Collaboration-Platform

1. Introduction

The main objective of this platform is to offer the users an opportunity to describe their perspective on a subject while seeking inspiration from the community of active writers. The goal is to provide an open-source platform to share ideas while keeping your own documents.

2. Application

2.1 Design and file Structure

The application is divided into three distinct services that run seperatly but requires eachother to function. Here are the services:

• Angular Client: The Angular application generates the website that the collaboraters uses to interact with the platform.
• Node.js Server: The Node.js application is used to run the server where the Angular client communicates with to request data from the database.
• MySQL DB: The MySQL database holds most of the data used by the application.

3. Basic Installation

The basic approach of launching the application requires that each individual services be run with their respective commands.

3.1 Installing the necessary software:

Install the following software:

• Node.js
• MySQL

3.2 Clone this repository:

Use the following command to clone the collaboration platform locally to your computer.

git clone https://github.com/Nicolas-Rheaume/collaboration-platform.git

3.3 Configuring the MySQL database:

During the MySQL installation, use these following configuration values:

• database_host: '127.0.0.1',
• database_user: 'root',
• database_password: 'password',
• database_name: 'collab-db-dev-1.0',

If the MySQL Database refuses your privileges, execute:

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password'

flush privileges;

3.4 Initializing the Node.js server:

Travel to the ./server folder and use the following command to install all of its dependencies.

npm install

For ease of use, install nodemon which will restart the process if there's a change or if it crashes.

npm install -g nodemon

Run the Node.js services by using the following command.

nodemon

3.5 Initializing the Angular Client:

On the ./client folder, use the following command to install all of Angular's dependencies.

npm install

Run the Angular app using the following command.

ng serve --host 0.0.0.0

4. Docker and docker-compose Installation

This is the recommended method of installing and running the application for testing or trial purposes.

4.1 Install Docker and Docker Desktop

The first step is to download Docker Desktop for your respective OS. It will provide all the necessary tools to start containerizing your applications.

4.2 Clone the repository

Use the following command to clone the collaboration platform locally to your computer.

git clone https://github.com/Nicolas-Rheaume/collaboration-platform.git

4.2 Modifying the configuration files

There are a few parameters that need to be changed for the application to work. Locate the ./.env file containing the following parameters that need to change accordingly.

• IP_ADDRESS: The value of the IP address is your machine's IPv4 Address of the Ethernet adapter. ex: 192.168.0.1. This needs to be change appropriatly otherwise the app won't work.
• CLIENT_PORT, SERVER_PORT, DB_PORT: The port values can be anything as long as they are not already in use. You can set the client to port 80 which is the standard HTML port.
• DB_DATABASE: This is the MySQL database name. Choose any name you want.
• DB_USER: This is the name of the MySQL username. Choose "root".
• DB_ROOT_PASSWORD: This is the root password of the MySQL instance. Choose any password you want.
• DB_PASSWORD: This is the user's password of the MySQL instance. Choose any password you want.

The next file to change is the ./client/angular-env.ts.

• host_ip_address: Change this value to your IPv4 address, same as before.
• server_port: This has to be the same port of the SERVER_PORT in the previous file. Otherwise, the Angular app won't be able to communicate with the Node.js server.

4.3 Launch the App

To launch the Collaboration Platform, while in the ./ with the docker-compose.yml file, use the command below to have Docker download and initialize all 3 services.

docker-compose up

To stop the application, use the command below.

docker-compose down

To delete the docker container of the collaboration platform, use the command below.

docker rmi $(docker images -q) -f

If changes are made to the code while developping or otherwise, you must completly remove the docker container by using docker-compose down then, docker rmi $(docker images -q) -f. Reload the container by using docker-compose up and any modification made to the code should be reflected.