From Concept to Code: "Pravo u metu" - React and SCSS Adventure
Personal Motivation as the Catalyst for an Idea
As archery sport increasingly captivated my attention, I realized that hitting the bullseye would mean developing a website that elegantly presented the archery section initiated by my friends as an extracurricular activity in elementary school. This led me to contemplate the idea further, sparking the desire to create a website as a New Year's gift for them and surprise them during the holiday season. This gesture also marked the official release of my first website.
Choosing Technological Tools
As this was the first time I intended to officially release a website, I had to seriously consider the choice of technological tools I would use in its creation. Up until then, I had developed presentation websites without using development environments and libraries. For web application development, I had used React, impressed by its performance and other capabilities. Therefore, I considered using React for the website. Despite concerns about React's SEO capabilities, I decided it would be the library for this project.
For the styling language, I opted for SCSS, providing a structured and modular approach that simplified coding for defining the style of elements, and I was satisfied with it. I didn't use SCSS as a React library but employed Gulp for its compilation and optimization. Gulp was also utilized for task automation and optimization on the project. Having familiarized myself with Gulp's basic functionalities during this project, I found it to be efficient and continued using it.
I processed the images in Photoshop, a tool I had used in various activities outside of web development. Although my knowledge of Photoshop is basic, it proved to be sufficient for all the necessary photo preparations on the project. Image preparation wasn't overly demanding, and with my understanding of Photoshop, I managed to complete each segment satisfactorily.
Balancing Act as a Challenge
Design creation required reviewing a large number of websites as I needed to devise a design that would be equally appealing to both adults and children. During this process, I had to focus on color selection to capture children's attention, so the colors and appearance of visual elements had to align with that. Choosing suitable images posed a minor challenge as the website was dedicated to archery for children, and the selection of publicly available photos was somewhat limited.
Once the design was complete, the resulting outcome was entirely satisfactory and met my expectations. The only thing left was to see the reaction of my friends and how they would perceive the website's appearance.
Final Step Before the Finish Line
When the website was finished, there was still a part of the job I hadn't done before—SEO optimization, domain leasing and registration, and website publishing. Choosing and leasing a domain wasn't a significant challenge given my modest requirements, so any decent server was acceptable. I performed SEO optimization using the "react-helmet" library, which was sufficient at the time. The website didn't aim for significant expansion as the section was internal to the elementary school, so marketing requirements were minimal.
The Benefit Goes Beyond the Created Product
When reflecting on the "Pravo u metu" project, it was more than just an ordinary project for me. On one hand, it introduced me to the world of web development, and on the other hand, it left a symbolic and emotional mark generated by the joy of my friends when I presented the project I had done as a gift for them during New Year's.