Video Sharing Website

A simple video sharing website, based on Material design, built with React, React-Router v4, Node.js and Express.js

Table of Contents

• Setup
  • Package Manager
  • Front End Libraries
  • Frameworks
  • Routing
  • Database
  • Search
  • Environment Variables
  • Security
• React Components
• Style Guides
  • ESLint Configuration
  • MySQL Style Guide
  • Documentation Guide
• Directory Structure

Setup

Package Manager

Yarn is the package manager of choice. To use this repository, run yarn to install all required packages.

Front End Libraries

The code uses jQuery and Materialize CSS.

Frameworks

React is used for building the front end. The project is configured with Babel and Webpack for transpiling code to vanilla JS.

Express is the web server used in the back end, which uses Node.js.

Routing

React-Router v4's HashRouter is used for client-side routing. The server doesn't handle dynamic requests, and only implements the API request handling.

Database

MariaDB (MySQL) is used as the database. Creating_DB.sql is initially run to set up the database. All database queries are separated into db.js. The server uses this to perform queries and get results.

Search

ElasticSearch is used for search functionality. The search.js file provides an abstraction to all searching functions, like indexing new documents, searching, and deleting indices.

Environment Variables

The .env file should contain the following variables:

• SESSION_SECRET: Ideally a random string, used by JWTs for session management.
• DB_USER: The username of the database user.
• DB_PWD: The database password.
• DB_HOST: The hostname of the database.

Security

Node Security Platform (NSP) is used to check for vulnerabilities in the package dependencies. Helmet.js is used to prevent XSS attacks.

React Components

The React components used are below:

• App: The home page component.
• Navbar: The navbar at the top of the site
• Sidebar: The sidebar shown in the homepage
• ThumbnailRow: A row shown in the home page, with a set of related thumbnails. These could be grouped in various ways--by some channel the user subscribes to, most recently uploaded, etc.
• RoutesSwitch: The top-level component rendered.
• Login: The login page component
• Register: The register page component
• Upload: The page where the user uploads a video to the server
• VideoSelectCard: A card shown in the upload page to select a video file
• VideoUploadCard: A card shown in the upload page after a file is selected
• Feedback: The feedback form page, including the navbar
• Trending: The page showing the trending videos
• TrendingVideo: A row showing details of one video in the trending page.
• PublicProfile: The publicly visible profile page for a user.
• SearchResults: The search results page.
• SettingsPage: The personal profile page of a user where he can change his DP/background, delete videos.
• ConfirmDelete: The page where the user confirms deletion of his account.
• WatchPage: The page where the user can watch, rate, and comment on a video.
• Comments: All comments and replies for a video.
• Doge: Find out ;)
• NewLogin: A more modern login experience. Uses a background video taken from Vimeo's Project Yosemite.

Style Guides

ESLint Configuration

ESLint is configured for the following rules:

• Double quotes preferred over single quotes
• Indents are 4 spaces
• Line breaks are LF
• Semicolons are a must
• Console statements are warnings

MySQL Style Guide

The style guide at this link is used and followed in this project.

Documentation Guide

Functionality that is abstracted, such as in search.js, should have JSDoc comments for each function. Any React components used must be added in the React Components section above. Block-level comments are preferred, but not required if the code is trivial. For non-trivial logic, comments should be added briefly describing the working of the code.

Directory Structure

All videos are uploaded to the videos folder. The database simply stores the paths to these videos and thumbnail images. As of now, the directory structure used is videos/<username>/<video_title>/<files>, where the files include the video file and the thumbnail image.

All profile pictures are stored in the users folder. The database stores the paths to these image files, which are served statically. The directory structure is users/<username>/<image file>.