In this blog post, I want to introduce you to the development of my latest project: the Link Sharing App. This full-stack application was designed to enable users to create and share personalized profiles with links to their social media accounts. The app offers secure authentication, real-time updates, and a fully responsive design – a beautiful example of the power of modern web technologies.
Overview
The Link Sharing App is a fully functional full-stack application where users can:
- Create, edit, and delete their social media links.
- Reorder links using drag-and-drop functionality.
- Upload and manage profile pictures.
- Customize their profile by editing first name, last name, and email address.
- See a real-time preview of their profile while editing.
- Share their profile via a public URL.
- Enjoy a seamless, responsive design on any device.
This project demonstrates how to combine modern frontend and backend technologies into a unified application.
Tech Stack
The app was built with a range of modern tools and frameworks to ensure scalability, performance, and excellent user experience:
- Frontend & Backend: Next.js for server-side rendering, routing, and server actions.
- TypeScript: Strong typing for better maintainability and fewer runtime errors.
- Tailwind CSS: Utility-first CSS framework for fast, clean, and responsive UI design.
- Zustand: Lightweight state management for real-time synchronization of app and form state.
- React Hook Form: Simplified form handling with performance optimization.
- Zod: Schema validation to ensure data integrity on both client and server side.
- Prisma: ORM (Object Relational Mapper) for efficient and secure database access.
- PostgreSQL: Reliable and scalable relational database for storing user data and links.
- Azure Blob Storage: Storage for profile images.
- Storybook: For documenting and testing UI components.
Key Features
1. User Authentication
The app provides a secure login and registration system with NextAuth. Credentials are validated on both client and server side to ensure security and reliability.
2. Link Management
Users can add, edit, delete, and reorder their social media links. A real-time preview shows all changes instantly.
3. Drag-and-Drop Reordering
The app supports drag-and-drop functionality for reordering links. Changes are immediately applied to the app state and transferred to the database when saving.
4. Profile Customization
Users can update profile information such as first name, last name, email address, and profile picture. Azure Blob Storage is used for profile image uploads.
5. Responsive Design
The app is fully responsive and seamlessly adapts to mobile devices, tablets, and desktop screens. Tailwind CSS ensures a consistent and clean design across all devices.
6. Form Handling and Validation
All forms in the app are managed with React Hook Form, while Zod provides robust schema validation. This keeps data quality consistently high.
7. Public Profile Sharing
Users can create a publicly shareable link to their profile. With one click on the "Share Link" button, this link is directly copied to the clipboard.
Challenges and Solutions
1. Real-time Updates
Synchronizing the preview with the form state was a priority. Through state management with Zustand, the app remained lightweight and responsive.
2. Profile Image Management
Direct upload of images to Azure Blob Storage required careful configuration regarding file size limits and user feedback. Through integration with Prisma, image URLs were securely stored in the database.
3. Drag-and-Drop Functionality
Implementing drag-and-drop including database synchronization was challenging. Thanks to Zustand and Prisma, a seamless solution was realized.
Insights
This project significantly deepened my understanding of integrating frontend and backend technologies in a full-stack application. My key insights:
- The importance of schema validation with tools like Zod to avoid erroneous data input.
- The benefits of Next.js when building full-stack applications with server actions and efficient routing.
- The power of Tailwind CSS for fast, responsive UI development.
- The added value of Zustand for straightforward state management without excessive complexity.
Explore the Project
Here you can find the source code and live demo:
- GitHub Repository: GitHub Link
- Live Demo: Live Demo Link
Demo Video
Check out the demo video to see the app in action.
Conclusion
The Link Sharing App is more than just a portfolio project – it's a production-ready application that showcases modern web development to perfection. It combines performance, scalability, and great user experience in one project. I'm proud of the result and look forward to developing even more robust applications in the future.
Thanks for reading! I look forward to your feedback and discussion!