📆🪄 KirbyOTD - https://kirbyotd.netlify.app

Every single day, a new Kirby copy ability!

An Express.js API and accompaning React frontend to generate a new Kirby copy ability every day*. It stores each day's generated Kirby in a PostgreSQL server to prevent repeats until all copy abilities have been exhausted.

*New Kirbys only generate if it is requested at least once per day. This is intentional, as if nobody wants a new kirby that day, it won't be made. If you want to change this behavior, setup a cron job to access the backend once a day :D

How to run

• In the server folder, create a password.txt with a chosen password for your PostgreSQL database
• In the docker-compose.yml change the VITE_API_URL variable to the public facing hostname of your API (including any ports)
• Use Docker Compose to run the docker-compose.yml
• Afterward, connect to the PostgreSQL server in whatever fashion you desire
  • Use the SQL commands in kirbyotd.txt to recreate the copy_abilities and daily_records tables
• (Alternatively) Connect using pgAdmin and restore using the kirbyotd.backup file
  • These steps should no longer be necessary with the inclusion of the SQL script to setup tables included in the repository and changes to docker-compose.yml
• Edit the Caddyfile to correspond with your situation
• Woohoo! Enjoy your daily kirbys!

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React
• Backend: Express.JS & Node.js
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Deploying: Docker

Why

This project was made to learn both SQL and the process of creating a Backend REST API. It could probably be done a lot easier using a client-side, serverless localstorage solution instead of an entire API and Database, but it is about the journey and not the destination. This all started in Calculus class where I would draw Kirbys when my attention started to wane. Then, I created a python script to do the very thing this project does: generate a new kirby every day without repeating. This way, each day I could draw a different Kirby. After this, I found that this project is a good, simple idea to learn a variety of tools and ideas. This newest iteration provides a nice looking user-interface and accesses a database!

MVP Process:

• Learn the basics of SQL
• Learn the basics of creating a REST API backend using Express.js
• Get data from the Kirby Wiki to use in project
• Create Database schema and set-up PostgreSQL tables
  • Fiddle with Docker to get development and testing to work properly 😔
• Create API
• Create Frontend
• Find suitable way to either host or deploy project!

Future Plans:

Backend:

• Update API to provide ability to access previous days' Kirbys
• Update API to provide a count of the number of Kirbys left before reseting
• Create some kind of indicator for if the server is running (the api is currently running on my little Raspberry Pi.. possible plans to move backend to another service)

Frontend:

• Incorporate new API changes to provide more functionality!
• Add some sort of timer until a new Kirby is generated, perhaps with an auto refresh
• Add some kind of fun animation to the currently static webpage

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Icon created by me