Recently, I made a post here, which gained some traction in support of the cause. However, I mistakenly used an outdated screenshot of Photon. It turns out that photon.lemmy.world is running an older version of Photon, which caused some misunderstandings.
For those who saw that post and were misled or disliked Photon because it appeared to display only 2-3 links on-screen, similar to new Reddit, let me clarify. While Photon is modern and intuitive, it is not like new Reddit in this particular aspect. This outdated screenshot gave the wrong impression, which I’ve since updated, but I wanted to create this new post since many people may not revisit the previous one to see the corrections.
The latest version of Photon, which can be seen at phtn.app, is a big improvement over what’s on photon.lemmy.world. Photon is modern, intuitive, and, speaking as someone with years of Reddit moderation experience who has also started moderating a few communities on Lemmy, it offers a far superior moderation experience. For example, Photon allows you to view the mod queue for all communities at once, making moderation much easier compared to the base UI or other alternatives.
Photon's modularity and customization options are comparable to, if not better than, Kbin's UI. You can easily change fonts, reposition docks and panels, apply custom themes, adjust sorting, and customize the modular side panel to arrange and pin items in any order you like. All of this can be done without needing CSS or additional technical knowledge. It’s probably the most modular yet user-friendly UI available right now.
Here’s an example of the latest Photon interface settings:
Here’s a more customized version I created in just a few seconds—it can be personalized even further:
In my previous post, I emphasized the need for a modern, visually appealing, and intuitive UI to help the Fediverse grow and attract mainstream users. Currently, Lemmy remains dominated mainly by discussions of political topics and critiques of Elon Musk, while its user base is still relatively small at around 40k+ users. For Lemmy to thrive, it needs to expand beyond its current niche and cater to more general topics and interests.
Personally, I use Reddit for far more than just shitting on Elon Musk, discussing politics, or even tech, especially FOSS. For example, I frequently engage with communities about cars, gaming, TV shows, entrepreneurship and general topics that are largely missing or underdeveloped on Lemmy. These general-interest communities are what make platforms like Reddit so versatile and appealing to a wider audience.
If we remain in our current comfort space, Lemmy will likely continue to stagnate as a niche platform. Meanwhile, other alternatives could grow and potentially replace Reddit one day, and it may not be decentralized, open source or community-funded rather centralized and driven by investors/VCs, Just as we’re seeing with platforms like Bluesky gaining traction over Mastodon to replacing X/Twitter. By embracing a UI like Photon’s, which is both modern and user-friendly, we can create a more inviting experience for mainstream users, helping Lemmy grow into a platform that caters to a broader audience.
After your first post, i've thought about your points, and i've changed my opinions a little.
I agree, we should replace the default lemmy UI as a whole. Out with it. But photon wasn't designed to be a "default" UI. It was designed as an alternative.
The point of a default UI is to be as accessible as possible, yet still functional. That's why most users on the fediverse usually use a 3rd party client (Including me, i use photon + raccoon on mobile). While the current lemmy UI checks the "performance" box, the functionality box? not so much. It feels like everytime i use it i am overwhelmed with information density, and the auto expand feature implementation is just bad. Photon does the opposite. It checks the functionality box, but scratches the performance box. Even on a modern PC, photon is choppy for me, and the frosted glass effect is not helping.
I don't think we should have a default lemmy UI, as in, every instance uses the same UI. As i said in the first post, it should be up to the instance maintainer to choose their own UI. This comes with its own problems. Lemmy.world's photon is outdated, and so is lemdro.id.
Ultimately, this is in the hands of the instance maintainers, and Xylight himself. He is rewriting photon for more performance, so my answer may change.
I suggested the official adoption of Photon a year ago. Xylight was tentatively on board with it.
Even more important though is this change which would allow an alternative frontend to be used as a default, instead of having to be relegated to a sub-domain.
woah I hadn't seen this thread. this would be massive