Tag: React.js

Coding an Advent Calendar: Day 14

This year, I decided to create an Advent Calendar website in HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. My hopes for the site are to showcase some of my frontend development abilities as well as make something fun, functional, and reusable.

Day 14

Individual Post Styles
As I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to only show one WordPress post at a time when any package is clicked on. So, that’s what I set about doing today (as the Featured Image above shows). There are a few things I still need to take care of however:

  1. IF the Gift clicked on doe NOT (yet) have a Post for that date, show some kind of “Coming Soon” message.
  2. The Posts need to either be in a Carousel that mirrors the Gift carousel, OR they need to be dynamically loaded by the WP REST API and React based on the ID number (date) of the Gift clicked on.
  3. The “prev” and “next” buttons need some style corrections (like text-alignment and z-index to place them OVER the Post border) as well as functionality.
  4. Ideally, if a user clicks “prev” or “next”, the Post background (dark blue) would remain unchanged, and only the Posts would slide left or right (as a carousel).
Codepen Collection
I was still having trouble with my Gift carousel being off by a few pixels each time the carousel rotated, and then I tried to make the Gifts scale when hovered over:

Oops. What happened?

Well, I decided that since I started having THIS problem with scaling the Gifts AND I was already having trouble with getting the carousel to display and function properly, I probably had an error in my code somewhere that I was overlooking. Therefore, I decided to start breaking apart all the various pieces and components of this project to take a closer look at each of them individually.

It turns out the scale problem was happening because I didn’t have some kind of <div class="gift-wrapper"> surrounding my Gifts. So scale was scaling the CSS image from the center of itself (and thus pushing it out of the center of the page), rather than from the center of the wrapper which would allow it to remain centered in the page. Here’s what it looks like now with a <div class="gift-wrapper">:

In addition to the Gift Component, I also extracted out the Countdown Clock, and the individual Blog Post Component into separate Codepens and added them to a Collection:

  1. Gift Component
  2. Countdown Clock Component
  3. Post Component

From here, it allows me to continue working on the individual Components for the site even from my Windows computer. And once these pieces are perfected, I can then compile them all back together again as a “real” website.

React-ify All the Things!

So, since I’ve now separated out all the Components of the project, I decided it would be a great time to convert my existing HTML into true React Components. Now, the only HTML I have sitting in the Codepens above are:

<div id="react-component-name"></div>

All the markup is now handled entirely by React. And now, I feel like I’m ready to continue with Ray Villalobos’ Course: Building a Web Interface with React.js to learn better how I can get these various Component pieces to interact with each other better.

Side note: One additional thing I learned while working with these React Components is that: in order for jQuery (or any other JavaScript) to work and interact with these Components, React must be allowed to BUILD the Components on the page FIRST – before any other JavaScript functions are declared. Otherwise, jQuery will attempt to bind a "click" function (for example) on a tag that has not yet been created.

Work Completed (to date)

  • December 14, 2016
    • More individual styling of REST Posts
    • Break apart the project into Component pieces & create a Codepen Collection
    • Convert all the old HTML into real React Components
  • December 13, 2016
    • Add JS handlers for “Today”
    • Better styling of REST Posts
    • Begin Building a Web Interface with React.js (Lynda.com)
  • December 12, 2016
    • Storybook on Windows (FAIL)
    • Continue styling <Tag> Components
    • Begin responsive styles
  • December 11, 2016
    • Begin separating out CSS per Component
    • Attempt to load in static files & Sass
    • Begin coding a Tag for the Gifts
  • December 10, 2016
    • Finish Lynda.com videos
    • Get all React Components working in Storybook
    • Begin creating a Christmas Scene
  • December 9, 2016
    • Learn and use Create-React-App
    • Learn and use Storybook for developing React Components in isolation
    • Update npm and node and figure out my git process between Windows and Mac
  • December 8, 2016
    • Use React and Babel via CDN to get it working “locally”
    • Install React developer Tools for Chrome
    • Create very basic React.js pages to learn it
  • December 7, 2016
    • Pull post data with the WP REST API in WordPress core!!
    • Write structural code for the React Component to be rendered
    • Install and setup BabelJS to compile the React code
  • December 6, 2016
    • Add README.md
    • Add a GitHub Issue to hold usable images
    • Add LICENSE
  • December 5, 2016
    • Create a GitHub repository and full site files for easier management
    • Setup Grunt.js to compile my Sass into CSS
    • Begin blogging about the process
  • December 4, 2016
    • Countdown clock (JS Date class & jQuery Easing) with SVGs
    • Dynamic text output for Year based on the current date
    • CSS only slider (off by 5px each slide)
  • December 3, 2016
    • CSS bow & ribbon
    • Footer with FontAwesome presents
    • Hover, active, and “Christmas Day” styles for footer presents
  • December 2, 2016
    • React.js + Axios.js initial code structure
    • Color palette
    • CSS → Sass
  • December 1, 2016
    • Let it snow
    • Typography choices
    • CSS presents (first design)
    • Design notes menu

