Creating an SCP Foundation Fanfiction App with React

Introduction to the SCP Foundation

The SCP Foundation is a unique collaborative writing project centered around a fictional organization dedicated to securing, containing, and protecting anomalies that defy the laws of nature. This universe includes an extensive collection of ‘SCPs,’ each with its own unique characteristics, backstories, and containment procedures. With the growing popularity of both the SCP Foundation and React, there’s a perfect opportunity to create a fanfiction web application dedicated to the tales crafted by its community.

In this article, we will be building an application that allows fans to contribute their own SCP stories, read, and interact with existing ones. By leveraging React’s powerful features and state management capabilities, we will create an engaging, user-friendly platform that pays homage to this fascinating universe.

The project will be structured using a front-end architecture that encourages scalability and maintainability, ensuring that we can continue to add new features as our community grows. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a fully functioning fanfiction app that will allow users to immerse themselves in the SCP universe.

Setting Up Your React Environment

Before diving into the code, we need to set up our development environment. For this project, we will use Create React App, a powerful tool that sets up everything we need with a single command. This way, we can focus on writing the application rather than configuring the build tools.

First, ensure you have Node.js installed on your computer. You can verify this by running `node -v` in your terminal. If you haven’t installed it yet, head to the official Node.js website and download the version suited for your operating system. Once Node.js is installed, open your terminal and execute the following command:

npx create-react-app scp-fanfiction

This command will create a new directory called scp-fanfiction with all the necessary files. Next, navigate into that directory:

cd scp-fanfiction

Then, start the development server:

npm start

Your browser should automatically open http://localhost:3000, where you will see the default Create React App welcome page. Congratulations! You now have a working React environment set up for your project.

Designing the App Structure

Now that your environment is ready, it’s time to design the structure of your SCP fanfiction app. The primary goal is to create a platform where users can create, view, and share their SCP stories. To achieve this, we will break down our application into several key components:

  • Navbar: A navigation bar for easy access to different sections of the app.
  • StoryList: A component that displays a list of stories submitted by users.
  • StoryForm: A form allowing users to create new SCP stories.
  • StoryDetail: A detailed view of individual SCP stories.

Each of these components will serve a specific purpose in enhancing user experience. To keep our code organized, we will create a components directory inside the src folder for all our React components.

Creating the Navbar Component

Now, let’s start coding our components. First, we will create the Navbar component. Inside the src/components directory, create a file named Navbar.js. Here’s a simple implementation:

import React from 'react';
import { Link } from 'react-router-dom';

const Navbar = () => {
  return (
    
  );
};

export default Navbar;

This component provides basic navigation links to our home page and submission page. Remember to install react-router-dom to handle routing:

npm install react-router-dom

Building the StoryList Component

The next step involves building the StoryList component, which will manage and display the list of submitted stories. Create a new file, StoryList.js, in the src/components directory:

import React from 'react';

const StoryList = ({ stories }) => {
  return (
    

      
Submitted SCP Stories

      
    
        {stories.map(story => (
          
  • {story.title}
    • 
        ))}
      

    

  );
};

export default StoryList;

This component accepts a list of stories as props and maps through them to display each story’s title. You’ll notice we added a key prop to each list item, which helps React identify which items have changed, are added, or removed.

Creating the Story Submission Form

Every fanfiction app needs a submission feature! Next, we’ll develop the StoryForm component, allowing users to create new SCP stories. Create the StoryForm.js file in the same components directory:

import React, { useState } from 'react';

const StoryForm = ({ addStory }) => {
  const [title, setTitle] = useState('');
  const [content, setContent] = useState('');

  const handleSubmit = (e) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    addStory({ id: Date.now(), title, content });
    setTitle('');
    setContent('');
  };

  return (
    

      
       setTitle(e.target.value)} 
        required
      />