Hi everyone!

This update adds push notifications, a bunch of fixes and a few requested improvements. It also turned out that the second RC for Lemmy v19 broke a lot of things in the API, so those issues are fixed in this update too.

Here's the changelog:

Avelon 1.0.8

• Added push notifications
• Added support for Lemmy version 19
• Added option to always show post authors
• Removed karma/upvote counts for user profiles
• Fixed issue with page animations not showing properly on iOS 17.1+ and some other 17.1 issues
• Fixed API issue with some accounts that could greatly reduce performance
• Fixed a rare hang in the subscriptions page
• Fixed crash when tapping enter after writing an emoji
• Fixed a crash caused by certain corrupted images
• Fixed UI layout issues in some rare scenarios
• Fixed performance issues with some posts
• Fixed a rare crash triggered by some feed types
• Various other bugfixes and improvements

Apologies for the slow communication lately, I've been in a busy period and haven't had as much time to put into Lemmy as usual.

Hope you enjoy the update!

Hi everyone,

For the past weeks I've been working hard on a push notification service for Avelon that is finally ready for open beta! This feature involves a completely new cloud service that automatically notifies you whenever someone replies to your posts/comments, and it simultaneously supports multiple accounts you might have. Although the app itself doesn't change much with this new Testflight build, there's a lot of stuff happening in the background to make push notifications happen.

My goal with the open beta is to test the service with many more users to see how it scales under heavier load. I'm not sure how powerful of a server it'll need - and as many of you might know cloud compute isn't exactly cheap. The service isn't quite done yet, so while I keep working on it you should expect downtime and occasionally delayed notifications.

How to join

• Download the latest 1.0.8 testflight build
• Open Avelon and go to Settings/Notifications
• Enable notifications for the accounts you wanna use

When you're testing, I'm especially interested in verifying that you're not getting any duplicate notifications and that you're receiving notifications for all the accounts you've enabled. Also, please share any bugs you might find or thoughts about how to improve things!

Notifications should still work if you go back to the App Store version without deleting the app, but notifications won't open the post and the notification badge will probably not behave properly. This is just a result of the previous version not supporting notifications yet, and will ofc be resolved with the official release!

Technical stuff for those interested

The push notification service is written in Rust, which is a pretty awesome language. This is my first time using it for a complete solution, but I must say I'm already sold on the features the language offers. Ensuring performance and security was a breeze compared to many other languages I've used. For those unaware, Lemmy itself is also written in Rust.

I've prioritized making sure the service scales well with many users, whilst not being heavier than necessary on the Lemmy servers. All traffic from the Avelon service is properly tagged to make it easy for instance owners to verify that the traffic is legit, and not some kind of DOS attack. If the traffic turns out to be a bit heavy for any instance owners, please don't hesitate to contact me to discuss how I can tweak the service to be less demanding on your server.

With the addition of push notifications I'll also update the privacy badge on the App Store to include (opt-in) collection of device identifiers. This is just a practical necessity to know which device to send notifications to. Apple continuously shuffles these random IDs, and they are the only ones who know who each one belongs to. The Avelon service simply sends a notification with the ID to Apple, and they figure out which device to forward it to. And of course, if you disable push notifications in the app all your info is immediately deleted from the notification server.

Thanks for reading & helping me test!

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks so much for everyone using Avelon and everyone who've decided to support the development by upgrading, it really means a lot! All the feedback in the post following the release of pro was definitely insightful. If you're unaware, I recommend reading the post as well as my reply here.

I've decided to push towards a 1.0.7 release a bit earlier than planned to address everyone's feedback. My goal with these changes is to provide a wider range of features in a more basic free variant, whilst offering more extensive customization options and an even better experience as an optional upgrade. This way everyone gets to try out more stuff for free, and if you want the full capabilities you can feel confident that the features work as you'd expect. This setup is more in line with other apps as well as the feedback from all of you.

In addition to tweaks to the free tier, the update contains a new text selection tool, a new dark theme, the ability to lock the app with FaceID, more filtering options + lots of QOL improvements and bug fixes.

