RSS Reader Project Documentation
RSS Reader Project Documentation
About the project
RSS Reader is a WEB application consisting of 2 projects, which are responsible for downloading information from RSS feeds, storing and archiving them, as well as providing a user interface thanks to which you can browse the stored information. With RSS Reader you can view your favourite RSS feeds at any time, even if the feed provider is temporarily offline - all RSS feeds displayed in the application are loaded directly from the database and are always available to the user.
What are the components of a fully functional RSS Reader?
This application consists of three main components, which must be operational for the correct functioning of the final product.
-
RSS Downloader
-
RSS Reader
-
MongoDB Database
Additionally, there are 2 dll libraries within the application, which are necessary for proper operation. These libraries contain common elements, which use both RSS Downloader and RSS Reader projects.
-
RSSDbContextLib
-
RSSModelsLib
In addition to the elements providing the main functionalities, there are also modules not required for the operation of the application but providing new amenities for users.
- Newsletter Service Provider
General principle of operation
The system created by us works in the following way.
-
Every specified interval RSS Downloader downloads the current content of RSS feeds and enters this data into a non-relational MongoDB database.
-
The MongoDB non-relational database is an intermediary layer between RSS Downloader and RSS Reader instances, as well as Email Service Provider. Its role is to provide collections that store the content of RSS feeds, including archived data.
-
RSS Reader provides a presentation layer for the user, which is available at the web address. Thanks to it, the reader has access to news from RSS feeds and can quickly move to the information of interest to him/her.
-
The Newsletter Service Provider provides subscribers with the possibility of subscribing to their favourite RSS feeds, which results in sending regular emails to their mailboxes, which contain the latest updates to the RSS reader.
A detailed discussion of the individual components.
RSS Downloader
RSS Downloader is a console application written in C# language, which is placed on the Azure server and executed there periodically every specified time interval using the Jobs functionality provided by the Azure environment. Because it is a console application, it does not have a frontend layer. The user using our RSS reader does not have access to the RSS Downloader project, which is the only and exclusive provider of data used in the project of the reader itself. RSS Downloader communicates with the MongoDB database through the implemented Db Context allowing to connect to a remote database located on a separate server. If the RSS Downloader project fails or the Azure RSS Reader platform fails to work properly, it will remain fully functional but will not be updated with new data, because the update mechanism will be faulty.
MongoDB
In our project, non-relational MongoDB database serves as a database, where RSS Downloader introduces newly downloaded elements and RSS Reader uses the database to update the status of the WEB client application. To work with the database we use a free cloud solution which is:
This free database allows you to manage collections not exceeding 500MB completely free of charge. Thanks to the possibility of choosing the server on which our documents will be stored, we can adjust the location of the server to our needs. In this project, where the number of references to the database is not very large, such an approach is completely sufficient.
RSSModelsLib
RSSModelsLib is a project compiled into a dll library, which stores models used in the main projects.
Structure of individual collections(from Models in RSSModelsLib)
RssDocumentSingle stores information about the RSS channel and contains a list of items where specific messages contained therein are stored.
namespace RssModelsLib.Models
{
public class RssDocumentSingle
{
[BsonId]
public ObjectId Id { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public string Image { get; set; }
public string Link { get; set; }
public string LastUpdate { get; set; }
public string Flag { get; set; }
public DateTime LastFetched { get; set; }
public List<RssDocumentItem> RssDocumentContent { get; set; }
}
}
RssDocumentItemcontains information about atomic information contained inside a specific RSS channel.
public class RssDocumentItem
{
public string Guid { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public object Image { get; set; }
public string Links { get; set; }
public string DateOfPublication { get; set; }
public string Category { get; set; }
public DateTime LastModified { get; set; }
}
SubscriberEmail contains the email address with a list of channel subscriptions assigned to it
public class SubscriberEmail
{
[BsonId]
public ObjectId Id { get; set; }
public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
public List<string> SubscriberList { get; set; }
}
RSSDbContextLib
It is a dll library which is a context used for connection to a remote database. Inside the library there are all necessary functions that manipulate directly on the data in the database.
public RssDocumentsRepository()
{
string path;
string user;
string password;
string database;
string connectionstring;
path = @"C:\credentials.txt";
user = "Admin";
password = File.ReadLines(path).First();
database = "rss_downloader_web_application";
connectionstring = $"mongodb://{user}:{password}@ds062818.mlab.com:62818/{database}";
InitializeContext(connectionstring, database);
}
public void InitializeContext(string connectionstring, string database)
{
_mongoClient = new MongoClient(connectionstring);
_server = _mongoClient.GetDatabase(database);
_rssDocumentCollection = _server.GetCollection<RssDocumentSingle>(collectionRSS);
}
RSS Reader
RSS Reader is a project made in ASP.NET MVC technology. Of course with implemented MVC pattern. Our controller in this case is WebApi, which provides appropriate methods, including connection with Db Context for the view. The view is not based on RAZOR, but on Vue.js.
Apart from email oriented controller hidden in the Rsscontroller.cs file in RSS Reader project you can find all of pure html side of our project tightly kept in view models.
Most important file is obviously Index.cshtml as it contains whole Vue.js definition and scripts used to operate on raw html data taken from RSS Downloader.
