Nemmy

Hey all, I'm back with some news!

All changes, as always, are live on nemmy.app. I recommend checking today's update out yourself since it's mostly animations and load times.

What Changed

• Posts can now be loaded in two different ways:

1. SPA (Single Page Application) Mode (new)
2. MPA (Multi Page Application) Mode (old)

Those terms mean something completely different, I chose them because what Nemmy does in these cases is similar to their ideas

When a User clicks on a Posts they see in their Feed (most use cases), the Post gets loaded in SPA mode. This means every cache and data fetching is bypassed and the Post data gets directly inserted into the Post page. You may notice this with a flashing "?preload=true" extension to the URL when visiting a post. Because of this, the post gets loaded literally instantly - no wait times.

MPA mode is still used for when you then reload the page, or click on a direct link to a post. Then the server tries different caching methods to reduce the load times as much as possible, also using server rendering so the data gets loaded insanely fast to the server and only passed down to the client.

The numbers using 4G/LTE Wifi with low latency

Time to load a Post with SPA Mode:

instantly

Time to load a Post with MPA Mode:

• If cached: About 0.3 Seconds if cached by the server
• Otherwise About 1 Second

• Endless scrolling for comments is finally here!

After yesterdays update, Users would have to constantly click the "load more comments" button - no more of that, the button is gone!

Comments now finally load in an endless stream on demand, when the user scrolls to the bottom.

• Authentication handling improvements

• Switching Users now updates most things (e.g. Communities, Profile pictures etc.)
• Adding a new User account now switches automatically to the new account (it did before as well but didn't show until page reload)

• A couple more animations have been added to pages

• Nemmy has a new License

Before, Nemmy used a custom license I made up on the spot because I didn't know any license and didn't want to randomly choose one. Anyway, now Nemmy uses the AGPL License, which is the same License Lemmy itself uses.

• There have also been some smaller adjustments

Like adding more "EndlessScrollingEnds" how I like to call them

That's it for today

See you all soon!

Edit

So there seem to be a ton of bugs left I overlooked.

Most notable:

• You can't load posts from anywhere but the feed - I'm already working on a fix for that
• You can't open posts in new tabs since the post then wants to access state that doesn't exist in that tab
• Community pages don't show the correct number of subscribers or active users

Behind the scenes I've been working on a system that switches instances automatically when one isn't available.

This has happened to me so often while developing, that an instance has gone offline, that I decided to do something about it.

Soon Nemmy will try out another instance if the requested (default or user specified) isn't available - and if that one isn't available as well, Nemmy will switch again - and so on.

The list of valid instances to switch to is hand-picked by me and consists of the instances with the most up-time and with the most federated instances to increase the chances of user requested content being available.

All-in-all, soon the possibility of using Nemmy and experiencing any downtime will be close to 0.

Hello again! Dev Update 14 here

As always, all changes are already on nemmy.app.

Wow, so it's been quite a while since the last update and there are a couple reasons for that, e.g. I'm not home atm so I only have a Laptop. I also have very little time in general right now and have a lot to do at work.

Anyways. I did manage to add some features (break others) and improve some UX.

What changed

• You can now add multiple users to Nemmy (you can't add ones with the same username on different intances for now)

This required a complete overhaul on how authentication works on Nemmy. It's a lot more complicated but also more streamlined now.

• Mild to Big performance improvements of Images

I switched almost completely to next/image, which optimized image loading by default so especially feeds with lots of images should now be less resource intensive.

• Inbox, Chat and Settings pages have been added. None of them are done but you can take a look at the progress

• Users from all Lemmy instances and Mastodon can now be viewed on Nemmy (some are still redirected to their own instance's website)

• A few pages are now server rendered before being hydrated with user-specific content

This means that soon almost all initial requests will be cached on a few minutes basis (currently 2 minutes). So after the first request, every other within 2 minutes will be almost instantly served.

Right now, this counts for the Homefeed and Post pages. The Inbox, Chat and Settings pages are also Server Rendered, but not as aggressively cached since they are User specific pages anyway.

• Comments are being rendered in a more sensible way

This means huge performance boot on posts with 200+ Comments. But it also means you'll have to press the "load more comments" button more often.

