Anyone contributing to Lemmy's code development

rayb@lemmy.world to Selfhosted@lemmy.world – 8 points –

Curious if anyone is working on the codebase for Lemmy. I'm sure we all see a few places where it could use some love.

The main repos are:

Personally, I've been working on a few small things for docs.

PS: Here's a pretty easy ticket to jump on if you want to get started :) https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1214

There is also a dev chat in their Matrix space: https://matrix.to/#/#lemmy-space:matrix.org

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I created a proposal with UI design changes. Feel free to post a comment with your feedback: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1183

More things would need to be changed to make the app more readable, but I didn't want to propose too many changes at once. So this is just for the main page with default theme.

screenshot

That's pretty nice! I think that the theme could def use a little love. I think the devs said at one point that they want to make it so any bootstrap theme could be imported but for now it's just the two themes.

Are you a designer?

Thanks! I'm a front-end developer :)

Maybe you could make your changes as a userscript first and let people play around with it? I'd def test it out :)

Fun fact: there used to be many more lemmy themes that were pretty cool but they got ripped out as too hard to maintain a while ago.

That sounds interesting! I wanted to be able to use it myself in case devs weren't interested in changing the UI. Can you tell me how it works and how to do that?

You add a browser extension that lets you write code that runs on any page you want. This video should be a decent explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DmQ_V9ZRlk

Instructions unclear, I wrote a Firefox addon instead :D https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/lemmy-modern-ui-theme

But you should be able to take the script and easily turn it into a userscript: https://github.com/pkrasicki/lemmy-modern-ui-theme-addon

It works with both light and dark theme, but sometimes the detection fails for me and applies wrong styles. I hope those hacks will last for some time though so that we could have a modern UI. I would change more stuff, but some things are not possible.

For anyone who isn't a developer: contributing is not just code.

Monetary donations help developers to continue their work, supporting them in their journey much as the brave Samwise supported Frodo. They ensure the continuity of the project, allow developers to dedicate more of their time to it, and help them acquire resources they may need.

Yet not all of us are blessed with the wealth of the Lonely Mountain, and that is entirely acceptable. For in the land of FOSS, gold and silver are not the only treasures that matter. The donation of your time and skills can be as valuable as a chest full of gold.

When you come across a bug, it can be reported, much as Pippin reported his sighting of the Nazgul to Gandalf. Yet remember, respect is key, as it was in all communications among the Fellowship. A bug report, properly done, is a gift to the community, a contribution to the common good. But it should be given with care, with thoroughness, and with the respect due to a fellow traveler on this digital road.

Finally, consider the hobbits who remained in the Shire, who, though they did not journey far, spread tales of courage and bravery, keeping spirits high and ensuring the story was known. If you love a piece of FOSS, speak of it, share it, let others know. In the vast, interconnected realm of the Internet, word-of-mouth travels faster than Shadowfax.

Every contribution, every bit of help, is more than welcome. It is cherished. It is celebrated. For in the realm of FOSS, as in Middle Earth, we are all on this journey together.

Naturally, if you are gifted with the skills of a dwarf smith, able to delve into the deep code and fix bugs or add features, your contribution will be celebrated like Gimli’s axes in the Battle of Helm’s Deep. A good pull request is a bard’s song that echoes across the halls of digital Middle Earth, a melody that can inspire others and boost morale.

@dannym @rayb I used to write documentation for a living so I am open to assist with writing documents when needed :)

Indeed! Writing documentation is also extremely helpful; it's like Bilbo penning Middle Earth's lore, guiding users through the software's labyrinth. Your efforts, whether clarifying existing documents or spreading knowledge, light our collective journey like the Elves' light of Eärendil. Each addition or improvement is celebrated; it's our shared saga.

I added a mark as read button to the posts but now patiently waiting till the WebSockets -> REST API transition is complete so it can get merged.

The front end needs a lot of work… Every bit is appreciated and the maintainers are pretty fast at reviewing and providing feedback which is nice to see.

I changed some stuff on the Lemmy-Ansible documentation for clarity, but I’m garbage at coding anything useful. Getting my head around rust or typescript is a real challenge from square zero.

I'm interested, but I don't know Rust and haven't done frontend work in years. Might be able to do some work around scalability and contribute to a Kubernetes deployment guide (and/or Helm chart).

I honestly had a blast learning Rust. Haven't gotten a chance to do much with the language but it definitely shifted the way I think about coding in general.