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A web application that allows users to store and easily access cooking recipes using Python and Flask Framework

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The Cookbook Online recipe application

Heroku App: https://data-centric-cookbook.herokuapp.com
Heroku git: https://git.heroku.com/data-centric-cookbook.git
GitHub: https://github.com/Sonnerz/project04-data-centric-cookbook

Guidelines and Guideline fulfilment

  1. Logic must be written in Python. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can be used to enhance the look and feel of the cookbook.
    CSS, HTML, Python and JavaScript were all employed to deliver the project requirements.
  2. Whenever possible, strive to use semantic HTML5 elements to structure your HTML code better.
    Semantic HTML5 elements were used in the template files.
  3. The website must be data-driven and can rely on structured data, unstructured data or a mix of structured and unstructured data.
    The website is data-driven and relies on unstructured data.
  4. CRUD operations can be carried out using either SQL (e.g. MySQL/SQLite/Postgres) or NoSQL (e.g. MongoDB).
    CRUD operations are carried out using MongoDB.
  5. Use Flask, a micro-framework, to run your application. Provide instructions on how to run your project locally in your README.
    Flask is used to run the application.
  6. Make sure your site is as responsive as possible. You can test this by checking the site on different screen sizes and browsers.
    The site has been designed to be responsive and has been user tested and tested primarliy using Chrome dev tools
  7. Share details of how you created your database schema in your README. Consider sharing working drafts or finalised versions of your database schema in a 'Database Schema' folder in your repo. Provide a link to this folder in your README.
    A Database Schema folder can be found in my GitHub repo and further information can be found in the database section of this README – Database Design.
  8. We advise that you write down user stories and create wireframes/mockups before embarking on full-blown development.
    Scenarios and Wireframes are included in this README
  9. The site can also make use of CSS frameworks such as Bootstrap, just make sure you maintain a clear separation between the library code and your code.
    Bootstrap 4 was used and custom css was created using SASS. Custom SCSS files can be in the SCSS folder.
  10. Write a README.md file for your project that explains what the project does and the need that it fulfils.
    A README.md has been provided
  11. It should also describe the functionality of the project, as well as the technologies used.
    The README has been divided up into Strategy, Scope, Structure, Skeleton and Surface Each section deals with the project at different points in its lifecycle.
  12. If some of the work was based on other code, explain what was kept and how it was changed to fit your need.
    There are comments in my code explaining what inspired my code and if it was taken from another source.
  13. A project submitted without a README.md file will FAIL.
    A README has been supplied.
  14. Use Git & GitHub for version control. Each new piece of functionality should be in a separate commit.
    Git was used for version control and used regularly throughout development.
  15. Deploy the final version of your code to a hosting platform such as Heroku.
    The app has been deployed to Heroku and GitHub. The app is hosted on Heroku and the source code is available on GitHub.

Non-requirements for this project:

  1. Secure user authentication (e.g. via passwords) is not required for this particular project. Having each user just choose a username is sufficient. Secure authentication will be introduced in the Django module.
    Users do have to enter a password to register and login in. Werkzeug security was used to encrypt passwords.

  2. PLAGIARISM It is each student’s responsibility to ensure that when they include (directly or indirectly) the work of others that this contribution is fully and adequately acknowledged and documented.
    Any images used have been credited and any code is credited to its source - StackOverflow, Pretty Printed, etc.

  3. You are encouraged to ask your mentor/tutor for advice about your project work, but note that your project code should not include any code written by others unless it is explicitly credited to them with a comment above. Any such code provided by your mentor/tutor would not contribute to your assessment. Failure to attribute credit to code that isn’t yours will be considered as plagiarism and will result in a failing grade. My mentor was asked for his advice with regard to the project meeting its requirements. He did not contribute any code.



Table of Contents

PREFACE

I made three decisions on this project which affected how I created this application. The first was my decision to create the app on my local machine rather than cloud9. I spend a substantial amount of time at the beginning setting up my environment and it was a steep learning curve. I chose to use vscode and the setup process is documented in the Development part of this README.

The second decision was the choice to use JavaScript as the data carrier between the front-end and the back-end. I hadn’t much experience using JavaScript and specifically ajax. So as a result, quite a large part of data manipulation and data transfer between front and back end is done with AJAX.