Full Changelog

Adjustments to the free/pro tiers

• Added a basic jump button to the free version
  • The smart jump button with extra settings and customisation remains pro
• Everyone now has access to a limited number of custom filters for free
  • The pro version includes unlimited filters and new filtering options
• The maximum number of profiles in the free tier is now three (guest + 2 custom accounts)
  • This change does not affect any accounts you've already added
  • The pro version has unlimited accounts
• Added a free 7 day trial option to enable everyone test out the pro features
• Added various descriptions to pro settings to more clearly explain what they do
• Replaced the groups “pro” tag in subscriptions with a link to a more details about the feature

New pro features

• Added ability to lock the app with FaceID
• Added new dark theme ‘Hacker man’
• Added option to place the smart jump button anywhere, not just around the edges
• Added ability to filter independently on either the post title or post body

New features, QOL improvements and bug fixes

• Added tool to select text from comments & posts
• Added ability to delete your own posts
• Added share option to links and comments
• Improved prioritizations for swipe gestures
  • This should prevent accidental downvotes when you’re trying to swipe back!
• Fixed issue where editing markdown links would sometimes show weird characters and symbols
• Limited the maximum number of smart link previews in posts
  • This should keep “link aggregation” posts from being unnecessarily long
• Fixed issue where adding accounts would sometimes fail
• Fixed issue where swipe-to-go-forward could sometimes break after tapping the navbar to go back
• Removed option to report/block yourself
• Lots of minor bug fixes and improvements

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4709002

Hi everyone!

It's been quite the journey, but Avelon is finally on the App Store!

Click here to download!

The app is includes a lot of awesome features requested by the community, including:

• Sleek design that fits right in on iOS & iPadOS
• Highly customizable look & behavior
• Mark read on scroll & hide read posts
• Customizable swipe gestures
• Multiple account support
• Smart link previews in posts and comments
• Support for videos, gifs, photos & other media
• Custom font support
• Write replies with markdown highlighting
• Privacy focused - the app has no tracking of any kind
• Gallery mode + hide bars on scroll = full immersion ... and a lot more!

Screenshots

Here's some cool app store screenshots of the app:

Developing this app has been one of the best development experiences I've had, and I feel very privileged and happy to have been able to contribute to Lemmy in this way. Nothing is more motivating than seeing so many people already enjoying the app and providing suggestions and feedback.

I really hope you enjoy Avelon, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about what everyone thinks. Keep the feedback coming!

Thank you, Sigve Rokenes

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4073656

Heyo everyone,

This update brings a few cool new features, most notably:

• Smart link previews
  • Now shown in comments and posts
  • Previews for communities, users and regular links
• Image carousels
  • For posts with lots of images!
• iPad support
• Layout/ui tweaks
• Bug fixes and other improvements

Download on Testflight

Check out this image gallery in the latest build to see how it works:

(just scroll through it!)

I figured (like some other devs) that some iPad support is better than none. Though the layout is not built from the ground up for iPad, it now fills the whole screen and pushes in some content. This is similar to how other apps like Apollo did it, and it looks much nicer than than a scaled up phone app. I haven't had time to test this version much, so please let me know if you discover any weird stuff.

The update also introduces a custom markdown rendering system that enables me to add things like link previews and image carousels. Seems to work pretty well now, but could definitely be some bugs with it for certain posts - if you find any, let me know!

Hope you enjoy the update!

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/2944211

Hi everyone! Thanks for all the feedback so far, lot’s of really great suggestions and useful criticism! I’m very happy to see so many people using the app, nothing is more motivating honestly.

This update adds a bunch of requested features, including:

• Multiple account support
  • Hold down the tab-icon to switch!
• Profile pages
  • Tap any user to see their comments, posts and recent activity
• Favorite subscriptions
  • For those of you with just a tad too many communities to keep track of
• Share sheet integration for posts & images
• Added option to block communities/users
• Added new page to view saved comments
• Improved the UI for settings

Since the last update I’ve also added:

• Full-width swipe to go back (super nice for large phones!)
• Smarter option to show both downvotes and upvotes only for controversial …in addition to a bunch of bug fixes and improvements all-around.

Hope you enjoy the new changes, and let me know what you think!

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/2030083

Hi everyone!

