Until now it has been very complicated to work on the official Lemmy frontend, as you had to set up an entire local Lemmy stack with Postgres database and Rust backend built from source. Now there is a much easier way, as lemmy-ui can directly connect to a remote production or test instance.

To get started you need to have git and pnpm installed. Then run:

# for development branch (1.0):
git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui --recursive
# for stable branch (0.19):
git clone https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui --recursive -b release/v0.19

# then:
cd lemmy-ui
pnpm install
LEMMY_UI_BACKEND_REMOTE=enterprise.lemmy.ml pnpm dev

Alternatively you can use ./scripts/test.sh. Finally open http://0.0.0.0:1234/ in your browser. You can replace the value for LEMMY_UI_BACKEND_REMOTE with any production instance. The local lemmy-ui connects to that instance for all API calls, so you will see the same content. All actions work as usual including login, voting, posting etc.

Note, due to breaking changes in the development version, you may need to switch branches. main is for the new 1.0 version and all new feature development is happening there. With this you can connect to the test instance voyager.lemmy.ml. release/v0.19 is the stable branch, with it you can connect to enterprise.lemmy.ml, or existing production instances. Only bug fixes should be made there.

Hopefully this will encourage some of you to contribute to lemmy-ui. If you have any experience with web development it will be easy get started.

Many of us are currently on summer vacation, but there are a few important additions this last month:

• Thanks to monumental efforts by @matc-pub and @sleeplessone1917, lemmy-ui is now updated to work with the new lemmy 1.0 API, and all that's needed is to support the new features, and work out a few more bugs. Special thanks to both of them for their work.
• MV-GH added video support to jerboa, and has been doing a lot of bug-fixes there.
• @dullbananas has a PR which optimizes some migrations significantly and reduces DB size, which will likely be merged after some code reviews soon.
• We added 1.0 milestones for both lemmy-ui and jerboa, to make sure every new feature gets added to the front ends.

Or see the full list of changes at the links below:

• Backend
• Frontend

An open source project the size of Lemmy needs constant work to manage the project, implement new features and fix bugs. Dessalines and Nutomic work full-time on these tasks and more. As there is no advertising or tracking, all of our work is funded through donations. Even so there is barely enough time in the day, and no time for a second job. The only available option are user donations. To keep it viable donations need to reach a minimum of 5000€ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500€ per developer. If that goal is reached we can stop worrying about money, and fully focus on improving the software for the benefit of all users and instances. We especially rely on recurring donations to secure the long-term development and make Lemmy the best it can be.

Donate

In a recent discussion it was mentioned that the search function in Lemmy is awkward to use and could be improved. As a result I already made two small changes:

• Change community selector to use [[email protected]](/c/[email protected]) format (#3218)
• Search field in community sidebar (#3217)

Are there any other UI or UX changes you can think of to improve searching in Lemmy? Im mainly looking for frontend changes, such as reorganizing the input positions, changing default values etc.

Ibis is a federated encyclopedia with numerous features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a videogame, or an open source project then Ibis is for you! You can register on an existing instance or install it on your own server. Then you can start editing on the topic of your choice, and connect to other Ibis instances for different topics. Federation ensures that articles get mirrored across many servers, and can be read even if the original instance goes down. Ibis is written in Rust and Webassembly, fully open source to make future enshittification impossible.

With this version Ibis can finally federate with other Fediverse platforms such as Lemmy (example) and others. If you notice any federation problems please open an issue. Note that Mastodon currently ignores activities sent by Ibis for unknown reasons. See the article for more details how federation works.

There are many improvements to signup and account management. Admins can configure OAuth so that users can login with existing accounts from other platforms. Email is also supported now, with a config option email_required to enable email verification for new users. Notifications can also be sent by email if desired. And there is an account settings page to change password and email.

When creating a new article, users can choose which instance it should reside on. Admins can remove articles, making the config option article_approval obsolete. Various other parts of the api were also changed. Additionally the code was split into different crates for faster development. There have also been many bug fixes and minor improvements.

If you are interested what a federated wiki can do, join and give it a try. You can register on ibis.wiki, open.ibis.wiki or other instances. You can also install Ibis on your own server. It is very lightweight and can easily run on an existing server alongside other software. This release includes an additional installation method using Docker. To discuss the project, report problems or get support use the following links:

Lemmy | Matrix | Github

Here is a (somewhat messy) list of all the changes in this version.

Ibis is a federated encyclopedia with numerous features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a videogame, or an open source project then Ibis is for you! You can register on an existing instance or install it on your own server. Then you can start editing on the topic of your choice, and connect to other Ibis instances for different topics. Federation ensures that articles get mirrored across many servers, and can be read even if the original instance goes down. Ibis is written in Rust and Webassembly, fully open source to make future enshittification impossible.