The third decision was my choice of database. While I think that SQL may have been a more appropriate database choice for this project, I opted for MongoDB. I had a small amount of exposure to SQL before this course, but absolutely no exposure or knowledge of noSQL databases. As a result, by choosing the noSQL option it gave me the opportunity to delve into the subject and learn more about the technology. I began the project using a database on mLab, but as the project progressed I decided to install MongoDB locally and use MongoDB Compass Community and MongoShell. This meant I could configure my application for a local database and a production database on mLab. My access details; password and username could be kept confidential as I could use environment variables on Heroku for database access. There have been database username and passwords pushed to GitHub as a consequence of these early decisions, but this situation has been rectified since the use of Heroku environmental variables.

The statistical analysis of the project was done with Matplotlib and Pandas. There is a link on the main navigation to the site stats. I chose to put it there rather than bury a link in the README.

There is one outstanding issue - the Allergen search works periodically. If you search for a different allergen it may 'reset' search and work. If you visit another page and revisit the search page the allergen search works again. Further details about this issue can be found in the Testing documentation

Account for assessor to view MyRecipes page with mulitple entries:
username: chefcarol password: 123

Strategy Plane

The overall aim of the project is to create a web application that allows users to store and easily access cooking recipes. The logic of the app will be written using a variety of technologies but predominantly using the Python Flask micro framework, jQuery and MongoDB. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will be used to enhance the look and feel of the application.

Define roles and responsibilities

For the purposes of this project, Sonya Cooley has full authority, primary responsibility, and full accountability for all aspects of the project. Sonya has a Mentor available to her throughout the development of the application.

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Project Charter

Objectives
Purpose: What purpose does the website serve? The web application allows users to store and easily access cooking recipes
Goals: What outcomes does it need to achieve?
  • allow users to store and easily access cooking recipes
  • editing and
  • deleting of recipes
  • group and summarise the recipes
Target audience: Whom must the product appeal to and work for?
  • Casual cooks just browsing for an easy recipe
  • Cooking hobbyists
  • Professional and semi-professional cooks
Success indicators: How will you know you have achieved project goals? A steady increase in the number of recipes added by users would be a clear indication of the success of the application
Strategies: What approaches will help to realise the goals?
  • We will take a mobile first approach to Content
  • Provide useful, interesting and focused content for our target audience
  • Aim to keep the site simple and not over complicated
  • Present content in a clear and user-friendly way
Tactics: What activities might help to realise the strategies?
  • Provide useful and relevant content to users
  • Provide a user experience that is accessible and enjoyable for all visitors
    • following conventions for design and interaction
    • providing clear and consistent navigation
    • testing usability with a wide range of clients and industry standard tools

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Website development Roadmap

The UXD will be driven by the API data and user needs.

Define Requirements gathering, SEO, Research Competitors, Content Strategy – Personas, Interesting Content.
Design Information architecture, Functional & technical requirements, Navigation design, Wireframes, UX/UI, Pages, Branding, style guides, mock-ups.
Develop Look & feel, Design and Development, Build, Version control, Testing, Deploy, Read Me

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Strategy Trade-off

Opportunity/Problem Importance Viability/Feasibility
Interesting and fun GUI 5 5
Usable GUI 5 5
Leader board 5 4
Clever use of technology 4 3

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Defensive Design

Defensive design for our Cookbook application will focus on the most common points of failure: user input areas, feedback and server problems.

  • I will employ form validation to check for user mistakes before they frustrate the user
  • I will protect users from server errors and broken links with informative messages
  • My Defensive design will assist the user before mistakes happen.

If users are unsuccessful with any input field, they will be informed by on screen messages that will give clear instructions on how to resolve the issue. The ‘Create an account’ form will ask users to enter a username to appear on the application, informing them that they have a site account. They will be informed if that username has already been taken and asked to enter a different username. The form will have validation and offer clear instructions to users on how to proceed.

The input area will be protected against malicious code. A pattern will be added to the input form controls to only allow the input of letters and numbers, no special characters will be allowed: e.g. pattern="[A-Za-z0-9]{1,50}"

This same defensive design will be used throughout the site for every form; add recipe, edit recipe, etc.

Passwords will be encrypted using Werkzeug security, so, in the event that the database is compromised users’ passwords are protected. For this project I did not gather users email addresses or any other unnecessary details.

Environmental variables have been used to protect access details to the database. Development was done using a local database, and the Heroku hosted app connects to an mLab database. Heroku environmental variables hide the database name, the username and password.