First of all thank you for all the amazing feedback I have gotten so far. I was a bit overwhelmed by the response on my first release, but I'm happy to see so many people enjoying Avelon. This update addresses a ton of the most common feedback I have received with a lot of useful new features including swipe gestures, a new inbox and a new subscriptions page.

Download on Testflight

Community: !avelon@lemm.ee

Changelog

• Swipe gestures for posts and comments
  • Fully customizable! Head over to the new gestures page in settings
  • Quickly perform actions such as upvote, downvote, save and reply
  • Also added swipe gestures to various other parts of the UI
• Inbox to view your replies
  • Quickly respond using gestures
  • Quickly open the relevant post
• New subscriptions page
  • More compact, grouped alphabetically
  • Not a tab any more (reachable by swiping back in posts)
• Community links now work in-app
• Added ability to save comments
  • No way to see saved comments atm. Coming later!
• Added customizability to thumbnail position
• Add option to enable more sort options (6 hours, 12 hours, 3 months etc.)
• Add option to show both upvotes and downvotes
• Added ability to save etc. from within a post
• Add swipe gestures to the in-app-webview
• Add purple accent color (yellow too in previous build)
• Reworked navigation system (no longer brings you to a different tab unexpectedly)
• Restructured settings a bit (will be more changes here over time)
• Fixes issue where your own votes would often be counted twice
• Fixed some typos
• Fixed alignment issues with tab bar
• Fixed overflow issue with some posts (hopefully)
• Attempted to temporarily fix ios17 reply crash
• Lots of other things I probably should have written down earlier

Screenshots

Known Issues / Future Features

• Adding posts
• Viewing profile pages
• Viewing saved comments
• Blocking/filtering
• Multiple accounts
• Adjusting text size
• And more stuff!

Replies have been crashing on the iOS 17 beta and I've added a temporary fix that hopefully resolves this (though it lacks markdown highlighting). I'm not on the beta yet myself so unable to verify or add a proper fix for now, will look at this once I get a device on the beta.

Given how many features this update adds, I do expect the build to be a bit less stable than before. If you encounter any bugs/crashes I really appreciate your feedback, either here or through testflight.

Hope you enjoy the update, and let me know what you think about all the new features!

Hi everyone!

First of all thank you for all the amazing feedback I have gotten so far. I was a bit overwhelmed by the response on my first release, but I'm happy to see so many people enjoying Avelon. This update addresses a ton of the most common feedback I have received with a lot of useful new features including swipe gestures, a new inbox and a new subscriptions page.

Download on Testflight

Changelog

• Swipe gestures for posts and comments
  • Fully customizable! Head over to the new gestures page in settings
  • Quickly perform actions such as upvote, downvote, save and reply
  • Also added swipe gestures to various other parts of the UI
• Inbox to view your replies
  • Quickly respond using gestures
  • Quickly open the relevant post
• New subscriptions page
  • More compact, grouped alphabetically
  • Not a tab any more (reachable by swiping back in posts)
• Community links now work in-app
• Added ability to save comments
  • No way to see saved comments atm. Coming later!
• Added customizability to thumbnail position
• Add option to enable more sort options (6 hours, 12 hours, 3 months etc.)
• Add option to show both upvotes and downvotes
• Added ability to save etc. from within a post
• Add swipe gestures to the in-app-webview
• Add purple accent color (yellow too in previous build)
• Reworked navigation system (no longer brings you to a different tab unexpectedly)
• Restructured settings a bit (will be more changes here over time)
• Fixes issue where your own votes would often be counted twice
• Fixed some typos
• Fixed alignment issues with tab bar
• Fixed overflow issue with some posts (hopefully)
• Attempted to temporarily fix ios17 reply crash
• Lots of other things I probably should have written down earlier

Screenshots

Known Issues / Future Features

• Adding posts
• Viewing profile pages
• Viewing saved comments
• Blocking/filtering
• Multiple accounts
• Adjusting text size
• And more stuff!

Replies have been crashing on the iOS 17 beta and I've added a temporary fix that hopefully resolves this (though it lacks markdown highlighting). I'm not on the beta yet myself so unable to verify or add a proper fix for now, will look at this once I get a device on the beta.

Given how many features this update adds, I do expect the build to be a bit less stable than before. If you encounter any bugs/crashes I really appreciate your feedback, either here or through testflight.

