Responsive URL Shortening API Landing Page

What are you most proud of, and what would you do differently next time?

I am most proud of successfully connecting the frontend to an external URL shortening API through my own backend and deploying the project so that the complete application works online. I am also proud of the responsive layout and the ability to save shortened links using localStorage.

Next time, I would plan the frontend and backend architecture earlier and separate the development and deployment configurations from the beginning. This would make testing and deployment easier.

What challenges did you encounter, and how did you overcome them?

One of the main challenges was integrating the external API while dealing with browser CORS restrictions. I solved this by creating a Node.js backend that receives the URL from the frontend, sends the request to the shortening API, and returns the result to the frontend.

I also encountered deployment issues related to the server configuration, ports, CORS origins, and differences between the local and production environments. Testing the application directly from the deployed frontend helped me identify and fix these issues.

Another challenge was making the layout behave correctly across different screen sizes, particularly on tablet and desktop resolutions. I adjusted the responsive CSS and fixed elements that were causing unexpected overflow.