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Scope Plane

The project scope is based on our defined Strategy. Scoping will;

  • fully define the web application requirements
  • determine the key functionalities
  • determine what features are to be included in this and possible future application releases

The Cookbook application will target cooking enthusiasts and attract casual site visitors. The site will provide recipes for users to view. A combination of images, and HTML5 will be used to make the interface useful and interesting. Semantic HTML will be used throughout and the site will be responsive to a broad range of devices. Registered users will be able to add/edit/delete their own recipes. Site content will be stored in a Mongo database and users can edit or delete only their own recipes. Python, Flask micro-framework, JavaScript and Mongodb will be the primary technologies used to implement the web application functionality.

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Scenarios/User stories

Cooking Professional/semi-professional::

A cooking enthusiast will be a user who is interested in cooking and baking as a serious hobby or as a profession. They will expect specific content for example, lists of ingredients, cooking methods, and allergens. They will expect to be able to browse recipes or search for specific content. They will also expect content to be grouped into categories, e.g. cuisine. They will want content presented in a logical order, that will be easy to follow. They will register to be able to add/edit their recipes and share what they do.

Cooking hobbyist:

A hobbyist will visit the site to investigate a possible new recipe source. They will register to be able to add, edit their own recipes and rate others recipes. They will be interested in interacting with the application. They too will want content presented in a logical order, that will be easy to follow.

Casual cooks:

A casual user will visit the site out of curiosity. They may browse a few recipes, search for some recipes based on a specific ingredient they might be using at the time. They may not register on the site to be able to add/edit recipes. The may visit the recipes page and casually browse the content.

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Functional Specifications

The site will provide all users with access to cooking recipes and the ability to search/filter recipes by; ingredient, category, cuisine or allergen.

The site will provide registered users the ability to;

  • create an account with a username and password
  • register a username and be identified by that username
  • browse recipes
  • filter/search recipes by category, cuisine, and ingredient
  • search for recipes without an allergen
  • add their recipes
  • edit their recipes
  • delete their recipes
  • view recipe details – ingredients and cooking instructions, allergens, etc
  • rate/like recipes

The cooking application will be optimised for latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera and optimised for mobile usage. HTML and CSS will be written using the Mobile-First approach. The mobile-first approach is designing for the smallest screen and working your way up to desktop.

Functional Flow

All users will access the site via /index. They can visit the recipe search page from here, login or register. Users can register for the site or if already registered can log in. Login is available at all times to users as it is in the navbar. It changes to Logout if a user is logged in. The login dialog box also has a link to the registration/signup form. If unregistered users attempt to access; myrecipes, addrecipe or editrecipe they will be redirected to the index page and informed that they need to be logged in to see those pages. Unregistered users only have the option to go to recipesearch page. Registered users will be taken to myrecipes page after they log in. From there they can manage their recipes or add new ones.

Functional flow

Future Updates

  • Ability for registered users to tag favourite recipes and store in a favourites list
  • Ability for registered users to share a recipe on social media
  • Ability for registered users to write recipe reviews on other users’ recipes
  • Pagination on the recipe search results page

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Content Requirements

The Cooking application will follow a standard format, with a HTML5 structure based on Bootstrap 4. The application will have a fixed to top navbar always available to users and a footer containing links to further information.

PAGE :: Home page (/)

The home page will present users with a welcoming image and the option to view recipes, log in and register.

MODAL :: Registration

The registration form will ask users for;

  • a username
  • their first name
  • their last name
  • a password
  • password confirmation

MODAL :: Log in

The login form will ask users for;

  • their previously registered username
  • password

PAGE :: Search Recipes (/recipesearch)

The search recipes page will allow users to;

  • search by ingredient
  • search by category
  • search by cuisine
  • search for recipes without an allergen
  • search for a combination of category and cuisine

PAGE :: Add/edit recipe (/add_recipe, /edit_recipe)

The form for adding/editing a recipe will provide registered users with the following fields;

  • Recipe name
  • Link to recipe image
  • Recipe description
  • Main ingredient
  • Category
  • Cuisine
  • Difficulty
  • Allergens
  • Prep time
  • Cook time
  • Calorific information
  • Servings
  • Ingredients
  • Instructions

dateCreated, dateModified and votes fields will be auto added to the recipe database document when a recipe is added. dataModified will be updated when a recipe is edited. votes will be updated when a user votes for that recipe.

