Expand homepage API call to multiple subreddits

[seanmturley]

Description

The homepage was initially set up to pull posts exclusively from r/EarthPorn. This should be expanded to include at least a few other similar subreddits.

Tasks

• [ ] Choose and add additional subreddits
• [ ] Expand cardsLoader to make requests to multiple subreddits on the homepage

Considerations

• It should be possible to have a list of subreddits for use on the homepage, and then iterate through them and request posts for each one. Hopefully this isn't too slow!
• The quality of the subreddits is variable. The general standard can hopefully kept high through a combination of:
  • Applying an appropriate type filter to the requests (e.g. "top"). This is currently set to "hot" for r/EarthPorn.
  • Selecting less posts from the lower quality subreddits. This is currently unspecified, so defaults to 25 posts. This should be able to be limited in a similar way to the getSubreddits query i.e. by appending "&limit=5" to the query string.
  • Sorting the posts to prioritize the "best" ones. This might require pulling more posts from each subreddit than required, then filtering e.g. the "top" posts. It's unclear to what extent this is possible when comparing between different subreddits. In any case, this would be part of #160.

Subreddit candidates

• r/LandscapePhotography
• r/beautifultrees
• r/natureporn

See also: r/sfwpornnetwork, which includes a directory of nature related subreddits

[seanmturley]

This was a huge commit. Summary of work required:

• Added a new API endpoint, getHomeCards, to query a list of subreddits and collate the returned data. This required the implementation of a custom queryFn.
• Added a conditional to cardsLoader to query the new API endpoint a list of subreddits when on the homepage.
• Added a new container component, CardsContainer, to conditionally chose the correct card-related API endpoint for the homepage vs other pages. This had to be done in a container component because hooks can't be called conditionally, precluding the addition of the necessary logic within the Cards component itself.

The current functionality of the homepage is to pull a full batch of 25 posts from each of 3 arbitrarily selected subreddits. The cards are then displayed without any additional sorting i.e. each subreddit's posts are grouped together. This will be refined and improved as part of #160.