MERN Blog App 📝

This is a simple personal blog app built using the MERN (MongoDB, Express.js, React.js, Node.js) stack. It allows users to create accounts, write blog posts, and view posts created by other users.

Features 🚀

• User Authentication: Users can sign up, log in, and log out securely using JWT (JSON Web Tokens).
• Create, Update, Delete Posts: Authenticated users can create new blog posts, edit their own posts, and delete them.
• View Posts: Users can view all posts created by other users.
• Responsive Design: The app is designed to be mobile-friendly and works well on different screen sizes.

Tech Stack 💻

• Frontend: React.js, Redux Toolkit, Firebase (optional)
• Backend: Node.js, Express.js
• Database: MongoDB with Mongoose
• Authentication: JWT (JSON Web Tokens)
• Other Dependencies: bcryptjs for password hashing, cookie-parser for handling cookies, dotenv for environment variables.

Getting Started 🛠️

To run this project locally, follow these steps:

1. Clone this repository to your local machine.

2. Navigate to the project directory.

3. Install dependencies for both frontend and backend using npm install.

4. Create a .env file in the root directory for backend and another .env file in the client directory for frontend, and add the following environment variables:

   Backend (.env file in root directory):

PORT=3000 MONGODB_URI=your_mongodb_connection_string JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret

Frontend (client/.env file): REACT_APP_API_URL=http://localhost:3000 REACT_APP_JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret

5. Run the development server for backend using npm run dev.
6. Navigate to the client directory and run the frontend development server using npm run dev.
7. Visit http://localhost:3000 in your browser to view the app.

Available Scripts 📋

In the project directory, you can run:

• Backend:

• npm run dev: Runs the backend server in development mode using nodemon.

• npm start: Starts the production backend server.

• Frontend (inside the client directory):

• npm run dev: Runs the frontend app in development mode.

• npm run build: Builds the frontend app for production to the build folder.

Firebase Integration (Optional) 🌐

This project includes Firebase as an optional dependency for additional features like authentication, storage, etc. If you want to use Firebase, follow these additional steps:

1. Create a Firebase project in the Firebase Console.
2. Add Firebase configuration to your frontend .env file:

REACT_APP_FIREBASE_API_KEY=your_firebase_api_key

3. Initialize Firebase SDK in your frontend code. Refer to the Firebase documentation for more details.

License 📄

This project is licensed under the ISC License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Author ✏️

[Ajay230520]