Overview
As a self-taught fullstack developer, I was always interested in building my own version of popular web applications. Recently, I decided to tackle the challenge of building a Twitter clone using a combination of modern technologies.
The Tech Stack
For this project, I chose to use the following technologies:
- Next.js for the frontend framework
- TypeScript for static type checking
- Tailwind CSS for styling
- Firebase for the backend (database, authentication, and hosting)
- Headless UI for the modal, menu, and popover components
- React Hot Toast for interactive action notifications
- Framer Motion for smooth animations
Features
I wanted to make sure that my Twitter clone had all the basic features of the real platform, so I implemented the following:
- User authentication (sign up, log in, log out)
- Tweet creation, editing, and deletion
- Like and unlike tweets
- Follow and unfollow users
- View user profiles and tweet lists
- Real-time updates for likes, follows, and tweets
- Infinite scroll for the home timeline and user tweet lists
- Responsive design for mobile devices
Building this project was a great learning experience for me. Here are some of the highlights:
- I started by setting up a Next.js project with TypeScript and installing the necessary dependencies (including Firebase).
- I then set up the Firebase backend, including the Firestore database and authentication system.
- Next, I worked on the user authentication flow for log in and log out. I used Firebase's built-in authentication functions to handle the logic.
- With the authentication system in place, I moved on to the main feature: tweeting. This involved creating a form for creating and editing tweets, as well as displaying a list of tweets on the home timeline and user profiles. I used Firebase onSnapshot listeners to update the data in real time.
- I then added the ability to like and unlike tweets, as well as follow and unfollow users. This required updating the data in the Firestore database and using real-time listeners to trigger updates on the frontend.
- Next, I implemented profile page for user. This involved creating a new page for each user and displaying their tweets, likes, and followers.
- Finally, I worked on the design and polish of the app. I used Tailwind CSS for the basic styles, and Headless UI and Framer Motion for the animations. I also added React Hot Toast for interactive notifications.
Conclusion
Overall, building this Twitter clone was a rewarding and educational experience. I learned a lot about using Next.js, TypeScript, and Firebase together, as well as various other tools and libraries.
If you're interested in seeing the code or trying out the app, you can check out the repository on GitHub.
Thanks for reading!
