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README.md
Assessment 2 - Vanilla JS: LurkForWork (DRAFT)
1. Background & Motivation
2. The Task
3. Getting Started
4. Constraints & Assumptions
5. Marking Criteria
6. Originality of Work
7. Submission
8. Late Submission Policy
0. Change Log
5th March: Due date extended to 8pm on Monday (a 10 hour extension)
5th March: Some backend vars updated to match docs + a better default DB when running npm run reset
6th March: /job/like correctly documented as PUT instead of POST . Some minor updates to backend doc to be consistent (see the
commit); 2.4.3. missing line about image; job/feed pagination added correctly
7th March: Removed 2nd sentence of 2.5.2 as it does not apply.
9th March: 2.4.1 Updates: updated from "watches" to "is watched by" to make it far simpler. If you tried to implement the previous
description (much harder) we will still award the marks. Also added job's to a GET /user .
10th March: Added extra non-required information to GET /user jobs for people wanting to make app nicer; GET job/feed now returns
jobs sorted by createdAt date
12th March: Removed the "optional" part of fields for the job to avoid confusion; 2.4.1 updated to say "shows total number of users they are
watched by" instead of "they watch". This makes it much easier. More info here
1. Background & Motivation
Web-based applications are becoming the most common way to build a digital capability accessible to a mass audience. While there are modern
tools that help us build these rapidly, it's important to understand the fundamental JavaScript-based technology and architectures that exist,
both to gain a deeper understanding for when these skills may be needed, but also to simply understand the mechanics of fundamental JS. Even
when working with a high level framework like ReactJS, understanding (in-concept) the code that it is transpiled to will ensure you're a more well
rounded web-based engineer.
This assignment consists of building a frontend website in Vanilla JS (no ReactJS or other frameworks). This frontend will interact with a RESTful
API HTTP backend that is built in JavaScript (NodeJS express server) and provided to you.
A theoretical background on how to interface with this API can be found the "promises & fetch" lecture.
backend
frontend
.gitignore
README.md
bonus.md
progress.csv
usability.md
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The web-based application you build is required to be a single page app (SPA). Single page apps give websites an "app-like feeling", and are
characterised by their use of a single full load of an initial HTML page, and then using AJAX/fetch to dynamically manipulate the DOM without
ever requiring a full page reload. In this way, SPAs are generated, rendered, and updated using JavaScript. Because SPAs don’t require a user to
navigate away from a page to do anything, they retain a degree of user and application state. In short, this means you will only ever have
index.html as your HTML page, and that any sense of "moving between pages" will just be modifications of the DOM.
2. The Task (Frontend)
Your task is to build a frontend for a UNSW rip-off version of the popular professional social networking tool LinkedIn. If you haven't used this
application before, we would recommend creating your own LinkedIn profile - it's probably good for your career anyway!
UNSW's rip-off of LinkedIn is called "LurkForWork". However, you don't have to build the entire application. You only have to build the frontend.
The backend is already built for you as an express server built in NodeJS (see section 3.2).
Instead of providing visuals of what the frontend (your task) should look like, we instead are providing you with a number of clear and short
requirements about expected features and behaviours.
The requirements describe a series of screens. Screens can be popups/modals, or entire pages. The use of that language is so that you can
choose how you want it to be displayed. A screen is essentially a certain state of your web-based application.
2.1. Milestone 1 - Registration & Login (10%)
This focuses on the basic user interface to register and log in to the site.
2.1.1. Login
When the user isn't logged in, the site shall present a login form that contains:
an email field (text)
a password field (password)
submit button to login
When the submit button is pressed, the form data should be sent to POST /auth/login to verify the credentials. If there is an error during
login an appropriate error should appear on the screen.
2.1.2. Registration
When the user isn't logged in, the login form shall provide a link/button that opens the register form. The register form will contain:
an email field (text)
a name field (text)
a password field (password)
a confirm password field (password) - not passed to the backend, but an error should be thrown on submit if it doesn't match the other
password
submit button to register
When the submit button is pressed, if the two passwords don't match the user should receive an error popup. If they do match, the form
data should be sent to POST /auth/register to verify the credentials. If there is an error during registration an appropriate error should
appear on the screen.
2.1.3. Error Popup
Whenever the frontend or backend produces an error, there shall be an error popup on the screen with a message (either a message
derived from the backend error response, or one meaningfully created on the frontend).
This popup can be closed/removed/deleted by pressing an "x" or "close" button.
2.2. Milestone 2 - Basic Feed (15%)
Milestone 2 focuses on fetching feed data from the API. A feed and it's associated content should only be accessible to logged in users.
2.2.1. Basic Feed
The application should present a "feed" of user content on the home page derived GET /job/feed . Note that the feed will only return
information from people that the logged in user is watching.
