DEV Community: Dawit Worku

Building DownloadStuffs: A Modern UI for the Internet Archive

Dawit Worku — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 23:16:57 +0000

Introduction

The Internet Archive is one of the most valuable public libraries on the web — but using it efficiently can be surprisingly hard.

Slow browsing, unclear “best” files, broken downloads, and poor UX for multi-file items (series, playlists) were common pain points for me. So I built DownloadStuffs, a modern, open-source interface focused on speed, clarity, and reliable downloads.

Live demo: https://downloadstuffss.vercel.app/

The Problem

Archive.org exposes powerful APIs, but the default UI struggles with:

Performance on large result sets
Discovering the right file among many formats
Previewing long-form or episodic content
Downloading reliably in modern browsers (CORS, timeouts)

For developers and users, this friction adds up quickly.

The Solution: DownloadStuffs

DownloadStuffs is designed around three principles:

1. Speed
Server-side pagination and optimized queries against the Advanced Search API.

2. Clarity
Opinionated defaults, clean detail pages, and a focused file browser.

3. Completion
A download proxy and on-the-fly ZIP generation for playlists and collections.

Key Features

Fast search with media-type filters and sorting
In-page video/audio previews
Playlist queue with keyboard controls
Reliable download proxy (no CORS issues)
Batch ZIP downloads for multi-file items

Architecture Overview

Search: IA Advanced Search API
Metadata: IA Metadata API
Streaming: Direct IA download endpoints
Backend: Bun + TypeScript
Frontend: Vite + modern SPA routing
Deployment: Vercel

Technical Challenges

Streaming ZIP generation
Creating large ZIP files without storing them on disk required streaming compression and careful memory management.

Proxying large files
Handling upstream timeouts and partial downloads was necessary to make downloads reliable in the browser.

What I Learned

UX matters even for “just a UI on an API”
Performance is a feature
Open data platforms benefit massively from better tooling

Open Source & Feedback

DownloadStuffs is fully open source:

Repo: https://github.com/Dawaman43/downloadstuffs
App: https://downloadstuffss.vercel.app/

I’d love feedback, ideas, and contributions 🚀

The Future of Memarya: Our Roadmap and How You Can Help Build It

Dawit Worku — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 05:34:48 +0000

Hello again, DEV community!

The journey of building Memarya in public has been incredible so far, thanks to all the great feedback and support.

Today, I want to look forward. A project is only as strong as its vision, and I want to share the roadmap for Memarya and officially invite you to help build it.

The Vision: A Simple, Powerful, Open LMS

The long-term goal for Memarya is to be a robust, open-source Learning Management System (LMS) that anyone can self-host. It should be simple enough for an individual educator but powerful enough for a small organization.

To get there, I've created a public roadmap that breaks down the path to our Version 1.0.

The V1 Roadmap: What We're Building Next

I've consolidated our initial goals into a central roadmap discussion on GitHub. This is where we're planning the core modules, including:

The Course Creation Module: For educators to build and structure their content.
The Student Dashboard: A central hub for students to track their progress.
The Quiz & Assessment Engine: To create interactive quizzes and assignments.

All the details and technical discussions for these features are happening right now in our official roadmap issue.

➡️ View the Official Roadmap on GitHub

Let's Build This Together

This is your invitation to help shape the future of open e-learning. You don't need to be a senior developer to contribute. We need help with:

Backend Logic: Designing schemas and writing API routes.
Frontend UI: Building React components with shadcn/ui.
Ideas & Planning: Simply joining the discussion in the GitHub roadmap issue is a huge contribution!

If you're interested, the best way to start is to head to the roadmap issue, read through the plan, and leave a comment with your thoughts or questions!

Let's build this together.

⭐ Star and Follow the Project on GitHub ⭐

I'm Building Memarya: A Free, Open-Source E-Learning

Dawit Worku — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 15:32:03 +0000

Hi everyone!

I'm excited to share a project that I'm deeply passionate about, and I'm hoping to build it in public with the help of this amazing community.

The Mission: Free Education for All

I believe that access to quality education should be a right, not a privilege. That's why I started building Memarya, a completely free and open-source e-learning platform designed for students, educators, and self-learners everywhere.

The vision is to create a powerful, self-hostable platform that communities can use to build their own learning environments without being locked into expensive, proprietary software.

What is Memarya?

At its core, Memarya aims to be a full-featured Learning Management System (LMS). While it's still in the early stages, the roadmap includes features like:

Course creation and management
Student enrollment and progress tracking
Interactive quizzes and assignments
Community forums and discussion boards

The Tech Stack 🥞

I've chosen a modern, powerful, and developer-friendly stack to build Memarya on:

Next.js - For a robust, server-rendered React frontend.
Drizzle ORM - A fantastic TypeScript ORM for type-safe database access.
Auth.js (NextAuth) - For flexible and secure authentication.
shadcn/ui - To build a beautiful and accessible user interface efficiently.

I'm a huge fan of this stack, and I believe it provides the perfect foundation for a project like this.

This is Where You Come In!

Open source is about collaboration. I can't build this alone, and that's why I'm reaching out to you. Whether you're a seasoned developer, a UI/UX designer, an educator with ideas, or just someone passionate about open education, you can help.

Here’s how you can get involved:

⭐ Star the Repository on GitHub: This is the easiest way to show your support and help the project gain visibility.
🗣️ Give Feedback: Check out the repository, look at the code, and share your thoughts. I've opened up the GitHub Issues for all feedback and ideas.
🧑‍💻 Contribute Code: If you're a developer, feel free to pick up an issue, fix a bug, or suggest a new feature. We need help on both the frontend and backend.

I'm excited to build a community around Memarya and work together to create something truly valuable.

Thanks for reading, and I can't wait to hear what you think!