Posted on Jun 19

Building EventStack – A Lightweight, Real-Time Doodle & Luma Clone Using Tornado

#webdev #programming #productivity #python

Have you ever struggled to coordinate a meeting time with a group? Tools like Doodle make scheduling easier — but I wanted to create something simpler, open-source, and custom-built with a modern stack. That’s how EventStack was born.

EventStack is a lightweight event scheduling app that allows users to propose time slots, vote on availability, and finalize meetings — all with a slick frontend and real-time updates.

Why I Built It

I wanted to explore Tornado, a powerful Python framework known for handling asynchronous and real-time web apps. Unlike Flask or Django, Tornado gives fine-grained control over sockets, routing, and performance. I also wanted to integrate:

GitHub OAuth for easy login
PostgreSQL as a robust backend
A beautiful frontend using Tailwind CSS
Potential for WebSocket-based real-time voting

This project was a perfect way to combine learning with utility.

Tech Stack

Backend: Tornado – asynchronous Python framework
Frontend: Tailwind CSS + custom HTML templates
Auth: GitHub OAuth2 (manual token exchange using requests)
Database: PostgreSQL (used NeonDB Postgres during initial dev, later moved to local)
Hosting: Runs locally and deployable to platforms like Railway, etc.

Authentication with GitHub

OAuth integration was handled manually — bypassing libraries like Authlib — to better understand the token exchange process. Users log in via GitHub, and their profile data is stored securely in the database.

# Get GitHub token manually using requests response = requests.post( "https://github.com/login/oauth/access_token", data={...}, headers={"Accept": "application/json"} )

Features

✅ Secure GitHub login
✅ Create events with multiple time slots
✅ Vote for available slots
✅ Real-time voting updates
✅ Auto-finalization and notifications (planned)

Frontend Preview

A clean dashboard for users to view and manage events
Interactive voting interface
Markdown-ready comment section (coming)

All templates are rendered server-side with Jinja2 and styled using Tailwind for responsiveness and polish.

Lessons Learned

Tornado requires more boilerplate than Flask, but it pays off for async control.
GitHub OAuth is surprisingly easy when broken down.
NeonDB's PostgreSQL is handy for prototyping — but local or cloud-managed Postgres is better for production.
Real-time updates will require integrating tornado.websocket.WebSocketHandler.

What's Next?

Email or GitHub notifications on finalization

Final Thoughts

EventStack is more than just a clone — it’s a showcase of how you can build something powerful, fast, and modern with minimal libraries. If you’re looking to build real-time apps in Python, give Tornado a try.