PodcastIndex Web UI

Podcast Web UI is a project that houses the code for the React app and express server for podcastindex.org.

• Landing page for PodcastIndex.
• Search for podcasts in index.
• Simple podcast player for listening.
• List of apps using the PodcastIndex.
• Documentation and developer login for credential management.

Project Structure

The project is split into two folders, ui, and server.

.
├── ...
├── ui
│   ├── public      # Static files for index.html and favicon
│   ├── fonts       # Fonts used in the UI
│   ├── images      # Images and icons that are part of the UI
│   └── src         # All React and client code
├── server
│   ├── assets      # static files that are dynamically updated
│   ├── data        # static data files (ie. json) that are dynamically updated
│   └── index.js    # express app that serves the UI and is a reverse proxy (replaces need for NGINX)
└── ...

The folder ui houses all the React and client based code and assets.

The folder server houses all of the API, static server data, and the reverse proxy to the PodcastIndex API using comster/podcast-index-api.

Server data and assets

The reason to build a custom express server for serving React and other data is due to the need for script updated .json files and dynamically adding apps to the /apps page. This data should not be bundled with the client compiled code.

CORS

The custom express server also is used to reverse proxy requests through the same domain to prevent CORS issues. Using the same domain to server up the UI content and to send api requests prevents CORS issues in modern browsers.

Getting Started

Summary

git clone https://github.com/Podcastindex-org/web-ui.git && cd "$(basename "$_" .git)"
cp .env-example .environments/.env.development # Generate a .env for development
cp .env-example .env # Generate a .env for yarn/npm start 
# Generate a new .env for production
sed s/NODE_ENV=development/NODE_ENV=production/ .env-example > .environments/.env.production
nvm use                                          # If you want to use .nvmrc Node.js version
corepack -v                                      # Check version and instalattion
export COREPACK_ENABLE_DOWNLOAD_PROMPT=0         # Disable download prompt
corepack enable                                  # Enable dependency

The dev, build and production scripts run webpack with NODE_OPTIONS=--openssl-legacy-provider, because webpack 4 hashes with MD4, which OpenSSL 3 (Node 17+) disables by default. If you run webpack directly, set it yourself.

Set .env

You should see a .env-example file. Copy this into:

• .env. For yarn start
• .environments/ and change the -example to .development and/or .production.

The files .env* should be on .gitignore and are needed to set the API_KEY, API_SECRET, API_ADD_KEY and API_ADD_SECRET variables.

Starting the dev server

In order to have the UI hot reload for development, we utilized webpack-dev-server this allows for easier debugging, etc. In order for the dev-server to connect to the API, you must first have set the .env* file variables and have started the server with yarn start

# Install dependencies
yarn install

# Start dev server
yarn run dev
# Or if you are using docker (to bind to 0.0.0.0 instead of loopback)
# yarn run dev:docker

# Start the node server in another terminal window.
yarn run start

Running production

To start the server, simply run after setting the .environments/.env.production and .env files.

Note: Make sure to set NODE_ENV=production in .env.production and .env files.

The below script will compile the code and then start the node server.

npm run build
npm start

Or use:

yarn run production

Tech List

• Node.js: (v24.22.1)
• Express
• React
• Corepack
• Webpack
  • webpack-dev-server
  • dotenv-webpack

TODO

• Font should load through webpack properly
• Better image loading handling in the search results page.
• Developers page and login