PAGE :: My recipes (/myrecipes)

A content page where registered user’s recipe details are presented in a clear and intuitive layout. Registered users can manage their recipes; view, edit or delete.

MODAL :: Delete a recipe

The option to delete a recipe will present a challenge to the user to ensure that they do wish to delete that specific recipe. The challenge will be in the form of a popup modal with a delete or cancel button.

PAGE :: View Recipe (/view_recipe/<recipe_id>

A content page where all users can view the recipe details. Registered users will see an edit recipe button and a delete recipe button if they own that recipe. They will also be able to rate/like the recipe if they do not own the recipe. Users will be able to vote only once per recipe.

All html pages will be created using HTML5 and CSS3, supported by the Bootstrap 4.0 Framework. All recipe data will be stored in a noSQL Mongo database.

Navigation

Please note, there is a link to site stats on the navbar. This would normally not be made available to users, however for this project it is there for assessors. The navbar will be available to users at the top of the application on every page. Unregistered users will see links to Login and Recipes Registered users will see links to Login, Recipes, Add Recipe and My Recipes

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Structure & Skeleton Plane

Our goal for the Structure plane is to organise the information architecture and interactions for the application. We will keep a consistent, predictable, and learnable interface that users should be familiar with if they regularly use the internet. We will use industry standard technologies to implement expected behaviours when using the application, e.g. tooltips, navigation, including accessibility, etc. Users will find navigation and user information at the top of the application. The input fields will follow user expectations where feedback is provided if user interactions are unexpected, correct or incorrect.

Information architecture

The application directories and files will be organised in the following way;

  • Site Root
    • Directory: Database Schema
    • Directory: jupyter notebooks
    • Directory: scss
    • Directory: static
    • Directory: stats
    • Directory: templates
    • .gitignore
    • Procfile
    • requirements.txt
    • ReadMe.md
    • app.py
  • Database Schema
    • database schema images
  • jupyter notebooks
    • all jupyter notebooks
  • scss Directory
    • all scss files
  • static Directory
    • css sub-directory
    • css sub-directory
    • data sub-directory
    • img sub-directory
    • js sub-directory
  • stats
    • statistics.py
  • templates Directory
    • 404.html
    • 500.html
    • addrecipe.html
    • base.html
    • editrecipe.html
    • graphs.html
    • index.html
    • myrecipes.html
    • recipesearch.html
    • resultTemplate.html
    • viewrecipe.html

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Database design

Database design Version 1

Database design scheme Version 1

Version 1 had all the fields in one collection – user and recipe info. Based on the fact that I chose to use a noSQL database I thought the best approach was one object and no foreign key relationships. I would return the user info and recipe with every call to the database.

Database design Version 2

Database design scheme Version 2

With database version 1 design implmented, I began coding with sign up and login forms. I was adding users to the recipes collection and not considering how to access the recipe data. When I began the recipe display part of the project I realised how difficult it was to search for recipes as they were part of a collection where the user was the main entity. It was proving difficult to access a recipe object inside a user object and as a result it would prove difficult to search for specific recipes

After a conversation with fellow students and reading;

https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/tutorial/model-referenced-one-to-many-relationships-between-documents/ https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/database-references/

I decided to redesign my mongo database. I opted to keep collections; categories, cuisine, difficulty, allergens to populate my form dropdown lists. I separated my users from the recipes to create two separate entities. As a recipe document is created in the recipes collection, the author of the recipe (the user who was logged in) is recorded against the recipe under the author field(STR). The author field becomes a Foreign Key in the recipe document to the primary key _id in the user’s document in the Users collection.

The recipe document field design was driven predominantly by the Add Recipe form. Votes and views were added to record the number of votes and views for that recipe When the recipe document is created both votes and views are set to 0.

Database design Version 3

Database design scheme Version 3

As development continued further updates were made to the users and recipes collections. Either to add or remove functionality. Allergens, Ingredients and Instructions became field type ARRAY. It made more sense to make them a list so that I could iterate through them for displaying in a browser.

I added dateCreated and dateModified to the recipes collection.

  • dateCreated is a DATE field storing the date the recipe was added
  • dateModifed is a DATE field storing the date the recipe was modified
  • I updated the votes field to an integer type so that it can be easily updated as a user votes up a recipe
  • I removed the views field. I decided not to implement this functionality

I added hashed_password and recipe_votes to the users collection.