I know the UX of doing that isn't ideal right now, I'll take care of that later.

• You can now view Instance info (basic implementation)

• Instances are now shown in more places

e.g. on posts

Known Bugs

• Especially when doing anything with authentication, you usually have to refresh the App right now. I'll fix that soon.

That's it for now!

See you all soon

Note: This is outdated, read the update down below

I'm currently working on the Settings page, the User's inbox and a chatting page.

Though, the development process has come to an effective halt due to a very weird bug which I've tried to fix for the past couple of days now. The bug crashes my development build due to excessive RAM and CPU usage and I couldn't yet make out the culprit. But I'm working on it.

So yeah, I'm still here... but I need some more time before introducing the next update.

In the mean time, here's a sneak peek at the Notifications Page design:

Update:

I've worked for 3 days on this bug and literally 20mins after finally posting an update I fixed it :/.

Here is the working Inbox prototype:

Dev update 13

As always all changes are on Nemmy.app.

So, 2 days I think without updates... what's been going on?

I basically had zero time to do an update but also very little time to actually code, however there has been some changes, so:

What changed

• I added another branch, testing out a new way of rendering Comments (huge performance boost) and started testing client-side caching in addition to the server-side cache

• Every post (/post/any id) will now be rendered on the server side, which means it won't "pop-in" after you load the side. This will also be very important with another change I'll make soon, which will enable me to cache these requests to Lemmy. Which in turn means incredible response times.

• I continued the migration from Lemmy.world as the default instance, to being able to switch that anytime. This means if Lemmy.world is offline again, Nemmy will just switch to another big instance like Lemmy.ml as default. Of course that will change anyway if the user logs in.

• I also added a temporary fix for the Login problem: Some may have noticed that if you didn't check the "stay signed in" checkbox, you would't get a cookie, the JWT would only be stored in session storage.

Session storage has a major flaw with the current system of how Nemmy works though, because session storage works only in 1 tab, not in any other. So you wouldn't be signed in when opening any post, since they open in another tab for now.

So the workaround for now is to just give every user a cookie, like most other websites would do anyway (the cookie isn't used for tracking, but it can be a security risk of having that without explicit knowledge).

• I also started coding the whole "save the scroll position" thing, so Nemmy will always remember where you left off and scroll there for you.

• The "explore" section in the search page has also been properly added, though I plan on changing the algorithm to get trending topics very soon.

• There's also been some smaller bugfixes

Well, that's it for the updates for now

See you all soon!

Welcome to Dev update #12

It's so late at night again :(

What changed

• I built the backend to support all instances

Every feature will migrate over the next couple of days to the new system, making everything compatible with all instances of Lemmy. Right now, only Login and Signup are supported.

• Signup feature

You can now sign up to (almost) any Instance via Nemmy! Due to security concerns, I limited the available instances to 871 curated ones, so users still have plenty to choose off!

• Subscribing to Communities

This is pretty simple. You can now actually click the "subscribe" button on any community you haven't subscribed to already.

• Minor improvements

The sort and filter dropdowns now show the active setting (if the screen width is wide enough)

That's it for today!

I really need to sleep now.

Edit: If you downvote this you might as well tell me why lmao

Wow it's gotten really late for todays update

It's about 3am here right now :(.

All changes are already up on Nemmy.app

What changed

• Users can now comment on other comments

On desktop

On mobile there's a complete preview of the post (with text selection!), meaning you won't have to close the comment popup every time you want to reference something from the post.

• Users can now Create Posts I added some animations to this one. Feel free to check it out on nemmy.app/post/new (you have to be logged with a lemmy.world account for now)

• NSFW Posts are now blurred by default

To view them, users can simply tap on the image and it will unblur (works on all Media types).

