Organize events and appointments for small, trusted groups.
Complete with backend (Web service, API, data storage) and web frontend.

It's a bit like dudle, nuudel, kulibri, bitpoll et al, but limited to really small groups. Comes with an exceptionally small storage footprint, optimized for lowest hosting costs.

Runs with almost any node.js hosting environment.

• No authentication -
  Anyone can participate.
  Basic Auth suggested if you need to restrict access.
• Users may:
  • Create upcoming events.
  • Subscribe to events.
  • Use different levels of subscription.
• Frontend is available in multiple languages.
• Sends email notifications on content changes.
  Emails will be sent to a single address (use an email group to reach users).
• Supports only a small number of users (limited API performance, service does not scale).

• Completely self-contained:
  • No external database needed.
  • node.js based http service hosts backend (API) and web frontend.
• Based upon quasar framework with vue.js V3.
• No TLS (https).
  Meant to be installed behind an upstream proxy (as supplied by most node.js hosting environments).
• Runtime production configuration by environment variables.
• Runs on any platform that supports node.js (Linux, Unix, MacOS, Windows).

The builtin http API features a small in-memory database. All data is persisted within a file (backend/dbdata/database.json). That file must be writeable by the node.js process (you might need to tweak hosting settings or configure a different path).

There's no concurrency mechanism; The in-memory data is just dumped into the file after each modification.

As a result, there must be only one backend instance; The service will not scale.

There's two node.js installations:

• ~/ (root folder)
  Runs the backend web server.
  Expects the built frontend at ~/dist.
• ~/frontend
  Build and development environment.

• node.js version >= 15
• Email account with SMTP access

That's it. Nothing else.

1. Open any shell inside the project root folder.
2. Run npm ci (or npm i if you want to update dependencies).
3. Configure credentials in .env file.
4. Start the dev server: npm run dev.

The dev server will reload on source code changes.
Listens (by default) on port 8081.

npm run send-test-mail tries to send an email using the configured credentials.

1. Open any shell inside the project root folder.
2. Run npm run frontend-install (or npm i if you want to update dependencies).
3. Start the dev server: npm run frontend-dev.

The dev server will reload on source code changes.
Listens (by default) on port 8081.

Open the frontend with your favorite browser. With the default frontend dev port 8081 the URL is: http://localhost:8081/

The frontend can be re-built from the root folder via npm run build-frontend.

Frontend translation is performed by vue-i18n. The corresponding locale definitions are located at ~/frontend/src/i18n, each in their own locale folder.

Adding a new translation needs registration in
~/frontend/src/i18n/index.js.

Productive deployments should not use .env files, instead using deployment environment variables is preferred. However, the backend will still use the file .env from the project root folder if it exists. Create one if the hosting platform does not supply environment variable configuration.

Make sure no .env files are accessibly publicly.

Don't mix up the files .env and .env.customize; The latter is for configuration, not credentials:

The file .env.customize contains customization parameters. Since it is part of the source code repository it must never contain any credentials.

.env.customize settings are baked into the frontend application build without any protection. Changes relevant to production need a frontend rebuild.

Credentials may be set inside the file .env. This is only recommended for local development.

Modification of the environment files needs service restart.

(via environment variables or from the .env file)

These settings are obligatory.

1. Open any shell inside the subfolder frontend.
2. Run npm run build.

The complete frontend is built into the project subfolder dist.
The backend will automatically pick it up.

With the default backend dev port 8080 the URL is: http://localhost:8080/

npm pack creates an npm package archive.

Some hosters may be able to simply run from that archive; Otherwise the contents of the "package" folder have to be copied to the hosting root.

Pack and copy these files and directories to your node.js hosting platform:

• package.json
• .env.customize
• backend/. (whole folder)
• dist/. (whole folder)

Then run npm i and configure the starting point as npm run start or just `node backend/index.js.

Prior to application start, configure the obligatory credentials (as mentioned above).
Either set environment variables (best practise) or supply a .env file.

The frontend application uses localStorage to persist user settings. Inside the key starting with 'puudle-' these JSON encoded values are used:

This may or may not be a GDPR issue. There's no imprint either, so you'd probably not want to advertise your installation to the public.