140 lines
7.6 KiB
Markdown
140 lines
7.6 KiB
Markdown
# Welcome to ThreadR
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This is the source code for the ThreadR Forum Engine.
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The project originated as a school project with the goal of developing a mix between a forum engine and a social media platform. When school was over, we left the project up for some time with the general intention to continue working on it until I took it down after an extended period of inactivity to host my own website on my server.
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Now, that it is being revived, the original scope of the project doesn’t really make sense anymore (at least to me) so it needs to shift slightly. Below is a list of goals that I would like to see achieved, feel free to discuss this in the issues or commit comments.
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- [x] come back online (see issue #2)
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- [x] go FOSS (make the source code publicly available under a FOSS license (see issue #5))
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- [x] make the code portable so everyone can set up their own instance
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- [ ] get generic forum functionality going (sign-up, creation of boards, creation of threads within boards, messages, profiles)
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Once these two are given, here are some additional goals both from the original scope of the project as well as my own ideas. Input is welcome.
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- [ ] anonymous posts (users can choose to post anonymously, registered users will have a unique name per thread that stays the same so users can tell each other apart)
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- [ ] subscribing to threads
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- [ ] "split thread here" feature (kinda like on Reddit when multiple ppl answer to one person)
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- [ ] automatic loading of new messages in threads (opt-out in settings)
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- [ ] notifications for new messages in subscribed threads (opt-out in settings)
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- [ ] question threads with an "accept answer" feature, threads can be marked as question threads on creation
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- [ ] like/dislike feature but in better (as in more limited in functionality and more nuanced, kinda like on StackExchange but with two types of likes/dislikes and without showing an actual number)
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\- BodgeMaster
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UPDATE: The ThreadR Forum Engine is now technically host-independent. By default, it still contains the configuration for our local instance but all host-dependent stup information is configurable now. It is still heavily WIP.
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# Installation
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First of all, keep in mind that the ThreadR Forum Engine is still in early development and things are subject to change.
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For now, the only way to set up an instance is doing it the manual way; automatic setup will be added in the future.
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This setup guide is assuming that you are on a UNIX-like system and have the following already installed and set up properly:
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- Apache with PHP (will most likely also work on other web servers)
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- MySQL or MariaDB
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- Python 2 (Will be changed to Python 3 soon. If Python 2 complains about shit, it's safe to assume that someone forgot to update this.)
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- Bash
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Installation:
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- To install the ThreadR Forum Engine, clone this repository into a directory that the web server has access to but that it outside of any web root.
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- Symlink the directory `threadr/` to your desired location on the web root.
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- Optionally symlink the file `default.html` to all places that you want to redirect to your ThreadR instance.
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- Add a database to your MySQL/MariaDB server that contains the tables shown below.
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- Create a MySQL/MariaDB user for ThreadR and grant usage privileges for the tables to it.
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- adjust the files in `config/` to your setup
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- run ./deployment-script.sh to apply configuration
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WARNING: Currently, the configuration is permanent. It cannot be changed once the deployment script has been executed. This is a relic of our old deployment system and will change in the future.
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Database tables:
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- boards
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- `id` (int, primary key, auto increment)
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- `name` (varchar)
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- `user_friendly_name` (varchar)
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- `private` (boolean or tinyint(1))
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- `public_visible` (boolean or tinyint(1))
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- posts
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- `id` (int, primary key, auto increment)
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- `board_id` (int)
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- `user_id` (int)
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- `post_time` (timestamp, default current_timestamp())
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- `edit_time` (timestamp, may be null, default null, on update current_timestamp())
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- `content` (text, may be null, default null)
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- `attachment_hash` (bigint(20), may be null, default null)
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- `attachment_name` (varchar, may be null, default null)
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- `title` (varchar)
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- `reply_to` (int, default -1)
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- profiles (do we even use this?)
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- `id` (smallint (why? this makes no sense whatsoever), primary key, index (why? probably wanted to do unique))
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- `email` (varchar, index (I think that’s supposed to be unique?))
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- `display_name` (varchar)
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- `status` (varchar)
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- `about` (very long varchar)
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- `website` (varchar)
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- users
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- `id` (smallint (again, this makes no sense), primary key)
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- `name` (varchar, index (again, that’s probably supposed to be unique))
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- `authentication_string` (varchar(128))
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- `authentication_salt` (varchar)
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- `authentication_algorithm` (varchar)
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- `time_created` (timestamp, default current_timestamp())
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- `time_altered` (timestamp, default current_timestamp(), on update current_timestamp())
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- `verified` (boolean or tinyint(1), default 0)
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# Git based automatic web deployment system
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This repository will be automagically pulled by the web server each time something is pushed by a user.
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Dear Developers, Please use pushes sparingly because it takes a while for the server to replace all code variables.
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What this thing does basically equates to:
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```
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ssh <user>@<threadr.ip|no public access set up currently>
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cd /var/www/git
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sudo -u www-data -s
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rm -rf ./web-deployment
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git clone <ssh git repository link>
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cd web-deployment
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./deployment-script
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exit
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logout
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```
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TBD: Remove this section when the ThreadR project moves to its final home and this repository is only used for our local setup.
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## Symlinks
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The following files and directories are linked to areas where they can be accessed by the web server:
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* `threadr/` → `threadr.lostcave.ddnss.de/threadr/` (all files acessible by the web server, READMEs get deleted on deployment)
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* `default.html` → `threadr.lostcave.ddnss.de/index.html` (http redirect)
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# Individual documentation for each file
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### [[DIR] threadr](./threadr)
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This folder contains all the files that are parts of ThreadR directly
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### [[DIR] config](./config)
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A place to store the configuation for a specific ThreadR instance (contains official instance config for now, will be moved elsewhere eventually)
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### [[DIR] macros](./macros)
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files for use with variable_grabbler.py
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### [default.html](./default.html)
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The main index.html on the server. It redirects to ThreadR.
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### [deployment_script.sh](./deployment_script.sh)
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This script is executed each time (or most of the time) the repository gets pushed.
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It contains the commands to execute the code variable replcement system and some other useful tasks.
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Its working directory is the root of the git repository.
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### [LICENSE.md](./LICENSE.md)
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A copy of the Apache 2.0 license, the license this project is under
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### [NOTICE](./NOTICE)
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Copyright notice in plain text format
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### [README.md](./README.md)
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this file
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### [variable_grabbler.py](./variable_grabbler.py)
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Custom macro processor, takes two arguments: macro declaration file and the file to be processed
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Macros in code are strings of capitalized characters prefixed and suffixed with %.
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Macro definition format: JSON
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"<MACRO>":"<text>" → direct replacement
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"<MACRO>":["file","<file path>"] → insert file
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"<MACRO>":["exec","<command>"] → run command and insert its output from stdout
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~~NOTICE: This file (or rather a more up-to-date version of it) will be moved to a new repository containing the deployment system.~~
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I haven’t exactly figured out how to handle this in the future. It is absolutely necessary to deploy a ThreadR instance because it is used to configure ThreadR so we need a copy of it here.
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