Raccoon for Lemmy

Hey folks! I solved the issues that were reported and took the time to update AGP... Unless I receive blocking reports this build can be promoted to production. After which, let's see what happens! 🤣

As for what features are coming in the future, I have been working a little bit on the search in post detail, which is not exactly easy but something can be got going. Another feature I was requested is the ability to have local bookmarks not tied to any account (in order to extend that feature to anonymous users) which is again not exactly easy but feasible.

I am constantly monitoring what other Lemmy apps are doing and the most advanced ones (like Summit which I really look at with awe and admiration) are introducing full offline mode, for example.

I am open for ideas from you, keep in mind that from tomorrow I'm going back to work full time since my holidays are over, but as always I'll do my best as always to keep up.

A new version of the app has been released, just some minor bug fixes and a new user-contributed translation (thanks!).

I'm considering switching from open tests to production but I'm not sure... on the one side there are few crashes/reports, on the other side the adoption is still low (< 100 installs) and everything is so silent as to look dead.

As announced on Matrix, today I proceeded with the release of version 1.4 containing some new features (the OP marker in comment threads and the possibility to disable automatic pagination to prevent "doom scrolling") and some updates that I had been postponing for too long because there were more urgent issues...

I jumped almost immediately to 1.4.1 because 1.4.0 had a ProGuard misconfiguration issue, sorry for anyone that unfortunately managed to install the old one in the meantime, I fixed it half an hour later but it had to be reviewed before publication.

Happy holidays to everyone! As always, feedback is welcome. 🦝🦝🦝

Happy new year guys! New year's eve has brought a new version with some features you requested, like video support or edge-to-edge contents, limiting post height in full mode. Plus, the possibility to delete private messages which nobody requested but its lack annoyed me.

Together with the most recent tasks (modlog, web settings, account ban management, language selection, etc.) the app starts to look like a quite complete Lemmy client, what do you think? Is there any feature that you would like to see or anything that is a "deal breaker" for you (either because it's there and you wish it wasn't or because it's missing and you would like it to be available)? As always feedback is welcome!

Thank to all those who participated in the program, even in these very busy days of celebrations. I tried to keep an eye on every feedback and managed to find some time for a couple of implementations that I had been postponing for too long, and here is the result.

In this version you will be able to see other users’ bio and moderated communities, in a sheet similar to the community info that can be accessed from the user detail. More info here.

Additionally, instead of the option “share URL from original instance”, whenever there is an ambiguity in the share URL, you’ll be able to choose from a bottom sheet the URL you want to share. More info here.

Since answering is one of the most frequent actions and some users reported not finding it easy to find how to access it, a third “swipe towards the left” action has been added to quickly reply to posts and comments, with customizable action color. More info here. Moreover, in posts and comments (both when creating and editing) you can now choose the language. More info here.

I’ve taken the opportunity to fix pagination and navigation from the side drawer, as well as cross-post opening in guest mode, as per your reports. And since it wasn’t enough, I also took the chance to finally migrate to the Voyager-Koin integration and remove a lot of boilerplate code in ViewModel dependency injection. More info here. The support has been there for months but I have never had the time to do it.

Finally, I created a Matrix space and added a quick link in the “About” dialog. More info here. Discussions are also opened on GitHub so feel free to use whatever way you find easier.

We finally made it! 🎉🎉🎉 The closed test phase ended yesterday, I applied for access to the production channel and Google accepted the app, which is now available to open tests!

Thanks to all those who contributed so far and took the time to report bugs, provide feedback, suggestions and ideas. 🙇‍♀️

Being able to publish the app is like a gift that I received so thank you from the bottom of my heart. Happy Holidays to everyone and enjoy some time to rest and restore energies for the new year!

🦝🦌🎄🎁🥂🎄🦌🦝

A new version of the app has been released, with some new features (modlog, favorite communities, block from post list), fixes and enhancements (namely the app size was optimized after tweaking a little bit with ProGuard). I'm going to proceed with requesting access to production in the Play store, thanks again for your feedback I really appreciate it and try to implement as many requests as possible. As always keep an eye on the issue tracker and project branches/pull requests to see what I'm working on and don't forget 🦝 L. F. E. T. 🦝

As the title says

As the title says.

