PackIt

PackIt

PackIt is a smart packing list generator for outdoor activities. Select the activities you're planning — camping, skiing, kayaking, and more — and PackIt produces a deduplicated, grouped checklist of everything you need to bring.

Screenshots

Desktop

Mobile

Activity selection	Packing list

How it works

1. Choose your activities — Pick one or more activities from the activity selection page. Activities are organised into groups (e.g. Overnight, Water Activities, Winter Sports).
2. Generate your list — PackIt merges all item requirements across your selected activities, removing duplicates, and groups the result by category (Clothing, Shelter, Navigation, etc.). When the same item is mapped to multiple activities with different quantities, the highest quantity wins.
3. Pack and check off — Work through the interactive checklist, ticking items as you pack them. A progress bar tracks how far along you are.
4. Share or print — Every list gets a permanent, shareable short URL. You can also print the list directly from the browser.

Features

• Activity-based list generation — Items are mapped to activities in the database. Selecting multiple activities produces a single merged list with no duplicate entries.
• Per-mapping quantities — Each activity-to-item mapping carries a quantity. Items needed in multiples (e.g. 2× Water bottle) are rendered with a leading multiplier, and merging across activities keeps the largest required quantity.
• Grouped items — Items are organised into logical categories (Clothing, Shelter, Navigation, Medical, Water & Food, Safety Gear) for easy scanning.
• Interactive checklist — Click any item to mark it as packed. Checked items are visually struck through and a progress bar updates in real time.
• Shareable short URLs — Each unique activity selection is stored under a deterministic 5-character hash, producing a permanent link short enough to share comfortably over chat or read out loud.
• Installable PWA — A web app manifest, theme color, and maskable icons let PackIt be installed to the home screen on mobile or as a standalone app on desktop.
• Print support — The packing list page has a print stylesheet that removes UI chrome and renders a clean black-and-white checklist.
• Admin panel — A password-protected admin interface at /admin/ lets you manage all content:
  • Activity groups and activities
  • Item groups and items
  • Activity-to-item mappings (with quantities)
  • Inline editing on every list page — edit fields render in place within the table column, so the page no longer jumps to the top on each edit
  • Dashboard with counts of all entities

Tech stack

• Backend: PHP with PDO
• Database: MySQL (schema in schema.sql)
• Frontend: Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS — no build step required
• PWA: manifest.webmanifest plus icons in img/

Setup

1. Create the database by running schema.sql:

   mysql -u <user> -p < schema.sql
   

2. Copy config.php and set your database credentials.

3. Serve the project with any PHP-capable web server (Apache, Nginx, PHP built-in server). The included .htaccess ensures the .webmanifest MIME type is served correctly and denies HTTP access to config.php.

4. Open the site in a browser and start selecting activities. On mobile, use the browser's "Add to Home Screen" option to install PackIt as an app.

Admin password

Admin credentials live in the admin_users table, not in config.php. The password_hash column stores a bcrypt hash produced by PHP's password_hash(); admin/login.php verifies the submitted password against it with password_verify().

schema.sql seeds a default account:

Username	Password
admin	packit-admin

Change it after first login. There is no UI for this yet, so update the row directly — generate a new hash and replace it in the database:

php -r "echo password_hash('your-new-password', PASSWORD_BCRYPT), PHP_EOL;"

UPDATE admin_users
SET password_hash = '<paste-hash-here>'
WHERE username = 'admin';

Project structure

index.php              Activity selection page
list.php               Processes selection, stores hash, redirects
packing.php            Displays the shareable packing list
db.php                 PDO connection helper
config.php             Database credentials
schema.sql             Database schema and sample data
manifest.webmanifest   PWA manifest (installable web app)
.htaccess              MIME type for manifest, blocks config.php over HTTP
img/                   App icons (192/512, plus maskable variants)
admin/
  index.php            Dashboard
  activities.php       Manage activities
  activity_groups.php  Manage activity groups
  items.php            Manage items
  item_groups.php      Manage item groups
  mappings.php         Manage activity-to-item mappings (with quantities)
  layout.php           Shared admin layout
  login.php / auth.php Authentication