The exoplanet scientists of the University of Leiden and all over the world had a problem because of the recent Covid-19 pandemic: they could not present their findings in their research field on conferences anymore and discussing groundbreaking findings. The observatory of Leiden (Sterrenwacht) wants to tackle this problem, by building a Youtube-like platform for exoplanet findings, scientist can upload videos about their recent findings and other members of the platform can discuss this in the comments section. The front-end was built using server-side rendering in React (Next.js) and the back-end is using Strapi as CMS. Strapi is an open-source CMS, which runs on Node.js. I have been responsible for most of the work, both the front-end, but also did quite some back-end work, in order to get the right data back from Strapi.

Not everybody can sign up for this platform. A big requirement for this platform, was that users can be accepted or rejected, based on their email address. This checking of new users is done manually in the front-end by users that have an "Admin" role assigned. Once a user is approved, they will receive a notification in their mailbox. For all e-mail handling, we have been using SendGrid, to speed up the development process. For the client, it is also easier to manage the content of the emails with the intuitive content editor in SendGrid.

After signing up, users can upload videos, which will be uploaded to the Vimeo API. After a successful upload all data is stored in Strapi and a video is published. After a video has been published, registrered users can comment on the video, in which the presenter will be notified by email. In that way, the scientist can discuss with each other about their findings.

Another big requirement for this project, was be able to search for videos using a query.