Unload Blog App

A blogging web application

Web Link | Figma Link

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Introduction

Unload is an online blogging platform where writers can create a blog. Others can read a writer's blogpost and leave comments. Anyone can be a writer on the platform by creating an account.

Technologies Used

Unload is built on Flask, a Python microframework. The live app is deployed on Heroku, and Postgres is used to manage its database.

Installation (Ubuntu)

You can run the app using a local server on your computer. You will need Git to clone the app from this repo. Since Unload also uses Python 3 and Postresql, you will need to install them on your machine.

$ sudo apt install git python3 postgresql

You can now clone the repository on your computer. Navigate into the new directory after the clone is complete.

$ git clone https://github.com/thevictormaina/blog.git
$ cd blog-app

As mentioned before, Unload runs on Flask and other Python modules. To install all the dependencies, you will need to create a virtual environment and activate it.

$ python3.6 -m venv virtual
$ source virtual/bin/activate

Note: Be sure to use your own preferred version of Python. You can confirm by running $ python3 --version on your terminal.

Next, install the dependencies from the requirements.txt file.

$ python3.6 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Unload also makes use of a database, so you will need to create one using Postgres. You can find instrustions for creating a Postgresql user and password here.

Enter Postgresql on your terminal using $ psql, then do

username=# CREATE DATABASE blog_app;
username=# \q

To be able to send emails to users, the app will access to an email address. For simplicity's sake, a dummy Google account and password have already been created. The app looks for exported environment variables to run. To enable this in development mode, create a .env file in the root of the directory and add all the required environment variables. To enable this in production, follow your operating system's instructions for creating environment variables.

Unload uses SQLAlchemy to make managing the database directly from the app easier. To update your database to work with this app's models, run the following on your terminal.

$ python3.6 run.py db upgrade

Running locally

Run the application.

$ python3.6 run.py server

As long as the server is running, you can open it in the browser using this link.

Environment Variables

Environment Variable	Value
SECRET_KEY	String
DB_USERNAME	String
DB_PASSWORD	String
DB_NAME	String
DB_HOST	String
APPLICATION_DEBUG	Boolean
DATABASE_URL	String
MAIL_SERVER	String
MAIL_PORT	Integer
MAIL_USE_TLS	Boolean
MAIL_USERNAME	String
MAIL_PASSWORD	String
APPLICATION_MODE	"development" or "production"

Known bugs

At the moment, writers can't delete blogposts or comments.

LICENSE