Stack - React, JavaScript
One line intro - A React component to build Instagram-like stories on the web
I started this project somewhere around late 2018 when this idea struck to me that stories could be a nice way to display various content other than just photos on social media. I saw a news website inplementing this but it was a very raw version without all the behavorial features as in Instagram. So I thought, let's build this for people to use!
React was popular around that time and I was kind of a fanatic. But more importantly, I felt React would be the best tool for building this as that is what I consider React is best at - UI components. So I started building it, the goals were clear, it was like a ready made Figma prototype and I just had to build it in React.
My major motivation came from imagining how people would use it once given the right toggles and controls. The basic version was almost ready in a week! Back then a lot of my time went in commuting to work and could mostly work on this on weekends. I think most of the major additions were made in this one week and rest of time was mostly streamlining and improving the internals.
Above it the initial version of the component. It worked great, had a few bugs and supported only images. I posted it on ProductHunt and it kind of exploded. The post got to top 3 on PH, and gradually to the 1st position. I remember that day, and reading through people's replied saying how this was useful for them!
