FAQ by Koalati
FAQ by Koalati (faq.koalati.com) is a small project I built over 3-4 evenings back in early 2020, right around the time that COVID struck in North America.
One of our clients at Eckinox, the agency where I worked at the time, had asked us to build a microsite to present all of their COVID-crisis related information and news. This microsite was meant to help educate and guide companies and individuals navigate the various restrictions and support programs that had been put in place by our government.
A big part of this microsite was an "Frequently Asked Questions" section, that helped present information in an easy-to-scan format while also allowing visitors to ask their own questions.
I looked around and didn't really find a suitable solution for this, so over the next few evenings and weekend days, I decided to build an app that focused exclusively on that. And that's how FAQ by Koalati came to be!
Project overview
The application allows you to create questions and to provide answers for these questions using a basic WYSIWYG text editor, and publish them when you're happy with them.
Once you've got some questions set up, you can embed two types of "widgets" on your site to get started.
The first one is really just a script that fetches your published Q&As and passes this data to a custom DOM event, allowing a developer to listen to that event and render the Q&A section.
The second widget is a question submission form, which allows visitors to submit their own questions. This form can be customised by defining additional fields, if necessary. Once submitted, the questions appear in the backend as non-published questions, along with a quick profile of the person who asked the question.
Finally, there are some basic security and customisation options:
- Translation options for the form;
- Allowed domains options;
- IP blocklists for question submissions.
All in all, it is a fairly simple application, but it worked very well for the client's needs.
Tech stack
- PHP (Symfony 5)
- Vanilla JS & CSS
- Quill.js
- Side note: this might've been my first time using a text editor other than TinyMCE.
Where is it now?
This project is still up and running today. I haven't touched it in years, but it's technically still usable!
Check it out at https://faq.koalati.com/
