minos

Minos is a visualizer for different pathfinding algorithms. It allows you to create a grid and place a starting point, one or more end points and obstacles. Then you can select an algorithm and it will show you how it works. You can see the nodes it visited and the path it took to get to the end point.

I created this project because I wanted to touch up on my pathfinding algorithm knowledge and I thought this would be a fun way to do it. I also wanted to learn more about how to create a visualizer and how to make it look good.

Minos also comes with an about page that explains how the different nodes in the grid work and how the different algorithms work. Each algorithm has 3 different explanations, each increasing in complexity. Each algorithm also comes with the typescript code that runs it, each section of the code is commented explaining what it does.

The project is live and hosted on minos.aornum.xyz but it is not mobile responsive so I only recommend using it on a desktop.

The frontend of the project was built using Next.js, I wanted to use Next.js because I wanted to learn more about it and I thought it would be a good fit for this project. I knew React before heading into this project but I had never used Next.js, so it seemed like a good opportunity to touch up on my React knowledge while learning Next.js.

This was my first time using Next.js and I enjoyed developing with it. It felt similar to SvelteKit but slightly more opinionated. The deployment process was a bit trickier compared to what I was used to since it seems like Next.js is meant to be used with Vercel while I was hosting on my own Linode. I also learned more about pathfinding algorithms and how they work.

I would probably make it mobile responsive. I would also like to add more functionality to it, like the ability to add different weights to the nodes and have the algorithms take that into account. I added some laberinth creation algorithms but I would like to add more. <br /> I also think my I certainly overcomplicated my code, I think I could have made it a lot simpler. I believe removing most useEffects and using a single state object would have made it a lot simpler. But overall I was happy with how it turned out and it was a fun project to make.