1 yr. ago • 97%

Alexandrite is a Beautiful Web Frontend for Lemmy

wedistribute.org Alexandrite is a Beautiful Web Frontend for Lemmy

Is Lemmy's default user interface too plain, too minimal, or too uncomfortable for you? Alexandrite's web client makes every aspect better.

Alexandrite is slick, gorgeous, and brings a lot to the Lemmy experience. I highly recommend giving it a try.

Technology @beehaw.org Alexandrite is a Beautiful Web Frontend for Lemmy

Alexandrite @lemmy.world Alexandrite is a Beautiful Web Frontend for Lemmy

69 comments

Looks pretty. I'm not entering my login credentials though. Lemmy needs an app token system or something.

52
- (dev here) I totally understand that, I wish Lemmy had that or oauth, I don't like handling passwords just as much as you don't want me to!
  
  14
  
  Hi dev! Any plans on a light theme? For me, this is one of the few sort of websites I prefer a lighter theme as I'm coming from old.reddit.
  
  2
- Yeah, I changed my password after trying https://mlmym.org/ bc of this
  
  2
While looking good on desktop (based on screenshots), it is definitely not designed for mobile. See below

31
- Yes it’s designed exclusively for desktop.
  
  24
  
  You guys bring your desktops with you when you shit?
  
  21
https://alexandrite.app/

for the lazy

30
Is there a way to use this as a total replacement for the lemmy-ui as an instance admin?

8
- (dev here) I hadn't really considered it as a full replacement before, but hosting it alongside the instance like a desktop version of m.lemmy.world is something I think would be neat (at least one instance is doing that, with a custom Dockerfile because I haven't made one yet). I'd need to add some mobile support (which I'm not against doing in the future) and some admin tools probably before it could be a full replacement, both would probably not be for a bit still because I'm still working on feature parity for normal users. Also still waiting on a Lemmy issue to be fixed before I can add image uploading which is the most basic feature the site lacks at the moment.
  
  14
  
  I'd like to be able to run it as an alt UI on my instance as well.
  
  5
  
  Wefwef/voyager works well as a mobile interface. It only has an iOS style interface now, but it’s really good, and they’re working on an Android skin if that’s a dealbreaker
  
  3
- This is something I'd really love to see, as well. While I'd say that the default UI on Lemmy is "functional", in that it gets the job done...I would love if the backend could support alternative bundled frontends. This is something that Pleroma supports, and it's a great feature. It's something I wish more Fediverse software could officially support.
  
  8
  
  It's defeinitely possible with lemmy.
  
  Check out endlesstalk.org, they have three frontends!
  
  m.endlesstalk for voyager,
  
  old. for the old reddit web ui and
  
  new. for alexandrite.
  
  Not to mention lemmy.world that also provide m.lemmy.world for voyager (formerly wefwef).
  
  9
- I think the dev is working on that by making a docker image(?)
  
  the dev is @sheodox@lemmy.world and they have a community for the app at !alexandrite@lemmy.world
  
  4
- If it’s also intended for use on iPhone, it’s not ready. Renders too wide on my device.
  
  1
  
  it is clearly meant for use on desktop
  
  While there are quite a few mobile apps on Android and iOS now, one interesting area gets overlooked: alternative web frontends.
  
  3
  
  I assume you didn’t read the welcome note
  
  2
  
  It’s intended for desktop use not mobile.
  
  1
I really need hoverZoom+ to work on Lemmy. I will use anything that allows that, and this may be great, but I'll never know because no hoverZoom.

6
- hoverZoom+
  
  This is really good feedback. I wonder what that would take? 🤔 Is this something where the app needs to be updated with some property, or does this need to be fixed on HoverZoom+'s side?
  
  2
  
  I use Imagus and it doesn't work well with Alexandrite, I was trying to find some documentation on if I could support Imagus from the website side somehow, like attributes to provide non-thumbnail image URL hints but I hadn't found documentation yet.
  
  I've been meaning to try building something similar into Alexandrite at some point otherwise.
  
  7
  
  I don't know, I know it works in a lot of places automatically, but I'm not sure how it works. Maybe if the thumbnail has some sort of pointer to the real image?
  
  2
You know what's funny? I would never use something like this (my own Lemmy client is absolutely terrible in comparison!). But I'm so happy that Alexandrite exists: it's proof that programming and web development can still be experimental and loads of fun. Congrats to the developers!

6
- Honestly, I think this is the real selling point of the fediverse, at least for developers. There's no incentive to force people to use Official Mobile Clients™. You can literally spin up something (meaning a fediverse server) locally, if you want, and test against that until you have something that works. And as long as you stick to the API, you can build whatever you want.
  
  6
- Woah, is that a Plan9 / 9Front client?! 🤯
  
  3
  
  Yes - well, almost! I made a read-only filesystem interface to Lemmy then wrote a small program for one of the Plan 9 text editors/programming environments to access it.
  
  The real thing would be to serve that filesystem interface over the Plan 9 file protocol (9P). Not quite there yet!
  
  4
Yea, this is definitely going to be the way I use Lemmy in desktop going forward. I actually liked the Reddit redesign so this feels nice to me.

5
Using this now, and yeah, it's really lovely.

As good as wefwef/Voyager is (particularly in helping to transition from using Apollo to access Reddit), it kinda falls apart on a desktop browser because it's built around swipe gestures, and lives squarely in the middle of the screen. So Alexandrite for desktop, Voyager for mobile seems pretty sound.

5
Combination of constan tleft sided subscriptions list, and posts in overlay mode, really is a pleasure to use

4

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