COSC 360 Project - 'Surf - Forum'

Created by Zach Prenovost and Aidan Murphy

Walkthrough

The user is directed to the home page, which includes a welcome message and links to post categories.

Fig 1. Home.php

Guest users can browse features by selecting categories, viewing posts, browsing comments, and viewing user profiles.

To access more site functionality, users can sign up by clicking the signup button on the header, leading to the signup form page.

Fig 2. User Signup Form

After registration, users are redirected to the login screen. Once logged in, they can make posts, comments, edit their profiles, and more.

Fig 3. Create Post Form

Users can also edit their profile, including changing their profile picture and password.

Fig 4. Edit Profile Page

Administrators have additional capabilities, such as editing or deleting posts and comments, and disabling user accounts.

Developer Implementation

Our website utilizes HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and PHP. JavaScript handles account creation and authentication, while PHP is used for server-side logic and database interactions. Our database structure supports discussion threads, user profiles, and administrative functions.

Fig 5. Entity Relationship Diagram for Surf-Forum

Security measures, including input validation and error handling, are implemented to protect against SQL injection and other attacks. We use GitHub for version control and have focused on creating a user-friendly interface with Bootstrap, tailored here with Tailwind CSS.

Limitations include spam, inappropriate content management, HTML-based post vulnerabilities, limited multimedia and mobile support, and fixed categories.

Conclusion

'Surf - Forum' is a discussion forum website designed for user interaction and content sharing, with emphasis on security and user experience, despite facing some limitations.

Thank you for reviewing our project!