AstonCV

AstonCV is a full-stack CV database website, built as a portfolio project at Aston University. Anyone can browse and search student CVs publicly, register an account, manage their own CV once logged in and download any CV as a professionally formatted PDF.

It is written in plain PHP 8.2 and MySQL with no framework, and it is deployed on the Aston University internal hosting server. PDF generation runs server-side with the mPDF library, installed via Composer. A custom domain redirect is configured through Cloudflare, so the site is reachable at both the Aston URL and the short link.

The UI uses Aston University purple throughout, with Space Grotesk and DM Sans fonts from Google Fonts, real campus photography across all pages and animations including scroll reveal on cards, an animated stats counter bar, a CSS marquee strip and a preloader.

Live site

• Custom link: astoncv.zacess.com (redirects via Cloudflare)
• Full Aston URL: 240191278.cs2410-web01pvm.aston.ac.uk

Both links point to the same live site.

Features

Public

• Browse all CVs as cards in a responsive grid with initials avatars
• Search CVs by name or key programming language
• Filter CVs live by programming language with no page reload
• Sort CVs A to Z, Z to A or by most viewed with no page reload
• View full CV details styled as a real CV document with a sidebar
• Download any CV as a PDF through server-side mPDF generation
• Register a new account with a password strength checker
• Submit a contact form enquiry

Registered users

• Log in with CSRF protection and brute force lockout
• Stay signed in with a 30-day Remember Me cookie
• View a personal dashboard with CV preview, completeness score and view stats
• Update CV details, profile picture and password
• Upload a profile picture (JPG, PNG, GIF or WEBP, up to 2MB)
• See an owner-only edit button on the CV detail page

UI and design

• Aston University purple (#5c2d82) throughout
• Space Grotesk headings and DM Sans body text via the Google Fonts CDN
• Campus photography on every page: hero, login, register, update and dashboard
• Full-width campus hero with a purple gradient overlay on the homepage
• Animated stats bar with counting numbers
• CSS marquee strip below the hero
• Scroll reveal animations on CV cards using IntersectionObserver
• Preloader on first page load
• Sticky dark navbar with a scroll blur effect
• Fully responsive and mobile friendly

Security

Security controls built into the project include:

• XSS prevention with htmlspecialchars() on all output
• SQL injection prevention with PDO prepared statements on all queries
• Password hashing with password_hash() and verification with password_verify()
• Session authentication checked on every protected page
• Authorisation so a user can only edit their own CV
• Server-side validation on all form fields before any database write
• CSRF token validation on every POST form submission
• Brute-force protection: accounts lock for 15 minutes after 5 failed login attempts
• File upload validation with a type whitelist and a 2MB size limit
• A honeypot field on the contact form to block spam bots

See SECURITY.md for the full policy and how to report a vulnerability.

Tech stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	PHP 8.2, no framework
Database	MySQL
Frontend	HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript
PDF generation	mPDF v8.2 via Composer
Fonts	Space Grotesk and DM Sans via Google Fonts
Local dev	XAMPP (Apache and MySQL)
Deployment	Aston University internal server (Apache)
Custom domain	Cloudflare CNAME and page rule redirect
CI	GitHub Actions PHP syntax check
Version control	Git and GitHub

Languages and tools

PHP 8.2	MySQL	HTML5	CSS3	JavaScript

Git	GitHub	Composer	Apache	XAMPP

File structure

File	Purpose
index.php	Homepage: browse, search, filter and sort all CVs
cv.php	Full CV detail page with download PDF and print buttons
register.php	New user registration with a password strength checker
login.php	Login with CSRF protection and brute force lockout
update.php	Update CV details, profile picture and password
dashboard.php	Personal dashboard shown after login
logout.php	Destroys the session and redirects to the homepage
export_cv.php	Generates and downloads a CV as a PDF using mPDF
contact_handler.php	Processes the contact form with honeypot bot protection
db.php	Shared PDO database connection with try/catch
config.php	Database credentials, gitignored and never in the repo
config.example.php	Placeholder credentials safe for GitHub
style.css	Full custom stylesheet: Space Grotesk, Aston purple
images/	Campus photography used across all pages
uploads/	User profile picture storage, gitignored
composer.json	mPDF dependency declaration
vendor/	mPDF library, gitignored, installed via Composer

Local setup

1. Clone the repo into C:\xampp\htdocs\astoncv
2. Copy config.example.php to config.php and fill in local database credentials
3. Create the MySQL database and set up the schema
4. Run composer install to install mPDF
5. Start Apache and MySQL in XAMPP
6. Visit http://localhost/astoncv

Important

The database schema is not in this repo. Contact the maintainer for the schema file before step 3, or setup will not get past creating the database.

config.php and vendor/ are gitignored, so real credentials and the mPDF library never end up in this repo.

About and contact

Built by Isaac Adjei, studying BEng Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Aston University. Find more at isaacadjei.me or LinkedIn.

For questions or bugs, open an issue in this repository. Direct contact is available at contact@isaacadjei.me or through the website contact page.

See NOTICE.md for licensing details on the campus photography and LICENSE for the MIT licence covering the project code.