Coding an Advent Calendar: Day 13

This year, I decided to create an Advent Calendar website in HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. My hopes for the site are to showcase some of my frontend development abilities as well as make something fun, functional, and reusable.

Day 13

Add JS handlers for “Today”
“Today” I didn’t have tons of time to put in to work on this project. So, I chose some of the “low hanging fruit” to work on – to make meaningful progress with small(er) modifications.

One of these “low hanging fruit” was adding JavaScript handlers for properly displaying the proper packages based on the current date. Here’s the procedure:

  1. Use .getDate() from the JavaScript Date object to get the numeric date for today
  2. Use jQuery selectors to grab the page elements that need manipulated accordingly
  3. Use conditionals to determine which classes or CSS to apply to each (particularly the Font Awesome gifts in the footer – as each can have 3 “states”)
    1. "active" = green/red package
    2. "today" = highlighted (darker) and scaled (larger)
    3. "disabled" = grayed out
  4. Also, use jQuery .unbind('click') on any "disabled" footer packages to prevent clicking (and peeking at presents before the time has come)
Better styling of REST Posts
Another of the “low hanging fruits” I decided to tackle today was the styling of the WordPress Posts called in with the REST API. This is particularly important for the responsiveness of this design as leaving the Posts underneath the large Gift box on smaller screens would crowd the screen.

I decided to make the WordPress Posts pop up on an “overlay” or “lightbox” style screen (as the Featured Image above shows) when the Gift is clicked on. Here are the steps I took to do this as well as thoughts for its further development:

  1. Make the React Component #posts container act as the overlay (with dark blue background)
  2. Add an extra <div className="inner"> in React to surround each Post’s content
  3. Query the WP REST API for 25 Posts (with per_page=25)
  4. Make the #posts container pushed off the page 100% to the bottom so that when the Gift is clicked, I apply a CSS animation to ease-in the top-margin back to 0 (which makes the #posts container slide in from the bottom
  5. Make the entire dark blue background of the #posts container clickable – to rehide the container at the bottom of the page (slide down)

Notes for future development:

Although I’d originally considered just having React dynamically “react” to clicks on various boxes to display ONLY the Post from that date, I’m now considering styling #posts in the same way as the Gift boxes #carousel:

  1. allow each Gift to take up the full width and height of the visible page area
  2. allow each Post to take up the full width and height of the invisible page area to the bottom of the screen

This would easily line up both the Gift box and the Post for its date one on top of the other, so that when the Gift box is clicked and the #posts container animates upward, ONLY the Post for that date would be visible. This would also give me a little more freedom about how to style each Post individually.

One more consideration I’d made is how I might use React to ONLY (dynamically) load 3 Posts at once:

  1. The currently selected Post (defaults to "today")
  2. The previous Post and dated Gift
  3. The next Post and dated Gift

This would allow both the Gift #carousel and the #posts containers to reduce their maximum necessary width to only 3 screen-lengths (instead of 25 screen-lengths) and therefore also probably reduce the “bugginess” that’s currently affecting my Carousel (about 5px extra left margin on EVERY subsequent date for some reason – which adds up to a HUGE space by the time Christmas comes).

But, I haven’t yet worked out how to do that with my limited knowledge of React.js and Components – and that’s what led me to the third step for today ↓

Begin Ray Villalobos React Course
I decided to head back over to Lynda.com to try to learn some more about React. There aren’t actually that many React courses on Lynda.com YET, but the one that looked most helpful for the kinds of ways I’m considering using React in this project was Ray Villalobos’ React Course:

Building a Web Interface with React.js

I’m looking forward to learning much more through this Course that I can put into practice in my Advent Calendar. PLUS, as I am able to use create-react-app on my Windows PC but not getstorybook, it will allow me to continue (branched) development both at work (Windows) and at home (Mac).

