The C# Academy

Welcome to The C# Academy!

This repository contains the source code that powers our learning community and also serves as a collaborative space for developers of all skill levels.

The C# Academy website is more than just a learning platform - it's a living project where community members can practice real-world development skills. By contributing to this codebase, you'll experience what it's like to work on a production application maintained by multiple developers.

🛠️ Getting Started

Community Issues

1. Request to be added as a contributor in Community Project discord channel

2. Read Contributing to The C# Academy article.

3. Browse the Community Issues or create a new Community Issue in The C# Academy's Github Project

   • Assign yourself to the issue
   • Create a new branch for your issue

4. Submit a new Issue (if one doesn't already exist) in Community section of The C# Academy's Website

   • Select the project.
   • Select the issue type.
   • Enter the issue Title from previous step.
   • Enter the issue URL from previous step.
   • Submit.

Installation Prerequisites

• An IDE (code editor) like Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code.
• The .NET 9 SDK.
• An SQL Server installation (Developer, Express, Docker Container)
• A database management tool like SQL Server Management Studio or DBeaver (optional, only required if you need to run the GetRanking stored procedure).

Installation Steps

Note

The following steps are examples for terminal/command prompt.

You may need to adjust them based on your specific operating system and environment.

1. Clone the repository:

   • git clone https://github.com/TheCSharpAcademy/TCSA.V2026.git

2. Navigate to the application project directory:

   • cd TCSA.V2026\TCSA.V2026

3. Create a appsettings.json file:

   • notepad appsettings.json

4. Paste the following, adjust any values specific to your environment. Save and close.

{
    "AllowedHosts": "*",
    "ConnectionStrings": {
        "DefaultConnection": "Server=(localdb)\\MSSQLLocalDB; Initial Catalog=TCSA_V2026; Integrated Security=true;"
    },
    "Logging": {
        "LogLevel": {
        "Default": "Information",
        "Microsoft.AspNetCore": "Warning"
        }
    },
    "Values": {
        "GithubClientId": "abc123",
        "GithubClientSecret": "abc123"
    },
    "Discord": {
        "Token": "ODAzMzc3MjcwODc4MTA5NzI2.tHis.IS.not.A.ReAl.tOkeN"
  }
}

Tip

Replace DefaultConnection with your own connection string.

If you want to login via GitHub, replace GithubClientId and GithubClientSecret with your own values.

Github Docs: Creating an OAuth app

5. Open the solution TCSA.V2026.sln.

6. Go to Program.cs and uncomment the following lines:

if (app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
{
    SeedData.Seed(app.Services);
}

Note

After running the application you can comment out these lines again to avoid database recreation on every startup.

Make sure to repeat this step when database schema changes or new seeding data is added.

7. Run the project.

   • dotnet run

8. Login as fake user

   • You can find several fake users in Data/SeedData.cs
   • Below is login info from a seeded user with Orange belt and 1000 XP points:

Username: user1@example.com
Password: Password123!

GetRanking Store Procedure

Important

This stored procedure must be created if you want to access the leaderboard pages.

Use your database management tool of choice and ensure you are connected to the correct database before running the below script.

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[GetRanking]
    @userId NVARCHAR(450),
    @ranking INT OUTPUT
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @userExperiencePoints INT;

    -- Get the user's experience points based on the provided user ID
    SELECT @userExperiencePoints = [ExperiencePoints]
    FROM [AspNetUsers]
    WHERE [Id] = @userId;

    -- Calculate the user's ranking
    SELECT @ranking = COUNT(*) + 1
FROM [AspNetUsers]
WHERE [ExperiencePoints] > @userExperiencePoints
   OR ([ExperiencePoints] = @userExperiencePoints AND (
       [FirstName] < (SELECT [FirstName] FROM [AspNetUsers] WHERE [Id] = @userId) OR
       ([FirstName] = (SELECT [FirstName] FROM [AspNetUsers] WHERE [Id] = @userId) AND [LastName] < (SELECT [LastName] FROM [AspNetUsers] WHERE [Id] = @userId))
   ));
END;
GO

🧪 Testing

End-to-End Testing with Playwright

This project uses Playwright for end-to-end testing. Before running the tests, you need to install the Playwright browsers.

Installing Playwright Browsers

cd TCSA.V2026.EndToEndTests
pwsh bin/Debug/net10.0/playwright.ps1 install

Note

This command needs to be run after building the test project for the first time.