Hope you enjoy the update, and let me know what you think about all the new features!

Hi there fellow Apple enthusiasts!

Yesterday I announced that my native iOS app for Lemmy called Avelon is finally ready for testing, and I figured some people here might also be interested in checking it out!

My focus for the app has been performance, design and ease of use. As you can probably tell I got a lot of inspiration from Apollo and other iOS-first apps - but I think I've added my own cool spin on both the design and functionality.

Here's a couple screenshots of the app:

If you wanna try it out I'd greatly appreciate any feedback/suggestions so I know what to focus on next! I think the core experience is pretty solid already, but the app still lacks some important features such as adding new posts.

Download Avelon (Testflight)

Avelon is developed in Swift using almost enitrely SwiftUI. For those unfamiliar, SwiftUI is the newest UI library by Apple intended to replace things like UIKit over time. SwiftUI is cross platform, so Avelon also runs on macOS actually, though the UI is not tweaked to fit mac just yet. The tech is really great to work with, and it makes it super easy to fit right into iOS. I posted some more details about the project over on the community page for the app here if you wanna check it out.

Thanks, let me know what you think!

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/1358038

Hi everyone! I'm happy to announce that my iOS Lemmy app "Avelon" is finally ready for beta testing! I've been working tirelessly on the app lately and I think it is turning into a quite solid experience now. I'm very excited to hear what you think and gather more feedback before I move towards an App Store release.

My focus for Avelon has been to polish the base functionality as much as possible to ensure that the day-to-day browsing feels as good as possible. I've also done things a bit differently to make it easier for new people to try out the Fediverse. Rather than requiring new users to look through a complicated list of instances the first time, the app automatically shuffles a list of preset instances so you don't need to think about it until later when you register. This will hopefully also reduce the load on individual servers.

Features

Avelon already supports quite a few cool features:

• Posts and feeds
  • Clean UI to explore all your feeds
  • A pretty nice comment view
  • Support for images, GIFs, videos, youtube
  • See community feeds and sidebars
  • Quick search communities and subscriptions
• Login to your account
  • Reply to posts/comments (with markdown highlighter!)
  • View and edit your old comments
  • Upvote comments and posts
  • View/manage your followed communities
• Design & customization
  • Dark and light mode with customizable accent color
  • Compact posts, large posts and gallery view
  • Footer/header bars automatically hide for a cleaner experience
  • Change behavior such as tap to collapse, default sorting etc.
  • Long press actions for a less cluttered interface

..and probably some other things I can't remember just now.

Screenshots

Check these out!

Join the beta

The beta is available on testflight through this link (limited to 1000 testers for now):

Join Avelon Beta on Testflight

The app is supported on all iPhones with iOS 16 and higher (worked ok on my old iPhone X!). I'd love to hear what you think about the overall user experience, design, functionality, stability as well as any bugs or issues you might find. A few important features are still missing, most notably adding new posts. I'd love to hear what additions you are most interested in me looking at first:

• Creating posts
• Viewing users comments/posts
• Saving posts/comments
• Report/mod tools
• Multiple accounts
• Themes/more customization
• Improved image/video viewer
• Anything else?

Thank you & future plans

First, I'd like to thank Christian Selig (the developer of the Apollo app) for creating a really amazing app that I've been using every day for the last several years. As you can tell, Avelon is definitely inspired by Apollo (though I think I've put my own personal spin on the design and functionality!).

If people enjoy Avelon I'd like to spend more of my free time working on it and improving the app over time. In the spirit of transparency, I'd like to mention that I might do some kind of "pro" version at some point later on to support the project. All the base functionality people need will of course be free, but pro features could be additional "nice-to-have" features like themes or advanced tools etc. I'm not planning to do anything paid just yet though, just wanted to mention it. Right now my focus is to provide a great experience and to help build the Lemmy platform into something even better.

Finally I'd like to thank the Lemmy developers as well as everyone using the platform. Everyone contributing is making this platform the amazing place it is turning into. I personally haven't browsed the site-that-should-not-be-named since the API shut down - I decided to spend all that time on developing this app instead. And I'm really excited to see what Lemmy becomes over the years.

Sigve Røkenes

/evgiz