Love-Journal

My Love Letters — Express + SQLite Journal 💌

A romantic-themed journaling web app. Users register, log in to get a JWT, and then create/read/update/delete their own private “love letters”. Styled with a soft pastel love theme featuring floating hearts, elegant script fonts, and a dreamy aesthetic.

Features

• Love-themed UI: Soft blush pinks, romantic fonts (Dancing Script, Caveat, Playfair Display), and floating animated hearts
• JWT Authentication: Secure user registration and login with bcrypt-hashed passwords
• Private Journaling: Each user can only see and modify their own entries
• Full CRUD: Create, read, update, search, and delete journal entries
• No frontend frameworks: Pure vanilla HTML/CSS/JS — no build step needed
• Per-user isolation: SQL queries are scoped to the authenticated user ID

Project Structure

journal-app/
├── index.js                  # Server entry point + all routes + static file serving
├── package.json
├── public/
│   └── index.html             # Full frontend: auth screens + entry editor (vanilla JS, no build step)
├── db/
│   ├── schema.sql             # Table definitions (user, entry)
│   └── journal.db             # SQLite DB file (auto-created on first run)
└── middleware/
    ├── logger.js               # Logs query params on each request
    └── authenticateToken.js    # Verifies JWT, attaches request.userId

Setup

npm install
npm run dev      # uses nodemon, auto-restarts on file changes
# or
npm start

Server runs at http://localhost:3000/ — open that URL in a browser to use the app (register, log in, write/edit/delete entries). The same server also exposes the JSON API below if you want to hit it directly (curl, Postman, etc).

Love Theme Design Details

• Dancing Script: Used for the brand name “My Love Letters” with a pink gradient
• Caveat: Handwritten-style font for taglines and meta labels
• Playfair Display: Elegant serif for headings and entry titles
• Work Sans: Clean sans-serif for body text and editor content
• Soft pastel color palette: Blush pinks (#FFF7F5, #FFF1F2), romantic magenta (#DB2777), and dreamy purple-pink accents
• Animated hearts: Floating decorative elements with random sizes and delays

Frontend notes

• Single static HTML file (public/index.html) with embedded CSS/JS — no build tooling, no framework, works as soon as Express serves it.
• The JWT is kept in an in-memory JS variable, not localStorage, so refreshing the page logs you out. Swap in localStorage/cookies if you want persistence across reloads.
• All entry requests go through the authFetch() helper, which attaches the Authorization: Bearer <token> header and auto-logs-out on a 401.

API Reference

Auth

Register — POST /users/

{ "username": "rahul", "name": "Rahul", "password": "pass123", "gender": "Male", "location": "Hyderabad" }

Login — POST /login

{ "username": "rahul", "password": "pass123" }

Returns: { "jwtToken": "..." }

All /entries/ routes below require the header: Authorization: Bearer <jwtToken>

Journal Entries

Method	Path	Description
GET	/entries/	List your entries (supports offset, limit, order, order_by, search_q)
GET	/entries/:entryId/	Get a single entry
POST	/entries/	Create an entry — body: { "title", "content", "mood" }
PUT	/entries/:entryId/	Update an entry — same body as POST
DELETE	/entries/:entryId/	Delete an entry

Example: list with filters

GET /entries/?limit=5&offset=0&order=DESC&order_by=date_created&search_q=grateful

Running the App

After starting the server, open http://localhost:3000 in your browser:

1. Register a new account or log in if you already have one
2. Click “New love note” to start a new entry
3. Add a title, select a mood, and write your thoughts
4. Click “Save love note” to store it
5. Search and browse your love letters from the sidebar

Notes

• Passwords are hashed with bcrypt before storage — never stored in plain text.
• JWT secret is hardcoded as "MY_SECRET_TOKEN" for learning purposes — move this to an environment variable (.env) before deploying anywhere real.
• Every entry route is scoped to request.userId from the verified token, so users can only ever see or modify their own entries.
• SQL queries here use string interpolation for readability/teaching purposes; for production, switch to parameterized queries (db.all(query, [param1, param2])) to prevent SQL injection.