Hi all, keeping this post short, I am working on a new Lemmy app for iOS and Android, heavily inspired on the Infinity for Reddit app.
The app is very much still a work in progress, but I’s like to share some screenshots and a few MVP functionalities already implemented:
Already implemented:
- Anonymous browsing;
- Login;
- Multiple accounts support;
- Account switcher;
- Post cards
- Sorting posts by Lemmy’s sorting options (Active/Hot/New/etc…);
- Listing posts by Lemmy’s listing options (Subscribed/Local/All);
- Upvote, downvote (and counters), comment counter, save;
- Mark post as read;
- Infinite post scrolling (keep on scrolling, app loads more posts in the background);
What’s next before I make it available in the app stores (MVP):
- Post view (see post’s comments);
- Add a comment to a post;
- Create a post;
- A sexier selected account card on the sidebar;
What’s still to do before I can call it a beta version:
- Profile view;
- Community view (rules mods other details);
- Search;
- Dark mode;
What’s to come after:
- Custom theming/Material You support;
- Advanced post filters;
- Community groups (Add communities to a group, see posts only from selected group);
- A video player with controls over speed playback and maybe quality if possible;
- Alternative posts view (compact card, list, etc)
- Other cool misc options.
Dreams:
- Kbin and Mastodon accounts support.
Keep an eye for future posts, I may be able to announce the MVP by the end of this week if everything goes well, but I can’t promise anything :)
EDIT:
This post got so much traction than I had predicted. Thank you so much for all your comments and ideas! I tried to reply to as many as I could.
I also collected from this post a bunch of good suggestions from you which for now I am keping track of here: https://brunofinger.notion.site/brunofinger/Beyond-45cabaae7f724cd5ad2b77d902e9a97e
The app name probably will be “Beyond” as suggested by a couple of users here, and really like this idea as it creates a sort of symbolic link to Infinity as the inspiration for my work by the famous “To Infinity and Beyond” phrase :)
@brunofin Wow this is app #6 now that pops up, added yours to the list in my thread: https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/35655/Several-iOS-apps-for-kbin-lemmy-are-now-in-development
Thank you for this.
Lemmy definitely needs more and better apps.
But just a curiosity question if you don’t mind. You said that your app is heavily inspired by Infinity which is already open source, so why not just fork that and modify it to work with Lemmy?
That’s honestly a good point but:
- Infinity is written in Java code specifically targeted to Android only, I am targeting both iOS and Android with the same code using React Native (maybe even web in the future but it’s a little more complicated due to CORS);
- I have worked with React for at least the past 4 years, so using React Native now for me feels like almost no learning curve at all, while if I’d be given a Java-based Android codebase now, I’d probably need to spend the first week figuring out the basics :)
I think swapping from one API to another is not just a drop in replacement; it might be easier to start fresh from the ground up.
Disclaimer: I am not a developer so I honestly don’t actually know
Am a developer, and there’s a few patterns to make this sort of thing easier, but Lemmy/kbin is pretty different than the reddit APIs as I understand it with the federation aspects, so swapping wouldn’t be THAT easy. Doable, but not a drop in replacement.
could you please try and port this feature as well? there are Zero third party apps that load new posts on frontpage after refreshing, infinity is the only one which has it, and it works flawlessly. hope we get something similar for lemmy too
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thank you :)
Infinity was the only way I interacted with reddit. If you can get kbin support, I will be all over beta testing this
Cool cool cool, thanks for sharing! Will definitely give it a try. How can I follow you? Sorry, New to Lemmy.
I am not sure if as of now you can follow users on Lemmy, I saw this post shared on Kbin and apparently there I have a couple followers already :p
The merrier the better.
Please start a sub for the app so we can subscribe to follow development and join a beta program when ready.
Will do! Considering an actual instance but not sure if worth it.
This is awesome. What are you coding it with?
React Native. The screenshot you see is from it running on WSA from Windows 11, it feels much better than the emulator from the Android SDK.
Does it have a name?
I love to call out awesome work in the ecosystem when I see it. If you’re interested in alternative communities to those on Reddit, then go check out @brunofin 's new #lemmy client for Android and iOS that he posted about over on https://beehaw.org/c/programming.
Also, am I just missing it or is there no way to simultaneously boost a #fediverse post and add my own text to it on #mastodon?
Hey, what does the boost function do?
@Sophokles @brunofin , to answer my own question … #til boosts without extra comments are a thing for good reasons.
Ugh, my apologies folks. Clearly still figuring out how to do this Lemmy/Mastodon federation thing.
thanks for posting about it :)
Kid named Bruno Finger:
lol
In theory, once you’ve connected with Mastodon you could just view hashtags as subscriber communities and any top level toots as posts. Leaving the replies to show as a thread. Then fix it to be seen in reverse if you’re in your Mastodon account.
I am saving this post for later :)
If you’re interested, I can put this in the stickied thread on !android@lemmy.ml
Thank you but not just yet :)
Looks great! good luck op
