Wanted Boards

Personal and local todo list-like boards, run it locally with flat files.

Overview

This is a todo list-like board web application, it is made with express and pug. Runs locally, you only need to have a directory named ‘wanted_boards’ in your home directory with some directory and files tree.

wanted_boards directory structure

To properly works, Wanted Boards need the following structure:

Any user has to be a directory whose content is a directory named “boards” and json file named as the user.

User json file contains the user name and its password.

Boards directory contains all the boards that will be displayed by wanted boards in your browser. Each board file is a json file with a specific structure (currently, wanted boards only display three predefined tables, which are Todo, Doing and Done).

All of this directories and file can be created manually or running its respectively bash script.

Bash scripts

In the scripts are script that can help you creating the “wanted_boards” directory.

Each file must be executable, you can do it running the following command:

chmod a+x script_name

defaultDir script

It creates a default wanted_boards directory structure with a predefined user, password and boards.

./defaultDir [-b]

You can use this command with the -b flag to make a bare directory structure.

user script

Create a user directory and its json file.

./user [new_user_name]

While executing will prompt you for a password, this password will be used as the new user’s password.

User script can show all users and delete users with flag -p and -d, respectively.

# show all users
./user -p
# Delete a user
./user -d user

board script

Creates a new board file with a predefined structure. it needs an existing user to create a new board.

./board [user] [new_board]

To delete and see all boards, use board script with flags as follow:

# show boards from a specific user
./board -p [user]
# delete a board from a specific user
./board -d [user] [board_name]

How to use

First you need to have installed git and nodejs.

clone this repository with the following command:

git clone https://github.com/MasterEnoc/Wanted_Boards.git

Install nodejs dependencies (you have to be in the wanted board directory):

# go to the wanted boards directory
cd wanted
# install nodejs dependencies
npm install

Now start wanted boards with:

npm start

Now open a web browser and go to http://localhost:8888/ you need to be aware running wanted in this way you must have a instance of your terminal running constantly the wanted service.

Login screen

This is the first interaction you will have with Wanted Boards, try to login with any user and password you have created or if you executed the defaultDir script try:

username: root password: password

Home screen

Here you can click in any displayed board.

Board screen

Here is where you can add and delete task in each table, every board can have different task.

You can hover over the name of the current board and a list of all your boards will be displayed, you can click any board to change to it.

How to run Wanted Boards as a service

This explanation is based in the current operative system I’m using, Debian 10 (buster). Since Debian use systemd as init system you can follow this instructions:

# create a file where all os services are stored
touch /etc/systemd/system/node.service

node.service file should contain the following

[Unit]
Description=Personal todo board

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/home/user/wanted
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /app/server.js
Restart=always
RestartSec=500ms
StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
SyslogIdentifier=nodejs
User=enoc
Group=enoc
Environment=NODE_ENV=production

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then you can start the service with:

# start service
service node start
# stop service
service node stop
# restart service
service node restart

If you want to start wanted service each time your operative system boot run the following command:

# we use 'node' due the file created in the systemd is named node.service
systemctl enable node

Now you should be able to go to your browser and open Wanted Boards without a new instance of your terminal constantly running with the nodejs process.

You can find a more detailed version of how run any nodejs app as a service in riptutorials.