Web Framework

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to extend a web framework (WF) for developing web apps that can meet the diverse needs of different fields. This work aims to provide computer science senior project students with an opportunity to work on a wide range of projects using Apache, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL. The paper presents a WF that manages jokes, based on the book PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja (6th ed.) by T. Butler and K. Yank. The WF is interactive, responsive, secure, password-protected and database-driven. It consists of generic and specific components that use a MySQL database on the web server-side to store jokes. The specific components can be modified or added to create custom apps. Admin users can log in with their email and password and perform various actions (view, add, delete and edit) on jokes and categories, depending on their level of permission. Admins with full permissions can also edit the permissions of other registered accounts and access the Manage Categories, Manage Jokes, and Manage Authors pages. The original WF is enhanced and expanded for the senior project starting point by adding the following features: a hierarchical main menu with admin menus as the second level, a highlighted selected menu item, responsive design - accessibility on all devices, improved password security (minimum of 8 characters, 1 lowercase letter, 1 uppercase letter, 1 digit, 1 special character), a two-factor authentication security subsystem, cascaded deletion and uploaded and retrieved binary files (images and documents). In conclusion, the project is designed and implemented following the best practices and tested on a web hosting server provider.