teotimepacreau / express-newsletter

Newsletter website built with NodeJS, Express and SQLite

Express-Newsletter

A fully functional newsletter website, where you can subscribe and receive a welcoming email, and then receive periodically the newsletter. It also allows unsubscribing through a dedicated page.

newsletter-full.mp4

🛠️ Built with :

• CSS : all UI design is from me, container queries, variable font, grid, flexbox...
• HTML : form best practice and validation, semantic...
• Javascript : async/await, fetch API
• NodeJS
• Express
• SQLite database and SQL queries

What I learned :

• how to use Express
• create and manage SQL database
• handle HTTP requests and responses
• work asynchronously and handle errors in Node.JS
• setup backend routes and controllers
• HTML emails (different support rules of the mail clients, specific CSS rules applying to it...)
• create templating for content
• organize a front-in-back architecture
• deploy a front-in-back on an online server

In-depth details of the project :

1. Subscription logic : Users can subscribe on homepage by filling and sending the form : lastName, firstName and email are added to SQLite Database. A notif confirms or infirms the subscription. An email confirms subscription and welcome new user.
2. Unsubscription logic : Users can unsubscribe on the /unsubscribe page. It updates the database accordingly by removing. Checks if email is already in the DB, if not sends an error notif to user
3. Newsletter Templates :

• Each newsletter is created within a template using handlebars

4. Composing Newsletters :

• Each newsletter dynamically retrieve lastName and firstName to personalize the mail

5. Sending newsletter :

• Middleware retrieve subscribers' information from the SQL DB
• Sendgrid npm package is used to send newsletters to the subscribers.

6. Allowing the client to render the email in browser :

• implemented a route that takes a query parameter to decide to render the "welcomeEmail" or the "newsletter" in a new tab.

7. Scheduling Newsletter Sending:

• Nodecron can send newsletters every Saturday. Not activating the function to not pollute email boxes of people trying the deployed version.

9. Deploy on fly.io

express-newsletter's Issues

images don't render when view the mail in browser

unsubscription notifs don't send the good visual notif when email is already in the DB

/sendemail load indefinitely after sending the newsletter

<fix>(welcomeemail) : icons from Phosphor icons don't work in email

rendering email in browser from email client

remplacer pour le mail de bienvenue, et pour le mail de newsletter:
http://localhost:3000/render?type=newsletter par https://feuillu-newsletter.teotimepacreau.fr/render?type=newsletter