How I re-created r/place with Algolia | Algolia | Algolia

The author describes their experience with r/place, a collaborative pixel-art project created by Reddit in 2017 and again in April. They were inspired to leverage the power of Algolia's fast indexing and browsing capabilities to create a real-time experiment similar to r/place. Using Algolia's search client, they built an interactive canvas where each record represented a pixel with attributes such as objectID, id, and bg_color (background color). The author used Vercel to host the project and implemented features like user counter, optimistic UI, and real-time collaboration using socket.io. They also addressed security concerns by moving indexing code within NextJS API routes to keep sensitive data secure. The canvas was initially 4020 pixels but later expanded to 36,180 pixels to accommodate more drawings and increase playfulness. The author enjoyed working on this creative project and learned a lot in the process.