To future-proof their successful translation app, and add some vital new features, Redokun needed to migrate from jQuery to React. To help get it done, they called a digital agency in the Italian Alps that happens to specialize in React development. You can probably guess which one.
Say hello, hola and ciao to Redokun, a highly specialized application designed for companies that need translations of their marketing materials and complex technical documents in multiple languages.
An early-stage startup that wanted to go from Minimum to Maximum Viable Product, Redokun’s founders came to Belka at a turning point. To take their product to the next level, they needed to make some big changes.
The translation cell is the heart of Redokun’s product. It started life as a simple cell with a simple job, but it had potential to do much more. To add the necessary bells and whistles, what was needed was nothing less than a complete refactoring of the live product, moving from jQuery and vanilla JavaScript to React and Redux.
The move to React made it much easier to add a comments feature. The main challenge for Belka's developers was to manage markers and tags within the translation cell, and nail the dynamics of user tagging. For the latter, there were no pre-existing React libraries, so we wrote the code from scratch.
Next up: Real-time collaboration. The UX patterns for this feature are well established and familiar to most, but since there were no available instances in React libraries, our devs combined Pusher.js, a general purpose base library, with custom React hooks.
Finally, we added an option to style text within a cell. With tags, Redokun lets translators control the look of a text, down a single letter. To accelerate the refactoring process, our developers used and readapted Slate, an open-source framework for building custom editors.
To make a long story short, migrating from jQuery to React has made a huge difference. The app became much more stable, and the team could finally add powerful and much needed features, making it more appealing to users. The migration also makes Redokun much easier to maintain and develop in the future.
With a product that had become increasingly difficult to manage with an old technology, Redokun picked the right moment to migrate to React.
It’s a situation that will seem familiar to many developers, and for us it made perfect sense. By adopting React, Redokun was able to move forward with their platform, satisfy existing customers, and attract new ones.
Belka specializes in React, so it’s hardly a surprise to hear that we love it and recommend it to our clients: It’s easy to learn and use, it's built on reusable components, and comes with a massive JavaScript library, a supportive community, and lots of other good stuff.
What’s not to like?