With this version Ibis can finally federate with other Fediverse platforms such as Lemmy (example) and others. If you notice any federation problems please open an issue. Note that Mastodon currently ignores activities sent by Ibis for unknown reasons. See the article for more details how federation works.

There are many improvements to signup and account management. Admins can configure OAuth so that users can login with existing accounts from other platforms. Email is also supported now, with a config option email_required to enable email verification for new users. Notifications can also be sent by email if desired. And there is an account settings page to change password and email.

When creating a new article, users can choose which instance it should reside on. Admins can remove articles, making the config option article_approval obsolete. Various other parts of the api were also changed. Additionally the code was split into different crates for faster development. There have also been many bug fixes and minor improvements.

If you are interested what a federated wiki can do, join and give it a try. You can register on ibis.wiki, open.ibis.wiki or other instances. You can also install Ibis on your own server. It is very lightweight and can easily run on an existing server alongside other software. This release includes an additional installation method using Docker. To discuss the project, report problems or get support use the following links:

Lemmy | Matrix | Github

Here is a (somewhat messy) list of all the changes in this version.

Ibis is a federated encyclopedia with numerous features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a videogame, or an open source project then Ibis is for you! You can register on an existing instance or install it on your own server. Then you can start editing on the topic of your choice, and connect to other Ibis instances for different topics. Federation ensures that articles get mirrored across many servers, and can be read even if the original instance goes down. Ibis is written in Rust and Webassembly, fully open source to make future enshittification impossible.

With this version Ibis can finally federate with other Fediverse platforms such as Lemmy (example) and others. If you notice any federation problems please open an issue. Note that Mastodon currently ignores activities sent by Ibis for unknown reasons. See the article for more details how federation works.

There are many improvements to signup and account management. Admins can configure OAuth so that users can login with existing accounts from other platforms. Email is also supported now, with a config option email_required to enable email verification for new users. Notifications can also be sent by email if desired. And there is an account settings page to change password and email.

When creating a new article, users can choose which instance it should reside on. Admins can remove articles, making the config option article_approval obsolete. Various other parts of the api were also changed. Additionally the code was split into different crates for faster development. There have also been many bug fixes and minor improvements.

If you are interested what a federated wiki can do, join and give it a try. You can register on ibis.wiki, open.ibis.wiki or other instances. You can also install Ibis on your own server. It is very lightweight and can easily run on an existing server alongside other software. This release includes an additional installation method using Docker. To discuss the project, report problems or get support use the following links:

Lemmy | Matrix | Github

Here is a (somewhat messy) list of all the changes in this version.

Starting now, we are changing the dev update to a monthly schedule. This is more predictable and gives us more time to write it.

Last month saw the release of Lemmy 0.19.11. It included a lot of changes backported from the development branch. This way improvements can already reach users while the main branch is still under heavy development in preparation for the 1.0 release.

There were numerous other contributions:

• Leoseg added a new keyword filter.
• SolninjaA added support for using separate subdomains for federation and web interface.
• [email protected] made various accessibility improvements to the UI.
• @[email protected] added some NSFW-related fixes.
• Nutomic and [email protected] fixed different federation bugs and got Peertube federation working again.
• Nothing4You and Matc-pub also contributed different bug fixes, speedups, and picture fixes.
• [email protected] helped with some release-related tasks, and backported some existing mainline bug-fixes.

On the 1.0 front Dessalines was busy with different rewrites of the database to improve pagination, adding read, liked, and hidden content endpoints, speeding up compilation time, and also getting lemmy-ui updated.

For Lemmy to have a future, it's been a long-term goal to ensure that donations can cover the two full-time devs' living expenses, and possibly add more developers to the co-op. Nutomic worked on various tasks to aid this, including:

• A redesign of the donation page on join-lemmy.org.
• A new donation dialog shown directly in the Lemmy web interface.
• A call for donations which was widely shared and discussed.

Although the goal is not reached yet, it looks like a success as the amount of recurring donations was almost doubled within a few days. It also helped to clarify and resolve some of the reasons why people were unwilling to donate.