• Dates are now displayed correctly (e.g. "Posted 2 minutes ago")

• Improved performance on comment-heavy posts
• Removed/Deleted Posts and comments won't be shown now

Updated Roadmap

• [x] Basic APIs
• [X] Voting
  • [X] Voting on Posts
  • [X] Voting on Comments
• [x] PWA
• [X] Community Page
• [X] Search, Filter and Sorting
• [ ] Auth
  • [X] Login
  • [ ] Register
  • [ ] Subscribing to Communities
• [ ] Creating Content
  • [X] Creating Comments
  • [X] Creating Posts
  • [ ] Creating Communities
• [ ] Customization
  • [ ] User Themes
  • [ ] Compact Style (Like compact.reddit)
  • [ ] Classic Style (Like old.reddit)
• [ ] Offline Features
  • [ ] Content Cache
  • [ ] Upload when online
• [ ] Moderation Tools
• [ ] QoL Features
  • [ ] Auto-Register to other instances
  • [ ] Subscribe to the same community on multiple instances (like c/nemmy on Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml)
  • [ ] Bulk Block/Hide Communities with the same or similar Name
  • [ ] Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Communities while in Search mode (So you don't need to leave the Search page just to unsubscribe/subscribe)
  • [ ] Improved Sorting

That's it for today!

Thanks for stopping by.

Welcome to Dev update 10 everybody!

Wow it's already been 10 days that I've worked on Nemmy.

As always, all changes are on nemmy.app

What changed

• The Search Experience has been improved

You don't have to press enter anymore now. The Search will automatically start once you stop typing and refresh on updates.

The search now gives feedback to the user when loading occurs

Posts now actually Link to the posts on Nemmy

• You can Create Comments now on Posts

This feature is still kinda buggy and really only supports Posts right now, no replies to other comments for now.

• Cookie Validation

If your access token gets invalidated, like when an instance would get hacked and had to reset the tokens, you are automatically logged out with no errors.

Next Steps

Tomorrow I'll continue work on Comments on Posts and Replies to other Comments while also starting work on creating posts.

I will also start looking into formatting and what's the best way to preview comments/posts.

I also promise to finally implement a NSFW image blur. Right now just browsing the frontpage on Nemmy in public is really risky.

That's it already for today!

Thanks for stopping by.

I'm back!

And I brought some new features with me.

As always, all changes are live on Nemmy.app.

Changelog

• Sorting and Filtering Works now

• Search Overlay has been added

This view is still just placeholder and WIP

Search results are coming in but the styling is not done yet.

Known issues

Light mode hasn't been finished yet for the new features.

That's it already but more is coming

I had really, really little time last week but that changed today. From now on I will work more on Nemmy, so the developing pace will increase.

I'm looking to finish the Search function tomorrow and then add Creating Comments and Creating Posts tomorrow/the day after tomorrow.

See you all soon!

I didn't have time to code today so there isn't an update for today.

Damn University making me study instead of being productive :(

It's time for dev update #8!

As always, all changes are already up on Nemmy.app.

What changed

• User Page Overhaul

• New Sidebar on the left side (activated by the menu icon)

• Various Design Improvements
• Started transferring to latest Icons from Google's Material Design

Point System

As you may have noticed already, every User on Nemmy has "Points" calculated. These Points are calculated by taking the Post and comment scores (upvotes - downvotes) and the amount of User posts and comments into considerations. I'm also looking into giving Points for upvoting Posts and Comments since I don't want to encourage bad behavior by spamming the site with junk.

I'm not very sure about this feature yet as I heard mixed opinions on here about the introduction of a Karma-Like system.

Please feel free to let me know what you think of this.

That's it already for today

I didn't have a lot of time today to work on Nemmy :(. The roadmap didn't change for today, so I won't include it here.

See you all very soon!

Hi all, dev update #7 here

As always, you can try everything out yourself on Nemmy.app.

What changed

• The community Page got an overhaul

• Navbar updates

The User side menu when you click on the User's Avatar

• Light mode updates

Todays Roadmap update

Roadmap for Q3 2023

• [x] Basic APIs
• [X] Voting
  • [X] Voting on Posts
  • [X] Voting on Comments
• [x] PWA
• [X] Community Page <- Got done today
• [ ] Search, Filter and Sorting <- Is being worked on
• [ ] Auth
  • [X] Login
  • [ ] Register <- is being worked on
  • [ ] Subscribing to Communities <- is being worked on
• [ ] Creating Content
  • [ ] Creating Comments
  • [ ] Creating Posts
  • [ ] Creating Communities
• [ ] Customization
  • [ ] User Themes
  • [ ] Compact Style (Like compact.reddit)
  • [ ] Classic Style (Like old.reddit)
• [ ] Offline Features
  • [ ] Content Cache
  • [ ] Upload when online
• [ ] Moderation Tools
• [ ] QoL Features
  • [ ] Auto-Register to other instances
  • [ ] Subscribe to the same community on multiple instances (like c/nemmy on Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml)
  • [ ] Bulk Block/Hide Communities with the same or similar Name
  • [ ] Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Communities while in Search mode (So you don't need to leave the Search page just to unsubscribe/subscribe)
  • [ ] Improved Sorting

And as always: Thanks for stopping by!

