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BiggestBulb @kbin.social
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Kbin badly needs a facelift

With the abandonment of Artemis (formerly kmoon), kbin is now only really usable by the mobile site. The site is really not suited for mobile devices however, and there have been minimal user-facing changes in the last few months.

I know Ernest is trying his best, however with the current pace I worry about growth (and I'm not alone, as shown by mbin). If there is another Reddit exodus, for example, or if we get a surge due to the Threads thing, I feel like many will just turn back due to the UI alone. Some of the gripes are below:

  • With the "+" button, what is the difference between the four types? I know the answer (as do experienced kbin users) but it is not "newbie friendly"

  • When you go back, you are forced to randomly scroll up and down the feed to find the post you were just looking at (this has been an issue for months)

  • Images load when they enter the viewport instead of just before (also, images are not cached and as a result they need to load again when you back out of a post, leading to excessive data usage)

  • A slight but very noticeable lag when backing out of posts or clicking on them (presumably while data fetching is happening)

... etc. There are more (such as issues with certain HTML / code templating stuff, seeing "span" and other tags instead of the actual code block), but these are the main ones in my eyes. I was assuming that there would be fixes by this point for these sort of issues, but I haven't noticed the interface change for a hot minute and it's seriously hampering the experience (as a solely-mobile user).

When can we expect stuff like this to be addressed? I don't mean to be a downer or belittle the efforts by the kbin contributors (I love kbin, that's why I care enough to make this post!), but this has all been consistent since July and I worry that these will just become cruft that never gets addressed and will simply be something new users need to "deal with" or "learn", when we are the only site that has this unusual flow and these bugs.

Thank you!

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31 comments

  • Hey, I will get back to this thread and the comments at the beginning of next week. I am able to quickly address some of the issues you mentioned in your post. Changes will undoubtedly be implemented gradually, but for now, the redesign of the ActivityPub module takes higher priority. Once that is completed, the development of the frontend part of the platfrom will truly pick up pace.

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    • Additionally, the suspension of other work was a conscious decision on my part. I believe that the code at this stage needs to be deeply refactored, and that's exactly what I am doing. Solid foundations are the only option for the project to survive and grow in the long term, and to be properly scalable. Adding more blocks to what I have always considered a prototype (which forks do) makes no sense to me.

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  • I don't personally have any issues with the website on mobile, I wonder if it could be browser related? I'm also not expecting perfection from something that hasn't been around very long, and never was on reddit so have nothing to compare it to.

    I think you have valid points about "dealing" and "learning" and for some, that will be a turnoff. For me, it is an adventure 🙂

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    • Yeah I don't have most of these issues either (like seeing span tags).

      Firefox on android.

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    • I'm using Firefox on Android

      3

      • Hmm, I'm using Mull but I don't think that would make a difference.

        In any case, this is probably a good discussion to start, thanks for doing it!

        3

  • I think there are higher priority issues. Not that you are raising invalid issues, just too much work for too few Ernst's

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  • I think ernest (kbin dev) has already stated that he will start working on Kbin's own mobile client now that artemis is dead, although not sure how soon that will come, hope is still there. But you are right, we need a better third-party ecosystem for mobile than ever.

    13

    • Kbin core is first priority still last I saw. Which is more important IMO since then devs can use the API.

      I always felt that Artemis was doomed from the start given that it was working around not having an API and seemed to be more focused on Kbin support over lemmy. Not that that's a bad thing, Kbin is the only fedisite I use other than this one. But for example, I'm on Boost for Lemmy right now and the dev has mentioned Kbin support, but there's been no mention of it until some comments about the API releasing, then again nothing.

      Idk, it just seems like modding an early access game. You can make your own fork and spin it up and it can make great, incredible strides until the maintainer loses interest. That's not to say that it shouldn't be done or no one should ever make and maintain a fork, but I was just always confused as to why I was always seeing posts on Artemis alpha releases but the subject matter revolved around Kbin if the app also supported lemmy. Have compatibility be the focus until you don't have to maintain the instance fork and the app development at the same time.

      Moreover it's just unfortunate that the instance is gone, hopefully there was an account merge available if anyone wanted that. I also certainly don't have the full picture by any means, just the development posts and then the moderator goodbye post.

      I'm personally happy with Kbin on Firefox until the account is supported in Boost. Yes, I have noticed a bug or two that has been mentioned but they are consistent in how they appear in my experience and I tend to not interact with how they often pop up. (I comment less on Kbin so scrolling up isn't often an issue.) The bug I get most commonly is trying to view the bottom of the page with infinite scroll turned on. If it's styling that's an issue, Firefox Nightly or Fennec to play with CSS to your liking with something like Stylus.

