2 mo. ago • 93%

Finally giving up on Jerboa

I've had enough of the text editing issue, where when you press backspace it highlights the space before the word and ends up deleting it. The developer passes off responsibility for this to the engine they use and seems to have no intention of addressing it.

What are the pros and cons of the other Android apps? I'm only considering ones on F-Droid, not the Play Store, so that rules out Summit and Boost. Ones I have available are:

Thunder (IzzyOnDroid)
Interstellar (IzzyOnDroid)
Voyager
Eternity
muffed (IzzyOnDroid)
Combustible

63 comments

I've been using Voyager for a few months and I love it. Highly recommended.

30
I've tried pretty much every app there is and ended up with Thunder. It's got a huge amount of features and polish, a clean UI and gets regular updates. The only issue is that I don't see the number of upvotes on posts since my home instance upgraded Lemmy, though that will probably get fixed soon.

24
- I've been using Thunder since I came to Lemmy, and I'm shocked to not see it mentioned more. It's fantastic, and seems to just feel right as someone that used rif for reddit
  
  16
  
  I tried thunder looking for exactly what you're saying but it didn't feel like rif with so many of the customization and settings that rif provided not being present. I don't just want something that looks like rif, I want something that works like it.
  
  That's why I ultimately fell onto Summit. It is basically the one app I've found after trying them all that genuinely feels like rif, because it's packed to the brim with customizations and settings, with a very responsive dev, and fits the rif aesthetic (though you can change it to be however you like). It scratched that rif itch and I haven't touched another app since.
  
  2
Voyager is fantastic.

21
I went from Jerboa to Eternity to Thunder. I liked Eternity a lot but it doesn't get developed very actively which causes issues. Spoiler tags for example aren't implemented correctly. Voyager seems to be great as well from all I have heard, but I don't like its UI.

18
- UI preference is a key decider, imo!
  
  8
  
  That's why I support Eternity (and Infinity before that), but also use Voyager (I have a lot of others installed too, but they sleep).
  
  4
I went from Jerboa to Eternity to Raccoon to Voyager. I have to say Voyager is the most mature lemmy app when it comes to current features, development of new features, customizability and stability.

15
FYI lemmy is a Progressive Web App you can install from your mobile browser of choice

Never bothered with any 3rd party apps

13
- So is Voyager (also on fdroid, but is just a pwa) and its miles ahead of the native Lemmy UI.
  
  4
- I'm using an app called Hermit for this. It makes webpages into apps and gives flexibility to customize them heavily. User scripts as well. It works great with my instance (lemdroid) since they offer a few front end options.
  
  You can also solo apps from each other. Definitely check it out.
  
  3
  
  Hermit is closed-source, unfortunately. I wish there would be a FOSS alternative to it.
  
  2
I use Jerboa with zero problems. My keyboard is OpenBoard with Gesture Typing (similar to Swype) and I have none of the issues you report.

11
- Yeah others are saying it's to do with the keyboard, or rather that other keyboards seem to get around the bug. However it's only Jerboa that I have this issue with.
  
  I'm using the standard Android Keyboard (AOSP), so it's not something you would expect to have errors. Don't really want to change as I'm used to it and have it set up for different nationalities (Greek for maths, couple other countries for their funky accented letters).
  
  7
  
  Once you try swiping to type, you never want to go back. And OpenBoard has Greek letters of course. Honestly, give it a spin - regardless of your problem with Jerboa: I bet you'll love it. Worst case, you'll have wasted 10 minutes installing it, trying it out without success and uninstalling it 🙂
  
  4
I understand you prefer f-droid, I'm also an old FOSS user, but I used Sync for reddit for like 13 years and bought the "no ads" version of Sync for lemmy in the first hour it came out too... I only used Jerboa in the beginning for a couple of months.

10
- I can't get anything else to look and feel as nice as Sync, either. It's even worth spoiler tags not always working.
  
  6
- Using a closed-source app to browse an open-source, decentralized site is ridiculous for me.
  
  3
- Yeah I never really liked Sync on reddit, I went for Relay as its UI suited my workflow. However in hindsight Relay was dodgy as even the paid app included trackers.
  
  1
I tried Thunder, Sync, Liftoff, Boost, and settled on Eternity.

8
what phone do you have?

use whatever app you want, I'm just curious because I've been using jerboa since the beginning without any issues, im on a pixel 6.

did you try using a different keyboard?

7
- Part of the reason for the move is upgrading from a Poco F3 to a Pixel 7 Pro (although I'm sad to lose the IR blaster). However I run custom ROMs, so I've been using the keyboard that comes with DivestOS and AXP.OS. Don't really want to try another keyboard lol but others have said that might fix it.
  
  3
  
  got it.
  
  i hope the 7 is good, I'm donnne with pixels after this guy.
  
  i hear they're great with custom roms but haven't tried replacing mine yet.
  
  4
Muffed & Combustible, seem to be dead, Interstellar early development it seems & more geared towards Kbin... Eternity (very good) recently had a update after months of inactivity, whereas Voyager & Thunder (both excellent) have active devs and continuous support & updates..

