Emoji Crush

Follow these instructions to create a website that displays information about a random emoji.

Click here to view the Emoji Crush Starter project. Copy the project to begin the activity.

Part Zero: Background

There is basically no starter code for this project, but the API will make it relatively simple to add functionality to the site.

The API

The API that makes this possible is named EmojiHub. There are a couple endpoints available, but the important one is the one that returns data about a random emoji. The URL is static, but it will return a variety of random different emoji.

URL

https://emojihub.yurace.pro/api/random

Response

{
  "name": "shark",
  "category": "animals and nature",
  "group": "animal marine",
  "htmlCode": [
    "🦈"
    ],
  "unicode": [
    "U+1F988"
  ]
}

The important pieces of data are the name, the category, and the htmlCode.

The Goal

The goal is to generate a random emoji, and add some information to the site when the button is clicked!

Part One: HTML From JavaScript

To start, it may be worthwhile to look at the HTML on its own, for one example emoji.

Demonstrating the HTML

Purely for demonstration purposes, add some code to make information about the eye emoji appear.

1. Open the index.html file for editing
2. Find the <div id="emoji-text"></div> element
3. Make a new line within the opening and closing tags
4. There, add a <p></p> element that says "You should send them the 👁 emoji
5. Wrap the emoji code in a <span></span>
   • This will allow it to be styled with CSS
6. Under the <p></p>, make another <p></p>
7. Make it say "This emoji is named eye and it is from the smileys and people category"
8. Wrap the "eye" and "smileys and people" text in <span></span> elements
9. Under that, add another <p></p>
10. Make it say "Sending them this emoji will definitely make them like you"
11. Wrap the "definitely" in an <i></i> to make it italic

Alternatively to all that, feel free to copy and paste this code into the index.html file:

<p>You should send them the <span>&#128065;</span> emoji</p>
<p>This emoji is named <span>eye</span> and it is from the <span>smileys and people</span> category</p>
<p>Sending them this emoji will <i>definitely</i> make them like you</p>

Run the project to see how it looks!

Building HTML from JavaScript

To start making this more functional, define a function that will dynamically add the HTML to the page.

1. Open the script.js file for editing
2. Define a function named showEmoji
3. In the body of the showEmoji function, create a variable named textElement
4. Use document.querySelector to grab the <div id="emoji-text"> from the HTML, and store it in the textElement variable
5. On the next line, set the textElement.innerHTML property to be a new template literal
6. Make some new lines within the template literal, and paste in the HTML code from above
7. Remove the HTML code from the index.html file as it is no longer needed

Run the project, click the "Click Me" button, and verify that information about the eye emoji appears! The added code should look something like this:

function showEmoji() {
  let textElement = document.querySelector("#emoji-text");

  textElement.innerHTML = `
<p>You should send them the <span>&#128065;</span> emoji</p>
<p>This emoji is named <span>eye</span> and it is from the <span>smileys and people</span> category</p>
<p>Sending them this emoji will <i>definitely</i> make them like you</p>
`;
}

Part Two: Dummy Data

Now this works for one emoji, but it is still very static. The raw HTML contains hard-coded values. Instead, use some dummy data to prepare the showEmoji function for working with real live data.

The main idea with this is to create some mock data to pretend the API is returning actual data. That way, it will be possible to define how to handle the data even before there is real data! This separation of concerns can be very helpful in software development; breaking large problems into bite-sized tasks can make them feel much less overwhelming. Take it one step at a time!

Defining the Dummy Data

The example data can be created based on a response from the API. The important thing is that it should be in the same format, and have all the same properties and structure. The shark example from the response above will be used for this dummy data.

1. Open the script.js file for editing
2. Make a new line at the very top of the file
3. There, create a new variable named exampleData
4. Set exampleData to be an empty object
5. Add a name property to the object with a value of "shark"
6. Add a category property to the object with a value of "animals and nature"
7. Add a group property to the object with a value of "animal marine"
8. Add a htmlCode property to the object with a value of ["🦈"]
   • Note: this is an array with one element
9. Add a unicode property to the object with a value of ["U+1F988"]
   • Note: this is an array with one element

The added variable should end up looking something like this:

let exampleData = {
  name: "shark",
  category: "animals and nature",
  group: "animal marine",
  htmlCode: ["🦈"],
  unicode:["U+1F988"]
};

This simulates the response that would be received from a real fetch API call.

