From React to the Canvas: My First Creative Build with React Konva

This is a submission for the World's Largest Hackathon Writing Challenge: After the Hack.

🚀 Why I Joined
I joined the World’s Largest Hackathon not just to compete, but to challenge myself to learn something new. I had some experience with React, but I wanted to step outside of standard web forms and dive into something more visual and creative — something that felt more like a tool for thinking and expression.

That’s when I decided to explore React Konva, a canvas-based drawing and interaction library for React.

🎨 The Project: A Visual Story Board Tool
My goal was to build a canvas-based story board interface where users could:

Add and move editable text

Drag and drop elements freely

Draw or sketch thoughts like in a notebook

Build their layout naturally — without constraints

React Konva let me bring this idea to life, with its component-based canvas rendering system. I used:

Stage and Layer from React Konva to set up the canvas

Rect, Text, and Group elements to create content blocks

stageRef.getPointerPosition() to place and move elements

Custom hooks and React state to handle selection, editing, and drag events

📚 What I Learned
Before this project, I had never worked directly with a canvas-based UI. Through trial and error, I learned:

• How Konva’s coordinate system works in sync with React

• Managing drag interactions and dynamic rendering

• Adding editable text nodes with double-click functionality

• Structuring canvas layers for performance and clarity

It wasn’t always smooth — things like resizing, z-index stacking, or getting precise positions were tricky. But I was learning the whole time, and that’s what made it exciting.

💬 Beyond Code: My Favorite Part
What I appreciated most during this hackathon was the freedom to build creatively, and the supportive community around it.

Even though I didn’t ask for help on Discord this time, I followed shared threads, GitHub issues, and code examples from others working on canvas-related projects. It reminded me that even solo builders are never truly alone — someone’s already solved a similar problem, and their experience helps us all move forward.

🌱 What’s Next
I’m continuing development of the Story Board tool. My next steps:
Create multiple pages or sessions, like a digital notebook

Beyond the project, this experience showed me that creative tools are where I feel most inspired. I plan to keep exploring interactive UIs, especially ones that combine writing, sketching, and thinking spaces.

❤️ Final Reflection
This hackathon helped me discover a new creative direction as a developer. I didn’t build something huge or polished, but I built something that mattered to me — and I learned how to navigate a new kind of tech.

🧰 Tech Stack
React
React Konva

If you’d like to support my content, you can buy me a coffee here:
Buy Me a Coffee