About This Project

Movie Recommender is a lightweight, PHP‑and‑MySQL–powered web application designed to help users discover films through intuitive browsing, and user feedback:

• User Experience

  • Browse movies by genre, release year and rating
  • Search by title or keyword
  • View detailed pages with synopsis, cast and user reviews

• Admin Panel

  • Add, edit, or remove movie entries (title, genre, year, poster, trailer link)
  • Moderate user reviews and ratings
  • Dashboard shows total movies, active users, and recent reviews

• Tech Stack

  • Frontend: HTML5, CSS3 (Bootstrap), JavaScript (jQuery)
  • Backend: PHP 7.x with PDO for secure database access
  • Database: MySQL 5.x with utf8mb4 support

By combining straightforward business rules with a clean, responsive UI, this project demonstrates how to build a fully featured movie catalog and recommendation site without the overhead of a machine‑learning pipeline.

Local Setup

Follow these steps to run the Movie Recommender on your local machine:

1. Start Your Web & DB Servers

   • Open the XAMPP Control Panel.
   • Click Start next to Apache and MySQL.

2. Create the Database

   • In your browser, go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin.
   • Click New.
   • Enter Database name: msrps_db
   • Select Collation: utf8mb4_general_ci
   • Click Create.

3. Import Schema & Seed Data

   • In phpMyAdmin, select the msrps_db database.
   • Go to the Import tab.
   • Click Choose File and select ./Project/Database/mrsps_db.sql.
   • Click Go and wait for the confirmation message.

4. Deploy Project Files

   • Copy the entire project folder (e.g. MovieRecommender) into your XAMPP htdocs directory:

     C:\xampp\htdocs\MovieRecommender
     

   • Ensure folder permissions allow read/write where needed.

5. Configure Application Base URL

   • Open initialize.php in your editor.
   • Locate the $base_url variable, for example:

     // initialize.php
     $base_url = 'http://localhost:8080/MovieRecommender/';

   • Update the URL (and port) to match your local setup.

6. Launch the App

   • In your browser, navigate to:

     http://localhost:8080/MovieRecommender/
     

   • The Movie Recommender homepage should load.

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Troubleshooting

• Database Connection Failed?

  • Verify MySQL is running in XAMPP.
  • Double‑check credentials in config.php.

• 404 or Asset Loading Errors?

  • Make sure your project folder name matches the one in $base_url.
  • Confirm files are under htdocs/MovieRecommender.

• SQL Import Issues?

  • Open the .sql file in a text editor to check for corruption.
  • Ensure your MySQL version is compatible with the dump.

• Port Conflicts

  • If Apache won’t start on port 80 or 8080, edit httpd.conf (search for Listen 80) or configure XAMPP to use a free port.