Stereocaster v2

Stereocaster went through a lot of changes this week, which you can view at stereocaster.com!

The main change is a redesigned player and queue feature, so it’s easier to discover and play shared audio while scrolling through the casts feed.

It was really motivating to see how people responded to my initial post last week, even with my fairly rough prototype. I received some really helpful feedback and even a mention in This Week in Farcaster.

What did I get done this week?

1. Making Stereocaster more user friendly

I implemented pagination, the queue, and part of the auto-playing feature this week based on feedback from v1 and my own notes. I’ve realized it makes more sense to focus on making Spotify links work well first before branching out to other audio links, especially since I’m still figuring out the Spotify API’s capabilities.

For next week, implementing a fully-functional auto-play experience and fixing bugs are some of my top priorities. Right now, audio auto-plays after clicking “Play” on a cast, but the queue doesn’t automatically play through, which would be a big UX improvement.

2. Migrating to React + refactoring

Stereocaster v1 relied on a NodeJS script that generated an HTML file, which made it very difficult to make changes to my code. I ended up migrating the codebase to React, which drastically improved the readability of my code but also introduced some new challenges. I also tried out Tailwind and Vite for the first time, and I like both.

3. Progress on the backend: still a work in progress

I didn’t get a chance to work more with Hubs this week, but I did try using the Searchcaster API to pull in casts in real time. While it worked smoothly, it felt a little slow, so I ended up writing a script that would fetch casts using the Searchcaster API and create JSON files for me to manually upload instead. This isn’t an ideal solution, but it’s working out while I continue to work on the backend.

Coming soon…

Stereocaster Digest #1 is in the works, along with some minor bug fixes and hopefully a better auto-playing experience.

I am always open to feedback, so if there’s anything you’d like to see with Stereocaster, please let me know! You can find me on Farcaster, Twitter, or comment on this post.