this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Thunder App

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An open-source, cross-platform Lemmy client for iOS and Android.

This community is intended to discuss features and feature suggestions for Thunder; as well as friendly, respectful talks about Lemmy in general.

Please use the GitHub repository linked below to submit bug reports, so keeping track of them is easier, and make sure to search first if you already can find an issue for your report.

If there are any developers who would like to contribute, feel free to reach out on GitHub!

General Links
Website: Link
GitHub Repository: Link
Matrix Space: Link

Android Releases
IzzyOnDroid: Link
Google Play: Link

iOS Releases
Apple App Store: Link
TestFlight Beta: Link

Related Communities
Nightly Community: Link

founded 1 year ago
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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by darklightxi to c/thunder_app
 

Oh hey look, its another release around the corner! This release adds in OLED dark mode, initial inbox features, better accessibility, compact mode, and improvements to a whole bunch of things too long to post here.


Obligatory message: If there are any developers out there who want to contribute to this project, that would be greatly appreciated!

Update: A hotfix has been released to fix some initial issues with the release: https://github.com/hjiangsu/thunder/releases/tag/v0.2.1%2B7

To see the full details of this release, check out the GitHub release announcement: https://github.com/hjiangsu/thunder/releases/tag/v0.2.1%2B6

For those on TestFlight, the update should automatically install on your device. For those who obtained the app through IzzyOnDroid, that update should eventually reach your devices!

There is also a discussion page here for any general discussions about this release if anyone is interested: https://github.com/hjiangsu/thunder/discussions/67

It has been incredible to see all the community support and feedback from the last release! Let's continue this and make Thunder an even better experience :D

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[–] ashiwz 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Compact mode is amazing! That was the one thing keeping me on Jerboa. Thank you for your efforts!

[–] ashiwz 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Does commenting on posts work? I'm having trouble seeing them show up after submitting

Edit: replying to comments seems to work, but replying to posts doesn't for me :(

[–] darklightxi 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does commenting on posts work? I'm having trouble seeing them show up after submitting

Hmm, do you mean commenting on posts from the feed, or when you enter the actual post page and attempt to comment?

Commenting from the post in the feed is currently not implemented yet. However, you should be able to comment on the post when you’re in the post itself

[–] ashiwz 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

When I'm in the post and I tap the floating action button to make a new top-level comment, pressing the submit button closes the comment modal but doesn't seem to do anything else.

When replying to a comment, it refreshes and shows the new comment correctly

[–] darklightxi 6 points 1 year ago

Don’t mind this reply - I’m just doing some testing right now to get a fix for this out ASAP

[–] darklightxi 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ashiwz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It works!! Thank you for the super speedy fix!

[–] darklightxi 4 points 1 year ago

Phew okay, thats good to hear hahaha

[–] darklightxi 2 points 1 year ago

Wait nevermind, I think I probably missed something when I was cleaning up the code for posting - I just tried to comment on a post and was not able to

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[–] machinaeZER0 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Compact mode is so goooood. This is seriously one of the best looking Lemmy apps by far :)

  • I wouldn't mind if the bottom nav bar slid offscreen as I scrolled through my feed - a few other apps do this which I do like. It slides back in usually if you scroll back up a little
  • would love some up/down arrows to navigate through parent threads in comment view (bonus points if holding down the up arrow brings you back to the top of the post!)
  • it would be cool if we could select the accent color of the app (currently seems to be purple?) - some other apps offer the option for this to pull the system accent color on Android which is pretty neat!
  • I noticed that images on my feed autoplay if they're animated, and I think if possible it would be cool to have a toggle to not have these autoplay? Personal preference, but also probably a good place to save data
  • I'd mentioned it in another post, but eventually would love the option to have thumbnails on the right side in compact mode
  • one small tweak I'd suggest coming from jerboa - they color the community name on a post to help it stand out a bit from the title and instance and other info (I think with the accent color?)
  • a feature request coming from Boost for Reddit - in that app you can long-press the community name on a post in-feed for a popup menu in which you can quickly block/hide that entire community from your feed, without clicking through to that community. Huge time saver!

Sorry for the wall of text, but hope there's some helpful/constructive stuff in there. Thanks for building such an awesome experience here!

EDIT: added some screenshots to explain a few points above. I'd also consider moving account view/account switcher into the side panel (some other reddit/lemmy apps do this as well), while keeping home/search/notifications/settings in the nav bar, since one may be less likely to need immediate access to that menu?

[–] darklightxi 4 points 1 year ago

Oh wow, thanks for taking all the time to write the feedback! I’m glad you’re enjoying it so far. More feedback is always better than less 😄

It would be awesome if you could create these points into issues on GitHub, so that it can be tracked and discussed about within the community

[–] machinaeZER0 1 points 1 year ago

I can do that! :)

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[–] dridex 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thunder is quickly becoming my favorite Lemmy app, absolutely great job so far.

