This project was created as a group of two by Zachary Walford (zwalford - 20679930) and Peter Dye (pjadye - 20678160), and is our take on a social network. We used Facebook as a template since the sample data we used to populate the database was taken from a kaggle dataset [1], which pulled data from five different facebook groups.

To run the code, 2 things are required:

• Python must be installed.
• The python MySQL connector must also be installed. It can be installed by typing and running python -m pip install mysql-connector into whatever terminal you use on your machine.

Assuming the above two items are installed, the code can be run via a simple: python Main.py in the terminal window. The first thing the application will do is prompt the user for a mysql server running somewhere. Simply type the host address, username and password as directed and the application will connect to the MySQL server before creating the database (which we have called budgetBook) and populating it with the sample data we pulled from a kaggle dataset [1], albeit converted into a friendly format for insertion into our database.

Note that the application will not re-create the database every time the application is run - instead, the application will check if the database already exists, and if it doesn't, then it will create the database and populate it.

Upon successful MySQL server connection, database creation and data entry, the user will be presented with the command-line client.

The first thing the user will always be asked to do upon consecutive executions of the application is to login or register (using the L or R keys respectively). This will create a user record in the budgetBook database, which will be used whenever the application user joins a group, makes a post, upvotes/downvotes a post, etc. No password is required as this project will not be used by more than the developers and the evaluators. Other than that, the only major piece of information that is required is the userID, which will be used to login on subsequent executions of the application (and is the user's screen name). One can specify their first name, last name and birth date but they are not necessary to create a user.

After registering, the user can login by pressing L and then typing in their userID.

If during the process of registration the user made a mistake in their inputted data, they are given the opportunity to restart the registration process at the end of the data entry steps.

Upon successful login, the user is presented with the main menu. This includes 5 commands:

• P: Post Menu - Allows the user to create a post, read unread posts, read a post by ID or browse posts in a group that the user is in.
  • Unread posts are posts made by friends of the user after becoming friends (and assuming the user did not unfollow their friend)
  • Browsing posts in a group allows the user to browse any post in the group and see the content of that post, but to actually comment or upvote it the user needs to read the post by ID (the ID is given to the user in the browse option).
• F: Friend Menu - Allows the user to add a friend, unfollow a friend or refollow a friend.
  • When a user adds a friend, that friend is automatically followed, meaning that user's posts will appear in the user's unread posts list, if their new friend makes a new post.
  • Unfollowing a friend means the user will not will not see that friend's posts in their unread posts, but they will still be friends.
• G: Group Menu - Allows the user to create or join a group.
  • In facebook, which this database mocks, groups = topics. Whenever a user makes a post, they choose a group that they are in to post to. Users can also post on their own profile, and the post will not be associated with any group.
• L: Logout
  • Allows the application user to switch budgetBook users.
• E: Exit the Application

The exact breakdown of every command in every menu is not included, but after entering each menu the commands themselves are self-explanatory.

The video demo can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deVcSJQr64E&feature=youtu.be (it was uploaded as unlisted).

Note 1: I accidentally mispoke in the video and said you can't post if you aren't in a group - this is not true, it will just post to your profile and not actually within a group (groupID will be left as null). This is what happens in the YouTube video when testuser1 posts.

Note 2: You do need to have the python mysql connector installed as well to successfully run the code, details are further up in the README (mispoke on the YouTube video).

[1] https://www.kaggle.com/mchirico/cheltenham-s-facebook-group/version/46