this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023

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Introducing Connect for Lemmy (i.imgur.com)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by kuro_neko to c/[email protected]

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Hi lemmings, I switched over from Reddit 10 days ago now but I couldn't find a mobile client that I was happy with with an experience similar to the Reddit experience I was used to. So I decided to build my own and I hope you will like it as well!

Play store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kuroneko.lemmy_connect

Features:

Material U
Dark and Light themes
List view / Card view / Fullwidth view
Filter lists for hiding posts
Multiple accounts + switcher across multiple instances
Guest accounts for viewing an instance without signup
Search and community autofill
Markdown support + attempt to navigate links correctly (/u/foo will open that user instead of browser kickout. Same for /c/, !, and @)
Saving posts
full sort types
NSFW view options (hide, blur, show)
copy text and url on all posts and comments
add comments, replies, and new posts
comment replies with line indicators

Here's other screenshots:

Future plans:

Improving the inbox
Swipe actions
Multi-~~reddit ~~communities

Thank you for taking a look. I hope others who are migrating from Reddit like me will find the app useful and I'd love to know your thoughts!

Edit: Community for the app is here: https://lemmy.ca/c/lemmyconnect

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The app looks great! Feels very fluid.

I have only three requests:

make it FOSS in spirit of the fediverse (obviously you don't have to, that's your choice)
give me a way to download pics from inside the app. I very often download memes and share them in other chats. You've got open external, which works, but it's an extra step. Downloading in app would just be more convenient.
lastly, give me a way to buy you a beer 😁

[–] kuro_neko 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hi, thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you're enjoying it! I've added a download button to media views. Open source is on the roadmap as well if there's enough interest.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

Hey, black cat! From the screenshots, your app looks very promising. Would you consider making it FOSS, though? Just asking.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

Thank God there's a filter setting 😭😭😭 sorely missed coming from infinity. First thing filtered? "reddit."

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

I would strongly recommend open-sourcing it! There are several FOSS apps already and it would be hard to compete against them without opening up =]

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Can you also host the APK or upload it on F-Droid?

//edit

I ask because im on a de-googled pixel 5 running lineage OS so I cant exactly just go get it off the Play Store.

[–] kuro_neko 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah I'll look into uploading the APK and add a reply here when it's ready.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thanks, open source/foss is even better but thanks for at least looking at distributing it on other platforms!

[–] kuro_neko 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think I will open source it in the future but right now it's a very messy codebase coming from essentially a long coding binge.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A lot of people think that way but don't be afraid to post code because it isn't perfect. Lots of enterprise software looks awful. Also anyone who wants to be an ass about your code for such an early release isn't worth listening too. Most are just happy to help and can do pull requests to make your project better.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Nice job. But not available in my country (Germany). Looks really nice and familiar to reddit apps.

[–] kuro_neko 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just added Germany to the list of countries! I think it will take Google an hour or so to update.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Thanks!! Would be nice if you can setup the f-droid app.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's interesting. Needs some more formatting options imo. I liked how in boost for reddit the titles of posts were always at least as big as the preview of the body of the post. Just makes it look much cleaner imo. Could use a font size option. Could use some color options too eventually.

Also, it needs a "Subscribed" page. Default lemmy has this page that only shows you content from communities youre subscribed to. You should see about getting that feed on your app.

Overall though great work, it looks really promising thus far and I'm impressed with how quickly you've put this together.

[–] kuro_neko 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'll take a look at how Boost for Reddit formats their titles, thanks! The 'Frontpage' once you're signed in should be equivalent to the Subscribed page.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

'Subscribed' is called 'Frontpage' in the app, you can find it in the sidebar.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Looks good and I was able to get it on pretty quickly. I was about to post this from the app but saw it's missing the web's markdown shortcuts and image upload option.

Also looking at this post the screenshots are cropped and I didn't see a straight forward way of looking at the whole image.

