Plantsite

A full-stack web application for plant cultivation knowledge, community discussion, and article management. Built as a collaborative school project using Node.js, Express, TypeScript, MySQL, and MongoDB.

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Overview

Plantsite is a gardening-focused web platform where users can browse a plant library with care guides and seasonal planting schedules, read and save articles, and participate in a community forum. The project demonstrates a layered backend architecture with two databases — a relational MySQL database for structured content and MongoDB for user accounts and community posts.

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Tech Stack

Backend

• Node.js + Express 5
• TypeScript
• MySQL 2 — plants, articles, authors, categories, tags
• MongoDB + Mongoose — users, forum posts
• JWT authentication (access + refresh token strategy)
• bcrypt password hashing

Frontend

• Vanilla TypeScript compiled to JavaScript
• HTML + CSS (no framework)
• Fetch API with automatic token refresh

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Features

• Plant library with care instructions, difficulty levels, and month-by-month planting/harvest schedules
• Article system with authors, categories, tags, and plant associations
• User registration and login with JWT (access token in localStorage, refresh token in httpOnly cookie)
• Saved/favorite articles per user
• Community forum with posts, comments, and tag filtering
• Protected routes requiring authentication
• Search and filter for both plants and articles

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Project Structure

Plantsite/
├── backend/
│   └── src/
│       ├── app.ts
│       ├── controllers/
│       ├── services/
│       ├── routes/
│       ├── models/          # Mongoose schemas
│       ├── middleware/      # JWT auth
│       ├── databases/       # MySQL & MongoDB connections
│       └── data/            # SQL schema and seed data
├── public/
│   ├── src/                 # Frontend TypeScript modules
│   ├── *.html               # Frontend pages
│   ├── style.css
│   └── assets/
├── package.json
└── tsconfig.json

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Database Design

MySQL — Relational Data

Table	Description
plants	Plant library with care and cultivation metadata
planting_schedule	Monthly planting and harvest windows per plant
authors	Article authors
categories	Article categories
articles	Blog and knowledge articles with slugs and premium flag
tags	Article tags
article_plants	Many-to-many: articles ↔ plants
article_tags	Many-to-many: articles ↔ tags

MySQL is used for the content-heavy side of the application where normalized relational data and multi-table joins are needed.

MongoDB — Document Data

Collection	Description
User	Accounts with hashed password, favorite articles and plants
ForumPost	Community posts with nested comments and tags

MongoDB handles user-owned data and the forum where a document model fits more naturally than a relational schema.

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REST API

Auth — /api/auth

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
POST	/login	—	Login, returns access token
POST	/refresh	Cookie	Refresh access token
POST	/logout	—	Clear refresh token
GET	/me	Bearer	Current user info

Users — /api/user

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
POST	/signup	—	Register new account
POST	/save-article	Bearer	Save article to favorites

Plants — /plants

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
GET	/	—	All plants
GET	/search	—	Filter by name, sun, water, difficulty, soil
GET	/get/:id	—	Single plant with planting schedule
POST	/	—	Create plant
PUT	/get/:id	—	Update plant
DELETE	/get/:id	—	Delete plant

Articles — /api/articles

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
GET	/latest	—	Most recent article
GET	/	—	All articles
GET	/search	—	Filter by author, title, category, tag, plant
GET	/get/:id	—	Article by ID
GET	/:slug	—	Article by slug
POST	/get/by-ids	—	Multiple articles by ID list
GET	/favorites	Bearer	User's saved articles
POST	/	—	Create article
PUT	/get/:id	—	Update article
DELETE	/get/:id	—	Delete article

Community — /community

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
GET	/	—	All forum posts
GET	/:id	—	Single post with comments
POST	/	Bearer	Create post
PUT	/:id	—	Update post
DELETE	/:id	—	Delete post

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Frontend Pages

Page	File	Description
Home	index.html	Landing page with latest article
Plants	plants.html	Plant catalog with search
Articles	articles.html	Article list with previews
Article	article.html	Single article view with save button
Community	community.html	Forum posts with tag filtering
Create Post	createPost.html	New forum post form
Login	login.html	Email and password login
Sign Up	signup.html	Account registration
Profile	profile.html	User info and saved articles
About	about.html	Project credits

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Getting Started

Prerequisites: Node.js, a running MySQL instance, a MongoDB connection string.

git clone https://github.com/tZandr/Plantsite.git
cd Plantsite
npm install

Create a .env file in the project root:

MONGODB_URI=<your_mongodb_connection_string>
MYSQL_HOST=localhost
MYSQL_USER=<your_mysql_user>
MYSQL_PASSWORD=<your_mysql_password>
MYSQL_DATABASE=plantsite
JWT_SECRET=<your_jwt_secret>
JWT_REFRESH_SECRET=<your_refresh_secret>
PORT=3000

Import the SQL schema from backend/src/data/ to set up the MySQL database, then:

npm run dev    # Start with watch mode
npm run build  # Compile TypeScript

The API runs on http://localhost:3000 and the frontend is served as static files (open with Live Server or equivalent on port 5500).

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Team

Name	Role
Alexander Tjernström	Full frontend, community forum (full CRUD + MongoDB)
Ebba Wahlström	Database design (ER diagram to code), plants backend (full CRUD)
Anna Ek	Authentication (JWT)

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Context

This project was completed as part of a backend web development course at IT-Högskolan. The assignment required building a database-driven REST API with Node.js and Express, using both MySQL and MongoDB, alongside a frontend built with plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The team followed a Scrum workflow throughout development.

The original repository is hosted under a collaborator's account and is not public. This is a personal mirror of the project.