Raccoon for Lemmy app

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This community is dedicated to the discussion about the Raccoon for Lemmy mobile app. Raccoon is an open source app powered by Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) and Compose Multiplatform (CMP) which intends not only to provide a mobile client for Lemmy, but also to create a space where users' voice is listened to, and we grow together by exchanging opinions.

Main features:

view post feed and comments with different listing and sort types;
possibility to upvote and downvote (with configurable swipe actions);
community and user detail (with info about moderators/moderated communities);
user profile with one's own posts, comments and saved items;
inbox with replies, mentions and direct messages;
global search with different result types (all, posts, comments, user, communities);
create and edit new posts (with optional images);
cross-post contents to other communities;
reply to post and comments (and edit replies);
mark posts as read (even while scrolling) and hide read contents;
custom appearance (color scheme, fonts, text sizes, post layout, etc.);
custom localization (independent of system settings);
block users, communities and instances;
report post and comments to moderators;
support for multiple accounts with account-specific settings;
lazy scrolling (referred to as "zombie mode");
explore all the communities on a given instance in guest mode;
multi-community (community aggregation);
view the moderation log;
community moderation tool (examine and resolve reports, ban users, feature posts in community, block further comments from posts, mark comments as distinguished, remove posts/comments, review all created posts/comments, edit/create community);
save drafts for posts and comments;
anonymous mode with quick instance switch;
admin tools (purge users/posts/comments/communities, feature posts locally, hide/unhide communities).

Why was the project started?

experimenting and testing Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform in a real world project, to explore what could be achieved with multiplatform libraries and share as much code as possible in the commonMain source directory;
offering a feature rich Lemmy client mainly aimed at both beginners and “pro” users, i.e. users who are not content with just browsing the contents of the Fediverse, creating posts and answers but be able to customize the app and “feel at home”;
dig deeper inside Lemmy’s internals and understand better what it is like to work with a decentralized platform.

We believe that Lemmy has a lot of potential and part of its success depends on users being able to enjoy the experience on robust and well-done clients. Moreover, encouraging discussion between people is important to develop a healthy and tolerant society where everyone's right and freedom are safeguarded. To know more, have a look at the Procyon Project's manifesto.

References

Quick links

have a look at the source code;
create a report in the issue tracker;
join the Matrix room to reach out to the developers!

founded 4 months ago

MODERATORS

akesi_seli

[poll] crash reports: would you accept anonymous crash reporting if it were disabled by default and you could enable it just when you decide to? (self.raccoonforlemmyapp)

submitted 1 month ago by akesi_seli to c/raccoonforlemmyapp

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In the Friendica/Mastodon application I am working on, while it was in alpha and beta stage, I have adopted the Sentry SDK for crash reporting, which works very well on Kotlin Multiplatform and is easier to setup than other (closed source, capitalistic and ugly) alternatives.

In doing so, I made an interesting , while I was submitting the app to open source stores (IzzyOnDroid and F-Droid), that if crash reporting is opt-in (i.e. disabled by default but it can be enabled in the app settings) the app is acceptable for their policies because users have to give their consent to enable reports (which are a form of tracking).

Considering there are users complaining about Raccoon for Lemmy crashing (e.g. while creating posts/comments) and that being a "deal breaker" (understandably!), my question is: would you accept it if I included Sentry, making it opt-in? In this way you could enable it just if there is some reproducible issue and turn it off whenever you like (restarting the app is needed to make any change to initialization effective).

Opinions are welcome, I will not do anything unless we decide together, especially because adding this service implies extra work for maintainer(s) 🤣

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

if crash reporting is opt-in (i.e. disabled by default but it can be enabled in the app settings) the app is acceptable for their policies because users have to give their consent to enable reports (which are a form of tracking).

I guess F-Droid's logic makes sense.

What exactly Sentry collects? What kind of identifiable info goes out of the phone?

[–] akesi_seli 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The stacktrace of the exception, operative systm version and app version, the date when the crash happened (as well as statistics on the number of occurences over time), device manufaturer and model, whether the device is rooted, the system locale, whether the app is in background, battery level, orientation when the crash occurred. It could collect other data that classify as sensitive information (e.g. IP addresses which may give hint about the location) but these can be disabled.

It's not me, the developer, who can use this data for profit (which is quite obvious since I am a volunteer): what is really at stake here is whether it's worth putting these data in the hands of a corporation (this is not a self-hosted service, I would be running on their servers and using the free plan)... It's a cost-benefit tradeoff, plus the setup which is not exactly trivial, especially since I have to change the release pipelines for CI/CD because the build breaks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

If Raccoon ever crash on me, I'll copy the logs that are saved on the phone in app data folder... I wouldn't use Sentry (TMI), but others might like the convince...