Hi guys! This week I'm going to ask Google the access to production channel, meaning that we'll be able to switch from closed to open testing and later release to the public.

In order to be able to take the survey in the most transparent way, I would like to have some opinions from you:

• which are the features you use the most? are there any features that you don't use at all?
• what is the value the app brings, especially compared with similar solutions out there?
• how would you rate its performance, are there any areas of improvement or situations that made you think "this is crap" and you didn't dare to tell me?
• is there anything missing before you think this is production ready?

🦝 is currently working on the community modlog, after fixing some issues you reported (date formatting, capitalization in text fields, chat message loading and create comment layout). The next release will also have other features besides the modlog, namely the possibility to add communities to favorites (which are shown on top in the sidebar) and see the list of moderators in the community info.

Additionally, I made a huge refactoring to make the code cleaner and more maintainable.

As promised yesterday, a new release of the app is available for the weekend! This is mostly a fix and maintenance release, updated some libraries and squashed some bugs that you reported. But I also managed to add some small features (like editing chat messages or having different fonts for the app UI/menus and for the content). I also made create post/comment bottom sheet not closeable with the scroll down gesture because as happened to you it also happened to me from time to time and was very annoying. Thanks for reporting everything and being so supportive!

🦝 L. F. E. T. 🦝

I'm sorry for having not been active lately but this has been a very stressful period at work so I didn't have much time to post here or answer to everyone quickly. I'm going to solve a couple of issues more and release a new version during the weekend. If you are participating in the closed test program, I inform you that we have passed the first seven days of the testing period, so please do not uninstall the app until December, 22... a week more to go and then I'll be able to promote the app to open testing! Thank you for your help with your feedback, suggestions, bug reports and for keeping the app installed during this period.

So my first impression of this app is good, it looks and feels really good and feels easy to navigate. I really like all the colour settings especially the name for the red comment theme.

I have however found what appears to be a problem or might be me missing something, and that is that compared to my other app Jerboa the body of the posts seems to be missing on Raccoon.

Post as it appears on Racoon.

Post as it appears on Jerboa, with the missing text circled.

As of the making of this post I also see that this is also the case of the post preview, so if something looks a bit of that is probably the case.

A new version of the app has been released today! This is a mostly a bugfix release which takes into account part of the feedback I received in the previous test round. For those who were waiting for improved comment management and theming or were wondering why in guest mode there were issues loading communities, users and posts, this is what you were waiting for! I want to personally thank each and every one who took some time to provide feedback, bug reports and suggestions for improvement (even with graphic proposals). I'll do my best to solve the remaining open issues, expect a new release by the middle of next week. Thank you to everyone for your involvement, your attention and your kindness.

🦝 Live fast, eat trash 🦝

Good testers are as important (if not more important) than good programmers, so any contribution is welcome and encouraged!

If you want to participate in the test program, please follow these steps:

• write an email or a private message to me on Lemmy containing the email address you are currently logged in with on Google Play Store on your device, I'll add your user to the closed tester group in the Play console
• you'll receive a mail/message by me with this direct link, if you open it on your Android device it will automatically resolve to the Play Store on the app page, from where you can install it
• that's it for the initial setup! 🎉

Start using the app and if you have feedback or want to report bugs, please follow these steps:

• have a look at the project issue tracker to see if something similar has already been reported. If it is, add a reaction like 👍 and/or comment adding details/steps to reproduce/whatever you think it is useful for debugging. This step is optional but will save you (and me) some time by avoiding duplicates
• create a new issue on the issue tracker or just send me an email/a private message on Lemmy/a post in this community and I'll copy them to the issue tracker later, I prefer having all things there to have a single place where to look when I work on the project (plus they are visible for everyone, as per the previous point about duplicates).

Finally, I recommend subscribing to this community to stay up to date with new release announcements, since Google Play apparently neither informs testers of new versions nor it automatically updates the app whenever a new release is published.

And always remember:

🦝 L. F. E. T. 🦝

Hello! Thanks for the invite to test, I'm looking for a new app to replace the soon-to-die Liftoff and Raccoon looks like it might be going places.