  • hashed_password stores a STRING of encrypted password. I added password encryption to the sign_up function
  • recipe_votes is an field type ARRAY storing the recipe ids the user has voted for on the view recipes page. This array is checked before a user attempts to vote up a recipe.

I created a text index to include: name, description, category, cuisine, main_ingredient, ingredients, & allergens. This index is used for when users click the #hashtag links on each recipe summary in the search results page.

Database collections example

Sample Recipe doc

"author": "5ba6a175d4cff52894ef222c",
"name": "Macaroni cheese with leeks",
"image_url": "https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/food/ic/food_16x9_448/recipes/toad_in_the_hole_with_86283_16x9.jpg",
"description": "This easy four-step recipe for macaroni cheese will please all the family. Get a little extra vegetable into your mac and cheese with sweet leeks tucked in the cheese sauce and peas alongside.",
"main_ingredient": "Macaroni",
"category": "Pasta",
"cuisine": "Italian",
"difficulty": "Easy",
"prep_time": "less than 30 mins",
"cook_time": "30 mins",
"serves": 4,
"calories": "350kcal",
"allergens": 
[
        "gluten",
        "eggs",
        "milk",
        "sulphites"
    ],
"ingredients": 
[
        "300g/10½oz dried macaroni",
        "2 leeks",
        "45g/1½oz butter",
        "45g/1½oz flour",
        "600ml/1 pint milk",
        "1 tsp mustard",
        "dash Worcestershire sauce",
        "200g/7oz cheddar, grated",
        "60g/2¼oz breadcrumbs",
        "250g/9oz frozen peas, to serve",
        "salt and freshly ground black pepper"
    ],
"instructions": 
[
"Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the macaroni. Cook for 5 minutes then drain.",

"Meanwhile trim the leeks, discarding the green parts, then thinly slice. Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the leeks and cook gently for 5 minutes, or until soft. Add the flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the milk little by little, stirring constantly, then cook gently for 5 minutes, stirring all the time until the sauce is thickened. Add the mustard and Worcestershire sauce then remove from the heat. Stir in the grated cheese and season with salt and pepper.",

“Add the pasta to the sauce, stir to combine then pour into a 2 litre/3½ pint ovenproof dish. Sprinkle over the breadcrumbs and bake for 25 minutes until golden-brown.",

"Towards the end of cooking, bring a pot of water to the boil. Add the peas, cook for 3-4 minutes then drain. Serve the macaroni cheese with the peas."
],
"votes": 156,
“dateCreated”: 2018-09-25 16:08:45.694
“dateModified”: 2018-09-25 16:08:45.694

Sample User doc

“_id”: 5ba6a0cfd4cff52894ef222a
“username”: "admin"
“Firstname”: "Joe"
“lastname”: "Bloggs"
“hashed_password”: "sha256$d9uQWVAk$f2b4bddfc8d858ed7842d8c93813b426036da4451c7a5419f8688e..."
“recipe_votes”: 
[
     5ba6a0cfd4cff52894efefkv,
     5ba6a0cfd4cff52894ejijnie
]

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Wireframes

Home Page (‘/’ index.html)

start application

Register Page (‘/sign_up signup.html)

application page

Login (‘/login login.html)

leaderboard

myrecipes (‘/myrecipes myrecipes.html)

leaderboard

Recipe (‘/recipe recipe.html)

leaderboard leaderboard

Add Recipe (/add_recipe add_recipe.html)

leaderboard

Search Recipes (/recipesearch recipesearch.html)

leaderboard

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Surface Plane

Development Phase

IDE - SETUP - VSCODE

  1. After opening vscode I created a workspace
  2. Create ‘venv’ directory for virtual environment. Bash terminal: py -3 -m venv venv
  3. Open the project folder
  4. View – Command Palette
  5. Python: Select Interpreter
  6. Python: Create Terminal
  7. Install flask in that virtual env: pip3 install flask
  8. Upgrade pip: python -m pip install --upgrade pip
  9. Debug - Open Configurations-Python
{
            "name": "Python: Flask (development mode)",
            "type": "python",
            "request": "launch",
            "module": "flask",
            "env": {
                "FLASK_APP": "app.py",
                "FLASK_ENV": "development"
            },
            "args": [
                "run"
            ]
}
  1. For testing see Testing documentation

