[Megathread] v0.1 Feedback

The hacker theme looks so amazing. Thank you so much. Let me know if there is a link to donate. Would be more than happy to do so

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A couple more fixes are incoming:

The weird layout issue caused when tapping a username in the comments.
GIFs will no longer be automatically rendered as animated images anywhere in the app, except when opening the image viewer.

I want to give a bit more context about 2.

GIFs (and animated WebP images) have been the most common cause of crashes and UI freezes in Bean. The last couple of days have been particularly bad as this image of the Lemmy version of r/place has been shared.

This image is 12.4MB, animates for over 2 minutes, and (most importantly) is almost 3,000 frames. I can't even tell you exactly how many frames as both Preview and Photoshop froze on my Mac when trying to open the image.

The reason the number of frames is important, because a GIF is just a container for multiple images. Each frame is an individual image that needs to be decoded and rendered on the screen, and it turns out when there are a lot of them at 1000 x 1000px it is impossible to decode performantly.

Bean uses SDWebImage to download, cache, and render images behind the scenes. It's a fantastic library that is the de facto standard when working with remote images on iOS or macOS. Even with the progressiveLoad and scaleDownLargeImages options enabled, SDWebImage just cannot render certain images without iOS sounding the alarm and firing an OOM exception — especially when that image is 12.4MB and 3,000 frames.

At the moment, Bean will crash if you attempt to open this image. I have even tried working around this and rendering it in a web view, or using another library — FLAnimatedImage. Neither of these solutions worked and believe me, I'm not happy about that (seriously, I really hate GIFs now).

In the coming days, I'll be pushing another update that will check for the size of the image before deciding whether to animate it or not. When not animated, SDWebImage only decodes the first frame of a GIF which is no issue at all.

I know this isn't brilliant, as in the ideal world every image would be viewable within Bean, but it's the best solution I can think of to avoid a single image crashing the app.

4

Issues with opening communities within the community tab. No action happens when clicking on a community

3

I can’t duplicate this one on any of my accounts. Have you tried the old logging out and back in cliche?

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- Of course. Work-a-round is using the web browser and then adding and or pinning a community. Once it’s pinned it typically works in Bean.
  
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Changelog August 6th

Build 2023.08.06.22.41

Added the ability to sort comments.
Added a default comment sort to the Filtering settings.
New theme: Midnight
New theme: Forest
New theme: Hacker
New font: Futura
New font: Menlo
Fixed correct font styles not loading in the markdown editor.
Fixed http:// and https:// links automatically being detected.
Updated dependencies including SDWebImage. Should solve some crashing images with WebP and SVG parsing.
Stopped reloading Inbox on focus as it seemed to be causing some glitches. Will reassess later.

--

Push notifications are now also functioning as expected. Please test and let me know if you encounter issues.

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New themes, fonts, and comment sorting options added to Bean today 🥰

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- Great update! And I have a new favorite theme. I’ll probably be rocking Midnight for a little awhile.
  
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Tap to collapse comments is no longer working for me.

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D’oh! I undid the fix. Will sort today.

3

Minor feedback on theme:

Is there a way to use accent of the main color theme to color the upvote and reply swipes

2

At the moment the upvote/and downvote swipe colours match those on the buttons and does change for some themes. The reply colour does need attention as the bookmark one does use the accent.

I’ll give it some attention when I get 5 minutes or am working on new themes.

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- I think swapping the Bookmark and Reply colors around (ie Bookmark uses green, Reply uses accent color) would be a pretty good solution.
  
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Since the last update, communities and comments haven’t been loading quite right. Always possible that it’s a .world problem, but I’m using Voyager right now without any apparent issue. I’ll try again in a couple hours and see if there are still issues.

Edit: I take it back. More exploring on Voyager reveals the same problems. Looks like it’s a .world issue.

