Simple Blog Assignment

simple-blog-assignment.md

📝 Simple Blog Application

🌱 Spring Boot Student Assignment

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📌 Project Overview

This project is a beginner-to-intermediate Spring Boot application designed to help students understand how real-world web applications are built using the Spring ecosystem.

You will develop a fully functional blog platform where users can:

• Register and log in securely 🔐
• Create and manage blog posts ✍️
• Comment on posts 💬
• Organize content using categories 🏷️

By the end of this assignment, you will have built an application that closely resembles production-grade Java web applications, following clean architecture and best practices.

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🎯 Learning Objectives

By completing this project, students will gain hands-on experience with:

✅ Spring Boot – application configuration, auto-configuration, and project structure ✅ Spring MVC – controllers, request mapping, and model-view separation ✅ Spring Data JPA – ORM, repositories, and database interaction ✅ Spring Security – authentication, authorization, and password hashing ✅ Thymeleaf – server-side rendering and dynamic HTML templates ✅ RESTful design – clean and predictable URL patterns ✅ Relational database modeling – entities, relationships, and constraints

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🚀 Project Features

👤 User Management

• 🆕 Registration: Anonymous users can create accounts (username, email, password)
• 🔑 Authentication: Secure login and logout using Spring Security
• 🛡️ Authorization: Only authenticated users may create, edit, or delete content

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📝 Post Management

• ➕ Create Posts: Authenticated users can write blog posts with titles, content, and categories
• 👀 View Posts: Anyone (including anonymous users) can read posts
• ✏️ Edit Posts: Users may edit only their own posts
• 🗑️ Delete Posts: Users may delete only their own posts
• 🏷️ Categorization: Posts may belong to one or more categories

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💬 Comment System

• ➕ Add Comments: Authenticated users can comment on any post
• ✏️ Edit Comments: Users can edit their own comments
• 🗑️ Delete Comments: Users can delete their own comments
• 👁️ View Comments: Everyone can see comments under posts

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🗄️ Database Schema

Design the following tables with proper constraints and relationships.

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👤 Users Table

Column	Type	Constraints
id	Long	🔑 Primary Key, Auto-increment
username	String	Unique, Not Null, Max 50
email	String	Unique, Not Null, Valid format
password	String	Not Null (BCrypt-hashed)
created_at	LocalDateTime	Not Null, Default: now
enabled	Boolean	Default: true

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📝 Posts Table

Column	Type	Constraints
id	Long	🔑 Primary Key
title	String	Not Null, Max 200
content	Text	Not Null
author_id	Long	🔗 FK → Users(id)
created_at	LocalDateTime	Not Null
updated_at	LocalDateTime	Nullable

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💬 Comments Table

Column	Type	Constraints
id	Long	🔑 Primary Key
content	Text	Not Null, Max 1000
post_id	Long	🔗 FK → Posts(id)
author_id	Long	🔗 FK → Users(id)
created_at	LocalDateTime	Not Null
updated_at	LocalDateTime	Nullable

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🏷️ Categories Table

Column	Type	Constraints
id	Long	🔑 Primary Key
name	String	Unique, Not Null
description	String	Nullable

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🔁 Post_Categories (Junction Table)

Column	Type	Constraints
post_id	Long	FK → Posts(id)
category_id	Long	FK → Categories(id)
		🔑 Composite Primary Key

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🔗 Entity Relationships

• 👤 User → Posts: One-to-Many
• 👤 User → Comments: One-to-Many
• 📝 Post → Comments: One-to-Many
• 📝 Post ↔ Categories: Many-to-Many

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🌐 Application Endpoints

🌍 Public Endpoints (No Login Required)

Method	Endpoint	Purpose
GET	/	Home page
GET	/posts	View all posts
GET	/post/{id}	View single post
GET	/category/{id}	Posts by category
GET	/register	Registration page
POST	/register	Register user
GET	/login	Login page
POST	/login	Login processing

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🔒 Protected Endpoints (Login Required)

Method	Endpoint	Purpose
GET	/post/new	Create post form
POST	/post/new	Save new post
GET	/post/{id}/edit	Edit post
POST	/post/{id}/edit	Update post
POST	/post/{id}/delete	Delete post
POST	/post/{id}/comment	Add comment
POST	/comment/{id}/edit	Edit comment
POST	/comment/{id}/delete	Delete comment
GET	/logout	Logout

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⭐ Optional (Advanced)

• /profile – User profile page
• /my-posts – User’s own posts
• /categories – All categories

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🛠️ Implementation Task Order

1️⃣ Create JPA Entities 🧩

• Use @Entity, @Id, @GeneratedValue
• Define relationships properly
• Apply constraints (nullable, unique)
• Use Lombok where appropriate

Entities: User, Post, Comment, Category

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2️⃣ Create Repository Interfaces 📦

• Extend JpaRepository
• Add meaningful query methods

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3️⃣ Service Layer 🧠

• Encapsulate business logic
• Perform validation
• Handle exceptions cleanly

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4️⃣ Spring Security 🔐

• Configure authentication
• Use BCryptPasswordEncoder
• Protect routes
• Customize login/logout

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5️⃣ Controllers 🎮

• Use @Controller
• Map endpoints with @GetMapping / @PostMapping
• Pass data via Model

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6️⃣ Thymeleaf Templates 🎨

Use:

• th:text, th:each, th:if
• Form binding (th:object)
• Security expressions (sec:authorize)
• Layout fragments

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7️⃣ Testing & Refinement 🧪

• Test all flows
• Validate security rules
• Handle edge cases
• Add error pages (403, 404, 500)

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⚙️ Technical Requirements

📦 Dependencies

• Spring Web
• Spring Data JPA
• Spring Security
• Thymeleaf + Security Extras
• Validation
• H2 / MySQL / PostgreSQL
• Lombok (optional)

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⚙️ Configuration

• Database connection
• Hibernate DDL auto
• Thymeleaf settings
• Server port

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🌟 Bonus Challenges

• Pagination 📄
• Search 🔍
• User profiles 👤
• Likes ❤️
• Rich text editor ✨
• Image uploads 🖼️
• Roles (ADMIN / USER) 🛡️
• Email verification 📧
• Password reset 🔑
• REST API 🌐

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📤 Submission Guidelines

Students must submit:

1. ✅ Git repository
2. 📄 README.md
3. 🗄️ Database schema or SQL
4. 📸 Screenshots
5. ✍️ Short reflection document

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🧪 Evaluation Criteria

Category	Weight
Functionality	40%
Code Quality	25%
Database Design	15%
Security	10%
UI/UX	10%

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📚 Resources

• Spring Boot Docs
• Spring Data JPA Guide
• Spring Security Reference
• Thymeleaf Docs
• Baeldung Tutorials

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✨ Good luck! This project mirrors real enterprise Spring applications, so treat it as both a learning exercise and a portfolio piece.