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Building a Note-Taking Web App with Next.js: From Concept to Launch

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Overview

Getting Started with Next.js

Next.js is a React framework that provides server-side rendering, routing, and other useful features out of the box, making it an excellent choice for building web applications. Before diving into the development process, let's set up our development environment. Follow the installation instructions provided in the Next.js documentation here to install Next.js and set up your project environment. During the setup process, be sure to select the options for Tailwind CSS, TypeScript, ESLint, and the App Router to streamline your development workflow and ensure a robust, scalable application.

Conceptualization and Planning

With Next.js installed and our project environment set up, we can begin conceptualizing and planning our note-taking web app. This phase involves defining the project scope, outlining key features, and sketching wireframes to visualize the app's layout and functionality.

Key features:

  • Each note should have a title and a description
  • Users should be able to create new notes and delete existing ones
  • Notes should be saved automatically so that they remain available even after the browser tab is closed and reopened

Design and Wireframing:

Once we have a clear understanding of the project requirements, we can move on to designing the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of our note-taking app. Using tools like Figma or Sketch, we'll create mockups and prototypes to bring our design ideas to life.

Using Figma, we designed simple wireframes for both desktop and mobile versions of the note taking app. This helps in visualizing the user interface and making necessary adjustments before moving to development.

Desktop wireframe:

Desktop UI prototype
  • Designing a user-friendly interface optimized for desktop usage. This includes a spacious layout to comfortably display multiple notes and their details.
  • Features such as a sidebar for navigation, a list view of notes, and a detailed view of the selected note should be clearly defined.
  • Ensure responsiveness and scalability for different screen sizes and resolutions.

Mobile wireframe:

Mobile UI prototype
  • Creating a compact and efficient layout suitable for mobile devices. This includes an easily accessible navigation bar and a simplified list view of notes.
  • Optimizing touch interactions for creating, editing, and deleting notes.
  • Ensuring that essential features are easily accessible with minimal screen space, maintaining a balance between functionality and usability.

Development and Implementation

With the design finalized, it's time to start coding. Using Next.js and React components, we'll build out the frontend of our note-taking app, implementing features such as creating, editing, and deleting notes.

We create three client side react components

  • NotesContent.tsx - This is a client side wrapper that wraps the entire application
  • NoteList.tsx - This component renders the sidebar of the application which contains the list of notes
  • NoteEditor.tsx - This component shows the title and description for each note

The main server side page simply renders NotesContent component

import NotesContent from '@/components/NotesContent'

export default function Home() {
  return (
    <main className="flex h-full">
      <NotesContent />
    </main>
  )
}

Using GitHub for Version Control:

Version control is a crucial aspect of any development project, enabling you to track changes, collaborate with others, and manage different versions of your codebase. We'll use GitHub to manage our project's code repository

To get started follow the documentation here to initialize the local git repository and then create a new repo add the local repository to your created repository on github by following the steps mentioned here

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) with Vercel

Automating the deployment process ensures that any changes made to the codebase are automatically tested and deployed to production. We'll use Vercel for seamless CI/CD integration with GitHub.

1. Create a project on Vercel

Create project
Select Git Repository

3. Configure the project.

Configure project

4. Project creation

View project

5. Explore deployed application from dashboard

Explore dashboard

Once these steps are completed, Vercel will automatically build the project and deploy for every commit. Failure/Success builds will also be shown on vercel dashboard as well as on every commit on Github.

  • You can view my deployed production build of this project here
  • The source code for this project is here

Summary

In this blog, we walked through the comprehensive process of building a simple web app from start to finish. Starting with setting up the development environment, we moved on to the conceptualization and planning phase where we defined the app’s purpose and key features. We then designed the user interface and experience using Figma to create wireframes for both desktop and mobile versions. The development phase involved building the app with Next.js and React. Version control was managed using GitHub, enabling effective tracking of changes and collaboration. We automated the deployment process using Vercel for seamless CI/CD integration, linking the GitHub repository for continuous deployment. This entire journey provided an opportunity to learn, grow, and create a simple functional note-taking app that enhances user productivity by helping them organize their thoughts and tasks efficiently.