I've written up a long list of notes here but honestly, overall I really like it and it seems like it has most of the features I need. Just wanted to be thorough with my testing so it's a long list. Also I'm currently recovering from covid so if any of them are gibberish, blame that.

Again, just to stress, I really like the app and feel bad about how long this snag list is. Keep up the great work!

Bugs / confusions

• No way to see which account you're commenting from <-- putting this first because it's a biggie
• Multicommunities seem a bit broken. I set one up, it took ages to load the feed, and now sorting by "hot" is putting 3yr old posts at the top 🤷‍♀️
• Trying to click through to old posts from the multicommunity feed, they also take a long time to load. Not sure if that's due to coming from the multicommunity feed or just the age of the post, but it needs some kind of loading indicator rather than a blank screen
• I somehow got into a commenting UI while still logged out but couldn't figure out how to recreate, it was while trying to click through to a post from search results
• Swipe to vote "works" on search results while logged out
• Vote and bookmark icons are shown when logged out even though they don't do anything. Admittedly I am not at full brain capacity right now but it made me forget I was logged out and I thought it was just broken 😅
• The "plus" button to reply / scroll to top is also visible when logged out but does nothing when pressed
• Unable to scroll right to the bottom of some threads - I think this might be if the last reply contains an embedded image but will test some more and report back
• Scaled sort is an option regardless of instance version, unclear what it's actually doing on instances that don't have it
• Not very clear how to switch between feeds, looks like it should be the hamburger icon to the left but isn't
• Can't click through to comments by tapping comment icon, have to tap headline instead, feels a bit weird
• Unclear exactly what situation results in the "load more comments" button but most threads have it every couple of comments and it's quite intrusive
• No indicator in inbox to show where the notifications are (e.g. messages, mentions)
• Having the link to your profile labeled as an instance is odd
• Swiping back from inbox or settings should not close app
• Swiping back from feed should at least have an optional confirmation before closing app
• Yes I accidentally close apps a lot

Readability

• Body text is very big by default, but changing it makes headlines weirdly small. They really need two different text sizes.
• Similarly, having all text everywhere be the exact same shade isn't great in terms of visual hierarchy
• Comment indenting isn't very clear especially since all the marker lines are the same colour

Misc

• App's default feed is lemmy.world Local. Given how many users get confused and think "lemmy" is only their local server's content, I think All would be the better choice there for onboarding purposes.
• Explore tab also defaults to Local which makes even less sense in the context of searching. Has the hilarious result of showing knitting posts top of a search for "crochet", you'll have the yarn crafts crowd after you for that one! 😉
• Zombie mode is interesting, but the default speed is incredibly slow and makes me wonder whether it's actually supposed to be used or is just a joke feature

Questions

• NSFW is turned on by default in the app settings. But this is also an account setting in Lemmy itself, so I assume the account setting overrides the app one? That could confuse people, not sure it needs a separate app setting.
• What is "use dynamic colours" setting? I genuinely have no idea lol
• Is there a way to access account settings yet?

• hold to collapse (or customizable comment hold action) would've been nice to have!

• some tabbed menus can't be swiped through.

• Post swipe gestures are quite unreliable and often get registered as scroll gestures.

• Chat/messages layout is really nice!

• I think actions like upvoting should have some sort of immediate feedback (click -> soft color -> wait for action to complete -> bright color)

• it supports ukrainian language, which is a nice bonus for me

I've not been publishing many posts here because I assume all people interested in the project are already getting the updates either via Google Play or GitHub/Obtainium, so I'm not going to focus much on the release cycle but will provide some announcements about how the project is going and what to expect from the future.

We are continuing gathering opinions and suggestions for improvements, the most "friendly" channel so far has been the email, in any case don't be afraid to speak up, even criticism is welcome so don't say "it's ok" if you think it isn't! Thank you as always rb_c for all your reports and pieces of advice.

The first user-contributed translation has been received and integrated for Spanish 🎉🎉🎉 Thank you again u/[email protected] for your work. This is a community project and we're all on it together, so it's really great news!

On the app side, I think I'll be working on some new features, like:

• adding/removing mods to a community
• showing the modlog
• show upvote percentage (% of upvotes over total rates)
• supporting GIF images.

