Skip to content

JamesMitofsky/unwaitlist.io

Repository files navigation

unwaitlist

Gotta scrape 'n send that waitlist! Allowing University of Vermont students to subscribe for notification of when their course of interest has availability.

Setup

Install NPM packages

npm i require axios nodemailer twilio dotenv googleapis@39 google-spreadsheet

Add .env file

With config info for twilio

# email creds
EMAIL_USER=youemail@domain.com
EMAIL_PASS=***

# twilio auth
TWILIO_SID=***
TWILIO_TOKEN=***

# g-sheets auth
type=***
project_id=***
private_key_id=***
private_key=-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\***\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n
client_email=***
client_id=***
auth_uri=https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth
token_uri=https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token
auth_provider_x509_cert_url=https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs
client_x509_cert_url=***

Run

npm run unwait

Once Semester Maintenance

  • Update all link pre-fixes that get sent to users via email. Based off UVM's public facing course catalog.
  • Update the link to the registrar's page.
  • Make sure Twilio has sufficient funds to continue messaging users
  • Download the current courses (either fall or spring) as an Excel file (or use text-splitting in gSheets). Then copy/paste them into the Course Data tab of the Google Spreadsheet.

Project Resource Catalog

TODO

Issues requiring immediate attention are flagged in the code by "TODO"

  • List all classes being checked each time user requests another course. For example, if their third request was phil, the follow-up email would confirm phil and list the other two pending courses.
  • On initial request, check if the course has other cross listed CRNs that also should be getting checked.

Azure Functions: free, cloud-based execution

NodeMailer: email

Twilio: web-based phone calls

Axios: webpage loading

  • make promise based http requests
  • won't render any javascript based changes

dotenv: protecting sensitive variables

Google Sheets API: user management

Sheets Setup

  • Online, visit the Google Dev Console and create a service worker
  • Share your spreadsheet with the service worker's email
  • Here's a Google Spreadsheet for testing: this google sheet

Usage

  • Reading can be done by cells or rows, but rows seems to make the context more easily understood
  • Writing is done simply with the assignment operator to a given cell, but this must be followed by row.save()
  • Caution: don't fully understand this, but it seems to ensure a save ONLY when it is the last statement to be evaluated in a function. You can force a save to happen immediately with await promisify(row.save)() instead of row.save(). My experience otherwise has been that it will end the function wherever you call promisify from.

Code Styles / Conventions

Decrease Cyclomatic Complexity

  • Cyclomatic Complexity - number of different possible paths, level of nesting, indentation

Example Good: Cyclomatic Complexity = 1 (with Early Termination (ET))

if (!someCondition) return
if (!newCondition) return
if (!nextCondition) return
// do something

Example Bad: Cyclomatic Complexity = 3

if (someCondition) {
    if (newCondition) {
        if (nextCondition) {
            // do something
        }
    }
}

Scope based naming

  • Variable name length can get smaller as you limit the scope of that variable

Example:

cosnt USER_ROW_INFO = ""
let row = allRows.find(r => r.id === ID)

JavaScript Brackets

For guarded if statements, use brackets (just as style convention)

if (!duplicateRow) return true      // bad
if (!duplicateRow) { return true }  // good

Avoid Yoda Conditions

Try to place the target of the investigation as the first term/expression in a comparison operator

  • Good: x === 7 - reads as "Does 'x' equal 7?"

  • Bad: 7 === x - reads as "Does 7 equal x?"

Frame Booleans Affirmatively

  • Boolean Values should always be verb questions that have yes/no answer (ex. isRegNumInvalid)
    • Preference for interpretation should be default is false
    • State things in the affirmative ex. prefer IsTrue to IsUntrue

JavaScript Array Examples

var array = [{compnum: "13113"}, {compnum: "45345"}, {compnum: "34534"}]

// map values in array to return processed value for each item
array.map(i => i.compnum)

// filter list of values to matching criteria
array.filter(i => i.compnum === "45345")

// filter list of values to matching criteria - but just find the first record - return record
array.find(i => i.compnum === "45345")

// see if any values in array meet criteria
array.some(i => i.compnum === "45345")

About

Notifying students when their course of interest has availability.

Topics

Resources

License

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases

No releases published

Packages

No packages published