Violet Avenue Gardeners

Built: Fall 2024

A Node.js + Express web app with user accounts, sessions, profile preferences (ZIP), and weather lookup via the VisualCrossing API. Uses an MVC-style structure and MongoDB for persistence.

Tech Stack

• Node.js, Express
• MongoDB + Mongoose
• EJS templates
• bcryptjs (password hashing)
• express-session (sessions)
• node-fetch (API requests)

Features

• User registration + login (bcryptjs password hashing)
• Session-based authentication
• Profile management (including ZIP code preference)
• Weather data fetching by ZIP code (VisualCrossing)
• Static assets served from the client public folder

Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js (LTS recommended)
• MongoDB Community Server running locally

1) Install dependencies

From the project root:

npm install

2) Configure environment variables

Create a .env file in the project root (do not commit this file). Start by copying the example:

cp .env.example .env

Then fill in the values in .env.

3) Start MongoDB

How you start MongoDB depends on your OS:

macOS (Homebrew):

brew services start mongodb-community

Linux (systemd):

sudo systemctl start mongod

Windows: Start the “MongoDB Server” service, or run mongod if you installed it manually.

4) Run the server

node Server/index.js

Then open:

http://localhost:3000

Environment Variables

This project expects the following variables (see .env.example):

• PORT -> Server port (default 3000)
• MONGODB_URI -> MongoDB connection string
• SESSION_SECRET -> Secret used to sign sessions
• VISUALCROSSING_API_KEY -> VisualCrossing API key
• DEFAULT_ZIP -> Optional default ZIP used by the app
• NODE_ENV -> Runtime mode (development/production)

File Structure

Project Root
│── Server
│   ├── controllers
│   │   ├── mainController.js
│   │   ├── accountController.js
│   ├── models
│   │   ├── Account.js
│   │   ├── APIData.js
│   │   ├── Account.js
│   ├── index.js
│── Client
│   ├── views (EJS templates)
│   ├── public (CSS, JS, images)

Known Issues / Limitations

I’m aware of the following issues:

• Login page CSS is not applying correctly.

• Production security hardening is incomplete: This project is not production-hardened (limited input validation, no CSRF protection, no rate limiting, and session cookie settings are basic).

• Asset licensing/attribution may be incomplete: Image assets were obtained from free-use sites, but licensing/attribution is not fully documented.

Usage / Permission

This repository is public for portfolio viewing.
Reuse, redistribution, or submission of this code for academic work is not permitted without explicit permission.