Booklog - A Book Review Application

This project is a web-based application for managing and reviewing books. It allows users to add, view, edit, and delete book entries, with features for sorting and displaying book details.

Description

This application serves as a personal book management system where users can keep track of books they've read, including details like title, author, ISBN, rating, and personal notes. It's built to demonstrate full-stack web development concepts using Node.js, Express.js, EJS for templating, and PostgreSQL as the database.

Features

• View Books: Browse a list of all books, sorted by title or rating.
• Detailed Book View: See comprehensive details for each book, including cover image (fetched from OpenLibrary.org based on ISBN), author, rating, date read, and personal notes.
• Add New Books: Add new book entries with title, author, ISBN, rating, date read, and a description. (Requires an admin password).
• Edit Book Details: Update the description of existing book entries. (Requires an admin password).
• Delete Books: Remove book entries from the database. (Requires an admin password).
• Responsive Design: Basic styling for different screen sizes.

Technologies Used

• Node.js: JavaScript runtime environment.
• Express.js: Fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js, used for building the API and handling routes.
• EJS (Embedded JavaScript): Templating engine used for rendering dynamic HTML pages on the server-side.
• PostgreSQL (PG): Powerful open-source relational database system, used for storing book data.
• Axios: Promise-based HTTP client for making requests to external APIs (e.g., OpenLibrary for book covers).
• Body-parser: Node.js middleware for parsing incoming request bodies.
• Dotenv: Module to load environment variables from a .env file, crucial for secure configuration.
• HTML5: For structuring the web pages.
• CSS3: For styling the application.
• Vercel: Platform for static sites and Serverless Functions, configured for deployment via vercel.json.

Installation and Usage

To get this project up and running on your local machine, follow these steps:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Shikhar1504/booklog

2. Navigate to the project directory:

   cd booklog

3. Install dependencies:

   npm install

4. Environment Variables: Create a .env file in the root directory of the project and add the following environment variables. Replace the placeholder values with your actual credentials:

   POSTGRES_URL="your_postgres_connection_string"
   PASSWORD="your_application_password"
   

5. Database Setup: Ensure you have a PostgreSQL database set up. You will need to create a table named book with appropriate columns (e.g., id, title, author, isbn, rating, days, description). The index.js file interacts with this table.

6. Start the application:

   npm start

   The application should now be running, likely accessible via http://localhost:3000 (or another port if configured).

File Structure

./
├── public/             # Static assets (CSS, SVG images)
│   ├── assets/
│   │   ├── github.svg
│   │   ├── favicon.svg
│   │   ├── instagram.svg
│   │   └── linkedin.svg
│   └── styles/
│       └── style.css
├── views/              # EJS template files for different pages
│   ├── partials/
│   │   ├── footer.ejs
│   │   └── header.ejs
│   ├── about.ejs
│   ├── addBook.ejs
│   ├── edit.ejs
│   ├── index.ejs
│   ├── remove.ejs
│   └── view.ejs
├── .gitignore          # Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
├── index.js            # Main application entry point, handles routes and database logic
├── package.json        # Project metadata, scripts, and dependencies
├── package-lock.json   # Records the exact dependency tree
└── vercel.json         # Vercel deployment configuration

Author

Shikhar

License

This project is licensed under the ISC License.