Restry
Restry is a project I decided to work on after I ran out of post-its to write my to-do list for the day, I also needed a timer to break my work into chunks but couldn't find an app that offered these two functionalities. This project helped improve my knowledge of React Hooks and the component lifecycle as a whole. This also highlighted the importance of test-driven development to me and I couldn't be a better ambassador.
Why did I build this
Why I chose this tech stack
TypeScript
React
SASS
Problems and Improvements.
This app was undoubtedly the most ambitious challenge I've ever taken on (excluding trying to build GTA on my own) and I ran into a number of problems. One of the most notable ones was synchronising the timer animation with the countdown.
When I got the timer to work, the animation skipped steps. When I squashed the animation bug, the timer would just jump through time exponentially. It was a very weird game of whack-a-mole but in the end I found the cause of the bug within my useEffect hook.
I'm currently building some new features to improve the user experience. I'm planning on sending the user a notification when the timer runs out and also allowin them modify the duration of the timer. Down the line, I hope to integrate gamification through unlockable achievements to encourage the user's productivity habits.