Overview
CadaloCast and Adalo Components are products built for the Adalo no-code platform ecosystem. CadaloCast provides podcast and audio functionality, while the component library extends Adalo's capabilities with custom UI elements and integrations. Both required building within platform constraints while providing polished user experiences.
My Role
I designed and built custom Adalo components from scratch, working within the platform's component SDK. This included understanding the runtime environment, data binding system, and styling constraints. For CadaloCast, I built the audio player component, playlist management, and the backend services for podcast feed parsing and audio streaming.
Architecture
Adalo components run in a sandboxed React environment with specific APIs for data binding and actions. I built components that communicate with external services through Adalo's integration layer, handling authentication and data synchronization. CadaloCast's backend parses RSS feeds, normalizes podcast metadata, and serves audio through a CDN. The component maintains playback state and syncs progress across sessions.
Hard Problems
- Working within Adalo's component SDK constraints while delivering features users expected from native audio apps.
- Handling the variety of podcast RSS feed formats and inconsistencies in the wild.
- Building components that remained performant as users added more data and complexity to their apps.
- Designing APIs that were simple enough for no-code users while flexible enough for advanced use cases.
What I'd Improve
The RSS parsing is robust but could be more proactive about detecting feed updates. I'd implement a smarter polling strategy based on feed update patterns. The component library could also benefit from better documentation — while the components work well, onboarding new users requires more hand-holding than necessary.