I am working on a new lemmy app for iOS and Android, here's my current progress

Bruno Finger@beehaw.org to Programming@beehaw.org – 501 points –

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:

Screenshots

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 :)

130

Happy to see some new apps on the horizon! Android user here and happy to beta test when the time arrives.

No name suggestions... and that's probably for the best ;)

Please add support for sorting comments by Top, Hot, Best, New etc too.

Feel free to suggest names here :)

I like Lemur! Maybe Lemiverse?

I like Lemiverse. It's a lot more searchable than Lemur and reminds me of the space theme of Infinity with the lil guy in the flying saucer.

Yeah lemur is a good name. Nice icon with a wee lemur on it maybe ?

I don't have much of an imagination so I asked Bing AI:

  • LemmyGo: A simple and fast way to access Lemmy on your mobile device.
  • Lemur: A cute and catchy name that plays on the similarity between Lemmy and lemur, a type of primate.
  • Lemo: A sleek and modern name that sounds like a combination of Lemmy and emoji.
  • Lemix: A name that suggests mixing and sharing content on Lemmy.
  • Lemyx: A name that uses an unconventional spelling to stand out from the crowd.

If it’s OK with u/iamthatis, I’d suggest … Mercury (the Roman name for Apollo).

I like going the lemming related route...

  • Lemmini
  • Lagurus
  • Muskrat

Or in a different direction: Lemmyn. With a yellow citrus πŸ‹ logo.

Also, Infinity was my most recent Reddit app of choice. I miss it. Really looking forward to testing yours out.

How about drawing name inspiration from infinity as well and altering Ouroboros the eternal self-eating serpent.

You might call it Lemmoboros and the logo could be something like this:

Thank you all for your suggestions, as some have suggested above, I think I will probably go with Beyond, as Buzz Lightyear says, "To Infinity and Beyond!", seems like a good way to honor Infinity but also look at the future beyond.

1 more...

My love of Infinity is what pushed me off the Reddit train so I'd be pumped to have a Fedv equivalent!

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?

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.

It's the age old "writing code is easier than reading code"

Oh absolutely this. Far far easier. It's a sign of a good dev who can come in and improve things without needing to rewrite everything. That said, refactors are fun as hell.

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 :)

If it's inspired by Infinity, you should call it Beyond

I m glad you mentioned it! after I posted this on Tuesday night, I came up with the same idea! To Infinity, and Beyond!

this makes too much sense not to

I was 100% for Lemur, but Beyond is an excellent name. It's slightly grandiose but vague. Like I always thought "Apollo" was a great name. It's a cool word and it doesn't really mean anything in the context.

Please, however you name this app, don't call it "X for Lemmy". Just call it Beyond. Or just Lemur, or whatever. I hate when all these devs triple the length of their app name by adding "for Reddit" or whatever at the end.

It could have a different name on the app store than the actuall app, ie. on Play Store Infinity is named "Infinity for Reddit", but when instaled the app is named only "Infinity", I was considering a similar aproach, what do you thinkl?

Infinity was my absolute favorite, I shall watch this app with great interest 😁 lemme (Lemmy?) know if you need any additional testers

I'm really glad you're working on this. @hariette is making Artemis for Lemmy and kbin, and soon the world will have another app for Lemmy. More apps == more better, IMO. Your app is looking great!

@brunofin If it will only work with Lemmy, you could honor the original by naming it Lemfinity. If it will also work for kbin, maybe Threadfinity. Good luck.

Came here to say this, beaten to it! Lemfinity works for me.

Please start a sub for the app so we can subscribe to follow development and join a beta program when ready.

Great to see more apps in the works. Do you plan on making the app open source?

Post cards was the first thing I turned off in RIF. I don't want a photo gallery, want a concise list of threads and maybe a small thumbnail at best. Thread title, domain of post's link,, how many comments and upvotes and the pertinent things to click, in as efficient a format as possible.

Do that and you can get like 10 posts per screen would makes browsing and scrolling very efficient.

Now, if you want to make it god-mode then add tabs at the top for queuing up stuff to peruse in detail.

This is the way. Cards are the bane of UI design.

Good for you, I enjoyed Infinity and am very excited for this client to succeed. Go Bruno Finger go!

Honestly I loved the card view because of the gallery, put focus on the post image.

Having that said, card won't be the only layout available but it is the first I am working on.

This app looks great! (Lemur is a great name, you should stick with it.)

Are the screenshots from the Android app? It definitely looks like it, but I was wondering if the iOS version would lean towards iOS UI design rather than Google guidelines.