A few suggestions/wishlist items for me:

Is it possible to make it so when you swipe to the right on the bottom bar, it can open the side menu? Right now, especially on large screen phones, having to click the top left corner is very difficult one handed.

I would also love to have an option to click to collapse the text in a main post (the one submitted by the original poster).

One more minor thing, the icon on Android looks pretty bad, at least on a Pixel. A Material You icon (that changes with the system theme) would be amazing, but I would be happy with an icon that used the circle system theme instead of a square icon inside a white circle. Material You theming for the entire app would be even better.

Overall this app is phenomenal, I'm super excited to see how it progresses. I'm also happy to buy a premium version/donate, so know there are people out here that will happily pay for you to continue development.

[–] darklightxi 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey, thanks for all the feedback! I’m glad you’re enjoying it 😁

Is it possible to make it so when you swipe to the right on the bottom bar, it can open the side menu

Right now, you can swipe right from the feed view to open up the sidebar! No need to tap on the hamburger icon

I would also love to have an option to click to collapse the text in a main post (the one submitted by the original poster).

I think that’s a good idea! If you don’t mind, feel free to create a issue on GitHub for it to be tracked! It’s a bit difficult for me to keep track of all the suggestions on here 😅

One more minor thing, the icon on Android looks pretty bad, at least on a Pixel.

This is actually hopefully coming in the next release! Someone kindly contributed to fixing icons on Android as I don’t have a physical Android device to test on

Overall this app is phenomenal, I'm super excited to see how it progresses. I'm also happy to buy a premium version/donate

Thankyou!! For now, I wont accept any donations because I want to make sure I can create and deliver something that is fully featured and good to use first! This initially started as a personal project of mine and it continues to be (although I have spent a lot more time over the past week organizing things and fixing things since Thunder blew up so much 😅)

[–] dridex 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sorry if I'm missing something obvious, but I can't figure out how to get the side menu to pop out unless I press the hamburger menu. If i slide from the center left edge, it upvotes a post in the feed. If I slide in from the edge of the left of the screen, it uses the back button gesture and exits the app. If I slide from the menu at the bottom, nothing happens at all. This is on a Pixel 7 with gesture navigation - maybe it works with button navigation, but it does not seem to work with gestures enabled.

[–] darklightxi 2 points 1 year ago

Hmm, that may have just been an oversight on my part 😅 Thanks for giving me a more detailed description, I'll see what I can do!

When you mention slide right on the bottom, do you mean swiping right on top of the feed, search, account, inbox, settings part of it? Or was it something else? I'm just trying to get a visual in my head for how it would look like!

[–] darklightxi 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Update: I have added a gesture for the bottom nav bar to open and close the side menu when you swipe left/right!

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Becoming my favorite lemmy app! Thank You

[–] V4uban 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you so much, the app looks great and works well with lemmy.ml

With Lemmy.world I have an 400 error, I guess because they are still running .17.4 instead of .18?

[–] darklightxi 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Oh no, do you have any more information about the 400 error? If you do, that might help me determine the root cause.

Thunder should be working for 0.17.x versions with initial support for 0.18.x versions!

[–] V4uban 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nevermind, it was me (changed password and forgot to update it).

This version looks great!

[–] darklightxi 7 points 1 year ago

Phew, thats good to hear! 😅

[–] Krob 2 points 1 year ago

It works for me on lemmy.world I did a fresh install. Love the app by the way, keep up the good work.

[–] herrwoland 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I love the app, but wish you would add a feature to save the images when opening them

[–] darklightxi 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is currently in the works! There’s just some more testing that needs to happen to make sure it works as widely as possible (different permissions are required for iOS and Android, and perhaps even different permissions between different versions of Android)

[–] herrwoland 1 points 1 year ago

That's great to hear, thanks a lot for all the time and effort you put to make the app (and the community) better!

[–] ashiwz 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is there a way to sort the feed by Top Hour/Day/Week/Month etc?

Also, would it be possible to have an option to open all non-image/video links externally? eg. articles and GitHub links would probably be best handled in the user's browser (I'm not sure how persistent the in-app browser's cookies are, so privacy-wise it feels like leaving a permanent trail behind)

Love the app, great work so far!

Edit: An extra thing; comments that you've upvoted in past viewings don't seem to be highlighted orange (especially noticeable for comments you've submitted, since they're automatically upvoted)

[–] darklightxi 5 points 1 year ago

There’s no option to sort by top for now, but it should be fairly easy to add in. If you could create an issue on GitHub for this, that would be great!

