saythanks.io

☼ The ‘Say Thanks’ Project

Spreading Thankfulness in Open Source™

saythanks.io will provide a button/link for use by open source projects, to encourage users to send a simple thank you note to the creator (or creators) of that project.

This simple button/link can be added to READMEs and project documentation.

The author can then enjoy a nice inbox (ideally) filled with very small, thoughtful messages from the happy users of the software they enjoy to toil over.

Recent Improvements

• Email Delivery Provider Updated: Migrated transactional email delivery from SendGrid to MailerSend for improved deliverability, modern API support, and more reliable service. This change addresses recent deliverability issues and leverages MailerSend’s robust features for transactional messaging.
• Localized Placeholder Names: Added an option to generate Indian-style placeholder names in the note submission form (alongside the existing American-style names), via a ?name_style=indian URL option.
• Learn more here (https://github.com/mailersend/mailersend-python?tab=readme-ov-file#send-a-template-based-email)
• Versatile Markdown Editor: Added a powerful and user-friendly markdown editor (Toast UI Editor) for thank you note writing, featuring live preview and enhanced formatting options for users.
• Codebase has been prettified and refactored for maintainability.
• Improved CSRF protection and message inbox aggregation for users/projects.
• Hosting migrated to KGiSL (was Heroku); CloudFlare continues for SSL termination.
• Unnecessary files and legacy configs cleaned up.
• UI and UX improvements, including updated button colors.
• Enhanced documentation and developer setup instructions.
• Ongoing improvements to authentication (Auth0, OAuth2).

Implementation Concepts

☤ The Basics

• Send an email when a new message of thankfulness is submitted(CSRF enabled).
• Inbox page for each user/project with simple aggregation of messages (private).

☤ The Architecture

• Flask for API and Frontend, single application
• Auth0 for credential storage (done, OAuth2 in progress)
• Heroku for Hosting (done!)
  • now hosted at KGiSL
• CloudFlare for SSL termination (done!)
• GitHub account creation, as well as password-less email accounts

Intended Collaborators

• Erin “The X” O’Connell (Python)
• Tom “The Pythonist” Baker (JavaScript)
• Tom “Sea of Clouds” Matthews (Logo and Graphic Design)
• Kenneth “Your Name Here Instead, Idan?” Reitz (Frontend Design)

Random Inspirational Links

• Say Thanks for Package Control
• Random ‘Thanks’ Issue on GH

Initial Setup for Development

• Refer to docs