GearSwap is an app that allows musicians to buy, sell, and trade musical instruments and accessories within their local community. The app allows users to create listings with descriptions and contact information that are grouped by instrument category and visible for one week. Developing the app presented challenges like ensuring correct integration of frameworks and taking time to code listings to disappear after one week. Future plans for GearSwap include adding search, tagging, watching listings, displaying images directly, and improving branding.

1. GearSwap
BUY, SELL, AND SWAP MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND GEAR
BY MARGE ROSEN AND KATHRYN BLACKLEY

2. Why an app like GearSwap?
 Musicians need a specialized place online to buy, sell , and
trade gear
 Gear is musical instruments as well as accessories
 Takes advantage of existing networks within a given local
community of musicians
 Credibility is important – instruments are expensive, loved
objects that require maintenance and care
 Being too insular would discourage browsers and anyone
looking to join the local community

3. How did we approach GearSwap?
 Users can create listings describing what they’re selling, provide
outside contact information, and other users can respond
 Listings are grouped into categories based on which instrument
they’re associated with.
 You must be signed in to either post a listing, or to see another
lister’s contact information.
 Listings will only appear on the category page for one week,
although they would still be available if you have the URL.

4. Our challenges
 We used Twitter Bootstrap to help with our layout – difficult
process to make sure that all gems and files were correct
 Took some time to make listings disappear after one week --
at first it broke a lot of specs, as listings from factories were
made at “now” and not within the range from seven days
ago till now.
 [anything to add, maybe the css?]

5. What’s next for GearSwap?
 Add features such as search, tagging listings, watching
listings, or social media buttons for sharing listings
 Display images rather than linking to them elsewhere
 The appearance of the site could be improved with further
CSS and Javascript, plus a logo and branding
 Work with PostgreSQL for the production environment and
host on Heroku