[–] kuro_neko 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thanks! I'll make a note to add markdown shortcuts and image upload to the next release. I should probably make those cropped images expand out on click.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wow, you are really fast! I've been using Jerboa and the PWA, but not super happy with either. Yours look great! Will use it more and feed back to you if that's okay.

One thing I found is that it doesn't show the number of new comments. I usually sort by NewComments, and I would expect to e.g. see "49 comments (14 new)" like Jerboa/PWA.

[–] kuro_neko 3 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the feedback! I'll add the new comment counter in the next release.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That UI looks really clean. I love it. Is it open source? Not that i dont trust you but i try to not use any closed source apps anymore, i would appreciate it if you would share the link to the source code.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Posting from the app. Awesome progress for only 10 days.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Will you be making this open source?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I love the look and layout, but I can't get any threads to load. It just says "No posts"

[–] kuro_neko 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'll take a look! Do you have any filters applied? Is that across all instances?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

just downloaded the app. I really like it. please keep up the good work

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Looks great but it says it's not available in my country (Brazil)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

just a quick feedback, when being in the dark mode, the user switching remain in light mode. Also the node selection suggesting the possible nodes would be appreciated.

also, adding new accounts after the first one, doesn't seems to work.

I added my lemmy.world and it seemed to work.

anything else besides it, didn't work (tried, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, etc.)

overall it's a good mvp, well done, need a little more work and i would appreciate if it was a FOSS to absolutely avoid situations in which an app become the unofficial-official app but then a sudden surge of egocentrism from an individual take it away.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Congrats for the release! I finally have alternative to Jerboa!

Some feedback if you don't mind:

Full Height view. It's like the full width view, but display the image without any cropping.
Tap and hold to show image in full screen, release to close. Very useful for compact views. Also should works for articles thumbnails.
Native imgur support. Right now it's treated as a web page. If it'll require using paid API, just disregard this until you have some funding.
Preload images when on wifi (optional setting). Basically preload the next N images in the list so they'll appear instantly.
Show full community names and user name. Right now it only show the community name and user name, but not the instance name. This is confusing if you subscribed to multiple communities with the same name from multiple instances. Same for usernames.
option to toggle denser comments views with minimal whitespace.
(possible bug?) The community list on the side menu doesn't show all my subscribed communities.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

These are very good suggestions! would also like for it to show the instance name of a post as well as the hold-to-show-image

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I signed into my dataterm.digital account but when I go on profile I see my feddit.de profile even though I didn't login with it.

[–] kuro_neko 4 points 2 years ago

Ah I must not be filtering the username with the instance so it's grabbing the first username match it sees. I'll fix this in the next release :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Nothing is showing up in my feed when signed in to lemmy.ml

Also, the Google password manager is trying to input the password into the instance text box when trying to sign in. Pixel 7 Pro.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Damn that looks awesome! Did you find any good docs on the API? I only found the lemmy-js-client, which is a library, though. Wanted to do some shenanigans with Python and Lemmy, but there doesn't seem to be too much documentation...

[–] kuro_neko 2 points 2 years ago

I had a hard time with the API docs too to be honest. I read through https://join-lemmy.org/docs/contributors/04-api.html first but it was pretty high level. My main reference was the typing on the lemmy-js-client as well. I used the Dart Lemmy API client here https://github.com/LemmurOrg/lemmy_api_client but unfortunately it's not being maintained (and didn't work without modification since the API has changed since then).

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

looks good, been using jerboa for the past week. will check this one out too. cheers!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Looks great from the screenshots!

The Google Play link doesn't let me install it though and I can't find it via the Google Play app.

Edit: it says that the app is not available for any of my devices. I'm using a Pixel 7

[–] kuro_neko 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Strange - I'll take a look! I'm testing on a Pixel 6 so I would think it would work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'm on pixel 6 and it doesn't work with logged in aurora store.

Edit: it works now!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Google Play say that is not available/compatible for my Xiaomy 12 Pro

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

It looks and feels great. I'm guessing that Frontpage is meant to be Federation. Also the comment boxes need more definition and text options.

Otherwise, it's decking beautiful. Leaps and bounds above Jerboa.

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