this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Lemmy App Development

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Potential Idea: A Lemmy App Inspired by the Official Reddit App (literature.cafe)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Has any developer ever considered creating a Lemmy app that closely mimics the OFFICIAL Reddit app's design and functionality?

To be clear, I'm not referring to the excellent work done by former third-party Reddit app developers who've transitioned to Lemmy (like Infinity, Sync, etc.).

Instead, I'm talking about an app that specifically recreates the UI/UX of the OFFICIAL Reddit app, but tailored for Lemmy's federated structure.

While I personally don't really use Reddit that much, I recognize that many Reddit Users find its interface familiar and easy to navigate.

This familiarity could be a significant advantage in onboarding new users to Lemmy, especially those coming directly from Reddit.

Perhaps name it something like:

LemmyRed

RedLemmy

Lemmit

Leddit

Remmy

Reddy

etc.

Some potential benefits of such an app:

Easier transition for Reddit users moving to Lemmy

Familiar interface for casual users who aren't as tech-savvy

Potentially wider adoption of Lemmy due to lowered learning curve

I personally believe that this could be an interesting project, but I'll be honest - I don't have the time, energy, or technical knowledge to tackle it myself.

I'm curious if any developers have ever considered this idea or would be interested in exploring it.

What are your thoughts on this?

Do you see potential in a Lemmy app that closely mirrors the Official Reddit app's design?

Are there any developers who might be interested in taking on such a project?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

but the official app is absolutely garbage?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

That's just your opinion, though.

Plenty of other people like it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Both of these are web apps that can be "installed" to function in a traditional app-like experience and both largely mimic the Reddit app look/feel:

  • Tesseract: Fairly closely mirrors "new" Reddit circa 2022-2023
  • Photon: Fairly closely mirrors current "new" Reddit

Granted, both of those have some concessions for Lemmy (API limitations, federated paradigm, etc), but both are going for the "new" Reddit-like UX.

I develop Tesseract (itself a fork of an old version of Photon), and I've taken only what I like from Reddit's app/web UI and left out what I didn't.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

It could be done by patching the official reddit app to replace reddit.com with a server we control, and then implement that server to bridge api calls made by reddit to lemmy