2

I’ve pushed an update to the way images are rendered tonight which I’m hoping will finally (finally), finally (FINALLY) fix the crashing issues caused by GIFs and animated webp images exhausting memory allocation.

I have noticed that it’s broken the full height images option (sorry about that) so I’ll be patching that back in tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’d you encounter any issues with GIFs, please let me know.

2

This definitely sped up thumbnails for me (unless it’s a placebo effect).

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- It might be placebo but it theoretically should have sped them up so that’s good to hear 😄
  
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I’m all registered for the notifications. Notify me if you dare!

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Yeah my initial implementation was a hot mess. I’ve re-written my scheduler and worker so it should be more reliable. You’ll need to turn notifications off and back on again to re-register and hopefully that will fix it.

1
- Done. Fingers crossed.
  
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Ping.

1
- Push notifications not working for me. To note, never could get them working on Memmy app either.
  
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- I didn’t get one either. :(
  
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More GIF changes

Build 2023.08.07.11.30

Added a badge to the card view to show that an image is a GIF.
GIFs are now played in a WebKit view. The transition when opening is glitchy so will be improved soon but… No crashing! (famous last words?)

2

Not seeing this one in TestFlight.

2
- Should be pushed out now.
  
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What about converting the GIFs to APNG or WebP?

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Changelog August 3rd

Build 2023.08.03.23.29

Added the ability to edit and delete comments.
Added a new context menu on press and hold of comments.
Added the ability to delete a post. Known issue: it’s not immediately removed from the list and requires a refresh.
Added the ability to edit a post.
Deleted or Removed posts are now filtered from post lists.
Increased maximum font size on the slider to 140% from 120%.
Increased the bottom padding on the comments list on themes with a translucent tab bar.
Tapping a comment in the Inbox will scroll to that thread on the post view.
Tapping a comment in the Inbox will highlight that comment in the post view.
Removed email parsing from Markdown.
Removed the “View Anyway” button on blocked communities as it doesn’t work.
Added Markdown parsing for spoilers.
Added a new button to the Markdown editor for writing spoilers.
Added a new Headline post view.
Added section for account settings in preparation for more there.
Added video support.
Added a welcome screen.

2

As we rapidly approach a version that I feel is complete enough for a public release, I'll be bumping the version number and posting a roadmap.

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- Awesome! It’s definitely feeling feature-rich at this point. You’ve done some great work in a short time. Can’t wait to see the public release!
  
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Some more feedback:

search for comments would be nice
I think the splash screen should only be a skeleton of the tab bar/nav bar. The icon might not fit the user chosen app icon, also it makes the app feel slower. Apple’s HIG also recommends the skeleton
images in the feed should have the full height (otherwise most memes and posts aren’t readable without a tab and dismiss)

2

Searching comments is on my list.

I know HIG recommends the skeleton but I’ll have the same issue where that splash might not match theme chosen by the user and that’s even more jarring.

There’s a setting for this under Display > Full Height Images
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- Thanks :)
  
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In the last update, I’m no longer able to pin/unpin communities. I added a lifetime subscription.

2

I can confirm this. Pins aren’t working for me either.

2
Thank you, will have a look!

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- I should add, I can pin the communities if I go into them and use the “…” menu. But the slide to pin on the Communities screen isn’t working.
  
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I can confirm this. Pins aren’t working for me either.

1

I'm having problems with the communities tab in the most recent release. Entries are sometimes getting duplicated or showing out of order, and I'm experiencing stuttering and slow loading. The app is slow to respond if I try to navigate away from the communities tab- sometimes taking several clicks or seconds to respond- while responsiveness in other tabs is normal. The battery usage has also been noticeably higher than before. I'm on an iPhone 11 pro, 16.5.1.