This post will be updated regularly.

Last update: 06.08.2023, updated roadmap

Tl;DR

Nemmy is a PWA (Progressive Web App), this means that you can use Nemmy in the browser of your choice or install it on your device.

If you want to stay updated about the progress, make sure to stop by at the end of the day here. I usually post the daily Dev Update around 11pm UTC.

Website: nemmy.app

GitHub: github.com/cr4yfish/nemmy

App Stores:

• Google Play
• Fdroid - Coming Soon

How to install

1. Visit the Website
2. Press "install to device". This button will be displayed in various locations depending on the device.

• On Desktops it's usually on the right side of the URL bar
• On phones it's usually in the settings/sidebar menu

Supported OSs for installation of the PWA

• Android
• IOS (Only installable via Website)
• Windows 10/11
• Chrome OS
• Linux maybe (untested)

All other devices can of course still access the Website like usual.

Known Issues

There are a lot so I'll only list very annoying ones

...

Most issues are fixed by refreshing the browser window or the PWA screen.

Donations

I'm creating Nemmy because I want to, not because I want to earn any money from it - but hosting it costs a lot of money and after seeing the last bill from my hosting provider I decided to open up donations.

Any money donated will be used only and exclusively for the hosting costs.

Donation options:

• BuyMeACoffee

Roadmap for Q3 2023

The roadmap is taken from GitHub and will be kept up-to-date

Note: A crossed off item does not mean I wont improve it anymore. It just means the basic implementation is done.

• [x] Basic APIs
• [x] Voting / Interactions
  • [x] Voting on Posts
  • [x] Voting on Comments
  • [x] Bookmarking Posts & Comments
• [x] PWA installable
• [x] Community Page
• [X] Sort/Filter/Search
  • [X] Search
    • [x] Search for Communities
    • [x] Search for Posts
    • [X] Search for Users
  • [x] Filter
  • [x] Sorting
  • [x] Explore Section
• [x] Authentication
  • [x] Login
  • [x] Register
  • [x] Support for multiple instances
  • [x] Subscribing to Communities
• [x] Creating Content
  • [x] Creating Comments
  • [x] Creating Posts
  • [x] Creating Communities
  • [x] Supporting all Lemmy Markdown Features
  • [x] Support Markdown inserts
• [ ] User Page
  • [x] Settings <- Backend done. Will add more stuff later
  • [x] Notifications
  • [x] User Profile
  • [x] User Posts
  • [X] Bookmarks
  • [x] User Comments
  • [ ] Chat <- WIP
• [x] Sidebar
  • [x] Subscribed Communities
  • [x] Instance Info
• [ ] Edit tools <- Next Step
  • [ ] Edit Comments
  • [ ] Edit Posts
• [ ] Moderation Tools
  • [ ] Delete Posts/Comments
  • [ ] Ban Users
  • [ ] Lock Posts/Comments
  • [ ] Modify Posts (e.g. change title, mark as NSFW)
• [ ] Offline Features <- Is being worked on on another branch
  • [ ] Content Cache
  • [ ] Upload when online
  • [ ] Show UI without connection
• [ ] Customization
  • [ ] User Themes <-Research
  • [x] Dark/Light mode per User choice
  • [x] Compact Style
  • [ ] Classic Style (Like old.reddit) <-Design phase
• [ ] QoL Features
  • [ ] Auto-Register to other instances
  • [ ] Subscribe to the same community on multiple instances (like c/nemmy on Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml)
  • [ ] Bulk Block/Hide Communities with the same or similar Name
  • [x] Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Communities while in Search mode (So you don't need to leave the Search page just to unsubscribe/subscribe)
  • [ ] Improved Sorting
• [ ] Instanceless features
  • [x] Create Communities regardless of instance
  • [ ] Create Posts regardless of instance
  • [ ] Unified Account cross-instances

