Flask Website

A professional Flask-based web project following Lanqiao's tutorial, implementing user authentication, database migrations, and more.

Introduction

This project is a Flask-based web application. It aims to implement a fully functional website with user authentication, a blog system, and a clean UI using Flask-Bootstrap.

Features

• User Authentication: Complete functionality for user registration, login, and logout.
• Email Verification: Automatic email verification upon registration using Flask-Mail, including token generation and email templates.
• Secure Password Hashing: Passwords are securely hashed using werkzeug.security to protect user credentials.
• Database Management: Database migrations are handled by Flask-Migrate, allowing for seamless schema changes.
• Role-Based Access Control: Implementation of user roles and permissions, ensuring that only authorised users can access specific features.
• Dynamic User Profiles: Users can manage their profiles, including attributes such as age, gender, phone_number, location, and about_me.
• User Activity Tracking: Tracks and displays the last seen time for users, enhancing user engagement.
• Responsive User Interface: A clean and responsive user interface built with Flask-Bootstrap, ensuring a good user experience across devices.
• Error Handling: Custom error pages for 404 and 500 errors to improve user experience.
• Asynchronous Email Sending: Emails are dispatched in a separate thread to prevent blocking the main application thread.
• Form Validation: Utilises Flask-WTF for form handling and validation, ensuring user input is properly checked.
• Dynamic Time Formatting: Uses Flask-Moment for displaying and formatting dates and times dynamically.
• Blog system with posts and comments (coming soon...)
• User profile and settings (coming soon...)

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Installation

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/fredsun02/flask-website.git
cd flask-website

2. Create a Virtual Environment

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # macOS/Linux
venv\Scripts\activate     # Windows

3. Install Dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

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Usage

1. Set Up Environment Variables

Before running the application, export the necessary environment variables:

export FLASK_APP=manage.py
export FLASK_ENV=development
export FLASK_DEBUG=1

2. Initialise the Database

flask db init
flask db migrate -m "Initial migration"
flask db upgrade

3. Start the Application

flask run

Now open your browser and visit: http://127.0.0.1:5000

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Project Structure

flask-website/
├── README.md               # Project documentation
├── log.md                 # Development logs
├── manage.py              # CLI entry point
├── migrations/            # Database migrations
├── requirements.txt       # Dependencies
├── scripts/              # Utility scripts
│   └── generate_fake_data.py  # Test data generator
└── weblog/               # Main application package
    ├── handlers/         # View functions (blueprints)
    ├── templates/        # HTML templates
    ├── static/           # Static files (CSS, JS, etc.)
    ├── app.py            # Application factory
    ├── configs.py        # Configuration settings
    ├── decorators.py     # Custom decorators
    ├── email.py          # Email functionality
    ├── forms.py          # Form definitions
    └── models.py         # Database models

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Licence

This project is licensed under the MIT Licence - see the LICENCE file for details.

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Built with Flask and Love by fredsun02