7
- Looks like I'll lean towards Voyager and Thunder, might give Eternity a go also. I had Voyager before but was sticking it out with Jerboa, we'll see how I feel this time. Thanks!
  
  5
  
  You can't really go wrong with either of those, I do lean towards Voyager as a personal preference... Raccoon is another that I really like, but I'm not sure if that will see any further development...🤷🏻‍♂️
  
  5
Sorry to fork the conversation, but I noticed nobody mentioned connect. Are these other apps really a lot better?.

7
- Based on the Megathread, Connect doesn't have an F-Droid repo.
  
  8
  
  Oooh. Yup. I need coffee. Thanks.
  
  4
You can get Summit from the repo (https://github.com/idunnololz/summit-for-lemmy) using Obtainium (https://f-droid.org/packages/dev.imranr.obtainium.fdroid/)

6
- I want it through an F-Droid repo so I can use the elevated priveleges I give F-Droid, such that I don't have to approve each install.
  
  4
  
  Makes sense!
  
  3
I cycled from all apps but keep ending in Summit. Yes I understand the FOSS attitude I really do but it all comes down to usability and UI and active development. Voyager and Eternity are my next options.

6
I tried the paid ones like Boost and Sync but eventually have settled on Thunder. It mostly just works and is still being actively developed

6
- Seconding Thunder. It's my daily driver. Eternity is also nice if you want to quickly swipe through a bunch of posts.
  
  4
I was on Artemis and then Jerboa and now Thunder (probably a few others in between).

Artemis was going to be great but is no more, sadly.

Jerboa I just couldn't like. I think my biggest issue when I was using it was you could only search for community names? I can't remember exactly I just remember the difficulty searching was the last straw for me.

Thunder is great. I don't think I have any complaints. It works as I need it to and probably has a bunch of features that I don't use. It's pretty new still so I'm trying not to get too attached lol but it's updated pretty regularly, commenting works well, it allows you to preview before posting. Search seems to work great. I guess the only issue is the delay in notifications? Not really an issue for me but I guess if you're having a more immediate conversation in the comments it might be.

5
I've never had this happen, does it need a special set of circumstances?

I get a similar glitch with all keyboards based on AOSP (openboard, etc), where pressing backspace randomly jumps back a few words

I eventually switched back to swiftkey because it was unbearable

5
- I also have never seen that behavior. And even if, would it matter in any way how it handles the backspace key?
  
  3
  
  It's an absolute pain in the ass. When you press backspace once, the underline for autocorrect extends to the space before the word, then when you press it again it deletes the space, merging it with the word before. It will keep doing this over and over if you keep pressing backspace. You then have to go through and position the cursor just so in the middle of the word to add the spaces back - or, if you don't notice it, you submit the comment and then have to edit it, which marks your comment and makes it dirty (lol, one thing I loved about reddit was the 3 minute leeway for edits).
  
  2
- Basically when you press backspace the underline for autocorrect extends over the space before the word, then when you press backspace again it deletes that space. Every other press of backspace will delete the space before, completely messing up the text when you're just trying to make a minor correction. You then have the hassle of pixel hunting to get the cursor in the middle of the word where the space was to add it back again.
  
  3
  
  Ok my bad seems like I recalled incorrectly, your description fits exactly my experience. It's the keyboard
  
  4
I use Thunder on IOS, but since it's cross-platform and assuming the experience is the same, I recommend Thunder.

5
Sync is the shit.

4
- They rule out the play store.
  
  10
Thunder is fantastic. It's so good now. Lots of customizations, and it's actively being developed.

The markdown support is good, and spoiler tags are done right. It has it's own YouTube video player now, too.

The only issue I've found recently is superscripts rendering funny. Let me try one again.

This number should be a superscript¹ more words.

Oh, it's working now. The other day or at putting a line break before the superscript.

4
- Oh! Here's the ultimate test: [^1]
  
  Can it handle Markdown citations???
  
  [^1]: I wonder.
  
  Even the website doesn't handle those quite right.
  
  The links should scroll between the citation in the text and the definition at the bottom, while I actually wrote the citation immediately afterwards. The website scrolling doesn't quite work, but it does at least place the definitions all together at the bottom.[^2]
  
  [^2]:I'm kind of just extending this comment now to make it more likely to scroll correctly on a phone.
  
  View the source for fun.
  
  Oh, maybe the website does handle it ok, it just doesn't quite work on the first click. Subsequent clicks seem to scroll correctly.
  
  3
  
  Neat!
  
  The content isn't long enough to scroll, and the superscript doesn't look like a link. Tapping it just collapses replies now that I've replied.
  
  Tapping the little arrow doesn't collapse replies, so it's doing something. It might scroll up if your comment were long enough.
  
  5
Yup. I've been using Eternity and I like it but it doesn't mean you would.

4
- Yeah I mean ultimately they should all end up with the same features, then it comes down to which UI you like the best.
  
  3
Had the same issue but switching keyboard resolved the issue for me.

Currently using FUTO keyboard and it's working great.

2
I like boost

1

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