IDE - SETUP - MongoDB

  1. mLab: Create new database – cookbook
  2. Later in the project during development, I created a local mongodb database
  3. To connect using the mongo shell: mongo ds251332.mlab.com:51332/cookbook -u <dbuser> -p <dbpassword> mongodb://localhost:27017/cookbook
  4. To connect using a driver via the standard MongoDB URI mongodb://<dbuser>:<dbpassword>@ds251332.mlab.com:51332/cookbook
  5. pip3 install flask_pymongo

IDE - SETUP - Other installations and setup

  • iPython: pip3 install ipython

  • jupyter*: pip3 install jupyter

  • matplotlib: pip3 install matplotlib

  • pandas: pip3 install pandas

  • PyLint install: pip install -U pylint

  • Run jupyter: jupyter notebook --ip=0.0.0.0 --port=8080 --no-browser

  • Create requirements.txt: pip3 freeze --local > requirements.txt

  • Create Procfile: echo web: python app.py > Procfile

IDE - SETUP - Git

  1. Git init
  2. Create .gitignore: Touch .gitignore and the following files and directories were added;
    • a. venv/*
    • b. .vscode/*
    • c. *.pyc
    • d. __ pycache __/
    • e. instance/
    • f. .webassets-cache
    • g. profile_default/
    • h. ipython_config.py
    • i. *.ipynb
    • j. cookbook_workspace.code-workspace
    • k. config.py
  3. Git add.
  4. Git commit – m “Initial Commit”

IDE - SETUP - Bootstrap

  1. $ wget https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.3/css/bootstrap.min.css
  2. $ wget https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.3/js/bootstrap.min.js
  3. $ wget https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/popper.js/1.11.0/umd/popper.min.js

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Version Control

Git was used to manage the source code for this project. Git is a version control system for tracking changes in project files. Project files were committed to Git after each major functional addition, update or implementation of testing results. Following the initial commit to Git, each major update was followed by a Git add and commit. A full Git log is available on the GitHub project repository.

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Development & testing tools

During development jupyter notebooks were used primarily to test most functions before adding them to app.py, especially the database query functions. The jupyter files are available in my github repository under the jupyter_notebooks directory.

Jupyter Notebooks

HTML and some JavaScript functionality were tested using repl.it

At all times python code, html or css updates were tested in the browser. Chrome dev tools console was used to examine and test JavaScript output. Every response was written to the console for testing. Vscode terminal was used to examine and test python code. The print() and in particular print(type()) function was used extensively to examine code values.

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Database

Text index
I added a text index to the database for users to search by #hashtags db.recipes.createIndex({name: 'text', description: 'text', category: 'text', cuisine: 'text', main_ingredient: 'text', ingredients: 'text', allergens: 'text'}) leaderboard

Database content

https://www.themealdb.com/ provides an api to access recipes on the internet. I created a html file to connect to the api and get random recipes for my recipe collection. The HTML file is in Database schema folder. (getrecipes.html)

It outputs a json file of randomly selected recipes. I have hardcoded some db field values as they were missing from the source data. It was a quick and easy way to get some content into an empty database for development purposes.

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Python function explanation

Navbar

The navbar is fixed to top. A site logo on the left side while navigation elements are right aligned. The navigation elements are different depending on whether a user is logged in or not.

Not logged in Logged in
Site Stats Sites Stats
Recipes Recipes
Login My Recipes
Add Recipe
Logout

Footer

The footer contains general information but in particular it has the licensing info for the icons I used on the site.

Home Page

  • @app.route('/')
  • Index()

The web application home page gives the user the option of; registering/signing up to the site or if already signed up, the option to Log in. A navbar and footer will bookend the content area. The page and its functionality will be created using the Bootstrap 4 Framework, Python, Flask micro-framework and JavaScript.

Sign up

  • /signup_user
  • signup_user() – gets data from ajax POST

Sign up dialog box is a popup window, provided by using a Bootstrap 4 Modal. The user can register on the site or can click a close button or an x button to clear the modal.

Login

  • /login_user
  • login_user() – gets data from ajax POST
  • compare_password()

Log in dialog box is a popup window, provided by using a Bootstrap 4 Modal. The user logs in to the site or can click a close button or an x button to clear the modal.

My Recipes

  • /myrecipes
  • login_required() – ensures a user is logged in before they can view the page
  • myrecipes()

The myrecipes page presents users with details about their recipes and the ability to manage the recipes. The page lists their recipes and provides information e.g. created date, votes on each recipe. The user can edit or delete their recipes from this page. Pagination functionality has been added to this function. It makes a db call to get recipes belonging to that user and pages the results using offset and limit values passed in the url. The page and its functionality were created using the Bootstrap 4 Framework, JavaScript, Python and The Flask micro-framework.

