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Emmy | Pixi
Emmy | Pixi

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Finally Building An Actual Thing

I am so excited to announce that I finally built ~A Thing~ that I am proud of, that came from my own brain, that didn't involve following any tutorials, and didn't copy anyone else's work (that I know of). I've been learning to code for over a year, and until now I hadn't had the courage or knowledge to build anything that I had an idea for, outside of a few pure HTML/CSS responsive websites and components.

I've been doing #100DaysOfCode (for the second time) this summer, and I had finished a TON of freeCodeCamp JavaScript exercises, followed a few #JavaScript30 tutorials, worked my way through the Flatiron School bootcamp prep course JavaScript labs, and I was feeling a little stuck on what to do next.

I had gotten stuck between a rock and a hard place on the Flatiron "Rock Dodger" project (lol), and I decided that I needed some more JavaScript practice. I needed to access the DOM in JS, iterate through an array or object, and manipulate DOM elements.

So, I decided to build a Pantone Color Sample Randomizer. (Highly recommend visiting the link. I personally find it really fun to play with.)

I've also had an idea floating around in the back of my brain for another project involving randomization, so I thought this would be a good chance to practice. I wanted to pick something that would be relatively easy to randomize (the color of something) and also use relational data in an object to return not only the color, but its name.

I also desperately needed to learn Git and GitHub, so I killed two birds with one stone (rock?)! If you'd like to see the GitHub repo for this project, you are more than welcome to take a look!

GitHub logo thecodepixi / pantone-randomizer

Pantone color randomizer

pantone-randomizer

Pantone color randomizer

a small web app that provides a randomly selected Pantone color when you click the button at the bottom.

planned updates include:

  • making the color selection function self executing
  • expanding the available colors
  • finding and using an API of pantone colors



And, last but not least, I ended up using this project to learn how to post effectively on Dev.to! I used emphasis, links, and an embedded GitHub repo. πŸŽ‰

Let me know what you think of the Pantone project, and what some of your first independent projects were. I'd love see them or hear about them.

xoxo
@thecodepixi

Top comments (15)

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voidjuneau profile image
Juneau Lim • Edited

Wow, that's cool. Love the idea. Congrats! πŸ₯³πŸΎ You should be really proud of it.
Used to be a kinda-designer, so always love Pantone chips.

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Emmy | Pixi

Thank you! I always find Pantone color samples so aesthetically pleasing. My sister is an enamel pin designer and uses them as color reference for her manufacturer, so I think it may have been a result of a lot of recent exposure.

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voidjuneau profile image
Juneau Lim

Even though I actually used to use it, I haven't thought the possibility of a project such as this.
Thank you for showing me such creativity.✨

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thecodepixi profile image
Emmy | Pixi

Thank you so much, Juneau! I'm so glad you enjoy it as much as I do 😊

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Emmy | Pixi

I was actually thinking the same thing! I am SO bad with color! But I think it could be cool to have options for the closest colors (within a few digits of the color code provided) and also the most opposite.

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Ben Halpern

Congrats on shipping! And then talking about it. Both easier said than done.

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Emmy | Pixi

Thanks, Ben! I wish I had saved a version of what it looked like a few days ago when I first started working on it. The final version is so much prettier and better functioning lol

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Matt Mayer

Congrats! Small tip, use Math.floor instead of Math.round in your random code, otherwise it's biased to give you the last element of the array less often.

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Emmy | Pixi

Oh this is so good to know, thank you so much!

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Timothy McGrath

Great job! Creating stuff is so fun. And completing something is very rare.

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rhymes

Congrats! :-)

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Angela Whisnant • Edited

Cool! Love the randomizer! Checking out your repo.

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Bennett Dungan

Hell yeah! Finishing a project that was once just an idea is the most magical thing. Congrats!

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Kayley

Wooo! Congrats Emily, I've been following your journey on twitter for a few months now! So inspiring to see what you've built. Love this project idea too!

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thecodepixi profile image
Emmy | Pixi

Thank you, Kayley! I'm so flattered! πŸ˜­πŸ’•