Connecting the database, yay!
Hello, Yaiza here! Welcome to another issue of Building The Aerial Arts Hub — Journal of a Newbie Developer. My last update was ages ago (I’ve had my hands full moving overseas), but I’ve been quite busy behind the scenes, and I have exciting updates to share!
What I’ve done
As you may have guessed from the title, the code behind The Aerial Arts Hub has seen quite a bit of progress. In fact, I finally managed to connect the database! This part scared me for a long time (I know next to nothing about working with databases), but I eventually managed to fight my way through it. This means the aerial and pole studios now load dynamically on the site! 😍
I’m also very proud of myself because I managed to implement search functionality throughout the platform. If you head to the studios page, you can type in a search term and you’ll see results matching that search! 🤩 You can even filter the results—although at the moment, the only working filter is by location (more to come!).
By the way, if you click on any of the studio names, a little expanded modal pops up, which shows that studio’s full address (try it yourself 😉). In the future, it’s also going to include links to each respective studio’s website and Instagram account!
What I’m working on
The functionality to load items from the database, search the site, and filter the results is pretty much in place—what’s missing now is much of the actual data!
I may have finished adding all the aerial and pole studios into the database with their respective info (cleaning up over 2,000 addresses around the world took forever), but I now have to add in all the items across the other categories—coaches, retreats, festivals, physiotherapists, photographers, events… wish me luck.
I also have a few extra bits to refine when it comes to the studio search—most importantly, I want to mark which apparatus is available in which studio. This will once again take me ages, but I think it could be really useful when browsing the studios!
As you can see from the screenshots, the images are another tricky aspect of the platform. Ideally, each item would load with its own image (like a profile photo), but sourcing and adding every single photo would take a ridiculous amount of time. I’m leaving this as an aesthetic issue to tackle at some point in the future—for now, the functionality of the site is more important.
What I’m learning
Confession: I haven’t touched any learning materials in months. At first, I just didn’t have time to continue with The Odin Project as my wife and I moved from Singapore to Spain at the end of April. More recently, I’ve honestly just been very invested in working on The Aerial Arts Hub, so all my coding time has been dedicated to this project.
I’ll definitely pick up the course again at some point—for now, I’m learning enough from just tackling all the bugs that come my way. 😅
Aerial things
I’ve got two very exciting aerial updates!
First up, I asked a friend to take some aerial photos of me before I left Singapore, and I just received the edited pics! I love how they turned out, so I’m leaving a few of my favourites below. The photographer can be found under the name polareyezd on Instagram!
My second update is that my aerial studio here on Lanzarote is putting on a student showcase at the end of June—not a small, informal studio showcase but a professionally organised one in a large theatre, with paid tickets and everything. And I’ll be performing a solo number! It’s my first time choreographing a full routine and performing on stage, so I’m super excited about this opportunity.
My wife has also been coming for aerial classes for some time now and will be taking part in a collective number in the showcase as well. I’m really looking forward to it and will definitely share some photos and videos after!
Thanks for reading along and see you in the next issue! 🩵