Add Recipe page

  • /add_recipe
  • login_required()
  • add_recipe()
  • insert_recipe() – gets data from ajax POST
  • get_categories() – populates the categories dropdown lists
  • get_cuisine() – populates the cuisine dropdown lists
  • get_allergens() – populates the allergens checkboxes
  • get_difficulty() – populates the difficulty dropdown lists

This page presents users with a form to add a new recipe to the site. The data is passed from the form to python via Ajax. The page and its functionality were created using the Bootstrap 4 Framework, JavaScript, Python and The Flask micro-framework.

Edit Recipe page

  • /edit_recipe/<recipe_id>
  • login_required()
  • get_categories() – populates the categories dropdown lists
  • get_cuisine() – populates the cuisine dropdown lists
  • get_allergens() – populates the allergens checkboxes
  • get_difficulty() – populates the difficulty dropdown lists
  • edit_recipe()
  • /update_recipe/<recipe_id>
  • update_recipe() – gets recipe id from url posted by Ajax

This page presents all the recipe details to its owner. The owner can update any recipe details and resubmit the recipe. The data is passed from the form to python via Ajax. The page and its functionality were created using the Bootstrap 4 Framework, JavaScript, Python and The Flask micro-framework.

Delete Recipe

  • login_required()
  • delete_recipe() – gets recipe id posted by Ajax

There are two locations where the owner can delete their recipe. A delete button is available on the myrecipes page and if a user is viewing a recipe and is the owner of that recipe they will be presented with an edit button and delete button. The page and its functionality were created using the Bootstrap 4 Framework, JavaScript, Python and The Flask micro-framework.

View Recipe page

  • view_recipe/<recipe_id>
  • view_recipe() – gets recipe id posted in the url by Ajax
  • update_vote() – gets recipe id posted in the url by Ajax

the update_votes() function adds a vote to the recipe. It is only available to logged in users. This page presents all the recipe details to a user; ingredients, instructions, calorific info, prep time, cooking time, allergens, an image, etc. The page and its functionality were created using the Bootstrap 4 Framework, JavaScript, Python and The Flask micro-framework.

Recipesearch page

This page presents recipes to a user depending on which filter option a user chooses. When the page loads, the following recipe summaries are presented:

  • the 3 most recent recipes - get_recent_recipes()
  • the 3 highest rated recipes - get_votes_recipes()
  • a random selection of 9 recipes - get_random_recipes()

This content disappears and is replaced by search results after a user makes a search query

  • recipesearchquery() – finds recipes by searching description, category, cuisine or ingredients for the word. The #hashtag word that appears in the recipe summary.
  • filter_by_category () - finds recipes by searching category. It gets the category posted in the url by Ajax
  • filter_by_cuisine() - finds recipes by searching cuisine. It gets the cuisine posted in the url by Ajax
  • filter_by_allergen() - finds recipes by searching allergens. It gets the allergen posted in the url by Ajax
  • filter_by_ingredient() - finds recipes by searching ingredients. It gets the ingredient posted in the url by Ajax
  • filter_by_catcuis() - finds recipes by searching and matching category and cuisine. It gets the category and cuisine posted in the url by Ajax

The page and its functionality were created using the Bootstrap 4 Framework, JavaScript, Python and The Flask micro-framework.

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SCSS/CSS

Bootstrap 4 provides the fundamental HTML5, CSS and JavaScript for the application to ensure that it meets the Responsive requirement. However, custom styles have been created and a styles.css file can be found in the static/css directory. Custom styles for each page, and bootstrap overrides are in their own SCSS file.

  • addeditrecipe.scss
  • bootstrap-overrides.scss
  • footer.scss
  • global.scss
  • index.scss
  • mixins.scss
  • myrecipes.scss
  • navbar.scss
  • recipe.scss
  • recipesearch.scss
  • variables.scss
  • styles.scss

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Config file

At the start of the project I was using config file to store my database user name and password. However, this was the wrong approach as the config file needs to be added to git and pushed to a server for access. It also meant the access details would end up on publicly accessible on GitHub. I then changed the app to use environmental variables.

