Apps are always nice, but lots of mobile websites, including the kbin one, are entirely functional as an app. In your browser you can just make a shortcut to them, and they’ll appear on your home screen and act as an app.

In technical terms these are Progressive Web Apps, but it means you don’t need to wait for someone to write an app (or kbin to have a good API for doing so) to use it like an app on your phone.

In Firefox it looks like this. Open the website, in the menu hit Install, drag the icon to your desktop. When you click on it it’ll open the site like it’s a standalone app.

Chrome is exactly the same, but the menu button is “Install App” instead.

  • isdfoa
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    151 year ago

    one thing is the PWA doesn’t respect screen rotation lock for some reason

      • Scio
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        51 year ago

        @CuriousALot @isdfoa

        The reason is that the web manifest has an unnecessary orientation property. A very easy fix. Please go thumbs up this issue and the fix PR so maybe Earnest notices it and we can get back to bedtime threadsurfing sooner 🌝

        • QuinceDaPence
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, but…

          • can’t edit the url/no great way I can see to intentionally go to a specific place on another instance

          • ignores rotation lock

          • can’t cancel writing a comment

          • (right now) keeps forcing what I’m typing into a reply to user Scio instead of its own comment like I’m trying so…we’ll see.

          • Sometimes I end up either not knowing where I am or in places/menus that are unintuitive to get out of.

          • no collapsing comments w/o script which I haven’t looked into how to do yet.

          And plenty of other things

          Edit:yeah it did put me under Scio.