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QuickEx

Ever been deep in a shopping spree on some international site, constantly switching tabs to convert prices? Yeah, me too. That little annoyance kept bugging me until I thought, "There's gotta be a better way."

Turns out, building that better way was more fun than I expected. QuickEx is what happened when I got tired of breaking my flow just to check if I was getting a good deal.

Making Currency Conversion Disappear

The goal was simple: highlight any price—whether it's $7USD, $7, or 7USD—and instantly see what it means in your currency. No new tabs, no copy-paste dance. Just select and know.

I wanted it to feel invisible but powerful. You pick your home currency once, add a few favorites if you want, and that's it. The extension handles the rest, staying out of your way until you need it.

AI as a Coding Partner

Building this was a bit of an experiment. I teamed up with AI tools like Vercel v0 and Cursor IDE, curious to see how much they could help. Spoiler: quite a lot, actually.

The AI handled the heavy lifting—setting up Next.js, wiring up real-time currency APIs, even suggesting clean layouts with shadcn/ui. But it wasn't perfect. The drag-and-drop for favorites needed my touch, animations needed tweaking (Maxime Heckel's Framer Motion guide was a lifesaver here), and some features needed that human spark to feel just right.

The Little Details

My favorite part? The favorites system. You can save five currencies, drag them around to reorder, and cycle through them with a click. It's not groundbreaking, but it makes the tool feel like it's truly yours.

The tooltip is another small win. It pops up fast, shows accurate rates (thanks to ExchangeRate-API), and disappears when you're done. No fuss, no muss—just the info you need, when you need it.

Why This Matters

Sometimes the best tools are the ones you barely notice. QuickEx isn't trying to be a full-blown financial app—it's just there to answer one question: "how much is this in my currency?"

And honestly? That's enough. Because those small interruptions in our flow add up, and fixing them makes the web feel a bit more like home.