README.md

metadata

title: Tierlists Webapp
emoji: 📊
colorFrom: blue
colorTo: indigo
sdk: docker
app_port: 10000

RankingApp

RankingApp is a tier list / ranking app built to practice a deliberately unusual full stack: React on the front end, ASP.NET Core as the routing layer, PHP with PDO for database access, and MySQL running through MAMP.

The project started as the default Visual Studio weather template and grew into a tier list app with create, upload, edit, delete, and save flows.

Architecture

• React handles the UI and user interactions.
• ASP.NET Core acts as the API gateway and forwards requests to the PHP layer.
• PHP uses PDO to talk to MySQL.
• MAMP hosts MySQL and serves uploaded images from Apache.

This stack is intentionally more complicated than it needs to be. The goal was practice, not elegance.

What the app does

• Create a tier list by name.
• Open the ranking grid for that list.
• Upload images from your computer.
• Remove an item if it was uploaded by mistake.
• Drag items into ranked positions.
• Save the finished list and return to it later.
• Edit or delete existing tier lists from the menu.

Project Structure

• ClientApp/ - React frontend
• Controllers/ - ASP.NET Core controllers that proxy to PHP
• tierapp/ - PHP app with database and upload logic
• tierapp/config/Database.php - PDO connection to MySQL
• tierapp/item/ - item create/read/update/delete endpoints
• tierapp/tierlist/ - tier list create/read/delete endpoints

Local Run

1. Start MAMP first.
2. Make sure Apache is on port 80 and MySQL is on 3306.
3. Run the .NET backend from the repository root:

dotnet run

4. Run the React frontend from ClientApp:

cd ClientApp
npm start

5. Open the React app in the browser at the port shown by the dev server.

Notes

• Uploaded images are stored in tierapp/item/uploads.
• The item reader expects both item_type and tier_list_id.
• If the UI shows no images, restart both the .NET and React dev servers.
• The browser may warn about the ASP.NET dev certificate in local development.

Why it exists

This project was mainly a learning exercise for:

• ASP.NET Core routing and controllers
• PHP PDO and MySQL integration
• file upload handling
• proxying between a React frontend and a separate backend stack

It is a normal tier list app, except the requests take the scenic route.

Live Demo

Access the live application here: Tierlists Webapp

Deployment Architecture

This project uses a custom deployment strategy to host a multi-stack application inside a single Hugging Face Docker Space. The React frontend is proxied through a .NET backend, which communicates with a local PHP development server handling the database operations. The MySQL database is hosted externally via Aiven.

Hugging Face Workarounds

Deploying this specific architecture requires bypassing several strict cloud environment limitations.

Hugging Face blocks standard Git pushes containing raw binary files. All local image assets must be tracked using Git LFS (git lfs migrate import) before being pushed to the remote repository.

The application requires a specific YAML metadata block at the very top of this file to instruct Hugging Face to use its Docker engine and route internet traffic to port 10000.

External Database Configuration

The PHP backend connects to a managed Aiven MySQL instance. Standard connection strings will fail in this environment without two modifications.

The PDO connection must explicitly declare Aiven's custom 5-digit port, as it does not use the default 3306 MySQL port.

The Aiven instance firewall must also have its Trusted Sources configured to allow inbound traffic from 0.0.0.0/0. This ensures the database accepts requests from Hugging Face's dynamic, rotating IP addresses.

Media Handling

The frontend is configured to handle both local file uploads and external Cloudinary image URLs simultaneously. The React components parse incoming image string data and conditionally append the local proxy path /api/item/uploads/ only if the source is not already a valid external HTTP address.