It’s weird, for the past few weeks I’ve been trying to switch from reddit to lemmy but something wasn’t quite there… I couldn’t tell what but I tried all sorts of apps and even the old.reddit style lemmy. After finding this app I can finally say I feel 0 reason to go back to reddit, great work! Kinda dumb but I decided my first post had to be about it since this is the reason for me to be on lemmy now. Also, is it just me or does it adapt to ultrawide resolutions? I’ve never dreamed to have a better experience browsing on ultrawide but here we are!

  • scytaleEnglish
    3•1 year ago

    Didn’t want to create a new post just to say this, but I absolutely love the Alexandrite UI as well! I initially went with mlmym because I really loved old.reddit and wanted to replicate the feeling, but then I figured to try Alexandrite out for something fresh and I’m loving it so far. I like how I can browse and open posts without having to leave the page, while at the same time the UI doesn’t feel cluttered. There are definitely more features I’d like to see but it’s been great so far.

    • @sheodoxMEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      Glad you like it!

      What sort of features are you most looking for?

      • scytaleEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        Hey, I’m the same guy who requested the return-to-top button. lol

        But since I have your attention, here are some more suggestions I could think of:

        • When clicking the notification bell, it would be great if the notifications can open as a column on the page, because opening the inbox immediately as a new page makes the user lose their browsing position, and clicking back on the browser takes you back to the top with the default sort (I think).
        • The color slider is great, but I’d also love a black color for true dark-mode. I realize it might be tricky to make the fonts and elements visible since I notice using the slider automatically sets page elements and fonts to a brighter(?) shade of the selected background color; and that might be different for black. Maybe make the font gray to compensate? Not sure if my explanation makes sense.
        • I also noticed that when the browser window isn’t maximized horizontally, long post titles on the feed on the left column do not automatically wrap and adjust to the next line when the comment section is opened on the right column.
        • For the Search function, it would be great if we can filter by server, community, and post/comment; so it’s easier to find stuff depending on what you need (i.e. searching for an alexandrite server vs. alexandrite community vs. posts about alexandrite).

        As for the gifs that need to be opened on a new window to see, I unfortunately have to replicate it to show you an example, but I have to admit it was probably a nsfw gif from redgifs lol.

        Again, thanks for creating this beautiful app. It has definitely become my daily driver for lemmy and I use it everyday.

        • @sheodoxMEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          I’m still brainstorming on how (from a code standpoint) I could improve the column stuff, that’d be something I’d want to do once I get to that point. In the meantime I’d recommend just opening it in a new tab.

          The color slider is great, but I’d also love a black color for true dark-mode.

          That’s on my todo list. And you’re right, I have like ~12 shades of “gray” that are all based on the same hue (that slider) with different amounts of saturation/lightness and it’s used for everything from text colors, to borders and backgrounds. I’d need to change some more variables to allow the rest of those to be customized, not quite sure how I’d do that yet.

          I also noticed that when the browser window isn’t maximized horizontally, long post titles on the feed on the left column do not automatically wrap and adjust to the next line when the comment section is opened on the right column.

          I was confused at first but I think you’re referring to the overlay layout? If your screen is narrow enough (or it would be wide enough but the sidebar is open) by default it’ll change to an “overlay” layout where instead of it showing in a separate column beside the feed the post pops up over the top of the feed, and you can click the area to the left of it to close the overlay. You can change which feed you use in the settings. Is that what you’re talking about?

          For the Search function, it would be great if we can filter by server, community, and post/comment; so it’s easier to find stuff depending on what you need (i.e. searching for an alexandrite server vs. alexandrite community vs. posts about alexandrite).

          Couple things, first I don’t think there’s a way to search by server (API docs only list stuff like communities/user). Second, you can search for things by a user or in a community, it’s just different in Alexandrite because I didn’t make dropdowns for that on the search page like Lemmy’s official UI does. If you go to a community or a user’s page there’s a “Search” button in the header that’ll bring you to the search page but for results from that user or within that community.

          Oh lol. Oh, one of the few (only?) markdown features that Alexandrite doesn’t support yet is embedding video/audio stuff, so maybe it’d be part of that.

          • scytaleEnglish
            2•1 year ago

            I did a poor job of explaining the overlay stuff. Here’s a sample screenshot: https://files.catbox.moe/dk8gt3.png

            In this case my browser is occupying around 4/5 of my screen horizontally and I’m using the column layout. You’ll notice the text on the post title on the left doesn’t adjust. It’s not always though, as sometimes other posts with long titles look fine and adjust accordingly. Not really a big issue, I just wanted you to know in case the aesthetic bothers you.

            Thanks for the responses for the other stuff. I understand some are limitations with lemmy itself. And good point on the search, at least I know what to do now if I need to narrow down queries.

            • @sheodoxMEnglish
              1•1 year ago

              Ohhh I see the issue. The title should overflow just fine, but when it’s that squished and there are long user/community names that second line of text is so long it allows the title to get cut off. I’ll have to play around with this.

              Edit: I’ve got a fix ready. I’m working on too many things at once so it’ll have to wait until I’m done with some some of the mod tool stuff I’ve been working on lol. It should look good until it gets narrow enough for the buttons to be squished, so a lot better.

              Edit 2: fix released!