Also, would it be possible to have an option to open all non-image/video links externally?

Definitely possible to add in a setting to just open links in external browser automatically. Please create a issue for that one as well on GitHub!

[–] ashiwz 4 points 1 year ago

This is a test reply to the main post from Thunder!

[–] dzonc 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh wow I am impressed, I've been contributing to the liftoff app but I'll take a look at your code, from a design side this looks much better to work with

[–] darklightxi 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks, that would be amazing! This is still just a project that I work on the side to be able to learn more about Dart/Flutter, so if you have any suggestions about how to improve the codebase or how to make things more efficient, that would be incredible 😁

Also, I’m not the best at UI/UX so if there’s anyone out there who can contribute feeback about general UI/UX stuff, that would also be great!

[–] dukethorion 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just figured out how to swipe for up/down vote. Can't say I care for it. Buttons?

[–] darklightxi 2 points 1 year ago

Buttons for actions is definitively something I want to introduce for those who prefer that! It also enables better accessibility so it’s a double win-win there

This will hopefully come in the near future l

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[–] Liberatys 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So far the best Lemmy app I could find :) Looking forward to contributing to the codebase

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

The compact mode is fantastic and the accessibility is already top notch. This may very well be the most screen reader accessible lemmy app. If not its in the top 1% for sure.

[–] darklightxi 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks, I really do want to make it as accessible as possible, so thats really good to hear!

Keep the accessibility issues coming!

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

Thank you so much for your work !

Super glad to see the arrival of the inbox though it still need works. When I open the inbox it shows up empty even though I've had replies in the past. I have to tap twice the envelop icon in the top right to make those past replies appear. So I guess the state of the page is :

  • Unread by default
  • Tap the enveloppe and toggles unread so no changes
  • Tap the envelopp and toggle read and now the old replies appear

Not a fan of that enveloppe icon in general I think it's confusing. I'd rather have the unread messages appear in the same place but with a different/lighter background to show their state. This is personal preference as opposed to the previous point though.

Also not sure if it's the app or a mistake, but your first link in this post opens a 404 in Thunder. Opening the link in an external browser (nice new feature btw) shows that it tries to open "...tag/v0.2.1%252B6" as opposed to "...tag/v0.2.1%2B6".

[–] darklightxi 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks so much for all the feedback and trying out Thunder - I appreciate it!

Super glad to see the arrival of the inbox though it still need works.

Yeah, definitely - I just wanted to bring in some initial inbox features so that it can then be the basis for improvements from the community

I have to tap twice the envelop icon in the top right to make those past replies appear.

Oh hmm, I must've missed that - feel free to create a new issue on GitHub so that this issue can be tracked!

Not a fan of that enveloppe icon in general I think it’s confusing.

I do somewhat agree with that - I like your idea of making read messages with a lighter background, so I'll mess around with that when I have the time to see if I can implement it in a way that still feels functional!

Also not sure if it’s the app or a mistake, but your first link in this post opens a 404 in Thunder.

Hmm, I'll take a look into that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Submitted the issue to GitHub !

For the lighter read background thing, we should try to find something that would also work for posts if that feature is on the roadmap and the best example I have for that is relay.

screenshot

Also, love the inbox card shapes you made, maybe it should be the shape of the post cards as well !

[–] Alkider 2 points 1 year ago

Nice, it actually let's me log in! Jerboa for some reason still doesn't let me log in so i'll keep giving it a whirl.

[–] TwilightGirl1992 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow. Thanks for putting an inbox here. And for making buttons labeled for voiceover. This and Mlem are my favorites so far. Keep up the great work! 😊

[–] darklightxi 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Slowly getting there 😅There’s still a whole bunch of improvements to be made to the inbox feature!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Best iOS app for Lemmy! I‘m testflighting Thunder, Liftoff, Memmy und Mlem and your app is working best for me. With the new version I can finally see most of my subscriptions on the side pane, thank you! Loving the community search and the option to subscribe immediately. The + next to a community should change after adding some community, but this is really minor stuff.

Do you have any plans to implement something like multi-communities/community groups or similar? That‘d be awesome!

[–] darklightxi 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks for trying it out!

With the new version I can finally see most of my subscriptions on the side pane, thank you

I’ve upped the limit on subscriptions on the sidebar to 50, so it’ll show you at most 50 subscriptions so far. I do want to eventually set it so that it’ll retrieve all your subscriptions!

Do you have any plans to implement something like multi-communities/community groups or similar?

For this, I think it would be cool to add in, but there’s no effective way to do this that I know of without having to fetch posts for each community that is added into a group. I would like to see if lemmy itself has a solution for this first before I implement this (e.g., just requiring one network call to fetch a custom list of communities)!

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