Veg-Connect Setup Guide

A data-driven React-Django app that delivers a content-based recommendation system responsible for suggesting plant pairings that work well together, such as combining nitrogen fixers with nitrogen feeders and tailored planting tasks with instructions for each suggested crop. It allows users to manage and share farming tasks in topic-specific communities via a WebSocket chat.

Table of Contents

- Prerequisites.
- Installation.
- Environment Setup.
- Frontend Setup. 
- Docker Setup.
- Running the Application. 
- License. 

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following installed:

• Git
• Python (3.x)
• Node.js
• virtualenv
• Docker

Installation

Clone the repository and set up your virtual environment:

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Koech01/veg-connect.git
python3 -m venv veg-connect
cd veg-connect

2. Install dependencies:

source bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Environment Setup.

Configure the environment:

1. Create an .env file:

touch .env 

2. Generate a Django secret key:

python -c 'from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key; print(get_random_secret_key())'

3. Open the .env file and add the following lines, with your newly generated secret key for SECRET_KEY. Make sure to keep DEBUG=True for local development:

SECRET_KEY=your_generated_secret_key_here
DEBUG=True

Frontend Setup.

1. Set up the frontend by navigating to the frontend directory and installing dependencies:

cd frontend
npm install
npm run build
cd ..

Docker Setup.

1. Make sure Docker is running before starting Redis or other containers:

sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl status docker 

Running the Application.

1. For chat functionality, ensure Redis is running:

sudo docker run -d -p 6379:6379 redis 

Enter your password.

2. Start the Django development server:

python manage.py runserver 

You can now access the application at http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

License.

This project is licensed under the MIT License.