Medieval Auctions

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Overview

Medieval Auctions is a full-stack auction web application inspired by eBay, set in a medieval fantasy theme. Built with Django, Python, HTML, CSS, and SQLite, the app allows users to create listings, place bids, manage a watchlist, leave comments, and close auctions.

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Features

• Active Listings: Browse all open auction listings with title, price, description, and image.
• Create Listing: Authenticated users can post new auction items with a title, description, starting bid, optional image URL, and category.
• Bidding: Users can place bids on listings. Bids must meet or exceed the starting price and current highest bid. The listing price updates in real time.
• Watchlist: Users can add or remove listings from a personal watchlist, accessible from the navigation bar.
• Close Auction: Sellers can close their own auctions. The highest bidder is automatically marked as the winner and notified.
• Comments: Authenticated users can leave comments on any listing.
• Categories: Listings are organized by category. Clicking a category displays all listings within it.
• Django Admin: Site administrators can manage listings, users, bids, comments, and categories via the Django admin panel.

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Tech Stack

• Backend: Python, Django
• Frontend: HTML, CSS, Bootstrap
• Database: SQLite
• Authentication: Django's built-in auth system

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File Structure

commerce/
├── auctions/
│   ├── static/auctions/
│   │   └── styles.css
│   ├── templates/auctions/
│   │   ├── layout.html
│   │   ├── index.html
│   │   ├── listing.html
│   │   ├── create.html
│   │   ├── watchlist.html
│   │   ├── categories.html
│   │   ├── category_listings.html
│   │   ├── login.html
│   │   └── register.html
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── views.py
├── commerce/
│   ├── settings.py
│   └── urls.py
└── manage.py

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Models

• User — Extends Django's AbstractUser. Includes a ManyToMany watchlist field linking to Listing.
• Category — Stores listing categories (e.g. Weapons, Armor, Food & Drink).
• Listing — Stores title, description, price, image URL, category, seller, closed status, and winner.
• Bid — Stores bid amount, the listing it belongs to, and the buyer.
• Comment — Stores comment text, the listing it belongs to, and the author.

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How to Run Locally

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/commerce.git
   cd commerce
   

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate
   

3. Install dependencies:

   pip install django
   

4. Run migrations:

   python manage.py makemigrations
   python manage.py migrate
   

5. Create a superuser (for Django admin access):

   python manage.py createsuperuser
   

6. Start the development server:

   python manage.py runserver
   

7. Open a browser and navigate to: http://127.0.0.1:8000

8. Access the admin panel at: http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin Use this to add categories before creating listings.

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Usage Notes

• To start with a fresh database, delete db.sqlite3 and rerun python manage.py migrate followed by python manage.py createsuperuser.
• Categories must be created via the Django admin panel before they appear in the Create Listing dropdown.
• Only the seller of a listing can close its auction.
• Sellers cannot bid on their own listings.
• The winning bidder is notified with a message when they visit the listing page after the auction is closed.

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Credits

• Development: Tommy Mantra
• Course: CS50W — Web Programming with Python and JavaScript

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Medieval Auctions — CS50W Project 2