chrihill / mlh-localhost-github

This repo contains the source code for the MLH Localhost workshop, How to Collaborate on Code Projects with GitHub.

MLH Localhost Hometown Map

This repository contains the source code for a map of the hometowns of anyone who attends the MLH Localhost workshop, How to Collaborate on Code Projects with GitHub. Participants learn best practice GitHub workflows, add their hometown to locations.txt, and see the giant community they're part of!

How to participate in this workshop

1. Make a GitHub account.
2. Fork this repository.
3. Add your hometown to locations.txt.
4. Commit your changes and make a pull request.
5. Ask someone else to comment on your pull request.
6. Wait for the workshop organizer to approve your pull request.
7. Refresh the map!

Technologies used in this project

NodeJS

The map itself is a Node.js application. Node.js allows us to write full-stack

NPM packages used

express

Fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for node. This is the framework with which we built the application.

dotenv

Dotenv is a zero-dependency module that loads environment variables from a .env file into process.env. Storing configuration in the environment separate from code is based on The Twelve-Factor App methodology.

node-geocoder

Node library for geocoding and reverse geocoding.

ejs

Embedded JavaScript templates

Try the application locally, if you want!

Google Maps API Key

To use the Google Maps JavaScript API, you will ned an API Key. The API key is used to track API requests associated with your project for usage and billing. To learn more about API keys, see the API Key Best Practices and the FAQs.

Read the tutorial and configure your API Key

Adding a new location

The App reads its locations from the locations.txt file located in the root folder. It will consider each line a different location, so the file should look something like this:

New York, USA
Brazil
Japan

To add a new location, simply append a new line to the locations.txt file

There is also a locations.txt.example file that can be used to test the app. Copy its content to locations.txt and restart the app.

Running the application:

To run this application locally, you'll need to:

• Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/MLH/mlh-localhost-github.git
cd localhost-github
npm install

• Set up environment variables:

There is a .env.example file that can be used to configure the app. Simply create a copy named .env

PORT= # Port to be used by the app
GOOGLE_API_KEY= # Google Maps API KEY

Now inside the root folder run:

npm start

Now you can access locally in your browser the address http://localhost:3000 and see your locations map.