bantflags/README.org

* BantFlags
A user script and backend enabling user created flags on [[https://boards.4chan.org/bant][/bant/]],
originally based on [[https://github.com/flaghunters/Extra-Flags-for-4chan][extraflags]].

[[https://flags.plum.moe/bantflags.user.js][Install bantflags]]

** Userscript
The userscript uses of ~GM_xmlhttpRequest~ to get and post flags with
the backend . A user's flags are stored between pages using
~GM_setValue~ and ~GM_getValue~.

Old versions of GreaseMonkey will be able to recieve updates to the
script through the ~@updateURL~ and ~@downloadURL~ directives, though
these were depricated sometime in GreaseMonkey 3.x and updates are
only checked from the location the script was downloaded from so be
careful where you upload links.

On self hosting, changing ~back_end~ to your domain /should/ be all
you need to do, but don't take this as fact. I haven't tested the
example nginx config.

The userscript has been designed specifically to target ECMAScript
2015 (ES6), making liberal use of arrow functions, and const/let
declarations. Update your hecking browser.

** Backend
*** Prerequisites
- .NET Core 3.1
- MariaDB / MySQL

*** .NET dependancies
- Nito.AsyncEX
- Newtonsoft.Json
- MySql.Data
- Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.NewtonsoftJson
- Microsoft.AspNetCore.StaticFiles
- Microsoft.AspNetCore.Razor
- Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer
- Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools
- Magick.NET-Q8-AnyCPU

*** Setup
1) [[https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core][Install .NET Core]] 
2) Clone and build the BantFlags solution.
3) Create the database using [[https://github.com/C-xC-c/BantFlags/blob/master/Environment/database.sql][database.sql]].
   - *Change the password*.
4) configure ~BantFlags/appsettings.example.json~ with your connection
   string and webroot (where you'll serve the flags from *without a
   trailing slash*) and rename it to ~appsettings.json~
   - [[./BantFlags/appsettings.example.json][example appsettings.json]]
   - ASP.NET Core applications look for a folder called ~wwwroot~ in
     the same directory as the application for static files. However
      you can choose to logically seperate these by providing a vaild
     directory to ~webroot~.
     - That is to say, if the bantflags application is in
 ~/var/www/bantflags/BantFlags.dll~, the program will look for
       the folder ~/var/www/bantflags/wwwroot/~ to host static content,
       or whatever directory is provided to ~wwwroot~.
5) If you're hosting on your GNU/Linux distribution of choice, Create a
   folder called ~keys~ in the same directory as the bantflags
   executable.
   - E.G. ~/var/www/bantflags/keys/~
     - This is because ASP.NET Core uses some cryptic bullshit anti
       forgery token when processing HTML forms, and it's unable to
       persistantly store the decryption keys in memory on
       GNU/Linux. This directory will store said keys when you or
       users upload flags to /upload. The path uses
 ~AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory~ internally,
       I.E. wherever the program is.
6) Add flags to the backend by uploading them to the flag console (/Upload).
   - Flags must be 16x11 pixels and under 15kb. Their names must not
     exceed 100 characters and cannot contain either "||" or ",".
7) Configure your webserver of choice to forward requests to kestral
   - [[https://github.com/C-xC-c/BantFlags/blob/master/Environment/nginx.conf][Example nginx config.]]
8) Run with ~dotnet BantFlags.dll~ or create a service to run it as a
   daemon.
   - [[https://github.com/C-xC-c/BantFlags/blob/master/Environment/bantflags.service][Example systemd service.]]
9) ???
10) profit.

*** Database
Tables look like this:

*posts*
| id | post_nr | board |
|  1 |   12345 | bant  |
|  2 |   56789 | bant  |
*flags*
| id | flag      |
|  1 | patchouli |
|  2 | chen      |
*postflags*
| id | post_nr | flag |
|  1 |       1 |    1 |
|  2 |       1 |    2 |
|  2 |       2 |    2 |
where ~post_nr~ and ~flag~ in *postflags* are the id fields in their
respective tables.
*** API
The backend exposes three endpoints for the userscript to get and post
flags. Flags themselves are hosted from the ~flags/~ directory. This
will be whatever value you gave to ~webroot~ (or
~/path/to/bantflags/wwwroot/~ if no value is provided) + ~flags/~.

| route      | purpse                                     |
|------------+--------------------------------------------|
| /api/get   | Get flags using post numbers in the thread |
| /api/post  | Add flags to the database                  |
| /api/flags | List the flags we support                  |
| /flags/*   | The flag images                            |

** Backwards Compatibility
The API is 1:1 compatable with all previous versions of
bantflags. Further improvements are achieved by encoding a ~version~
variable when poking endpoints which allows for breaking changes in
the script and backend while guaranteeing data can be parsed on both
ends. See [[https://github.com/C-xC-c/BantFlags/tree/master/Docs/][Docs/{endpoint}]] for changes and compatibility.