The jobs should be displayed in reverse chronological order (most recent jobs first).
Each job should display:
1. Who the job post was made by
2. When it was posted
If the job was posted today (in the last 24 hours), it should display how many hours and minutes ago it was posted
If the job was posted more than 24 hours ago, it should just display the date DD/MM/YYYY that it was posted
3. The job content itself. The job content includes the following:
An image to describe the job (jpg in base64 format)
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A title for the new job (just as a string)
A starting date for the job (just as a string)
How many likes it has (or none)
The job description text
How many comments the job post has
2.3. Milestone 3 - Advanced Feed (10%)
Milestone 3 focuses on a richer UX and will require some backend interaction.
2.3.1. Show likes on a job
Allow a user to see a list of all users who have liked a job. In terms of how it is displayed, consider your preferred user experience approach
out of the following 3 options:
The list of names is visible on each job in the feed by default
The list of names is visible on a job in the feed if a show/hide toggle is clicked (hidden by default).
The list of names is visible in a popup, modal, or new screen, when a button/link is clicked on the feed.
2.3.2. Show comments on a job
Allow a user to see a list of all the comments on the job. Each comment should contain at minimum the user's name and their comment. In
terms of how it is displayed, consider your preferred user experience approach out of the following 3 options:
The list of names and comments are visible on each job in the feed by default
The list of names and comments are visible on a job in the feed if a show/hide toggle is clicked (hidden by default).
The list of names and comments are visible in a popup, modal, or new screen, when a button/link is clicked on the feed.
2.3.3. Liking a job
A user can like a job on their feed and trigger a api request ( PUT /job/like )
For this milestone, it's OK if the like doesn't appear/update until the page is refreshed.
2.3.4. Feed Pagination
Users can page between sets of results in the feed using the position token with ( GET /job/feed ).
Note: You will automatically receive marks for this section if you end up implementing the infinite scroll alternative in a later milestone.
2.4. Milestone 4 - Other users & profiles (15%)
Milestone 4 focuses predominately on user profiles and how users interact with them.
2.4.1. Viewing others' profiles
Let a user click on a user's name from a job, like, or comment, and be taken to a profile screen for that user.
The profile screen should contain any information the backend provides for that particular user ID via ( GET /user ).
The profile should also display all jobs made by that person. You are not required to show likes and/or comments for each job here.
The profile should also display somewhere all other users this profile is watched by (information via GET /user ). This should consist of a list
of names (which for each name links to another profile), as well as a count somewhere on the page that shows the total number of users
they watch.
2.4.2. Viewing your own profile
Users can view their own profile as if they would any other user's profile
A link to the users profile (via text or small icon) should be visible somewhere common on most screens (at the very least on the feed
screen) when logged in.
2.4.3. Updating your profile
Users can update their own personal profile via ( PUT /user ). This allows them to update their:
Email address
Password
Name
Image
2.4.4. Watching / Unwatching
Watching on user profiles:
When a logged in user is visiting another user's profile page, a button should exist that allows them to "watch" the other user (via PUT
user/watch ).
If the logged in user already watches this person, an unwatch button should exist.
Somewhere on the feed screen a button should also exist that prompts the enter to enter an email address in a popup. When entered, the
email address is sent to PUT /user/watch to watch that particular user.
2.5. Milestone 5 - Adding & updating content (10%)
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Milestone 5 focuses on addition and removing both content and comments.
2.5.1. Adding a job
Users can upload and job new content from a modal, component, or seperate screen via ( POST /job )
How users open this component, modal, or separate screen can be found in a single or multiple places, and should be easily and clearly
accessible.
2.5.2. Updating & deleting a job
Let a user update a job they made or delete it via ( DELETE /job ) or ( PUT /job ).
2.5.3. Leaving comments
Users can write comments on "jobs" via ( POST /job/comment )
2.6. Milestone 6 - Challenge Components ( advanced ) (10%)
2.6.1. Infinite Scroll
Instead of pagination, users an infinitely scroll through results. For infinite scroll to be properly implemented you need to progressively load
jobs as you scroll.
2.6.2. Live Update
If a user likes a job or comments on a job, the job's likes and comments should update without requiring a page reload/refresh. This should
be done with some kind of polling.
Polling is very inefficient for browsers, but can often be used as it simplifies the technical needs on the server.
2.6.3. Push Notifications
Users can receive push notifications when a user they watch posts a job. To know whether someone or not has posted a job, you must "poll"
the server (i.e. intermittent requests, maybe every second, that check the state). You can implement this either via browser's built in
notification APIs or through your own custom built notifications/popups. The notifications are not required to exist outside of the webpage.