Ideas for Q4+

• Use GPT3.5 to sum up large text bodies
• Improve search Indexing of Posts
• Make every single feature of the App 100% usuable for Blind, deaf and color blind people
• Add a keyword ban (e.g. you don't want anything with "Beans" in your feed)
• Improve PWA Experience until it feels like a native app
• Think about making a native app

Hi all, welcome to Dev Update #6

As always, you can try everything out yourself on Nemmy.app

What changed on Nemmy

• Voting now works on Posts and Comments

• User Votes will be displayed

• Comment Chains have been improved (Chains are now correctly displayed)

and an additional "Tap to view X comments" has been added to collapsed chains

• The User card preview has been improved

• Users with no profile picture will now have a Lemmy avatar

Other changes

• A Docker Image has been added, huge thanks to nohoster on that part

• The GitHub Readme has been further improved

Roadmap update

Roadmap for Q3 2023

• [x] Basic APIs
• [X] Voting <-- Got done today
  • [X] Voting on Posts
  • [X] Voting on Comments
• [x] PWA
• [ ] Auth - Target v0.8
  • [X] Login
  • [ ] Register <- is being worked on right now
• [ ] Creating Content - Target v0.9
  • [ ] Creating Comments
  • [ ] Creating Posts
• [ ] Customization - Target v1
  • [ ] User Themes
  • [ ] Compact Style (Like compact.reddit)
  • [ ] Classic Style (Like old.reddit)
• [ ] Offline Features - Target v1.1
  • [ ] Content Cache
  • [ ] Upload when online
• [ ] QoL Features Target v2
  • [ ] Auto-Register to other instances
  • [ ] Subscribe to the same community on multiple instances (like c/nemmy on Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml)
  • [ ] Bulk Block/Hide Communities with the same or similar Name
  • [ ] Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Communities while in Search mode (So you don't need to leave the Search page just to unsubscribe/subscribe)

Ideas for Q4+

• Use GPT3.5 to sum up large text bodies
• Improve search Indexing of Posts
• Make every single feature of the App 100% usuable for Blind, deaf and color blind people
• Add a keyword ban (e.g. you don't want anything with "Beans" in your feed)
• Improve PWA Experience until it feels like a native app
• Think about making a native app

That's it for Update #6!

Thanks for stopping by and see you all soon!

Dev Update 5!

As always, you can view the changes yourself on nemmy.app.

Example of the new Embeds

What's new?

• Login (and Logout)
• Auth (like a welcome screen), Login and Signup pages
• Embeds on Posts
• Voting on Posts
• User Page
• Collapsing Comment Chains
• Comments can now be reloaded manually if a Lemmy Server doesn't work again
• The Navigation bar now can adapt it's contents to fit the page context
• New GitHub Readme
• Markdown Support

What's next?

There's a Roadmap on the new Readme which I will try to keep up-to-date.

The next steps will be voting on Comments and being able to Register, as well as Creating Posts and Comments.

Here's the full Roadmap from the GitHub Readme:

• [x] Basic APIs
• [ ] Voting
  • [X] Voting on Posts
  • [ ] Voting on Comments
• [x] PWA
• [ ] Auth
  • [X] Login
  • [ ] Register
• [ ] Creating Content
  • [ ] Creating Comments
  • [ ] Creating Posts
• [ ] Offline Features
  • [ ] Content Cache
  • [ ] Upload when online
• [ ] Customization
  • [ ] User Themes
  • [ ] Compact Style (Like compact.reddit)
  • [ ] Classic Style (Like old.reddit)
• [ ] QoL Features
  • [ ] Auto-Register to other instances
  • [ ] Subscribe to the same community on multiple instances (like c/nemmy on Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml)
  • [ ] Bulk Block/Hide Communities with the same or similar Name
  • [ ] Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Communities while in Search mode (So you don't need to leave the Search page just to unsubscribe/subscribe)

New Auth, Login and Register Pages

The new User Page

I like the animation, odometer style. It works exceedingly well = I can downvote thirty-seven times and see the vote decrease thirty-seven times.

