CSE2WDC Assignment
You have been hired by a client to develop a new web service, “Neverwrote”, for
managing virtual notes—“Never say 'I never wrote that down' ever again!”. Having
heard of the latest and greatest in web technologies, your client specifies that the
backend shall run on a Node.js server, and that the frontend shall be built with React.
“That’s strange, those are exactly the same things that I learnt in CSE2WDC” you think
to yourself as you boot up your computer and get ready to start work.
Plagiarism
This is assignment must be completed individually, not in groups. You are welcome to discuss
problems with fellow students, but the work that you submit must be your own. Don't try to
plagiarise, it's extremely obvious and will only serve to get you into trouble. That's not any fun for
you or for us.
Due Date
This assignment is due 10.00 a.m. on Friday 1st of June, 2018. Penalties are applied to late
assignments (accepted up to 5 days after the due date only). See the departmental Student
Handbook for details.
Submission Details
Zip up everything in your project directory into one file.
Submit your zipped file via LMS
Your final submission must run in a clean virtual machine after invoking docker-compose up, as this is
the environment that we will be using to mark your assignment.
Demo Implementation
If you're curious about what an implementation of Neverwrote might look like, there is a demo
running at http://neverwrote.duckdns.org/?class=cse2wdc. Feel free to play around with it a little to
gain an understanding of what the goal of this assignment is. However, be aware that everyone in
the class will be able to see what you write, so be sensible and don't put up personal information or
inappropriate content.
Objectives
To combine what you've learnt in labs into a complete web application
To provide you with a reference web application for future projects
Getting started
There is a template for the assignment project available for you on Bitbucket at
https://bitbucket.cs.latrobe.edu.au/projects/CSE2WDC/repos/neverwrote. Fork this repository
privately and use it as a starting point for your assignment. Be sure to commit and push regularly to
avoid losing any of your work as you develop.
You will find more specific information about the project structure in the README.md file.
Part 1 – Backend API (50 marks)
You will find “Lab 07 – Backend” to be particularly useful as a reference for this part.
Task 1.1 (50 marks)
Create a REST interface for the Neverwrote backend database. The database has two tables, one
called Notebooks and one called Notes.
Records from the Notebooks table contain the attribute title (string).
Records from the Notes table contain the attributes title (string) and content (text).
All tables have a primary key column called id.
Records from the Notes table are associated with Notebooks in a many-to-one configuration
using the foreign key notebookId.
Specifications
The backend shall expose the following REST API:
HTTP action Description
GET /notebooks Returns a list of all notebooks (does not include notes).
This endpoint has been created for you already.
GET /notebooks/:notebookId/notes Returns a list of all notes for a particular notebook.
POST /notebooks Creates a new notebook using the posted data. Returns the
new notebook.
GET /notebooks/:notebookId Returns a single notebook by ID.
DELETE /notebooks/:notebookId Deletes a single notebook by ID. All of the notebook’s
notes shall be deleted also. Returns an empty object, {}.
PUT /notebooks/:notebookId Updates the attributes of a particular notebook. Returns
the updated notebook.
GET /notes Returns a list of all notes.
POST /notes Creates a new note using the posted data. The notebookId
attribute shall specify which notebook it belongs to.
Returns the new note.
GET /notes/:noteId Returns a single note by ID.
DELETE /notes/:noteId Deletes a single note by ID. Returns an empty object, {}.
PUT /notes/:noteId Updates the attributes of a particular note. Returns the
updated note.
The tests shall pass. This is a very helpful tool, as you can verify that you are on track as you
complete this part of the assignment. You can run the tests with:
docker-compose run --rm api jasmine
◦ You shall not modify the tests in the spec/ directory
The API shall access the database (and accept values from the HTTP request where
appropriate). The REST API shall not use hard-coded values for notes or notebooks.
Part 2 – Frontend interface (50 marks)
You will find “Lab 08 – Frontend” to be particularly useful as a reference for this part. I have also
prepared a stripped-back React/Redux code example which you may find useful to look at for ideas:
https://jsfiddle.net/dismal_denizen/zq23cheL/.
Don’t forget that you need to have Gulp running (docker-compose run --rm frontend gulp) for your
frontend code to be compiled as you work.
Task 2.1 (25 marks)
Create a read-only web interface for the Neverwrote application which displays notebooks and
notes from the database. The code template provided for the assignment is currently set up to
display notebooks from hardcoded dummy data only.
Specifications
There shall be a view which lists the titles of all of the notebooks.
Clicking on a notebook shall display a list of all of the titles of notes within that notebook.
Clicking on a note shall show the full content of that note.
Task 2.2 (20 marks)
Allow users to create and delete notes and notebooks via the web interface.
Specifications
Users shall be able to create and delete notes and notebooks.
The state of the application shall be maintained in a Redux store.
All changes to the Redux store shall be made via dispatched actions.
Modifications to notebooks and notes shall be persisted in the backend database via the
REST API. Therefore changes should survive a page refresh.
You shall use the MarkdownEditor component provided for you as the way to write note
content. This is not much different from using a normal text field. Example usage:
You shall use two Redux reducers: one for the notebooks and one for the notes.
Task 2.3 (5 marks)
Make the user interface pretty and nice to use. Feel free to use the Internet for inspiration.
Bootstrap v3.3.6 is already included as a dependency of the project, and defines a bunch of nice-
looking CSS classes which you can use out-of-the-box. Check out the documentation at
http://bootstrapdocs.com/v3.3.6/docs/ to see what's available (in particular the CSS and
Components pages).
Part 3 – Bonus task (up to 20 bonus marks)
These bonus tasks are an opportunity for you to earn back marks which you may lose in the other
parts of the assignment.
Implement a search system for the frontend interface.
10 marks will be awarded for search functionality within a notebook (filtering based on title
and content). This can be purely client-side (in the browser).
The rest of the marks will be awarded for a separate ability to search across all notes and
notebooks based on title and content. This shall be implemented via a new API endpoint (so
the searching happens in the backend).