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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.

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.