Vently

Life gets stressful. You need a judgment-free space to openly unload - and you're not alone. Vently is an online venting community where you can express yourself fully and see you're amongst friends.

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Inspiration

I created Vently because I wanted a judgment-free space where people could vent openly without feeling ashamed or criticized. Existing social platforms don't offer the radical empathy that's needed for authentic expression. I envisioned an online community where you could unload stress and find support.

What it does

Vently allows users to publish anonymous blog posts to express their thoughts and emotions freely. You can also read posts from others in the community.

How we built it

I built Vently using Thunkable to construct the mobile app UI and functionality more rapidly. For the backend and databases, I utilized Google Firebase for authentication and cloud storage, Cloudinary for image uploading/hosting, and Google Sheets integrated with Script Editor for the main database to store post entries. This combination of tools allowed me to prototype the app efficiently by linking the frontend and backend.

Challenges we ran into

Getting all the moving pieces syncing properly between frontend and backend was tricky at first. I also underestimated how complex features that I assumed would be simple like internal app messaging, friend network system, and algorithm would be.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm proud that I launched a functioning minimum viable product in just 10 hours alone. Though Vently is barebones, it does enable the core functionality of personal venting through blog posts.

What we learned

This project really expanded my web development knowledge, especially on integrating a database with user authentication securely. Connecting the Google Sheets scripts to both read and write data was a hard process. I also learned a lot about Firebase tools for user authorization and how to structure rules to make access clear. Through repeated testing, I began to better grasp how to troubleshoot issues arising with my database schemas and authentication guardrails against the app frontend.

What's next for Vently

Next I want to build out more social functionality allowing commenting, following other users, and direct messaging along with improvements like notifications. I also need to keep user data safe as the platform scales.

Trying it out

Because I did not decide to upgrade my account, I couldn't publish the app. By clicking the link, you can test out my work by downloading thunkable live test app and duplicating my project to your repository. Need to make sure firebase api key and database url exists.

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