@famskiis @brunofin I also love Lemur as a name.
Probably if Brunofin has copyright issues due to is a common word, he could also try with Lemour.
Sounds good and is a "made" word so no copyright issues!

Infinity was the only way I interacted with reddit. If you can get kbin support, I will be all over beta testing this

Love, I use infinity and keep the style for lemmy will be a big upgrade. Also think about make the app FOSS and on FDroid.

honestly as of now I see no reason why not open sourcing it, I still didn't upload the code anywhere yet but probably will chose gitlab

Love it, thank you very much for your work

Community groups (Add communities to a group, see posts only from selected group)

That feature can't come soon enough, not only in mobile apps but also on the website itself

Definitely. I miss multireddits. I've started to get around that by setting up an RSS feed for the first time in probably 10 years, but that just solves half of the equation- the content, but not the comments.

I have been testing both !memmy@lemmy.ml and !mlemapp@lemmy.ml and both still have some bugs to work out, but they are progressing quickly. Memmy for instance had 2 updates just today, looking forward to seeing what comes out of testflight first.

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.

https://beehaw.org/post/647773

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?

Ugh, my apologies folks. Clearly still figuring out how to do this Lemmy/Mastodon federation thing.

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.

Perfect, now all that's missing is an overpriced API.

We can do something about that too lol :p

Embrace, extend and extinguish, Microsoft's old ways 😈

If you addressed this in the post and I suck and missed it, sorry! But I’d love to test your app out on iOS when available. Thank you :)

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

Very excited to see this! Any place/site we can follow progress and maybe get access to a TestFlight link once available?

Looks good. I can't wait to try it out. I'm liking Jerboa so far, but having more apps competing to be the best would be great.

Please add support for sorting comments as Top, New, Hot, Best etc too. Thank you so much for your work.

Loved infinity when I used it. Good luck!

Same here! Today tried to go back to original Reddit app and couldn't do it. Had to uninstall few seconds later. Wish we get same - if not better - experience like on Infinity.

This sounds and looks really cool, looking forward to seeing its development

Glad to hear it! If possible, I'd like to see any design elements that can be borrowed from BaconReader, like swiping to show upvote/downvote buttons.

Suggestions: ability to set instance base of anonymous account/guest

I thought i've seen a 'Lemur' or something like that a few years ago :D Only beta I guess

Keep up the great work!

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.

@brunofin As a huge fan of Infinity that got his heart broken when the developer announced that it doesn't gonna get any Lemmy/Kbin support.
I hope you succeed! That app looks incredible!

Please, I want an AMOLED dark mode (pure black).
When you released a test on Android, please send me a link to beta test it.

This looks great, I'll definitely be trying it once it's out. It seems like you've got plenty of things to work on, but if I could suggest one extra thing that jerboa is missing, see if you can add the ability to swipe between posts while you're in the comments. Sometimes I just want to swipe through every post in my feed instead of picking the posts I wanted to open

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

Thank you all for all your comments and suggestions. I'll go through them and try to answer as much as I can, I am generally quite busy on Tuesdays so I'll probably be able to do it later at night today. In any case I am happy with the amount of support!

Looks Dope. Infinity is my favorite android reddit client

Love it! Super excited to see your progress when it's available!

thank you!!! i loved the infinity app and heard about the reddit protests just as i finished setting my custom theme, so this is really great to see. i wish you all the success!

Quick update today I worked on the sidebar, I've hidden the items buttons that still don't do anything, added some icons, created a nice card for the logged in account. The only thing I am still not happy with is the contrast of the account name vs the background image, so I will look into something to fix that soon.

I am still not sure where to post this those kind of updates, maybe a community is not such a bad idea but I cannot create communities on beehaw, maybe I will create one on another instance and mod it from this account. In any case, I will post that info here too.

Another update, with basic post and comments view ready, we should be soon approaching an alpha release date so you all have a look by yourselves :)

can't wait to try this out, thanks for all your hard work on this!!!

Just another quick update, I got the domain beyond.onl and I'm planning to run a small Lemmy instance there. I probably won't be allowing account creations but I will be creating some official communities for Beyond announcements there.

The idea is to have a community where you can follow for new post updates about Beyond and comment, suggest features and improvements etc.

I will probably host it somewhere like Azure, I am not sure, as I have no idea of the costs associated with it, so I will be taking it very slowly and see how that will turn out. Maybe at some point I will open it up for new users too, let's see :)

Not sure if this works Bruno, but here you can create a free server in the cloud:

https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/

Don't understand what you need.... Have a look

I am running my webserver here for free, works fine !!