You can see the full list of changes for April at the links below:

• Backend
• Frontend

An open source project the size of Lemmy needs constant work to manage the project, implement new features and fix bugs. Dessalines and I work full-time on these tasks and more. As there is no advertising or tracking, all of our work is funded through donations. Unfortunately the amount of donations has decreased to only 2000€ per month. This leaves only 1000€ per developer, which is not enough to pay my bills. With the current level of donations I will be forced to find another job, and drastically reduce my contributions to Lemmy. To avoid this outcome and keep Lemmy growing, I ask you to please make a recurring donation:

Liberapay | Ko-fi | Patreon | OpenCollective | Crypto

If you want more information before donating, consider the comparison with Reddit. It began as startup funded by rich investors. The site is managed by corporate executives who over time have become more and more disconnected from normal users. Their main goal is to make investors happy and to make a profit. This leads to user-hostile decisions like firing the employee responsible for AMAs, blocking third-party apps and more. As Reddit is a single website under a single authority, it means all users need to follow the same rules, including ridiculous ones like censoring the name "Luigi".

Lemmy represents a new type of social media which is the complete opposite of Reddit. It is split across many different websites, each with its own rules, and managed by normal people who actually care about the users. There is no company and no profit motive. Much of the work is carried out by volunteer admins, mods and posters, who contribute out of enthusiasm and not for money. For users this is great as there is no advertising nor tracking, and no chance of takeover by a billionaire. Additionally there are no builtin political or ideological restrictions. You can use the software for any purpose you like, add your own restrictions or scrutinize its inner workings. Lemmy truly belongs to everyone.

Dessalines and I work fulltime on Lemmy to keep up with all the feature requests, bug reports and development work. Even so there is barely enough time in the day, and no time for a second job. Previously I sometimes had to rely on my personal savings to keep developing Lemmy for you, but that can't go on forever. We partly rely on NLnet for funding, but they only pay for development of new features, and not for mandatory maintenance work. The only available option are user donations. To keep it viable donations need to reach a minimum of 5000€ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500€ per developer. If that goal is reached Dessalines and I can stop worrying about money, and fully focus on improving the software for the benefit of all users and instances. Please use the link below to see current donation stats and make your contribution! We especially rely on recurring donations to secure the long-term development and make Lemmy the best it can be.

Donate

There is a pull request which adds a new setting show_downvotes with these settings:

• Show (current behaviour)
• Hide (all downvotes hidden in ui)
• ShowForOthers (only downvotes on other user's posts are visible)

Importantly the last option would become the new default, which means that users wont be aware that their post or comment was downvoted unless they manually change the setting. This may be good for mental health, but may also make it harder for users to realize that their content is unpopular. What do you think about it?

Here is the pull request

I am one of the Lemmy maintainers and work on the project fulltime together with Dessalines. Our work is funded by donations, but these are gradually going down and don't even cover a single dev salary now (see join-lemmy.org). That's why we added a new donation dialog in 0.19.11 which is shown once a year to every user:

Many people use Lemmy exclusively through apps, so we would greatly appreciate if you could add such a dialog to your app too. The logic is relatively simple:

• From the /api/v3/site response, check my_user.local_user_view.local_user.last_donation_notification
• If the date is more than one year ago, display a dialog like the one above with buttons Donate, Close
• When Donate is clicked:
  • Open https://join-lemmy.org/donate
  • Close dialog
  • Call POST /api/v3/user/donation_dialog_shown to hide dialog until next year
• When Close is clicked also call the donation_dialog_shown endpoint

To test this functionality with a 0.19.11 instance, run the SQL query update local_user set last_donation_notification = '2024-04-07 09:05:06'; which shows the dialog for all local users. You can reuse the code and strings used in lemmy-ui.

Thanks for your consideration!

This is a follow-up to my previous post asking for design suggestions for the new donation dialog. It gave a lot of valuable feedback which is why I'm making another similar post.

This time it's about the donation page on join-lemmy.org (linked above). What can be done to improve the texts and design? For a start I already changed the text to the same one from the donation dialog. Here more space is available, so a longer text with more details could be written (possibly below the donation buttons).

What do you think about the available donation options? Do they work for you or would you prefer to donate through a different platform? On the other hand it is possible that the number of available options is already too confusing. Would it help to add a short description for each button?

Below are lists of contributors, translators and sponsors. They haven't been updated in two years and no one complained, which indicates that they don't serve as motivation for people to contribute or donate. So I would remove that whole section which will leave a lot of free space. What else can we put there, maybe a list of reasons why people should donate?

By the way I plan to make a recurring series of posts like this. The next ones will likely cover onboarding for new users, the reports page and more. If you know a catchy name for this series you can also comment it below.

Edit: The changes are now deployed, but you are welcome to make further suggestions.

Help Design Lemmy

The next Lemmy version will add a donation dialog, which is shown once a year to every user, in order to increase the amount of donations for Lemmy development. You can see the current text in the screenshot above and in the translations repo. You can also checkout the frontend PR. Is there anything you would change about the text?

Edit: This is how the final design looks like: