Create a React Custom Lightbox Gallery

With many lightbox gallery solutions on NPM, I ended up writing my own React Custom Lightbox Gallery Component to meet my specific needs.

I was looking for a “lightbox” type gallery that would allow me to display images (multiple images in the same modal), videos, text, and a mix of that, all within the same modal window. All I could find were galleries that could only display a single image in a modal.

This is a two-part tutorial:

  1. Create a React Custom Modal
  2. Create a React Custom Lightbox Gallery (you are here)
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Create a React Custom Modal

With many modal solutions on NPM, I ended up writing my own React Custom Modal Component to meet my specific needs.

Well, the above statement is not entirely true. I was looking for a “lightbox” type gallery that would allow me to display images (multiple images in the same modal), videos, text, and a mix of that, all within the same modal window, and to accomplish all of that I needed a custom modal component!

This is a two-part tutorial:

  1. Create a React Custom Modal (you are here)
  2. Create a React Custom Lightbox Gallery
Continue reading →

React Hook to play a video with Intersection Observer

How to use a custom React hook to auto-play a video with Intersection Observer when it becomes visible and pause when it goes out of view.

I was building my wife’s website and she wanted to play a video clip as a background with some text overlaying the video. I knew I did not want to play the video on page load, but only when it became visible to the user.

With Intersection Observer, I was able to accomplish exactly that.

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Add a React App to a NET Core MVC App

In this tutorial, we will go step by step on how to add a React App to a NET Core MVC App. Handling 404 pages and client routing.

I am one to think that not everything I build has to be a Single Page Application (SPA). Recently I was building a project for a client, and I decided that only one section of the app needed to be a SPA and the rest of the app a “traditional” MVC app, so I started the app with the “MVC” part and later added the “SPA”. This is how I did it.

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Deploy a Production React App to Netlify

In this tutorial, we will learn how to deploy a React app with a back-end API to Netlify. We will cover deploying an Express.js API and Lambda Functions to interact with the React front-end.

I have written two other tutorials where we will deploy the same app to Vercel and Heroku. (Links below)

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Deploy a Production React App to Vercel

In this tutorial, we will learn how to deploy a React app with a back-end API to Vercel. We will cover deploying Lambda Functions API to interact with the React front-end.

I have written two other tutorials where we will deploy the same app to Netlify and Heroku. (Links below)

Continue reading →

Deploy a Production React App to Heroku

In this tutorial, we will learn how to deploy a React app with a back-end API to Heroku. We will cover deploying an Express.js API to interact with the React front-end.

I have written two other tutorials where we will deploy the same app to Vercel and Netlify. (Links below)

Continue reading →

How to use Sass and CSS Modules with create-react-app

A short yet detailed guide to styling components with create-react-app with Sass and CSS Modules, which now is part of CRA.

Up until the release of create-react-app v2, if you wanted to include Sass or CSS Modules in your project, you would have to eject from create-react-app, learn Webpack configurations, install Sass loaders and configure it yourself.

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How to Change the SDK API Level to a 3rd Party Android APK

Sometimes your favorite Android app is one that is not available on the Play Store and hasn’t been updated in ages. You get your latest and greatest new phone/tablet, and now you are excited to install that one app not available on the Play Store. Suddenly you find out you cannot install it due to the Android SDK API target level being too low, or maybe the signature has expired and the app cannot be installed anymore.

Well, in this tutorial I will show you how to change the SDK API Level to a 3rd Party Android APK. It is easier than you might think, and you don’t even need Android Studio installed on your computer, or have awesome Java programming skills.

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