Autocomplete project

Available online at https://nodetojoy-autocomplete.herokuapp.com/

Objectives

• Word finder with autocomplete functionality and google search redirection
• Suggestions appear dynamically
• Testing on front-end and back-end
• Decent code coverage

Stretch goals

• Modularize code
• Host the project on heroku
• Set up Continuous integration with Travis, and code coverage using codeCov and istanbul
• Get a full-suite of github repo badges in the readme

Project plan

Application flow

• Read dictionary file only once (for efficiency) and before starting the server
• Key stroke event listener
• Event emitter to send requests for word searching on key stroke event
• Search database (dictionary sorted by popularity as found in this repo)
• Find matches with prefix
• Update drop-down list
• Possibility to select from drop-down list

Client request: key stroke

Server response: autocomplete suggestions

Folder structure

• public
  • index.html
  • styles.css
  • app.js
• src
  • dictionary.txt
  • modules (.js)
  • server.js
• tests
  • tape-tests.js
  • qunit-tests.js
• package.json
• qunit.html
• .gitignore

Front-end design

• Header/banner
• Text input box
• Search button
• Drop-down list

Testing

• Front-end using qUnit
• Back-end using Tape
• Unit testing

Record of daily progress

Wednesday

• Make project plan
• Research data structures (e.g. tries, hash tables etc) to improve performance
• Setup folder structure and basic front-end
• Start working on modules in the back end

Thursday

• Write front-end and back-end tests
• Add styling to webpage
• Build all required modules and import in the necessary files
• Set the server running

Friday

• Serve public files through the server (i.e. create routing rules)
• Fix require/export sequence (e.g. start server after loading dictionary database)
• Add more tests

Saturday

• Add selection functionality to dropdown list
• Add code (front-end and back-end) for edge cases (e.g. return no word matches if the user has only entered spaces)
• Change page styling to improve readability

Sunday

• Fix bugs in the front-end
• Refactor handler module
• Install Istanbul to get code coverage

Monday

• Heroku deployment