Ride Tracker

Ride tracker is a web app that allows users to create and view vehicle maintenance records. It is built on Node and Express, and utilizes a PostgreSQL database for the storing and retrieval of maintenance records.

JOIN MY GROUP!

This project is nearing completion! And I WILL take it live one way or another. I'm also using this as a semester project in another class so there are already multiple people collaborating to make it better. Join the fun and be a part of a project that you will actually use when the semester is over.

Who knows, maybe you're a car nut like me and you'll want to continue working on the project after the semester ends. I intend to make this project profitable, and I am open to those who may want to join me in continuing to improve the project (and reaping the benefits) after the semester ends!

Motivation

Do you know the last time your oil was changed? What about your engine coolant? What about your transmission fluid? Cars require more than just motor oil to operate reliably for years and thousands of miles. Most people don't know what maintenance their car requires beyond just the basic oil change. They simply wait for the "service" light to come on, and then take their car to the quick lube shop.

This approach to car maintenance leaves you at the mercy of quick lube salesmen to tell you what sort of maintenance you need and when you need it. It also leads to all maintenance items but the motor oil changes getting skipped, which leads to reduced reliability and costly and avoidable repairs becoming necessary.

There is a better way!

Enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing exactly what and when work was done to your car, and when you next need to get service completed. Ride tracker is a cloud-based web app, so you'll never lose your records. Records are also attached to the car, so when you sell you car you can easily transfer the records over to the new owner.

Work Completed

The app is already nearing completion. I need to finish setting up passport.js so users can start logging in to their accounts and seeing their "garage". Once that's working, it should be really easy to add the functionality to add maintenance records, vehicles, etc.

I've also already bought the domain ridetracker.io

Once we do a few basic things to finish this project, we can actually go live!

The next section is copied from my git repo for this project. This is to give you an idea of how easy it is to get going on this and start coding.

Getting Started

1. Clone the code repository.

For guidance on cloning code repositories with Git, please refer to this guide. Once the code has been cloned to your computer, enter its directory. For example:

cd ride-tracker

2. Install the required Node modules.

Since ride tracker is built on Node, you will need to install Node (which includes npm by default) in order to test and contribute to the project. If you don't have Node installed, you can download it here. Once you have Node (and npm) installed, use the command:

npm install

A note on dependencies:

If you encounter errors when you attempt to npm install, your system may not have come with the following dependencies, which are required:

make
python3
python (or perhaps python-is-python3)
gcc
g++

Hint: On an apt based linux distribution (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, etc.), you can install a package by running sudo apt install <package name>. For example, to install make, run sudo apt install make. If you're on Windows, MacOS, or a non-apt based linux distribution, your platform will most likely have a package manager that works in a similar fashion.

3. Start the local development web server.

To start your development web server, use the command:

npm run dev

Other scripts for the ride tracker project can be found in the package.json file in the root directory of the project. These scripts are also summoned via the npm run command.

4. Connect to the web server

In your web browser, visit the url localhost:3000 You should now see the Ride Tracker UI.