Capebook

Capebook live

Capebook is a Facebook-inspired social networking application for superheroes (and villains!). A Redux structure with React.js views offers a dynamic and responsive frontend to complement the trusty backend pairing of Ruby on Rails with a PostgreSQL database.

Features

User Profiles

Upon account creation, Capebook automatically generates a profile for the new user, populating default information such as a profile picture and cover photo (attached to the user with the paperclip gem and accessed through an Amazon Web Services bucket). Users can then edit their profile information and upload new photos through a nested modal form utilizing the flexibility of a ModalReducer to track multiple modals' status in the Redux store.

Friending

Capebook tracks user relationships through friendships, which can have a status of pending, approved, or denied. The database stores these friendship statuses as integer values, while the friendship model translates into recognizable strings for optimal balance between storage efficiency and legibility. The friendship status between the two users is then translated into six different possible action button components on a given user's profile page.

1. Edit profile

• Visible only when the current user is on their own profile page

2. Cancel request

• Allows the sender of a friend request to delete a pending friendship before receiving a response from the receiver.

3. Respond to request

• The receiver of a pending request has the option to either 'confirm' or 'delete request' through a hover-dropdown menu, changing the friendship status to approved or denied, respectively.

4. Unfriend

• Either user in an approved friendship can delete the friendship.

5. Blocked notification

• The sender of a friend request that has been denied can no longer send friend requests to the same receiver.

6. Unblock

• The receiver of a friend request who initially blocked the sender can unblock, deleting the friendship and allowing for a new attempt at establishing friendship.

# translate ['pending', 'approved', 'denied'] status of friendship
# between current_user and currently displayed user into
# [ self, no_connection, sent_request, received_request, friends, blocked, blocker]
def status
  return -1 if @user.id == current_user.id
  return 0 unless @current_friendship
  case @current_friendship.status
  when "pending"
    return 1 if current_user.id == @current_friendship.sender_id
    return 2
  when "approved"
    return 3
  when "denied"
    return 4 if @user.id == @current_friendship.receiver_id
    return 5
  end
end

Users can also respond to incoming friend requests through a dropdown menu in the global nav bar, with similar options to 'confirm' or 'delete request', or navigate to the sender's profile for recon before deciding.

Posts and Comments

Users can post and comment on other user's timelines, or post statuses on their own profile page or news feed. The timeline will only display posts for which the corresponding user is the recipient, whereas the news feed will show any posts whose author is either the current user, or among the current user's approved friends.

Moving Forward

Features planned for future implementation include:

• Likes
• Notifications
• Direct Messaging
• Nested Comments
• Search
• Photo Albums
• Privacy Filters
  • Users who are not approved friends will see only the costumed character, and not the civilian identity.