No course assistance in lectures will be provided for this component, you should do your own research as to how to implement this. There are
extensive resources online.
2.7. Milestone 7 - Very Challenge Components ( advanced *= 2 ) (5%)
2.7.1. Static feed offline access
Users can access the most recent feed they've loaded even without an internet connection.
Cache information from the latest feed in local storage in case of outages.
When the user tries to interact with the website at all in offline mode (e.g. comment, like) they should receive errors
No course assistance will be provided for this component, you should do your own research as to how to implement this.
2.7.2 Fragment based URL routing
Users can access different pages using URL fragments:
No course assistance in lectures or on the forum will be provided for this component, you should do your own research as to how to implement this.
2.8. Bonus Marks (5%)
An extra 5% of the assignment can be attained via bonus marks, meaning a maximum mark of 105/100. Any bonus marks that extend your ass2
mark above 100% will bleed into other assignment marks, but cannot contribute outside of the 75% of the course that is allocated for
assignment marks
Your bonus feature(s) can be anything. You just have to think of something that could make your web app stand out in some minor or major
way. Simple examples would include just making sure that your user interface and user experience stands out amongst other students, maybe
through some user testing.
You could also add extra features, such as some additional frontend form validations - the possibilities are limitless.
If you do implement a bonus feature, describe the feature and its details in bonus.md in the root directory of this repository.
3. Getting started
/#profile=1
/#feed
/#profile=4
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3.1. The Frontend
Stub code has been provided to help you get started in:
frontend/index.html
frontend/styles/global.css
frontend/src/helpers.js
frontend/src/main.js
You can modify or delete this stub code if you choose. It's simply here to potentially provide some help.
To work with your frontend code locally with the web server, you may have to run another web server to serve the frontend's static files.
To do this, run the following command once on your machine:
$ npm install --global http-server
Then whenever you want to start your server, run the following in your project's root folder:
$ npx http-server frontend -c 1 -p [port]
Where [port] is the port you want to run the server on (e.g. 8080 ). Any number is fine.
This will start up a second HTTP server where if you navigate to http://localhost:8000 (or whatever URL/port it provides) it will run your
index.html without any CORs issues.
3.2. The Backend
You are prohibited from modifying the backend. No work needs to be done on the backend. It's provided to you simply to power your frontend.
The backend server exists in your individual repository. After you clone this repo, you must run npm install in backend directory once.
To run the backend server, simply run npm start in the backend directory. This will start the backend.
To view the API interface for the backend you can navigate to the base URL of the backend (e.g. http://localhost:5005 ). This will list all of the
HTTP routes that you can interact with.
We have provided you with a very basic starting database. You can look in backend/database.json to see the contents.
Your backend is persistent in terms of data storage. That means the data will remain even after your express server process stops running. If you
want to reset the data in the backend to the original starting state, you can run npm run reset in the backend directory. If you want to make a
copy of the backend data (e.g. for a backup) then simply copy database.json . If you want to start with an empty database, you can run npm
run clear in the backend directory.
Once the backend has started, you can view the API documentation by navigating to http://localhost:[port] in a web browser. This API
documentation is known as Swagger documentation (the tool used to generate it). You can use this webpage as an easy way to call and interact
with the APIs. Alternatively you can make backend requests directly with an API client such as Postman/Insomnia/ARC (these apps can be found
on most web browser addon stores).
The port that the backend runs on (and that the frontend can use) is specified in frontend/src/config.js . You can change the port in this file.
This file exists so that your frontend knows what port to use when talking to the backend.
3.3. Taking the first steps
This is how we recommend you start the assignment:
1. Read the entire spec, including a thorough read of section 2 so you know what is ahead of you!
2. Try to load up the index.html on your browser with a simple "Hello world" text just to sanity check you know what page you're trying to
load.
3. Plan out your UI by thinking about all of the key screens and what information they rely on
4. Try to load up the backend and verify you've got it working by making a simple API call to /feed (which should return you an empty list)
5. Good luck!
4. Constraints & Assumptions
4.1. Javascript
You must implement this assignment in ES6-compliant Vanilla JavaScript. You cannot use ReactJS, JQuery, or other abstract frameworks. You
can not, for example, use a popular Javascript framework such as Angular or React.
You may NOT directly use external JavaScript. Do not use NPM except to install any other development libraries without prior approval from
course authority.
4.2. CSS and other libraries
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You may use small amounts (< 10 lines) of general purpose code (not specific to the assignment) obtained from a site such as Stack
Overflow or other publically available resources. You should clearly attribute the source of this code in a comment with it. You can not
otherwise use code written by another person.
