Flashcards (client)

The goal of this app is helping users on their learning process. Since I graduated from Makers Academy I wanted to put my knowledge to work, so I created Flashcards, a single-page app that helps users study any subject through spaced repetition.

Functionality

• Authenticate through GitHub.
• Create new flashcards with a question, an answer, and tags.
• Choose between existing tags from a dropdown menu or create a new one.
• Flip a flashcard to see the answer.
• Edit an existing flashcard.
• Delete a flashcard.
• Select flashcards for a particular tag.
• Write markdown, including code snippets that get automatically highlighted.
• Log out.

Technologies used

The client side of the app is built with React. I used Create React App to get it started. For the styling of the UI I used React Toolbox.

For testing I used Jest, and Enzyme to test the React components using its shallow and mount rendering.

You can find out more about the server side.

Challenges

Size of the app and flow of information - As I was implementing new components, the flow of information was getting more complicated. Instead of having one component with too much logic, I split them into smaller, simpler, reusable, stateless components. I decided to keep all the state of the app in the <App /> parent component, passing information down to child components as props, and having those children communicate with their parent through callbacks.

Testing - As the app grew in size and complexity, I realized I was lacking unit tests, which was making it more difficult to introduce changes. When I noticed that I was overwhelmed and losing control of the app, I decided to stop implementing new features and components, and test what I had created so far. Every major step would be tested. This approach really helped me to regain control and implement bug-free logic.

Future features

Rating progress - I would like to add a rating to each flashcard, 🙂 😑 ☹️, so that the user can give feedback on how well the did, and use that information to space them over time.

Other third-party authentication - So that users without a GitHub account can also learn using Flashcards.

Running

Clone this repo:

$ git clone https://github.com/groundberry/flashcards-client

Install all dependancies:

$ npm install

Start the server:

$ npm start

Testing

Run the tests:

$ npm run test