MERN-template

A website template using the MERN stack. The primary technology involved is:

• React
• Nodejs
• MariaDB (with Sequelize)
• Docker (with docker-compose)

This template is designed to support the development of persistent browser based games (PBBGs), but it, and it's component microservices, can be used elsewhere.

This template is released under the zlib license (see LICENSE).

See the github wiki for full documentation.

Microservices

There are external components to this template referred to as "microservices". These can be omitted entirely by simply removing the React components that access them. These are also available via docker hub.

• News Server: https://github.com/krgamestudios/news-server
• Auth Server: https://github.com/krgamestudios/auth-server
• Chat Server: https://github.com/krgamestudios/chat-server

Setup Deployment

A clean install is this easy:

git clone https://github.com/krgamestudios/MERN-template.git
node configure-script.js
docker-compose up --build

Setup Development

To set up this template in development mode:

1. Ensure mariadb is running in your development environment
2. Run mariadb sql/create_database.sql as the root user
3. Run npm install
4. Run cp .envdev .env and enter your details into the .env file
5. Execute npm run dev
6. Navigate to http://localhost:3001 in your web browser

Features List

• Full documentation
  • Setup tutorial
• Fully Featured Account System (as a microservice)
  • Email validation
  • Logging in and out
  • Account deletion
  • Password management
  • JSON web token authentication
• Fully Featured News Blog (as a microservice)
  • Publish, edit or delete articles as needed
  • Secured via admin panel
• Fully Featured Chat System (as a microservice)
  • Available when logged in
  • Chat logs saved to the database
  • Room-based chat (type /room name to access a specific room)
  • Mute specific users for X minutes
• Easy To Use Configuration Script
  • Sets up everything via docker
  • A default admin account (if desired)

Coming Soon

• Full documentation
  • Modding tutorials
• Moderation tools for banning/suspending, chat-banning and reporting users

Coming Eventually

• Fully Featured News Blog (as a microservice)
  • Restore deleted articles
  • Undo edits
• Fully Featured Chat System (as a microservice)
  • Custom emoji
  • Private messaging
  • Broadcasting to all channels
  • Badges next to usernames
• Better compression for client files
• Backend for leaderboards (modding tutorial?)
• Backend for energy systems (modding tutorial?)
• Backend for items, shops, trading and currency

Gmail Email Settings

If you decide to use gmail as your email provider (as I do), then use the following .env settings:

MAIL_SMTP=smtp.gmail.com
MAIL_USERNAME=you@gmail.com
MAIL_PASSWORD=yourpassword

you'll also need to enable "less secure apps" for the specified email address. Remember - don't ever commit the .env file! You might even want to create a dedicated email address just for your project.