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submitted 2 months ago by jwr1@kbin.earth to c/interstellar@kbin.earth

Interstellar's birthday was just 2 days ago ๐ŸŽ‰. It's hard to believe it's already been a whole year. kbin.earth is coming up on a year as well (just a few weeks). Let's celebrate with this huge update!

Keep in mind, this update will not carry data over from the previous versions, so if you'd like to remember any data (accounts, stars, or settings), be sure to take screenshots or write stuff down before updating.

New

  • Add translation support, now using the Hosted Weblate. We already have 8 languages listed and the app is 45% translated!
  • Almost all async operations now have loading indicators to prevent accidental repressing; so now you won't accidentally reply with the same comment multiple times, for instance.
  • The markdown editor has been upgraded to have a drafting system! Now, wherever there's a markdown editor (post creation, comments, messages, etc.), you'll have automatic backups of your text. If you go to the Drafts tab, you can apply a draft, create a Manual draft, and discard drafts (including a discard all button).
  • Add share buttons to links, images, videos, posts, and comments.
  • Add image and video download buttons
  • Change storage backend; this has the side effect of previous settings not carrying over.
  • Allow user searching in preparation for the next Mbin release
  • Limit alt text in full image view to 3 lines, with a tap to reveal the rest
  • Add image size controls (settings) for threads and microblogs
  • Display avatars in push notifications

UI redesign

Big thanks to @BookSwiftieAndrew for designing almost everything in this section! Unfortunately, there was not enough time to implement all the designs that were created; maybe in the next update.

  • Redesign the message thread screen to use a chat-like interface with groupable chat bubbles and date/time timelines
  • Redesign message correspondence page (page with your list of different DMs)
  • Update notifications screen design
  • Merge Explore tabs into a single screen with filters, while removing some of the magazine clutter
  • Migrate icons to use Material Symbols Rounded (vs. Material Icons).
  • Update profile and profile edit screens to new design
  • Redesign the settings screen to categorize settings under multiple pages, including adding a few new settings
  • Add a new About page with several important links for Interstellar
  • Change account switcher to use modal
  • Add a new compact feed mode
  • Add a new "Filter lists" settings section, where you can make multiple filters that contain a list of phrases to match against. You can change a specific list's match mode (Simple, whole word, and regex) and can also set whether matching should be case sensitive or not. Additionally, there's an option to show matched posts, but with a warning.
  • Push notification registration and Mbin account notification settings are now under the settings section

Profiles

This is a new feature that lets you change groups of settings quickly. Here's the help text included in the app:

Profiles in Interstellar is a powerful feature that allows you to store a group of settings and recall them back easily. The main profile is the base that all your other profiles build off of, this is where you would want to store the majority of you settings. In your other profiles, you can override settings so that they are automatically set the next that specific profile is activated.

In order to alter a setting for a profile (including main), all you need to do is switch to that profile, then change the settings you want. At the moment, if you want to unoverride a profile setting (so it will inherit from main once again), you need to delete and recreate the profile.

Settings that are included in profiles are:

  • All behavior settings
  • All display settings
  • Feed actions
  • Feed defaults
  • Whether a filter list is enabled or disabled

Additional profile options include:

  • Switching which profile is main
  • Selecting a profile to auto activate when Interstellar is started
  • Selecting an account to auto switch to when a profile is activated.

If you decide not to use profiles, then just stay on the main (default) profile and the app will continue to function normally.

Fixes

  • Fix mod actions not showing for comments by utilizing the new canAuthUserModerate Mbin api.
  • Fix Mbin threads that have a type of image but don't actually have an image attached from hiding the thread's link (this fixes imgur posts).
  • Fix account removal from failing even when push notification unregister fails
  • Add a minimum window size to prevent the window getting too small on desktop
  • Fix a case on the messages screen where the user has messaged themselves
top 10 comments
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[-] Fitik@fedia.io 4 points 2 months ago

@jwr1@kbin.earth Great news thanks for update! Using your app everyday, thank you for your dedication

[-] jwr1@kbin.earth 4 points 2 months ago

Also, if you'd like to contribute, here are a few ways:

  • Development: Interstellar desperately needs some developers, so if you know Flutter, please help. It's pretty much just me at the moment. If you go to the Interstellar dev matrix, we could discuss some of the next things that need to be done. The source code is on GitHub.
  • Translations: Since this update, Interstellar is now translatable. If you'd like to help, translations are made through the Hosted Weblate.
  • Financially: If you'd like to donate, you can see a list of options on kbin.earth's about page, or in the sponsor section on the GitHub.

Additionally, I feel an iOS release is much more viable than it was a year ago (thanks to our sponsors). If anyone's interested, let me know so I can collect votes. I don't have a Mac (I'd have to use a VM) or iPhone, though, so I think I would probably need a Collaborator who could lead the Apple side of things, including testing, development, and releases.

[-] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 2 months ago

Congratz with your new release! And happy birthday ;)

[-] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 2 months ago

I will translate Dutch (NL). I tried to add a new language using the webUI of weblate, but it says zero strings for the Dutch language?

[-] jwr1@kbin.earth 2 points 2 months ago

Not sure what the problem was there, but I tried doing something and it seems fixed now.

[-] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 2 months ago

Nice. I started to translate some strings already. thx!

[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 0 points 2 months ago

Finally a proper compact mode. The large thumbnails did not make it in unfortunately, and there's some other small issues, but it's finally a lot more usable as an app for me.

[-] jwr1@kbin.earth 2 points 2 months ago

Sorry, what about large thumbnails were you hoping for?

And what other issues? I can see if I can prioritize them for the next update.

[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 0 points 2 months ago

https://github.com/jwr1/interstellar/issues/60#issuecomment-2515658588 The issues I see are that the names clip into the thumbnail, even without the instance handles. There's quite some big gaps between the various lines of text so it would likely fit better with a line break there, compacting the text overall a bit more. The titles, personally, could also be a little larger to differentiate the title text from the other text elements.

[-] jwr1@kbin.earth 1 points 2 months ago

Ah, I see what you mean.

this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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Interstellar App

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An app for Mbin and Lemmy; connecting you to the fediverse.

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