tryanzu / frontend

Frontend repository / Reactive realtime forum software (currently alpha).

Meet Anzu

Anzu is our greatest endeavor to build the most rad, simple & reactive forum software out there since the Javascript revolution.

Forum platforms to host communities are vast. Many would say it's a lifeless space with almost zero innovation, and attempting to create something new is pointless. We dissent, and if you found this repository you might also share with us the idea that there has to be an alternative to the old forum. Well, we think Anzu is that young and sexy software that could bring back to life the community-building movement.

This repository contains the front-end repository.

We're still working in the first alpha, so previous knowledge about the stack is required to set things up.

Anzu's stack

• Golang.
• Redis (to be replaced)
• BuntDB (embedded cache)
• MongoDB (DB)
• React JS (with a heavy use of hooks)

Installation

Download dependencies

The first step is to download and install Go, official binary distributions are available at https://golang.org/dl/.

Download and configure MongoDB and Redis (you'll need to create a root user in MongoDB). Alternatively you can use remote servers.

Download the repositories

Download the core in any path.

Initialize the repo submodule, so the frontend is in static/frontend.

git submodule update --init --recursive

Install andn build the core dependencies with go build -o anzu. A binary named anzu will be created and it is the program we'll run to create an anzu forum.

Now go to the frontend folder in static/frontend, install the frontend dependencies with npm install and finally compile the frontend with npm run build.

Configure

Copy the .env.example file into .env and edit it to meet your local environment configuration. Environment config can be setup either using OS env vars or .env file. This config is read at anzu boot time and it is core to be able to run the program.

Copy the config.toml.example file into config.toml and edit it to meet your site configuration.

Last steps

Having mongodb & redis running and everything set up in .env we can now start the program.

Execute ./anzu and have fun.

Commits

We follow the Conventional Commits specification, which help us with automatic semantic versioning and CHANGELOG generation.

frontend's Issues

Category editor in configuration panel.

Currently we need to do the categories setup & organization directly through the categories collection in database (mongodb).

While simple we still need to provide a UI to do this setup and to perform updates.

The UI can fit inside configModal.

Ban a user asking from a list of reasons and with possible side effects.

Inside the users panel for admins there's an option to ban a user. Complete the implementation with tryanzu/anzu#7 specs.

It has to ask for a reason (simple select) and if "other" option is selected then ask details.
Special options could include the option to soft delete all user's posts or comments. (spam accounts)

Anzu's content drafts: publisher

Categories state not being refreshed after authenticating.

Further permission checks (writable categories) fail to comply with new authenticated user.

Fix fetchRecentComments not updating feed's count properly.

When a new comment arrives the Load new comments button would appear at the bottom of the post. After loading the new comments, the post's comments count in the feed does not update to the proper count.

Remove tachyons for colours

I think it is a good idea to use tachyons for positioning, paddings, margins, etc, but if we use it for colours, theme customization is going to become a pita.
Example:

Remove empty comment box message when then user is logged

Complete flag post/comment implementation.

Currently there's POST /v1/flags to perform this operation. The implementation needs to be completed at the frontend, first it asks for the flag's category & content and finally sends the flag to the endpoint.

The current form of the model is:

type upsertFlagForm struct {
	RelatedTo string        `json:"related_to" binding:"required,eq=post|eq=comment"`
	RelatedID bson.ObjectId `json:"related_id" binding:"required"`
	Category  string        `json:"category" binding:"required"`
	Content   string        `json:"content" binding:"max=255"`
}

Ask for email verification in mobile (as we do in desktop)

People are getting confused about why they cannot publish, this is because they don't know they have to verify their accounts using the email we've sent at sign up.

Anzu's content drafts: comments

Nowadays the process of writing a new comment requires the user to finish it's writing within one page session, if an answer requires some thinking/drafting before actually publishing the process becomes a lil bit of a pain since you can lost your content when leaving or navigating through the site.

So the task is to start implementing a simple but functional draft content storage for started replies, for initial release it may be local/session storage for simplicity.

React sets editor in configuration panel.