Extracting the Dummy Data

The next step is for the showEmoji function to grab that data, find the relevant pieces, and use those pieces in the rendered HTML.

1. Open the script.js file for editing
2. Find the showEmoji function body
3. Make a new line under the textElement variable creation
4. There, create a new variable named emojiData, set to exampleData
5. Under that, create a new variable named emoji
6. Set emoji to be the first element from the htmlCode property of the emojiData object
7. Under that, create another new variable named name
8. Set name to be the name property of the emojiData object
9. Under that, create another new variable named category
10. Set category to be the category property of the emojiData object

The added code should look something like this:

let emojiData = exampleData;

let emoji = emojiData.htmlCode[0];
let name = emojiData.name;
let category = emojiData.category;

Now all the data has been extracted, but it still has to be used!

Passing the Dummy Data

Next, insert that data into the rendered HTML.

1. Open the script.js file for editing, and find the body of the showEmoji function
2. Find where the textElement.innerHTML property is set
3. In the template literal, remove the eye HTML code in the first <span>
4. Replace the code with the interpolated value of the emoji variable
5. Replace the word eye with the interpolated name value
6. Replace the "smileys and people" with the interpolated category value

Run the project, click the button, and verify that shark emoji information appears! The updated code with the interpolated variables in the template literal should look something like this:

  textElement.innerHTML = `
<p>You should send them the <span>${emoji}</span> emoji</p>
<p>This emoji is named <span>${name}</span> and it is from the <span>${category}</span> category</p>
<p>Sending them this emoji will <i>definitely</i> make them like you</p>
`;
}

Part Three: Real Data

Now it's time to get real. Instead of using that dummy data, the code should make a call to the EmojiHub API, and return that data.

Defining the Function to Fetch Data

The first step is to setup the fetch call.

1. Open the script.js file for editing
2. Define a new function named fetchEmojiData
   • Make the function asynchronous with the async keyword
3. In the function body, declare a new variable named emojiData
4. Under that, setup a try/catch structure
5. In the try block, create a new variable named response
6. Set response to an awaited call to fetch
7. Pass in the proper URL to the function call: https://emojihub.yurace.pro/api/random
8. Under that in the try, set emojiData to an awaited response.json() function call
9. In the catch block, alert the error message
10. Outside of the try/catch, at the bottom of the body, return emojiData

The function definition should look something like this:

async function fetchEmojiData() {
  let emojiData;

  try {
    let response = await fetch(`https://emojihub.yurace.pro/api/random`);
    emojiData = await response.json();
  } catch (e) {
    alert(e);
  }

  return emojiData;
}

Calling the Function

Now that the function has been defined, it must be called!

1. Open the script.js file for editing
2. Make the showEmoji function asynchronous with the async keyword
3. In the body of the showEmoji function, find the emojiData variable creation
4. Replace exampleData with an awaited call to the fetchEmojiData function
5. Remove the exampleData variable from the top of the file

Now, run the project, click the button, and verify that a random emoji appears! The added code for this part should look like this:

let emojiData = await fetchEmojiData();

Conclusion

It is certainly more difficult to build something from scratch, but it also helps reinforce the concepts quite a bit. This API has fairly simple data, but it can be used in powerful and creative ways!

Final Code

The code in the script.js file should look something like this:

async function fetchEmojiData() {
  let emojiData;

  try {
    let response = await fetch(`https://emojihub.yurace.pro/api/random`);
    emojiData = await response.json();
  } catch (e) {
    alert(e);
  }

  return emojiData;
}

async function showEmoji() {
  let textElement = document.querySelector("#emoji-text");
  let emojiData = await fetchEmojiData();

  let emoji = emojiData.htmlCode[0];
  let name = emojiData.name;
  let category = emojiData.category;

  textElement.innerHTML = `
<p>You should send them the <span>${emoji}</span> emoji</p>
<p>This emoji is named <span>${name}</span> and it is from the <span>${category}</span> category</p>
<p>Sending them this emoji will <i>definitely</i> make them like you</p>
`;
}

Update Ideas

The site is pretty good as-is, but there is always room for improvement. Here are some ideas:

• Update the CSS for the page
• Allow the user to select a category for the emoji like this
• Display more than one emoji if requested
• Display the group in addition to the category

Feel free to use the API for any desired purpose.