How could we make this app more generic?

[derlin]

As discussed in https://dev.to/derlin/i-challenged-myself-to-read-every-day-and-it-changed-my-life-2oef, there were some comments about making this app more generic, and better!

Let's start the discussion here and see where it's going :)

[tr1ppyb0y]

Apologies for the late response! Been busy!!
I haven't gone through the code but if i have understood correctly, it is showing and processing specifically you data, if we can make those links and id and passwords environment variables and provide a list in let's say .env file which anyone who download the repo can update with their links and credentials, won't it'll work?
Correct me if I am wrong.

[derlin]

Hello! God, sorry I didn't answer.

I would say there are multiple approaches:

1. we simply document a generic format for the data (and remove some features such as GoodReads links - which rely on MyBooks), and anyone can fork the repo, add its own data under the src/data directory, and publish it on GitHub Pages. This is the model of https://github.com/2KAbhishek/projects for example. Easy and simple
2. we introduce dynamic data. In this case, the data will be fetched from a (possibly protected) URL that needs to be passed as e.g. an environment variable (this is what you propose right?). Every time we load the page, we fetch (possibly new) data. This decouples the interface from the data and has the added advantage that it also supports 1 (we could provide a relative URL as well). Each user will have to host its own version though (same as 1).
3. we provide a single instance running somewhere, with user management. Each user can then register and URL to fetch its data. This is, however, waaaay more complex to set up, requiring a database and a powerful enough hosting. I just mention it here for the sake of it, but I am not sure I would go there.

If I understand properly, you were proposing 2, right?

There is still the problem of the loading time: this was my first ever attempt to React, and there is lots to do performance-wise. Even more so if we have to fetch the data from somewhere else. I would love to get some help with this. (Note that I am not using typescript due to the stats library I use, but maybe there are alternatives?).

[tr1ppyb0y]

I was suggesting 2nd with a little hint of 1st.

Anyways, I have a generic idea, we can have something like a search bar on the top of the page where users can give their GoodReads username, and with that, we can fetch the user details[ public profiles, for now! ] and show it on the page already hosted by you.

Otherwise, every user has to host their own page.
How does it sound?