A live demo of the application is available at: https://studyforge-a99i.onrender.com/
StudyForge is a lightweight study management application designed for students who want to organize their learning and test their knowledge. It was originally built as a CS50 final project to explore web development using Python and Flask. The scope is focused on essential study tools—specifically, tracking study sessions with a basic spaced repetition algorithm and generating simple multiple-choice quizzes to reinforce material.
- User Accounts: Register and log in to a personalized workspace.
- Course & Topic Management: Add your subjects and specific topics to track.
- Study Session Logging: Use the built-in Live Pomodoro Timer to automatically track your study duration, or log it manually, and rate your understanding.
- Spaced Repetition Scheduling: The app calculates and schedules the optimal date for you to review a topic based on your past understanding scores.
- Custom Quizzes: Create multiple-choice question banks and take randomized quizzes. Your quiz scores are automatically evaluated to update your Spaced Repetition interval!
- Dashboard Analytics: View a summary of your study time, average understanding, and recent quiz scores.
- Resource Discovery: Quickly access pre-generated Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia search links for your topics.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | HTML5, CSS3, Vanilla JavaScript, Bootstrap 5 |
| Backend | Python, Flask, Gunicorn |
| Database | SQLite (local) / PostgreSQL (production) |
| Session Management | Flask-Session (Filesystem) |
The application follows a standard monolithic client-server architecture. The browser client interacts with a Flask web server, which handles all routing, user authentication, and business logic. The backend communicates directly with a local SQLite database (database.db) during development, or a managed PostgreSQL database in production, to store user profiles, courses, topics, study sessions, and quiz attempts. Session data is stored locally on the server's filesystem.
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Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/udarshcodes/ssa.git cd ssa -
Create a virtual environment (optional but recommended):
python -m venv venv # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate # On macOS/Linux: source venv/bin/activate
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Install dependencies:
pip install -r requirements.txt
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Run the application:
python app.py
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Access the application: Open your browser and navigate to
http://127.0.0.1:5000.
.
├── Procfile # Gunicorn deployment configuration
├── app.py # Main Flask application entry point
├── schema.sql # SQLite database schema definition
├── schema_postgres.sql # PostgreSQL schema for production
├── requirements.txt # Python dependencies
├── static/
│ ├── css/
│ │ └── style.css # Global styles and spatial UI/glassmorphism design
│ ├── images/
│ │ ├── logo.png # Application logo
│ │ ├── hero_bg.png # Alternate background image
│ │ └── hero_bg_study.png # Homepage academic background image
│ └── js/
│ └── script.js # Frontend logic for fetching dashboard analytics
└── templates/ # Jinja2 HTML templates
├── layout.html # Base template with navbar and footer
├── index.html # Homepage with Bento Grid layout
├── auth.html # Consolidated login & register interface
├── reset_password.html# Password reset interface
├── planner.html # Study planner and dashboard interface
├── quiz.html # Quiz management interface
├── take_quiz.html # Active quiz interface
└── quiz_result.html # Post-quiz results screen
StudyForge is configured for easy deployment on Render. Simply create a PostgreSQL instance, a Web Service linked to the repo, and set the DATABASE_URL and SECRET_KEY environment variables. Initialize the database using the provided schema_postgres.sql.
- SQLite for Simplicity: Chose SQLite as the database engine to keep the application lightweight and entirely self-contained, avoiding the overhead of running a separate database server.
- Server-Side Rendering: Used Jinja2 templates instead of a modern frontend framework like React. This reduced complexity for a project of this scope and allowed for faster iteration on the core spaced repetition logic.
- Basic Spaced Repetition Algorithm: Implemented a simplified version of the SuperMemo-2 algorithm. Balancing the math for the interval calculations was challenging but necessary to ensure the scheduling felt natural to the user.
- Apple-Style Glassmorphism: Chose to write custom CSS for the recent redesign to implement a premium liquid crystal glassmorphic aesthetic. This allowed for fine-grained control over the heavy backdrop filters, lighting borders, and dynamic hover effects without relying strictly on Bootstrap utilities.