Messenger App

A role-based messenging app for academic use.

Messenger features:

• Friends list
• Chat rooms
• Message history
• Offline messaging
• Article repository
• Comment on articles
• Role-based commands
• Anonymity when posting articles and comments

See passwords.txt for existing accounts and their sign in details.

Roles

Admin:

• Can chat to anyone (Admin friends list contains every user that signs up).
• Set/Delete roles for any user.
• Mute/Unmute any user.
• Create articles.
• Modify/Delete articles created by any user.
• Comment on articles.
• Delete any comment.

Staff (Teacher, Teaching Assistant, Supervisor):

• Can chat with friends.
• Mute/Unmute Student users.
• Create articles.
• Modify/Delete articles created by themselves or by Student users.
• Comment on articles.
• Delete comments made by themselves or by Student users.

Student:

• Can chat with friends.
• Create articles.
• Modify/Delete their own articles.
• Comment on articles.
• Delete their own comments.

Commands

Type "!" in chat box to see role-specific commands.

Admin Commands:

• !role set
• !role delete
• !mute
• !unmute

Staff Commands:

• !mute
• !unmute

Muted users cannot join chat rooms or post/comment on articles.

Setup

To setup, install the packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Finally, add the authority certificate (certs/myCA.pem) as a trusted certificate to your internet browser.

Running the App

To run the app:

python app.py

Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:5000

A Warning

Since this app uses cookies, you can't open it in separate tabs to test multiple client communication. This is because cookies are shared across tabs. You'd have to use multiple browsers to test client communication.

Tech Stack

• HTML
• CSS
• Javascript
• Python
• SQLite

Javascript Dependencies

• Socket.io
• Axios (for sending post requests, but a bit easier than using fetch())
• JQuery (if you're familiar with web frameworks this is like the stone age all over again)
• Cookies (small browser library that makes working with cookies just a bit easier)

Python Dependencies

• Template Engine: Jinja
• Database ORM: SQL Alchemy (use SQLite instead if you are an SQL master)
• Flask Socket.io