Talk about it. Learn about it.

🔴 Live Demo

• Web: https://projects.rawfin.net/TopicTalks
• Api: https://projects.rawfin.net/TopicTalks/api

📚 Table of Contents

• 💎 Features
• 🚀 Getting Started
  • I. 📝 Requirements
  • II. ⚙️ Installation
    • Clone the Repository
    • Setup Google Cloud API Credentials (Optional)️
    • Database Migration
    • Configure Email Settings
    • Build the Projects
    • Run the Projects
    • Access the Projects
• 🛠️ Technologies and Design Patterns
• 📦 Nuget Packages
• 📊 ER Diagram
• 📸 Screenshots
• 🪪 License

⭐ Give It a Star

If you find this project useful or interesting, please consider giving it a star. Thank you! 🤗

💎 Features

TopicTalks is an educational discussion platform designed to foster knowledge sharing between students and teachers. Here's a look at its key features:

• Q&A at its finest: Ask questions, receive answers from teachers or peers, and engage in threaded discussions for in-depth exploration.
• Always informed: Stay up-to-date with email notifications for new replies and discussion thread activity.
• Offline access: Export discussions with question and user details as PDFs for easy offline reference.
• Data in your hands: Export user lists with details in Excel format.
• Secured and permissioned: Role-based authorization ensures a safe and controlled environment for all users.
• A joy to use: Experience a user-friendly interface with a pixel-perfect design that prioritizes both form and function.

And much more! Explore additional functionalities designed to enrich educational discussions and learning experience.

🚀 Getting Started

I. Requirements 📝

• .NET 8 SDK (or higher)
• Microsoft SQL Server
• JetBrains Rider (edu), Visual Studio, or VS Code

II. Installation ⚙️

1. Clone the Repository

gh repo clone Raofin/TopicTalks

2. Setup Google Cloud API Credentials (Optional) ☁️

✅ Free forever.

After researching free cloud storage options, Google Drive storage through Google Cloud seemed to be the best fit for this project. Given the limited resources available on the internet for interacting with the Google Drive APIs, it took me a while to understand and implement the functionalities.

However, in order for the project to run with full functionality, you'll need to have your own Google Drive API credentials inserted in the GoogleCredentials.json. Here are the steps to follow to create a free Google Cloud project and get the credentials 🔽

1. Create a project in the Google Cloud Console
2. Enable Google Drive API for the project
   
   
3. Select Create Credentials
   
   
4. Select Application Data -> Click Next
   
   
5. Fill out the details -> Select Owner in Role -> Click Done
   
   
6. Go to Service Accounts -> Select the newly created service account
7. Select Keys -> Click Add Key -> Choose JSON -> Click Create
   (The credentials json file should be automatically downloaded)
   
   
8. Open the file and copy the value of client_email
9. Go to Google Drive -> Create a folder named TopicTalks
10. Share the folder with the client_email
    
    
11. Finally, paste everything from the downloaded json file into GoogleCredentials.json
12. Star this project

3. Database Migration

The project is configured to automatically apply migrations with some seed data on its first run. To create a database with more data, including the beautiful user portraits and question covers, execute the TopicTalks.sql script. You can manually apply migrations using the following commands:

• For Package Manager 👇

  Update-Database -Context AppDbContext -Project TopicTalks.Infrastructure -StartupProject TopicTalks.Api

• For CLI 👇

  dotnet ef database update --project TopicTalks.Infrastructure/TopicTalks.Infrastructure.csproj --startup-project TopicTalks.Api/TopicTalks.Api.csproj

🌻 Useful Commands

Add-Migration Init -Context AppDbContext -Project TopicTalks.Infrastructure -StartupProject TopicTalks.Api

Remove-Migration -Project TopicTalks.Infrastructure -StartupProject TopicTalks.Api -Force

Update-Database -Context AppDbContext -Project TopicTalks.Infrastructure -StartupProject TopicTalks.Api

Update-Database -Migration Init -Context AppDbContext -Project TopicTalks.Infrastructure -StartupProject TopicTalks.Api

4. Configure Email Settings via User Secrets 📬

To use Gmail's smtp server, you will need to use an app password. Note that this requires having 2-step verification enabled in your account.

Use the following Commands to store the credentials in user secrets 👇

dotnet user-secrets --project src/TopicTalks.Api set EmailSettings:Email you@gmail.com
dotnet user-secrets --project src/TopicTalks.Api set EmailSettings:Password your-password

If you are using a different server, set the server and port as well accordingly.

5. Build the Projects

cd TopicTalks/src
dotnet build TopicTalks.Api/TopicTalks.Api.csproj
dotnet build TopicTalks.Web/TopicTalks.Web.csproj

6. Run the Projects (Seperately)

dotnet run --project TopicTalks.Api/TopicTalks.Api.csproj --urls "https://localhost:9998"

dotnet run --project TopicTalks.Web/TopicTalks.Web.csproj --urls "https://localhost:9999"

7. Access the Projects 🌐

• API: https://localhost:9998
• Web: https://localhost:9999

🛠️ Technologies and Design Patterns

Frameworks 🔧

• ASP.NET Core 8.0 Web API
• ASP.NET Core 8.0 MVC
• Entity Framework Core 8.0

Database 🛢

• Microsoft SQL Server

Frontend Library 📑

• jQuery
• jQuery Validate
• Bootstrap 5
• Popper.js
• Tippy.js
• FontFace Observer

Architectural and Design Patterns 📐

• Clean Architecture 🦾
• Result Pattern
• Database Code First Approach with Fluent API
• Repository Pattern
• Unit of Work (UoW)

📦 Nuget Packages

Package Name	Used to 👇
Swashbuckle	Generate API documentation from Web API controllers
ErrorOr	Handle errors and return results efficiently
Serilog	Log events in a very structured way
FluentValidation	Apply server-side data validation rules
FluentEmail	Send emails using SMTP servers
Google Apis	Interact with cloud storage
RazorTemplating	Render .cshtml files into string
DinkToPdf	Generate beautiful PDFs from HTML
ClosedXML	Generate Excel (.xlsx) files
WebOptimizer	Bundle and minify CSS & JavaScript files for faster loading
WebMarkupMin	Minify MVC HTML content to reduce file size for improved performance

📊 ER Diagram

📸 Screenshots

View at 👉 be.net/TopicTalks

🪪 License

Distributed under the BSD 3-Clause License. See LICENSE for more information.