LFGSS Mobile (Android app)

Although the back-end supports it, the web front end hides the reply button on your own posts. For my app, it would have been extra work to add that logic in, but I actually think it's a useful feature.

Can I post an image without text on the app?

Seems not (a dream:)

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🤔

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You must be in an older version? Can you check for updates?

Yes updating fixed it!

This has been working really well lately. Even the search function, which I only just now used to find this thread, like a charm. Biggest of kudos @cyclotron3k. Couple of cheeky questions: 1) what sort of data do you get from people using the app and 2) does Velocio know about the app? Haven't seen him in this thread yet.

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it.

To answer your questions:

I get no data from the app. There's no telemetry in the app so I'm not even getting crash reports (which is fine because my code is flawless and there are never any bugs). The only info I get is what the Google console provides; which is basically installs, uninstalls, Android version and country.

I think I will probably need to install Firebase Crashlytics at some point, but I'll make it clear in the release notes if/when I do.

In the App store, under the "Data Collected" section, you'll see that email address is "collected and may be shared with third parties". This is referring to the fact that Auth0 is used for authentication, and they (necessarily) need to know your email address. I'm not sure if I really needed to declare that, but I err'd on the side of caution. But just to be clear, your email address isn't going to be used for email marketing purposes or advertising targeting, or anything like that.

As you read through threads, there are various things like hot-linked images, YouTube videos and tweets which will cause these third-party servers to see your IP address, but you can always disable the automatic download of 3rd party content in settings.

I should also add that the app is entirely open-source, so you can study the source code and if you were so inclined, you could just build and install your own version.

I messaged @Velocio about the app a couple of months ago, but I don't think he realised I'd actually released it and people were using it, until very recently. He is aware of this thread.

Although the back-end supports it, the web front end hides the reply button on your own posts

To prevent classifieds constantly getting bumped by themselves

I messaged @Velocio about the app a couple of months ago, but I don't think he realised I'd actually released it and people were using it, until very recently. He is aware of this thread

Exactly this, been super busy this last few months at work and doing the minimum outside of work, I didn't realise it was so far progressed at all.

Installed it yesterday, subscribed to this thread.

Thanks for your extensive answers!

I think I will probably need to install Firebase Crashlytics at some point, but I'll make it clear in the release notes if/when I do.

Feel free to do this.

I had to install OTel web telemetry to figure out a bug a while ago and I would never have figured it out without at least debug telemetry.

I still don't track usage, use analytics tools etc, but I do now log done very basic debug info so I can actually fix things.

Can I post an image without text on the app?

This is a server setting.

The logic is that an image just be attached to something, the something is a comment, but comments cannot be empty.

using it mostly now unless I want to select quote. It's slick and quick.

One thing. Superfluous text. No need to state that a new comment has been added... The blue dot indicates that.

Also can't seem to deselect an image attached

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Love having this app! It's so good. Having used it for a bit here are a few nitpicks from my user perspective I hope you don't take any offence, absolutely none is intended :)

There are a few bits on the 'following' page that feel... unneeded perhaps? Or draw my eye away from the content: the big icon on the left, the background tablet style (could be a simple line), the 'new comment in a thread...' alongside the dot, are they doing the same job?

I prefer page limits to endless scroll, not sure why, guess it grounds you in how much stuff there is to scroll through.

The icons at the bottom and page titles could follow more strictly: Forums, Following etc. or Home, Updates etc. if you are choosing that style.

/Client from hell

Version 1.0.12 - out now

• Select text & quote-reply
  
• Profile picker popup
  
• Stability and UI tweaks
  
  

Notes: The "selecting text" action is not playing well with the "swipe to reply" action. Often when trying to move the selection handles, you'll miss, and end up dragging the whole comment around. Will need some more thought...

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Also can't seem to deselect an image attached

You should be able to just flick the image away

Thanks for the feedback!

The Following page (and the Huddles page) are both in dire need of a makeover. It's definitely on my list of things to do.

I have a (very-roughly) prioritised list of things that I want to work on in the readme.

Recently I've been focusing on missing functionality like the quote-replies, profile picker and I want to work on comment editing next.

Regarding the infinite-scroll - I totally agree that it's somewhat disorientating. I have a couple of ideas on how to improve it: one is a slide-in scroll bar, a bit like the one in Google Photos, which shows you metadata while you scroll. In Google Photos it shows you something like month and year, but I could show page number and/or date. Something like that.

The other idea is what I'm calling the navigation-lozenge. It's an idea I've taken from another app, and it's basically a page-up/page-down button at the bottom of the screen, within thumb reach. I'll probably try them both and and see which works best.

You're doing great work, thanks :)

I think the thing still putting me off using the app as a default is the Following page. Comparing "Today" to "Following", the extra line with the update, just seems to make the browsing experience worse to me. I know that's not helpful feedback but I think if following looked the same as today, it would be better.

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Fun little notice: the app warns me that I'm in a different time zone, in event threads (i.e. 'barking, becontree and beyond'). The browser version does not AFAIK.

I tried to edit my comment to add this here screenshot, but either I don't know how to edit a previous post, or not possible yet in the app. Also italics is not a thing yet, correct?

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Yes, editing is not available yet. It's a work in progress. For now, if I need to edit anything, I just hit the "open in browser" link and do it from there.

Glad you like the timezone warning. I tried a few variations, including showing the time in your own timezone but the screen starts to get cluttered, and I also felt that these always tend to be real-world meetups, so knowing the start time in you own timezone is probably not very useful. Perhaps showing the timezone that the event is in would be useful information though?

Italics and bold text should be working fine though. You'll just have to type the *stars* in yourself.

Aah yes, off ^course^. Thanks!

The blue dot

I didn't notice this was coloured blue... too low contrast difference from the grey, I see it clearly on my desktop but my phone has the screen dimmer and is more likely to have reflected light on the screen.

But then, I'm colour-blind :)

Perhaps showing the timezone that the event is in would be useful information though?

I didn't do that on Microweb as all of the sites were very geocentric around a single place... if 99% of users are in that place, repeating the time zone all the time seemed excessive.

But then... LFGSS went fairly global, and Rapha use it for RCC which is global... so both are now arguments for communicating the time zone.