You may include external CSS libraries in this assignment (with the tag). You must attribute these sources (i.e. provide the
URL/author in source code comments). For example, you are permitted to use the popular Bootstrap CSS framework. Some Bootstrap
functionality relies on accompanying Javascript. You are permitted to include this Javascript. The Javascript accompanying Bootstrap
requires the popular general purpose Javascrpt library jQuery. You are permitted to include jQuery so bootstrap can use it. However you are
not permitted to use jQuery in the code you write for the assignment.
4.3. Browser Compatibility
You should ensure that your programs have been tested on one of the following two browsers:
Locally, Google Chrome (various operating systems)
On CSE machines, Chromium
4.4. Other Requirements
The specification is intentionally vague to allow you to build frontend components however you think are visually appropriate. Their size,
positioning, colour, layout, is in virtually all cases completely up to you. We require some basic criteria, but it's mainly dictating elements
and behaviour.
This is not a design assignment. You are expected to show common sense and critical thinking when it comes to basic user experience and
visual layout, but you are not required to be creative to achieve full marks.
4.5. Static HTML, innerHTML, DOM manipulation
In this assignment, you are:
Allowed to add static HTML/CSS to the stub website provided (i.e. you can put raw HTML/CSS as if it's a static page, even if you then later
manipulate it with JavaScript).
Allowed to build HTML elements and add CSS properties to the DOM via JavaScript. We expect this to be the most common way students
build these pages.
Are not allowed to use the innerHTML property of nodes/tags to set the inner HTML of an element. This has security vulnerabilities and is
in general not best practice. Either statically add the HTML/CSS and manipulate it with JavaScript, or generate and build nodes/elements in
JavaScript (just like in lectures/tutes/labs), or both. But don't set inner HTML.
4.6. Async, Await, Promises
You are prohibited from using the async and await syntax in this assignment. You must use ES6 Promises. The use of async or await will
result in severe penalties.
5. Marking Criteria
Your assignment will be hand-marked by tutor(s) in the course according to the criteria below.
Please note: When we test your UI we will use a pre-loaded database JSON that already has jobs and users and watches added to it.
Criteria Weighting Description
Compliance to
task
requirements
70%
Each milestone specified a particular % of overall assignment (summing up to 70%). Implement
those components as required to receive the marks.
You MUST update the progress.csv file in the root folder of this repository as you complete
things partially or fully. The valid values are "NO", "PARTIAL", and "YES". Updating this is
necessary so that your tutor knows what to focus on and what to avoid - giving them the best
understanding of your work and provide you with marks you have earned.
Mobile
Responsiveness
15%
Your application is usable for desktop sizes generally, tablet sizes generally, and mobile sizes
generally (down to 400px wide, 700px high).
Code Style 10% Your code is clean, well commented, with well-named variables, and is well laid out.
Usability &
Accessibility
5%
Your application is usable and easy to navigate. No obvious usability issues or confusing
layouts/flows.
Your application follows standard accessibility guidelines, such as use of alt tags, and colours
that aren't inaccessible.
6. Originality of Work
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The work you submit must be your own work. Submission of work partially or completely derived from any other person or jointly written with
any other person is not permitted.
The penalties for such an offence may include negative marks, automatic failure of the course and possibly other academic discipline.
Assignment submissions will be examined both automatically and manually for such submissions.
Relevant scholarship authorities will be informed if students holding scholarships are involved in an incident of plagiarism or other misconduct.
Do not provide or show your assignment work to any other person — apart from the teaching staff of COMP6080.
If you knowingly provide or show your assignment work to another person for any reason, and work derived from it is submitted, you may be
penalized, even if the work was submitted without your knowledge or consent. This may apply even if your work is submitted by a third party
unknown to you.
Every time you make commits or pushes on this repository, you are acknowledging that the work you submit is your own work (as described
above).
Note you will not be penalized if your work has the potential to be taken without your consent or knowledge.
7. Submission
This assignment is due Monday 28th of March, 8pm.
To submit your assignment, you must complete the following two steps in order:
Ensure you've pushed all of your code to your gitlab master branch. You can check if you've done this properly by seeing what code is on
the gitlab site on your master branch.
Run the following command on a CSE terminal (SSH, vlab): $ 6080 submit ass2 simply run the following command on a CSE terminal:
This will submit the latest commit on master as your submission.
It is your responsibiltiy to ensure that your code can run successfully when cloned fresh from Gitlab.
8. Late Submission Policy
If your assignment is submitted after this date, each hour it is late reduces the maximum mark it can achieve by 2%.
For example, if an assignment you submitted with a raw awarded mark of 85% was submitted 5 hours late, the late submission would have no
effect (as maximum mark would be 90%). If the same assignment was submitted 20 hours late it would be awarded 60%, the maximum mark it
can achieve at that time.