🏠 RentSphere — Smart Multi-Category Rental Website

RentSphere is a full-stack multi-category rental platform built with Node.js, Express, MongoDB and EJS. It provides listing discovery, advanced filters, reviews, booking support, image uploads (Cloudinary), season-based pricing and an in-app chatbot assistant. This README replaces and improves the existing README with clearer setup, usage, and deployment instructions.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Tech stack
• Live demo
• Project structure
• Prerequisites
• Installation
• Configuration / Environment Variables
• Seeding the database
• Running the app
• Important files
• Tips & deployment notes
• Contributing
• License
• Author

Features

• Multi-category rental listings (stays, equipment, etc.)
• Advanced search & filters (price, category, ratings, availability)
• Season-based pricing and dynamic pricing filters
• User accounts: signup, login (Passport + sessions)
• Reviews & ratings for listings
• CRUD management for listings (hosts / admin)
• Booking flow and availability records
• Image upload using Cloudinary
• Smart in-app Chatbot Assistant (UI in templates)
• DB seeding script for demo data

Tech stack

• Backend: Node.js + Express
• Templating: EJS (server-side rendering)
• Database: MongoDB + Mongoose
• Auth: Passport.js (LocalStrategy)
• File uploads / storage: Cloudinary + multer-storage-cloudinary
• Styling: CSS + Bootstrap

Live demo If a live demo is available it is listed in the repository README (example: https://project1-2tfo.onrender.com/listings). If you run the app locally you can access it at http://localhost:3000/listings by default.

Project structure (high level) RentSphere/ ├── Models/ # Mongoose models (Listing, User, Availability, etc.) ├── controllers/ # Business logic (listings, users, bookings, reviews) ├── routes/ # Express routers ├── views/ # EJS templates and partials ├── public/ # Static assets (css, js, images) ├── init/ # Seed scripts (init/index.js, init/data.js) ├── utils/ # Helpers and utilities ├── cloudConfig.js # Cloudinary config ├── app.js # App entry point ├── package.json

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v14+)
• npm
• MongoDB (local or Atlas)
• Cloudinary account (optional, required for image uploads)

Installation

1. Clone the repo git clone https://github.com/CodeManBist/RentSphere.git cd RentSphere

2. Install dependencies npm install

Configuration / Environment Variables Create a .env file in the project root (you may copy from a sample if provided). Minimum variables used by the app:

PORT=3000
ATLASDB_URL=your_mongodb_connection_string
SESSION_SECRET=some_secure_secret
CLOUD_NAME=your_cloudinary_cloud_name   # optional if using Cloudinary
CLOUD_API_KEY=your_cloudinary_api_key
CLOUD_API_SECRET=your_cloudinary_api_secret
NODE_ENV=development

Seeding the database (demo data) A seed script is included under init/. To seed the database (will drop existing DB):

node init/index.js

The seeder creates sample admin and guest accounts and populates listings and availability records. Test accounts printed by the seeder:

• Admin: admin@rentsphere.com / admin123
• Guest: guest@rentsphere.com / guest123

Running the app Start in development (using nodemon recommended):

npm run dev   # or nodemon app.js

Open http://localhost:3000 (or the port you set in .env)

Important files and directories

• app.js — main Express app and middleware setup
• Models/ — Mongoose model definitions
• controllers/ — controllers for listings, users, bookings, payments, reviews
• routes/ — route definitions and routers
• views/ — EJS templates (layouts, includes, listing pages)
• init/ — seeding scripts and initial demo data (init/index.js and init/data.js)
• cloudConfig.js — Cloudinary config and multer storage
• public/ — static assets (css, images, js)

Tips & deployment notes

• Do not commit your .env or secrets. Use environment variables on hosting platforms.
• For production, set NODE_ENV=production and use a managed MongoDB instance (Atlas) and secure session store.
• Use a process manager (PM2, systemd) and enable HTTPS via a reverse proxy (Nginx) or platform features.
• Cloudinary handles image uploads; ensure the Cloudinary credentials are set in the environment.
• If you seed the DB, note that the seeder drops the database before inserting demo data.

Contributing

• Fork the repository and open pull requests for improvements.
• Create branches per feature/fix and include tests where applicable.

License Add a LICENSE file to the repo to declare usage rights (MIT is a common permissive choice). If not added, the project is not licensed for reuse.

Author Sagar (CodeManBist) — Full Stack Developer GitHub: https://github.com/CodeManBist