions: Author can post and delete questions
• Favourites: Users can favourite questions
• Basic file upload: Users can upload files to questions
• Add comments: Users can add comments to questions
• Image processing: Images are resized and compressed before being uploaded (Imagick)
• Authorisation: Redirect to login page if not logged in and back to previous page after login
• Drag and drop: Users can drag and drop files to upload (Dropzone.js)
• Multiple file upload: Users can upload multiple files at once (Dropzone.js)
• Web Security: recaptcha v2 is used to prevent bots from spamming (Google)
• Search box autocomplete: Users can search for questions (JQuery UI)
• Sophisticated UI Design: The website is responsive and looks good on all devices (Bootstrap)

Intermediate Features

• Email Verification: Users must verify their email before they can login
• Password Reset: Users can reset their password if they forget it
• Bookmark Questions: Users can bookmark questions
• Search: Users can search for questions (JQuery)

Advanced Features

• Recommendation System: Users are recommended questions based on their interests and previous questions they have viewed. (Self-developed algorithm)