I would also like to create a project website on GitHub pages, with tutorials, credits, etc.

Finally: when will the app be available for open tests on Google Play? I'm currently stuck due to the limit of 20 users for 14 days continuously, I have less than half of the user base required so far, so without new testers I won't be able to proceed. If you are getting the app via Obtainium or directly from GitHub, please consider switching to Google Play or otherwise we won't be able to reach the general public.

Thank you to everyone and always remember:

🦝 L. F. E. T. 🦝

A new version of the application has been released with a series of bug fixes, new localizations, UI improvements and some new features (e.g. banning users from your moderated communities).

The application is now officially availabile on Google Play for a closed group of testers. If you want to try it out, please send me an email with the account you use on Google Play to be added to the test program.

Your help is really needed because we need to have at least 20 testers continuously for 14 days to be able to promote the app to open testing or production.

The new RC is finally ready

It took a little longer than expected, but I believe it was worth it. This version has several new features and some enhancements and fixes from your feedback.

Moderation tools 🎉🎉🎉

The new version finally integrates the changes of #153 concerning the moderation tool.

If you are a moderator of some community and you open its detail screen, you'll be able to remove posts/comments (with a reason) and you'll find in the option menu an item to see the report list for posts/comments filtered by their resolved status, you'll also be able to mark reports as resolved/unresolved.

You can mark posts as featured to pin them to the top of the community and lock them to prevent further comments from being added, as well as mark comments as distinguished (and of course revert all these operations).

Enhancements

• in zombie mode, the screen is kept on while scrolling automatically
• in the inbox screen, you'll see only the "mark as read" option if the reply/mention is unread or "mark as unread" if it is read, the se applies to swipe actions
• full timestamp of post/comment creation in "See raw" dialog
• "Quote" action in first position in custom text toolbar in "See raw" dialog
• removed ellipsis from menu items, improved fonts and localizations

Fixes

• share URLs are now correct whatever the instance
• user detail and community detail screens do not lose header data when hitting back, plus some load and pagination fixes.

Happy testing! And don't forget 🦝 L. F. E. T. 🦝

The new release candidate has been released with new fonts, new localizations, new features (such as marking posts as read while scrolling or the possibility to reply with a quotation in the "See raw…" dialog) and several fixes for the 🐞🐞🐞 that you have reported via email or GitHub issues.

I'm working to set up a closed test channel on Google Play, so stay tuned to subscribe to the tester program. And always remember 🦝 L. F. E. T. 🦝

RC5 and RC6 weren't really the best so far, due to an aggressive refactoring that made some latent bugs more evident.

I got the idea for the refactoring by the "Kotlin Design Patterns and Best Practices" book by Alexey Soshin, and I am glad I took some time to improve the code base even if it cost a couple of unstable releases.

For the most curious, the PR introducing the bug was this one and the solution is here and here.

This new RC solves the issues with reloading and other minor bugs, plus adds some more localizations. If you want to submit a translation or review the existing ones, you're more than welcome.

🦝 L.F. & E.T. 🦝

A week later or so, here is the new release. Since the idea is to get ready for the Play Store, instead of adding more features I focused on polishing what exists and adding small improvements considering both your requests (e.g. showing number of subscribers for each item and sort in the "instance detail" screen) and my personal needs as a Lemmy user 🤣 (e.g. cross-posts).

I want to thank especially those who opened issues on GitHub to report bugs like #110 and #111 which were addressed as quickly as possible.

And thanks as always to rb_c for their precious help and suggestions.

For those of you wondering in which trashbin I was lost, I was trying to make the new RC more performant and usable.

At the same time I've implemented a couple of request from people who have reached out to me here, i.e. the possibility to lock the navigation bars and the lazy ("zombie") mode, as well as a new comment expansion policy.

Thanks, as always, to all the people who dedicated some of their time to test and give feedback. This project belongs to the community, your opinion matters and you can make the difference.

And always remember:

For anyone wanting to try it out, the new RC has been released today.

Since I've received a report about the new comment expand/collapse policy not being fully usable yet, I am going to change it before going stable.

And always remember