Work Completed (to date)

  • December 13, 2016
    • Add JS handlers for “Today”
    • Better styling of REST Posts
    • Begin Building a Web Interface with React.js (Lynda.com)
  • December 12, 2016
    • Storybook on Windows (FAIL)
    • Continue styling <Tag> Components
    • Begin responsive styles
  • December 11, 2016
    • Begin separating out CSS per Component
    • Attempt to load in static files & Sass
    • Begin coding a Tag for the Gifts
  • December 10, 2016
    • Finish Lynda.com videos
    • Get all React Components working in Storybook
    • Begin creating a Christmas Scene
  • December 9, 2016
    • Learn and use Create-React-App
    • Learn and use Storybook for developing React Components in isolation
    • Update npm and node and figure out my git process between Windows and Mac
  • December 8, 2016
    • Use React and Babel via CDN to get it working “locally”
    • Install React developer Tools for Chrome
    • Create very basic React.js pages to learn it
  • December 7, 2016
    • Pull post data with the WP REST API in WordPress core!!
    • Write structural code for the React Component to be rendered
    • Install and setup BabelJS to compile the React code
  • December 6, 2016
    • Add README.md
    • Add a GitHub Issue to hold usable images
    • Add LICENSE
  • December 5, 2016
    • Create a GitHub repository and full site files for easier management
    • Setup Grunt.js to compile my Sass into CSS
    • Begin blogging about the process
  • December 4, 2016
    • Countdown clock (JS Date class & jQuery Easing) with SVGs
    • Dynamic text output for Year based on the current date
    • CSS only slider (off by 5px each slide)
  • December 3, 2016
    • CSS bow & ribbon
    • Footer with FontAwesome presents
    • Hover, active, and “Christmas Day” styles for footer presents
  • December 2, 2016
    • React.js + Axios.js initial code structure
    • Color palette
    • CSS → Sass
  • December 1, 2016
    • Let it snow
    • Typography choices
    • CSS presents (first design)
    • Design notes menu

Coding an Advent Calendar: Day 2

This year, I decided to create an Advent Calendar website in HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. My hopes for the site are to showcase some of my frontend development abilities as well as make something fun, functional, and reusable.

Day 2

WP REST API with React.js (structure)
There’s been a lot of excitement recently about the WP REST API’s inclusion of content endpoints in WordPress 4.7 lately, so I’ve been wanting to learn about that and create something useful that utilizes it. I have built both a simple WordPress REST plugin and a WordPress REST theme in October this year, by following these Lynda.com courses:

  1. WordPress REST API (WP-API): First Look by Morten Rand-Hendriksen
  2. AngularJS and WordPress: Building a Single-Page Application by Roy Sivan

After building these projects, I wanted to do some more with the WP-API. Then, after Brian Krogsgard created a Codepen which utilizes React.js and the WP REST API (and one with Vue.js), I thought it would be a good thing to fork and learn from.

Color Palette
Initially, I set the colors for the CSS present to green and maroon but was quite unsatisfied with that combination. Eventually, after checking some other color palettes on ColourLovers.com and Dribbble.com, I settled on the following (similar to this Codepen):

  • Dark Red: #9D1313
  • Light Red: #F17259
  • Dark Green: #0B8972
  • Light Green: #65C0A5
  • Dark Blue: #2A6FB0
  • Light Blue: #CAE4F2

Along with various other alpha shades, tones, and tints of these colors as well as  Black  and White.

Sass CSS
Since the color palette I chose would need to be used and reused in the various elements I created on the page, I decided the best way to keep track of those (and easily call them up later) would be to switch my CSS stylesheet to Sass. I stored the color (and other) variables at the top of the stylesheet and was able to easily use them at will throughout the page.

I may yet do something else with Sass mixins or functions (like a @for loop), and I intend to rewrite the stylesheet using Sass nested selectors later.

Work Completed (to date)

  • December 2, 2016
    • React.js + Axios.js initial code structure
    • Color palette
    • CSS → Sass
  • December 1, 2016
    • Let it snow
    • Typography choices
    • CSS presents (first design)
    • Design notes menu