Short code example is as follows:
<script>
Vue.component('categorylist', {
props: ['category'],
data: function () {
return {
ItemStyle: 'row categoryItemUncheck'
}
},
template: `<div :class="ItemStyle">
<label class="col-10" v-on:click="Check">{{category}}</label>
<input class="col-2" type="checkbox" v-on:click="$emit('change', category)">
</div>`,
methods: {
Check: function () {
this.$emit('by-category', this.category);
if (this.ItemStyle == 'row categoryItemUncheck') {
this.ItemStyle = 'row categoryItemCheck'
}
else {
this.ItemStyle = 'row categoryItemUncheck'
}
}
}
})
Vue.js can be used with both html tags and bootstrap 4.0 classes which we took advantage of. In short all of the scripts can be found in the upper part of Index.cshtml, pure html definition below the scripts, all of used reflinks can be found in shared view Layout.cshtml and lastly all of css classes custom and whatnot can be found in Site.css in the content folder along with all the bootstrap files.
We didn’t separate css classes and Vue.js scripts to other files mainly of underwhelming quantity of acctual files needed, but if your project is in fact bigger remember to do so yourself, as its way easier to tidy up before you make a mess…
Newsletter Service Provider
Newsletter Service Provider is a module in the RSS Downloader project, whose task is to periodically send emails to the mailing list pairs of email address and list of subscribed feeds.
The Postal framework is used for this purpose. Since this framework is designed for ASP.NET MVC and the RSS Downloader project is a console application, you need to add some RAZOR view support packages on which this technology is based.
EmailServiceProvider is a class that stores the methods of the service allowing you to send a newsletter by e-mail.
private void SendSubscriberEmail(SubscriberEmail model)
{
dynamic email = new Email("Email");
email.To = model.EmailAddress;
email.SubscriberList = model.SubscriberList;
email.From = _emailFrom;
email.RssList = _context._rssDocumentCollection.Find(new BsonDocument()).ToList();
email.Subject = "Newsletter RSS Reader RMF24 - " + DateTime.Now.ToLongDateString() + " " + DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString() + ".";
Task t = _service.SendAsync(email);
int attemptsCounter = 1;
try
{
t.Wait();
}
catch (Exception)
{
while (t.Status == TaskStatus.Faulted)
{
if (attemptsCounter < 6)
{
attemptsCounter++;
Task.Delay(900000);
try
{
t = _service.SendAsync(email);
break;
}
catch (Exception)
{
}
}
}
}
}
Email is a view based on the RAZOR page, which defines the structure of data contained in an email message.
@Model RssModelsLib.Models.EmailTemplateViewModel
<h2>Witamy.</h2>
@if (Model.SubscriberList != null)
{
<p><b>Nowości w obserwowanych kanałach:</b></p>
<ul>
@foreach (var Title in Model.SubscriberList)
{
<h2>@Title</h2>
foreach (var singleDocument in Model.RssList)
{
int counter = 0;
if (singleDocument.Title == Title)
{
foreach (var singleDocumentContent in singleDocument.RssDocumentContent)
{
DateTime PubDate = Convert.ToDateTime(singleDocumentContent.DateOfPublication);
if (DateTime.Now.Subtract(PubDate).Hours < 12)
{
<li>
<a href="@singleDocumentContent.Links">@singleDocumentContent.Title</a>
</li>
counter++;
}
}
if (counter == 0)
{
<li>
<p>Brak nowości z ostatnich 12 godzin.</p>
</li>
}
}
}
}
</ul>
}
else
{
<p>
Podczas subskrypcji newslettera nie wybrano żadnych kategorii.<br>
Proszę powrócić do etapu wybierania subskrypcji newslettera.
</p>
}
<br />
<h4>Pozdrawiamy</h4>
<h4>Zespół Vertisio</h4>
<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Korag/RSS_Reader/master/Rss_Downloader_Console/Assets/vertisio_logo_tiny.png" />
<br>
<form action="http://localhost:59554/Reader/CancelNewsletter?EmailAddress=@Model.To" style="text-align:center" method="POST" id="ResignFromNewsletter">
<p>Nie chcesz otrzymywać newslettera?</p>
<input type="submit" value="Rezygnuję z newslettera" />
</form>
Technology used
Overall in our project we used follownig nuget packages:
- All of the preinstalled ASP.Net MVC packages
- Mongo DB nuget packages v2.80
- Postal.Mvc5 v1.20
- NUnit v3.11.0
- Bootstrap v4.3.1
- Antlr v3.5.0.2
- Castle.core v4.3.1
and the following links: “https://use.fontawesome.com/releases/v5.7.2/css/all.css” for that sweet icon in the searchbar “https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/vue-resource@1.5.1” for obvious scripting
There’s probably more I missed so …
Contact us if you have any questions
If you want to contact us, you can do so via github or email address vertisio.com@gmail.com.
If you would like to develop our project and add new functionalities, we are open to any suggestions. We will consider every push to the remote repository
About Vertisio group
We are a group of students currently consisting of 4 members.
- Kamil (
KaHa): Backend developer [Most of program logic/ RSS Downloader / Unit testing specialist] - Łukasz (
Korag): Backend developer [MongoDB / Email and newsletter handling / Azure deployment specialist] - Konrad(
Whoudini): Frontend developer [Site layout and styling/ Mobile responsive specialist] - Bartosz(
Owner): Frontend developer [Vue.js scripting specialist/ Event handling]
Project was finished in less then 3 weeks. Despite the tasking much of work was done interchangable beetween team members.
Download Details:
Author: Korag
Demo: https://rssreadervertisio.azurewebsites.net/
Source Code: https://github.com/Korag/RSS_Reader
#vuejs #vue #javascript
