StackIt – A Minimal Q&A Forum Platform

This is a full-stack Q&A platform built with the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js). It allows users to ask questions, post answers, comment, and vote on both questions and answers.

Features

• User authentication (signup, login) with JWT.
• Ask questions with tags.
• Post answers to questions.
• Comment on answers.
• Upvote/downvote questions and answers.
• View questions by tags.
• User profiles.
• Protected routes for authenticated users.

Tech Stack

Frontend

• React: A JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
• React Router: For declarative routing in React.
• Material-UI: A popular React UI framework.
• Axios: A promise-based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js.
• react-quill: A rich text editor.

Backend

• Node.js: A JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine.
• Express.js: A fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js.
• MongoDB: A cross-platform document-oriented database program.
• Mongoose: An ODM (Object Data Modeling) library for MongoDB and Node.js.
• JWT (JSON Web Tokens): For secure user authentication.
• bcryptjs: For hashing passwords.
• cors: For enabling Cross-Origin Resource Sharing.
• dotenv: For managing environment variables.

Setup and Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js and npm
• MongoDB

Backend Setup

1. Navigate to the backend directory: cd backend

2. Install the dependencies: npm install

3. Create a .env file in the backend directory and add the following environment variables:

   MONGO_URI=<your_mongodb_connection_string>
   JWT_SECRET=<your_jwt_secret>
   

4. Start the backend server: npm start

Frontend Setup

1. Navigate to the frontend directory: cd frontend
2. Install the dependencies: npm install
3. Start the frontend development server: npm start

The application should now be running on http://localhost:3000.

API Endpoints

The backend exposes the following REST API endpoints:

• POST /api/auth/register: Register a new user.
• POST /api/auth/login: Log in a user.
• GET /api/auth/user: Get the currently authenticated user.
• GET /api/questions: Get all questions.
• GET /api/questions/:id: Get a single question by ID.
• POST /api/questions: Create a new question.
• PUT /api/questions/:id/upvote: Upvote a question.
• PUT /api/questions/:id/downvote: Downvote a question.
• POST /api/answers: Add an answer to a question.
• PUT /api/answers/:id/upvote: Upvote an answer.
• PUT /api/answers/:id/downvote: Downvote an answer.
• POST /api/answers/:id/comments: Add a comment to an answer.
• GET /api/tags: Get all tags.
• GET /api/tags/:tagName: Get questions by tag.
• GET /api/notifications: Get user notifications.
• POST /api/notifications/mark-read: Mark notifications as read.

Feel free to explore the code for more details on the implementation.