MultiPics is a free stock photo search app built for creatives and marketers that consolidates the image search results from the top three free stock photo sources of Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay. This makes finding just the right image asset faster and more convenient. After entering a search query, the app requests ten photos at a time from each of the three APIs. The user is then able to drag and drop images to rearrange and compare them side-by-side. This makes searching and comparing image assets faster than opening up dozens of browser tabs and prevents the user from having to download the images locally in order to visually compare their features.
I built this project without Redux at first and had everything working as it should. However, with the complexities of scaling such an app I decided to add numerous Redux actions and reducers to help with maintainability. I found it very difficult to refactor a non-redux app into one totally reliant on it due to the sheer amount of restructuring that would need to happen.
Never stop improving!
My biggest takeaway from building this project is learning to practice separation of concerns from the very beginning. While it’s very difficult to ensure that all concerns are logically organized before getting started, I know I have room for improvement on the project planning for frontend apps. Previously, I’ve developed an efficient process for planning the backend of an app, but I wasn’t sure how to apply the same principles to frontend architecture given that it’s so flexible. However, I do believe the Redux from the start would have helped in the planning phases.