Flask Blog Bootstrap

A Flask blog application built with Bootstrap styling, rich-text posts, user authentication, and comments.

Features

• Blog posts with create, read, update, and delete workflows
• User registration, login, and logout
• Password hashing with Werkzeug
• Rich text editing for posts and comments via CKEditor
• Comment system tied to authenticated users
• Admin-only post management (admin is the user with id == 1)
• SQLAlchemy models for posts, users, and comments

Tech Stack

• Flask
• Bootstrap-Flask
• Flask-SQLAlchemy / SQLAlchemy 2
• Flask-Login
• Flask-WTF / WTForms
• Flask-CKEditor
• python-dotenv

Project Structure

Flask-Blog-Bootstrap/
├── main.py
├── forms.py
├── requirements.txt
├── blog_data.txt
├── instance/
├── static/
│   ├── assets/
│   ├── css/
│   └── js/
└── templates/
        ├── about.html
        ├── contact.html
        ├── footer.html
        ├── header.html
        ├── index.html
        ├── login.html
        ├── make-post.html
        ├── post.html
        └── register.html

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• pip

Setup

1) Clone the repository

git clone <your-repo-url>
cd Flask-Blog-Bootstrap

2) Create and activate a virtual environment

Windows PowerShell:

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

Windows CMD:

python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate.bat

macOS/Linux:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

3) Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

4) Configure environment variables

Set at least these values before running the app:

• FLASK_KEY (required)
• DB_URI (optional, defaults to sqlite:///posts.db)

Example:

FLASK_KEY=replace_with_a_long_random_secret
DB_URI=sqlite:///posts.db

Note: main.py currently calls load_dotenv("D:/API/EnvironmentVariables/.env"). If that file does not exist on your machine, define the variables in your shell or update this path.

Run the App

python main.py

Default URL:

• http://127.0.0.1:5000/

The app creates database tables automatically on startup with db.create_all().

Data Model

• User
  • id, email, password, name
  • one-to-many with BlogPost
  • one-to-many with Comment
• BlogPost
  • id, title, subtitle, date, body, img_url, author_id
  • many-to-one with User
  • one-to-many with Comment
• Comment
  • id, text, author_id, post_id
  • many-to-one with User
  • many-to-one with BlogPost

Routes

• GET / - List all posts
• GET|POST /register - Register a new user
• GET|POST /login - Log in
• GET /logout - Log out
• GET|POST /post/<int:post_id> - View a post and submit comments
• GET|POST /new-post - Create a post (admin only)
• GET|POST /edit-post/<int:post_id> - Edit a post (admin only)
• GET /delete/<int:post_id> - Delete a post (admin only)
• GET /about - About page
• GET /contact - Contact page

Notes

• Admin access is hard-coded to the first registered user (current_user.id == 1).
• The app currently runs with debug=False.
• FLASK_KEY must be set or form/session features may fail.

Troubleshooting

Import errors

Reinstall dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

App fails on startup with missing secret key behavior

Make sure FLASK_KEY is set in your environment.

Database seems empty

• Confirm DB_URI points where you expect.
• Restart the app to ensure tables are created.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.