How to build a Game News App using Gaming News API?

Today, I am building a game news application where all the news related to the gaming industry will be displayed. So without any further ado, let’s jump in!

Stack

We need to choose a stack first to build this application. I have decided to go with the Jamstack.

I am going to use Next.js for the frontend and TailwindCSS for the styling.

If you don’t know about Next.js, it is a JavaScript framework built on top of React and provides features like server-side rendering, static site generation, etc. Tailwind is a CSS framework that provides utility classes to speed up the development process.

Choosing The API

Let’s find an API that we can use to search for games news. Go to RapidAPI Hub and create an account if you haven’t already and then search for “game news” in the search section.

You will see different search results related to validation APIs. For this piece, I am using Gaming-News API.

It is a free API, so you do not need to subscribe to it. However, you will need your RapidAPI key. Go ahead and save the x-rapidapi-key so you can use it later.

Building The UI

You can create a Next.js boilerplate with TailwindCSS integrated by running the following command in your terminal. So let’s do that.

sh
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npx create-next-app -e with-tailwindcss game-news-app

This command is going to take a minute to set everything up. After generating the boilerplate, you will see a folder with the name game-news-app has been created. Open this folder in your preferred code editor. I will use VSCode for this project.

Project Files

When you open the project in your code editor, you will see the following directories and files in the root directory:

• pages directory: Inside it, you will have files index.js, _app.js, and another directory called - api. You only need to know about the index.js file that is the main entry point in your project.
• public directory: This directory contains icons. You place your static files here to load later in the application.
• node_modules: It’s another directory that contains all the node modules you are using in your application.
• package.json: This file contains the metadata of your project.
• package-lock.json: This file is responsible for tracking the exact version of every installed package.
• postcss.config.js: This file contains PostCSS configurations.
• tailwind.config.js: It contains TailwindCSS configurations.
• readme.md: It’s a markdown file for documentation.

Before we move on to writing the code, open this file, and copy all of its content, then paste it inside the tailwind.config.js file in your project. These are some TailwindCSS configurations I have done specifically for this project. I have added some colors that you do not have by default with TailwindCSS and set some screen sizes.

Now let’s start writing the code. I am going to do it in steps so you can follow along.

→ STEP #1

Open the pages/index.js file and remove all the existing code. After this, copy-paste the following code there:

jsx
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export default function Home() {
	return (
		<div className="flex flex-col items-center relative min-h-screen">
			<h2 className="font-raleway font-bold text-6xl text-primary pt-20 pb-6 md:text-3xl">
				Game <span className="text-secondary">News</span> App
			</h2>
			<h3 className="text-lightGrey text-2xl font-raleway font-bold uppercase tracking-wide mb-12 md:text-base md:px-4 md:text-center">
				Take a look at what is happening in the game world
			</h3>
		</div>
	);
}

It will create two headings for you with the text “Game News App” and “Take a look at what is happening in the game world”. You can change it to anything you prefer.

→ STEP #2

Let’s integrate the API now. For this, first, create a .env.local file and paste the following in it:

sh
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NEXT_PUBLIC_RAPIDAPI_KEY=YOUR-RAPIDAPI-KEY

You need to replace YOUR-RAPIDAPI-KEY here with the API key you got when you subscribed to the Gaming-News API. It is the value of x-rapidapi-key that you saved earlier.

Now download and add axios in your project. For this, run the following command in the terminal:

sh
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npm install axios

Now import axios at the top of the pages/index.js.

js
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import axios from 'axios';

→ STEP #3

RapidAPI Hub provides you with code snippets in different languages for integrating the API. I am going to use the (JavaScript) Axios one.

Fetching data using (JavaScript) Axios

Now create a file with news.js inside the pages/api directory. It is going to create a REST API endpoint for you. The endpoint point will look like this:

sh
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http://localhost:3000/api/news

Now copy the following code in this file:

js
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import axios from 'axios';
export default async function handler(req, res) {
	if (req.method === 'GET') {
		const options = {
			method: 'GET',
			url: 'https://gaming-news.p.rapidapi.com/news',
			headers: {
				'x-rapidapi-host': 'gaming-news.p.rapidapi.com',
				'x-rapidapi-key': process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_RAPIDAPI_KEY
			}
		};
		axios
			.request(options)
			.then(function (response) {
				res.status(200).json(response.data);
			})
			.catch(function (error) {
				console.error(error);
			});
	} else {
		res.status(400);
	}
}

This code makes an API call to the Gaming-News API on the server and returns the results to the user. It executes when the user makes an API call to the news endpoint I mentioned above.

Once you are done, copy the following code in the pages/index.js file:

jsx
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import axios from 'axios';
import Link from 'next/link';
export default function Home({value}) {
	return (
		<div className="flex flex-col items-center relative min-h-screen">
			<h2 className="font-raleway font-bold text-6xl text-primary pt-20 pb-6 md:text-3xl">
				Game <span className="text-secondary">News</span> App
			</h2>
			<h3 className="text-lightGrey text-2xl font-raleway font-bold uppercase tracking-wide mb-12 md:text-base md:px-4 md:text-center">
				Take a look at what is happening in the game world
			</h3>
			{value.map(news => {
				return (
					<div
						className="flex items-center text-lg px-10 mb-10 font-light font-raleway h-32 w-3/6 rounded-sm border-2 border-danger text-primary cursor-pointer transition duration-300 hover:border-primary hover:text-danger md:w-80 md:h-40"
						key={value.indexOf(news)}
					>
						<Link href={news.url}>
							<a>
								<h3>{news.title}</h3>
								<p className="text-sm pt-4">
									Source: {news.source}
								</p>
							</a>
						</Link>
					</div>
				);
			})}
			<div className="flex flex-col mt-10 justify-end h-36">
				<p className="block mb-10 text-center text-secondary text-xs">
					Made by RapidAPI DevRel Team -{' '}
					<a
						className="hover:text-lightGrey"
						href="https://github.com/RapidAPI/DevRel-Examples-External"
					>
						See more examples like this
					</a>
				</p>
			</div>
		</div>
	);
}
export async function getServerSideProps() {
	const res = await axios.get('http://localhost:3000/api/news');
	const {data: value} = res;
	if (!value) {
		return {
			notFound: true
		};
	}
	return {
		props: {
			value
		}
	};
}

I am using the Next.js getServerSideProps function to fetch the data from the server. It will make my application server-side, and the user will never see a loading state. You can also use getStaticProps instead of getServerSideProps, and the application will then fetch the data at build time.

Afterward, I am mapping the news I am getting from the getServerSideProps on the screen.

Wrap Up

That’s it. We have successfully built a Game News App using Gaming-News API. You can find the source code of this web app here.

In the end, it will look something like this:

Game News App built with Next.js and Game News API