80sfy

80sfy.com by Art Sangurai (original codebase repo) is a pretty cool site if you love synthwave music, so I decided to re-create it using Elm.

You can read all about things I learned during the development of this application on my blog post:

• ░▒▓ＥＬＭＳＴＨＥＴＩＣＳ▓▒░

The site itself is deployed at:

• https://www.paulfioravanti.com/80sfy

Note that it's currently only optimised for the Google Chrome and Firefox desktop browsers, so it's probably best to view it with either of those.

Development

Dependencies

• Elm 0.19.1
• NodeJS 21.6.2

Setup

Global

This app was created using Create Elm App, and uses some commands that it provides, so install it globally with npm:

npm install -g create-elm-app

Application

git clone https://github.com/paulfioravanti/80sfy.git
cd 80sfy
npm install
elm-package install
cp .env.example .env

Giphy Integration

Create an account at Giphy Developers, create an app to get your API key, and copy/paste it into the .env file:

ELM_APP_GIPHY_API_KEY="Your API key here"

Run Server

elm-app start

Now, you should be able to use the app at the following address:

• http://localhost:3000

Note

If you get a 'error:03000086:digital envelope routines::initialization error' error, then change the command to the following:

NODE_OPTIONS=--openssl-legacy-provider elm-app start

Deployment

Deployment is managed in the push script. It uses gh-pages to deploy out to Github Pages.

./push

Note

If you get a 'error:03000086:digital envelope routines::initialization error' error, then change the command to the following:

NODE_OPTIONS=--openssl-legacy-provider ./push

Gotchas

Video Speed Controller Chrome Extension

• If, like me, you use Chrome and have the Video Speed Controller extension installed, then make sure to add the following URLs to its blacklist, or you may find that that newly fetched GIFs will not display as expected:

  http://localhost:3000/
  http://www.80sfy.com/
  https://www.paulfioravanti.com/80sfy

Chrome Autoplay Policy

You may find that this issue may still be present, but I have found that it does not seem to exist any more...

Chrome's autoplay policies changed in April of 2018, which seems to affect this app when it is first loaded, and you attempt to press the play button on the controller (not the play button on the embedded Soundcloud player): nothing happens, and if you open up the Chrome inspector, in the console you will see a message like: "The AudioContext was not allowed to start. It must be resumed (or created) after a user gesture on the page.".

This can be mitigated in two ways:

1. When you play audio for the first time, click the Soundcloud play button, rather than the controller play button. This would seem to let the autoplay policy know that you, the user, have given permission for application widgets to play sound. Once you have done this the first time, all subsequent play/pause actions should work as expected.

2. Change your Chrome autoplay policy flag by:

• Inputting chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy in your browser address field
• Setting the value in the dropdown menu to be "No user gesture is required".

This will enable the controller play button to work as expected when you attempt to play audio the first time the app is loaded.

Other Links

• Love on Reddit for 80sfy.com