Currency Converter App

Author: @official-carledwardp
Live app: currency-converter-carledwardfp.vercel.app
Last updated on: Oct 3, 2021 8:00PM (+08:00)

Description

This is the first challenge from our new and upcoming Discord server. This app will be used to convert 200+ supported currencies from one to another. The "Currency Code" field (ex. USD) follows the standard ISO 4217 Three Letter Currency Code ^[1]. This ensures clarity and reduces errors in any exchange activities.

The app is a Next.JS ^[2] project which utilizes the SSR (Server Side Rendering) feature and uses the third-party data fetching service, SWR ^[3] (Fun Fact! The developers of NextJS also made this service). This makes sure that data will always be available whenever you use this app.

Try my project!

To run:

Clone repository

git clone https://github.com/official-carledwardfp/currency-converter.git

Run project

cd ~path-to/currency-converter
yarn dev

A great feature of Nextjs, Server Side Props. This ensures that you will have the currency options on load:

export async function getServerSideProps() {
  let response = await api().get(`api-end-point`)

  return {
    props: {
      currencies: response.currencies || [],
    },
  }
}

The use case of SWR in this project is to cache data and make sure that the app will not have duplicate api calls:

const { data } = useSWR(`/api-end-point`)

SWR Global config:
Documentation for the options can be found here

<SWRConfig
  value={{
    fetcher: (url) => fetch(url).then((response) => response.json()),
    revalidateOnFocus: false, // Do not revalidate on window refocus
    dedupingInterval: 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24, // 1 day
    onError: errorCallback, // Callback function if there are errors
    errorRetryCount: 2, // Retry limit
  }}
>
  {children}
</SWRConfig>

Styling

CSS Framework used: Chakra UI ^[4]
Responsive and supports both light and dark mode. Just click the gear icon at the bottom to toggle color mode.

Limitations

Currently, these are the limitations of this app:

The data updates only once a day.
The currency name is not returned, only the code (i.e. USD, PHP). It would be better if you can see the currency name alongside the code for a much better user experience.

These limitations can be overcome either by upgrading the plan or by finding another API service which returns the currency name.

References

^[1] ISO 4217 Three Letter Currency Code
^[2] Next.JS
^[3] SWR
^[4] ChakraUI

About Me

I'm Carl Edward, a self-taught developer. I started on October 2020 and have been studying, working, and improving since then. I had a 6-month experience in a corporate setting.