The duplication seemed to continue the longer I stayed in the tab and would cause jumping to other areas without any input on my part.
Duplicate entries are clickable links that lead to the correct communities.
The issue seems worse the more communities I'm subscribed to. I'll attach screenshots from the account with the most subscriptions, but other accounts show only one or two duplicates and my account with the fewest subscriptions didn't have any issues. I unsubscribed from a few on this account and am no longer seeing duplicate entries but am still experiencing the slow loading/high battery usage.
Unrelated but certain subscriptions are missing from the tab, notably !kbinMeta@kbin.social. This community shows up under my communities in other apps I'm testing, but not in Bean; maybe because the display name starts with a / and the other apps are sorting by the actual link?

1

That’s really weird!! I’ve not experienced this myself. I know it’s a pain but would you mind deleting the app and reinstalling?

1
- Sure, I tried deleting and reinstalling and was not able to reproduce the duplication issue, though the slow loading/page jumping around/lack of responsiveness is still present.
  
  Out of curiosity I tried subscribing to a new community and the bug reappeared, though not as bad this time:
  
  I tried reinstalling again and the bug still persisted. I then unsubscribed from a community bringing my subscription count to 200 and that seems to have resolved the duplicate entries for now.
  
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Running into a bug where images don’t load in the feed (seemingly random) but load fine when post is opened. This is one example of a post that showed a blank image icon until clicked

https://lemmy.ca/post/2617601

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I know some instances like .world were having issues with thumbnail generation so this may be related. That being said, today’s build changes the way images are rendered in the background so please let me know if you see this frequently and I’ll investigate more.

2

Full height image preview seems to have stopped working in latest build. I’m seeing clipped images even with the option toggled on. Worked fine in previous build. This post is one example:

https://lemmy.world/post/2676679

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The sounds used for up/downvotes aren’t all that pleasant, if I’m being honest. Maybe it’s the volume, maybe it’s something else.

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At some point I plan on doing sound packs so people will have options.

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- Sounds good, thanks!
  
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There’s some issue with the time on the posts. It doesn’t match up with the time posted when opening the post.

Edit: just noticed as well, on the first pic 2 posts down from the one circled says “10 mins from now”. In the future?

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Weird one! I know about the "from now" issue.

As for the other, I'll see what's being returned from the API. I wonder if the listing of posts returns something different to the single post endpoint.

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Bug Report:

I have the theme set to “automatic” but the app doesn’t switch from light mode or to dark mode unless it’s forced closed and re-opened. Most other apps seem to switch as soon as you open them, even if they haven’t been force closed and closed by iOS.

1

Thank you! This one is on my list but hasn’t been a high priority. I’ll likely get it fixed in 1.0.1

3

Will you consider building Lemmy search into the app? https://www.search-lemmy.com/ I feel like this could be a really useful tool

1

This looks like it uses the standard search API but allows you to define an instance you’d like to search. I think I could integrate a similar feature but I’d like to allow folks to explore other instances without having an account there too

2

Quite impressed so far :) Some feedback:

More compact comments would be nice
voting on a comment sometimes leads to automatic scrolling back to the parent comment (happened when tapping through to a post via inbox)
scrolling has some hiccups

1

Thank you! I’m aware of those bugs and I’ll add a compact comments view to the list. It is possible to turn off the footer there in the settings already.

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- Thanks :) I saw that but turned them on again since there’s no other way to tell if a comment is upvoted or not (the upvote swipe doesn’t indicate on/off either)
  
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And, not to bombard you, but there seems to be an issue with replies showing up. I know there are a few replies to my comment shown in the image, but they’re not appearing in Bean. It seems to be a problem in posts with a lot of comments, at least as far as I can tell.

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I can confirm this one. I also can’t see the same pin/unpin comment thread you posted the screenshot of.

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Fix incoming!

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- Fix works!
  
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This seems to be a .world issue at the moment as I’m having trouble loading them there too 😖

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It seems none of the links at Trending Communities are working for me. Do you know if it’s an issue with how they do their links, or something that can be adjusted on Bean?

They come back with “Unmatched Route.”

1

Thank you, I’ll fix it!

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