Ionut-Cristian – Node.js, React, Typescript

A component that brings right-click functionality to React web applications built with Mantine UI. Mantine DataTable, one of his most successful open-source projects and probably the most popular data table components for the awesome Mantine UI library, featured a much appreciated row context-menu functionality since its initial release. This project packages the very same functionality as a standalone hook that can be used anywhere in an application built with Mantine UI.

As of August 2023, Mantine ContextMenu is still a young project but it's growing in popularity. It's currently heading towards 3k monthly downloads on NPM.

As project author and maintainer, Ionut:

• Created the initial set op specifications;
• Built the library and its documentation website in accordance with core Mantine UI API and theming style and created a number of usage examples;
• Fixed bugs and added new features, as requested by users;
• Promoted the library in various development-related media.

PocketBaseUML is a free, open-source UML diagram generator for PocketBase. You can use it online at pocketbase-uml.github.io to connect to PocketBase servers exposed through HTTPS, or run it on your machine as an npm package to connect to local HTTP PocketBase servers.

PocketBaseUML was featured in various "awesome" PocketBase & Svelte-related projects lists on GitHub.

As project author and maintainer, Ionut:

• Designed the package functionality requirements;
• Identified the most appropriate UML diagramming solution to use;
• Built the project so it can be used as a standalone NPM command-line utility utility and online web application;
• Fixed bugs and kept it in sync with PocketBase core features.

tRPC-SvelteKit is an adapter enabling Svelte developers to harness the power of tRPC.io in their SvelteKit applications.

The library's mantra is:

End-to-end typesafe APIs with tRPC.io in SvelteKit applications. No code generation, run-time bloat, or build pipeline.

As of August 2023, tRPC-SvewlteKit is one of Ionut's most successful open-source projects, with over 600 GitHub stars and nearly 10k monthly NPM downloads. Over the last year it has been featured in various developer media in the Svelte developers ecosystem and is being used by thousands of developers across the world.

As a sole package author and maintainer, Ionut:

• Discussed the initial idea with Alex Johansson, the main author of tRPC.io;
• Performed an in-depth study of the documentation and code-base of tRPC.io;
• Designed and implemented the open-source module to enable Svelte developers to use tRPC in their SvelteKit applications;
• Built the documentation website and a few usage sample applications.

A tool enabling Romanian freelancers to quickly calculate their taxes based on their estimated income. Built in a few hours with Svelte/SvelteKit and hosted on GiHub pages.

As a project creator, Ionut:

• Identified the need and opportunity to build the project;
• Coded the application and designed the GitHub Actions deployment workflow.

SWAPP is a workflow management and accounting application built for Romanian freelancers and small-business owners, enabling them to keep track of customers, contracts, projects, work effort, invoices, and check-register entries. It also produces "real-time" accounting and financial reports.

Ionut built the entire platform and website "from scratch" over 7 months in a small team of just 2 people (Ionut as as developer and his wife as a designer) - from hand-drawn UX/UI concepts, through Figma artboards, countless lines of code, to production deployment on a custom VPS.

The universally-rendered React/Next.js application code is written in Typescript and styled with SCSS modules. They're using Next-Auth to manage the user authentication workflow and Prisma with PostgreSQL for data persistence. Most of the business logic is handled within Next.js API routes and they've also used some advanced PL/pgSQL functions to be able to quickly generate "real-time" reports data. The UI is built on top of a slightly customized version of Ant Design - the most complete framework of UI components for React to date, perfectly suited for high-productivity desktop interfaces with heavy data density.

The users' invoice documents are generated on-the-fly using a fantastic library called ReactPDF.

Ionut built a custom (bash-scripts based) scenario to reliably manage the production-deployment workflow, and be able to operate a low-cost production environment on a couple of Docker containers residing on an Ubuntu Server VPS.

They're using Paylike (by LUNAR) to accept online payments from users, and since the application was custom-built, they've rolled thier own integration using Paylike's Web SDK APIs.

He is a business co-owner in SWAPP. Following the COVID-19 pandemics, as more and more developers in Romania were switching to remote / independent contractor work, he has discovered the need of an appropriately-sized and reasonably-priced online application to help people manage their work load, accounting and fiscal burden of their activity. Therefore, Ionut:

• Performed a SWOT analysis on potentially competing products available on the market
• Identified the initial set of features to build in the MVP
• Chosen the appropriate tech-stack, necessary 3rd party services, UI framework and libraries
• Designed the application architecture
• Designed the data architecture
• Built the Docker-based development and production environments (custom VPS located in Romania to comply with the European and national GDPR legislation and minimize the subsequent maintenance costs)
• Written code for the entire backend (PL/pgSQL, Next.js API route handlers - Typescript)
• Written code for ~80% of the frontend (custom React components written in Typescript, based on Ant Design UI library)
• Written code for ~70% of the user-facing website, based on designer's Figma mockups (custom React components with SCSS modules for styling)
• Built custom production deployment workflow & data backup strategy (bash / zsh)
• Ownership of the entire development, deployment and maintenance process

A custom-built web application to enable a Belgium-Romanian company to manage its automotive fleet purchase/trading activity.