Not sorry to the damn cat photo that got downvoted hard as I discovered this.

Hi all, Dev Update #4 here

Today I didn't have much time to work on Lemmy, so not a lot has changed.

Installable App

Nemmy is now available as an installable PWA for Android, IOS and Windows (10&11).

The App is also currently in review for a Google Play Store entry and I swear to god I only had bad experiences building Apps yet and this is just another one. So many errors and weird workarounds. Also, working with Java (Kotlin) sucks. (This also means that I will look for Alpha Testers soon)

However, Nemmy won't appear in the IOS App Store for at least some time since it's way too expensive (100$/Year just for the listing). So IOS Users will have to use the PWA (which is basically the same though).

With this update, Nemmy also received new Icons, Banners etc.

New Domain

Previously, Nemmy was available via a temporary URL provided by the hosting provider (www.nemmy.vercel.app).

Now, Nemmy is reachable via https:/nemmy.app and, of course, https://www.nemmy.app

Well, that's it for today.

I will continue working on the community page, Login and User page over the next couple of days.

See you soon :)

To do that, visit the new URL nemmy.app and click the install button. On phones that's usually in the sidebar/options menu.

Hello again, time for Update #3

First off: As always, the live version is here for you to try out.

Post Page

Today I mainly worked on the Post page, which "works" now.

And here's how the comment section looks (there should also be comment chain lines for nested comments but I'm still working on that)

For some reason, the post content fails to load frequently and I'm not too sure if that's a problem on my side or if the popular Lemmy instances are still overloaded - I will investigate that further over the next days.

I've also made a loading card animation, which should be a lot better than the plain "Loading" text (which wasn't even visible in light mode)

Light Mode Updates

I also made big improvements to the Light mode (which right now can only be activated by setting the browser/OS theme)

Mobile design improvements

Well that's it for todays Update

Over the next days I will fix some current bugs and add more features like Login, Search and a Community Page. Thanks for stopping by!

That version is live on Nemmy. Heads up: The Post page is buggy as hell right now. If it doesn't load, just refresh until it does.

Hey everyone, I'm back with todays progress update :).

As always, you can try out the newest version for yourself here

Design

I updated the color palette because the black background was a little harsh on non-OLED devices. So now it's a little more shaded. The Post and Navigation Bar designs got also a little update.

The new Mobile Design

The updated Desktop design

Roadmap

For now, I will continue working on the Feed design and will also start designing the Post page tomorrow.

After that is done, I will code the login process and then all the features related to a user (e.g. the "Home" feed, commenting, voting etc.).

All-in-all I think it'll take about a week or so until the features are all there and the design is passable as a prototype.

Well, that's it for update 2!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you next time :).

Hi everyone,

this is the first progress update of Nemmy!

I'll start things off by answering a few questions you might have:

Why am I doing this?

I love the idea of Lemmy being a federated Network rather than a single entity like Reddit and I want to fully leave Reddit behind me and use Lemmy. However, I'm not that fond of the default design for Websites right now.

There are a few alternatives for phones, but not really yet for Desktop Browsers, so I'm doing one myself.

What are the Project goals?

The first goal will be to have all features a typical User would want working and a UX that's better than or on-par with the default Website.

Can I help out?

Yes! This project is, of course, fully open source. Here is the GitHub Repo.

Design

Currently, I'm designing the first iteration of the Website, this means that it's very rough (e.g. placeholder Images, Icons, Text).

As for the design, this is what I've got after around half an hour of trying things out:

The Posts are "inspired" by Reddits design right now, but I plan to change that

I'm also planning on adding a compact version (again, "inspired by Reddit for now)

Colors

As for the colors, I'm thinking dark mode by design with an optional light mode in the future. The Dark mode will heavily rely on black/shaded backgrounds, I'm going to refer to the Material Design 3 guidelines on that.

But I'm also planning on incorporating something like "Material You" into the Website, with which Users can change the complete color palette with ease.-->

That's it for Dev Update #1

If you have any questions, feedback, suggestions or anything else really, feel free to let me know :)

Welcome to Nemmy! This project is highly work-in-progress.

Right now I'm in the middle of the design phase and will be posting updates shortly.

If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to share them with me :)