I revisited the method of using a config.py file for the app secret_key. I wrote an if statement checking the app debug status. If the app was in dev/debug mode, the git ignored config file was imported and the secret key set. If the app was running in prod mode on Heroku, the app pulled all values from Heroku environment variables.

  • DBS_NAME
  • MONGODB_URI
  • SECRET_KEY

Current Unresolved Issues/Bugs

  • If a user is editing a recipe they can enter the id of a recipe they do not own into the url and edit that recipe. A check needs to be done to ensure ownership of the recipe before an update is committed.

  • The pagination on the My Recipes page is not very robust and not suitable for large amounts of data. This functionality will have to be redesigned for future versions of the application.

  • There is a bug that appeared after I pushed the app to Heroku. The bug did not happen on my dev machine even after replicating the same steps to try and envoke the error. The Search for recipes without an Allergen causes a 503 status error on Heroku. The issue is intermittent and performing a different search (e.g. cuisine) seems to 'reset' the server and the allergen search works again. I can perform the allergen search several times successfully and then the error code appears in the Heroku logs console.

This is the only search where recipes are searched for a value that they are without.

recipes_without_allergen = [recipe for recipe in mongo.db.recipes.find( {'allergens': {'$nin': [allergen]}} )]

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Deployment

GitHub is used to host the code and Heroku was used to host the app.

GitHub

1 A new repository was created in GitHub called: project04-data-centric-cookbook After a final Git Add and Git commit

  1. git add.
  2. $git commit -m "Final commit" The pages were pushed to the new GitHub repository
  3. $ git remote add origin https://github.com/Sonnerz/project04-data-centric-cookbook
  4. $ git push -u origin master
  5. Enter: _username_
  6. Enter: _password_

Heroku is used to host the code and publish the app publicly.

I logged into Heroku and created a new app called data-centric-cookbook
I chose the European hosting region
A git repo was created: https://git.heroku.com/data-centric-cookbook.git
A heroku app url was provided: https://data-centric-cookbook.herokuapp.com

In Heroku under the app settings I added the following config vars:

  • IP - 0.0.0.0
  • PORT – 5000
  • MONGODB_URI - mongodb://<"username">:<"password">@ds251332.mlab.com:51332/cookbook
  • DBS_NAME - cookbook
  • SECRET_KEY - <"passphrase">

In a bash terminal, I ran the following commands:

  1. $ heroku
  2. $ heroku login
  3. Enter: username
  4. Enter: password
  5. $ heroku apps (to confirm my app was there)
  6. $ git remote -v
  7. $ git remote add heroku https://git.heroku.com/data-centric-cookbook.git
  8. $ git push -u heroku master
  9. $ heroku ps:scale web=1

Issues and Resolution

After adding the Statistics.py to the app, I pushed the app to Heroku for testing. It failed several times, the app went from starting to crash. I tried running the app and monitored the Heroku Logs update in real time. I discovered that my cuisine_pie() function was failing in the statistics.py file.

This file was reading from a json file that was created from my local mongodb. The data between my local and live databases was different, as a result the function was failing. I updated the live database and the json file to match the data statistics.py required.

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Credit

Content/ Acknowledgements

The following sites were used as resources to get sample css and debugging css.

Site URL Resource
Stack Overflow http://stackoverflow.com Code snippets/idea throughout the project
w3schools Python https://www.w3schools.com/python HTML, CSS, Python
Startbootstrap https://startbootstrap.com Agency template
daneden.github https://daneden.github.io/animate.css Flash messages animation
The Meal DB https://www.themealdb.com/api.php Recipe source
Slack Db design advice
jqueryui http://jqueryui.com/dialog/#modal-confirmation Confirm deletion of recipe modal
Pretty Printed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnt6JqtzM7I Pagination on my recipes page
Slack Code Institute slack Slack members user tested my application
Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23555978/bootstrap-responsive-layout-in-mobile-convert-to-tabs/31765611 Inspiration for changing recipe layout to tabs in mobile view
Sentdex YouTube Error Handling, 404, 500

Media

Media Scource
Home page background image https://unsplash.com/ Owner credited on home page
Logo cooking pot Free Vector Design by: vecteezy.com
Logo Created in Photoshop
Google Fonts Lato
Icons https://www.flaticon.com/packs/cooking-46 icons used throughout site e.g. heart, apron
The Meal DB https://www.themealdb.com/api.php Recipe images

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A web application that allows users to store and easily access cooking recipes using Python and Flask Framework

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