natureal

This project was developed during the CodeSpring hackathon that took place at ISEP on April 12, 13 and 14, 2024 and was awarded 1st place.

NatuReal is a bird watching webapp with daily challenges, friends, leaderboard, publication feed and more.

Stack

• PHP 8+, MySQL/MariaDB
• Composer packages: phpmailer/phpmailer, firebase/php-jwt
• Frontend: Tailwind CSS + DaisyUI, jQuery

Getting started

1. Install dependencies
   • PHP extensions for mysqli and OpenSSL enabled.
   • Run composer install.
   • Run npm install.
2. Configure the app
   • Copy src/include/config.inc.php and fill in servername, username, password, dbname, and the public URL that serves /src.
   • Update email credentials if you plan to send mail through PHPMailer. Do not commit real credentials.
3. Database
   • Import natureal.sql into your MySQL/MariaDB instance. This seeds the core tables.
4. Build CSS
   • npx tailwindcss -i input.css -o src/output.css --watch (or add --minify for a one-off build).
5. Run locally
   • Point your web server/XAMPP document root at the repository root so /index.php can redirect to /src.
   • Alternatively: php -S localhost:8000 -t src (adjust url_site in the config to match).

Repository layout

• src/ – PHP pages, components, and feature handlers (auth, posts, friends, challenges).
• public/ – public user-uploaded files (e.g., users_pfp).
• imgs/ – static assets used by the UI.
• natureal.sql – database schema and seed data.
• input.css / tailwind.config.js – Tailwind entrypoint and config.

Notes

• Secrets currently live in src/include/config.inc.php and src/include/email.inc.php; keep them out of version control in production.
• The app assumes sessions are enabled and writable (check PHP session.save_path).
• File uploads arrive in src/uploads/ and are referenced directly in the feed and friends views.