      I feel bad for the Artemis community, hopefully everyone finds something that works for them soon.

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  • seeing "span" and other tags instead of the actual code block

    If you're using Firefox or Kiwi, the Kbin Enhancement Suite userscript now has a fix for this. There's also a standalone version here.

    Well, for the span tags, I haven't seen other tags being an issue. If you see a code block where the same issue occurs with other tags, tell me so I can update it.

    If there is another Reddit exodus, for example, or if we get a surge due to the Threads thing, I feel like many will just turn back due to the UI alone.

    I don't know if ernest's views changed since the last exodus, but iirc people joining the platform wasn't really his intention, it just happened. Kbin hasn't even had a proper full release yet, it's still beta software, so I don't think people bouncing off is that big an issue yet.

    With the abandonment of Artemis (formerly kmoon), kbin is now only really usable by the mobile site.

    That's the case for now, but app development is still happening with other projects:

    • ernest has mentioned intentions to revive his kbin app project
    • Lemmy's Lunar (ios) app is adding kbin support
    • @jwr1 introduced their Interstellar app prototype for Android recently.
    12

    • I understood OP to be talking about mobile specifically. If there is a way to get the userstyles on mobile it's gotta be like 20 steps long. If someone could somehow wrap it all up in an easy package that would be one thing but idk if it's really a viable solution.

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      • I understood OP to be talking about mobile specifically.

        And that's why I said Firefox or Kiwi. Both of those are mobile browsers (the latter is chromium) that support extensions, so you can just install your favorite monkey and stylus and add userscripts/userstyles the exact same way as on desktop.

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  • Kbin is still in pretty early development. I believe it's technically still in alpha. It'll take a while before we get some QoL updates as there's more imperative things that need to be fixed first.

    The API should be coming out soon-ish, which will allow app developers to actually start making Kbin-compatible apps, so we should be seeing some more development in that area shortly.

    11

  • When you go back, you are forced to randomly scroll up and down the feed to find the post you were just looking at (this has been an issue for months)

    I thought I was being picky by being annoyed by this, but yeah, it is annoying.

    10

  • While I agree the web app is not the perfect solution, I think it actually works fairly well all things considered. It will never be as smooth as an actual app, but I think time will eventually fix that.

    Artemis being abandoned was very disappointing, but there are other developers working on adding kbin support - Lunar for Lemmy is one of them: https://kbin.social/m/lunar@lemmy.world/t/682006/Kbin-Support

    Lunar is being developed for iOS. I think there is another one being developed for android but I forget the name.

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  • @BiggestBulb
    using kbin mostly on mobile devices, i am time and again surprised that kbin works kinda fine > e.g. kbin deals better with bad internet connections than any other fedi software i have come to know so far > given that kbin is still early beta, this is impressive

    i think that we should be patient, and keep reporting bugs :)

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  • I get your frustration. In the meantime, you can use a browser extension to customize KBin. I personally use FF on mobile and the addon called Stylus

    There are magazines for customizing KBin like this:

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  • imo the ui on kbin is wonderful, and very usable on mobile unlike reddit and other sites, and especially preferable compared to lemmy. i dont imagine there will be another exodus from reddit, it was all performative and hardly anyone stuck around.

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    • and especially preferable compared to lemmy.

      Thing is, Lemmy has Photon and Alexandrite alternative frontends that are dramatically better than the standard web UI, and a plethora of good mobile apps already, like Boost and Eternity. :\

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  • Sorry for the spam, I kept hitting "Create Thread" and it never loaded until after a minute or so and then there were 4 threads 😅 Kinda illustrates my point...

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  • I share your concerns. I was optimistic at first because kbin looked very promising and the app was evolving pretty fast. Just reaching the point of a functional mobile app would have been enough for me, since we can federate with other communities for more content (before they decided to create their own instance, it was good enough for me).

    I am pretty sure the project is on a good track, but in the same time, I think it will probably take 1 or 2 years before we have a good mobile app.

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  • I really love vanilla kbin on mobile, it works fine for me!!

    I'm using the second light theme, classic view, and have tweaked a lot of the settings.

    The only problem is threading gets a bit weird on long threads sometimes.

    I checked it on Chrome (ugh) and it's better on Firefox though.

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  • The PWA UI is serviceable, but it could stand to be better, I agree. It just feels "clunky" IMO.

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