He was a sole technology partner tasked with building the entire "business-dashboard" application, so he:

• Understood the business process and collected the business requirements;
• Chose and presented the appropriate technology stack (Typescript, React/Next.js, PostgreSQL, GraphQL APIs powered by Hasura, Blueprint.js UI library, ReactPDF for invoice documents generation, etc.);
• Designed the application architecture and wrote the entire code-base;
• Took part in meetings to provide feedback in relation to branding (for a small public website, office stationery);
• Wrote the necessary code to implement the public website design based on Figma mockups designed by the partner according to the customer's specifications.

The main focus of the project was to build an online marketplace enabling users (both B2C and C2C) to trade their used cars. The platform had 3 types of users:

• Private / individual users, which could list their own, personal automobiles based on a small fee;
• Automotive dealers / large traders, which could submit batch listings;
• Marketplace administrators - which could validate and publish / unpublish input from the above sources.

He was a sole technology partner tasked with building the platform, so he had to:

• Understood the business process and collected the business requirements;
• Chose and presented the appropriate technology stack (Javascript, React/Next.js, PostgreSQL, data access based on Knex.js query builder and Objection.js ORM, Next.js REST API routes, Material-UI library, Zustand-based state management, ReactPDF for server-side fiscal documents generation, etc.);
• Took part in meetings to brainstorm the visual identity or the project based on customer's vision;
• Mentored the associate designer on building the necessary UI mockups and UX interactions in Figma, based on customer's specifications and feedback;
• Designed the web application architecture, the data architecture, and wrote the entire JavaScript code-base (React components, CSS-in-JS styling, SSR pages, Firebase authentication workflow, etc.).

LeasingSH.ro, a SH / repossessed vehicles marketplace, was one of the first large projects (in terms of user base & concurrent access sessions) built in Romania with Node.js.

He was the sole technology partner in the business. Responsible for UI/UX redesign, rebuilding the entire third version of the codebase, and managing the PaaS infrastructure of the project.

Technology key-points:

• ES6/7 on both the server and client-side;
• Server application built with Express.js/Node.js, running on a custom-built PaaS infrastructure hosted on ArubaCloud;
• Data persistence layer built with Bookshelf.js/Knex.js on top of PostgreSQL, with a custom-made FTS engine to fully support the Romanian language;
• Data caching on a dedicated Redis server;
• Views built with Jade and styled with Stylus;
• BLOB storage on Amazon AWS;
• PWA elements built with VanillaJS/DOMTastic/Riot.js, without jQuery.

A classy/elegant website for a niche, boutique travel agency selling travel-packages to corporate and private customers.

• Discussed the visual identity with the customer;
• Helped building the design mockups in Figma;
• Wrote the entire website codebase (JavaScript, React, Next.js, SASS/CSS-Modules);
• Setup the necessary CI/CD pipeline to statically host the SSG website on GitLab pages, for a low-maintenance/low-cost hosting scenario.

Ionut acted as beta-reader, co-editor & technical support for King's Host. He has built kingshost.github.io with Node.js / React / Next.js, dressed it with styled-jsx and crafted a workflow to host it on GitHub Pages. The code is opensource - please refer to his GitHub profile if you're curious to learn how it was done.

His tasks included:

• Beta-reading, consulting & co-editing the content, exporting and tweaking the output formats;
• Set up the main product website;
• Published the book on Amazon Kindle, Google Play Books, Apple iBooks, and Kobo Rakuten.

In 2010, he co-founded a design/visualization studio offering professional services for:

• 3D modeling, rendering and ArchViz;
• interior design for commercial/retail & residential spaces;
• custom furniture design;
• digital graphics;
• custom web development.

They needed a small, elegant website to advertise their services and showcase their portfolio. The first version of the website was built in 2010, the last one was completely rebuilt with React/Next.js around 2015.

• Wrote the entire codebase (JavaScript, React/Next.js, CSS modules) to transform the designer's mockups into an elegant, mobile-friendly website
• Wrote a custom script to automate the deployment on GitHub pages