Normally, in commercial services, push notifications require support from the backend. The mechanism works approximately like this: the mobile app registers to a third-party provider such as Firebase Cloud Messaging (on Android) and APNS (on Apple Push Notification System) and obtains a device token, it then makes a network call to the server to communicate their device token (and the user ID this is associated to) and then the server dispatches notifications using the user ID to determine the events of interest and the device token to have it delivered via Firebase or APNS depending on the platform. Lemmy instances, unfortunately, don’t do anything of that so client apps have to periodically poll for new events, which is terrible for both the battery and the network usage. Raccoon is no exception of this, if you look in the “Advanced Settings” screen under the “Experiments” section, there is an item named “Check for unread items in background”. This is an attempt to use Android’s WorkManager APIs to perform scheduled periodic operations such as checking for new mentions/replies/messages. Unfortunately, the scheduler does not seem so reliable so after some time the app is in the background the pending work can never get to be executed. It was an attempt and it should be refined.

If we manage to get in touch with IzzySoft we can, as soon as we have a release, distribute on the IzzyOnDroid F-Droid repo as it was previously done. Then we can reach out to F-Droid maintainers too, to see whether we’re more lucky with the submission.

There are no plans to include any non-free libraries so the new app will be compliant with the guidelines as the previous one was. Unfortunately there were issues with Gradle builds due to some non-reproducibility issues (e.g. due to strings resources) which blocked the validation process.

Obtainium checks under the releases of the repo if there are any stable or pre-release ones, but there is currently no release in this repository.

We are planning to do the first release in the beginning of September, because we decided to properly setup the CI pipeline on GitHub, which had not been done by the previous maintainer due to time constraints (he probably preferred to focus on the development of new features/bug solving rather than on process optimization).

Raccoon is implemented using Jetpack Compose for the UI layer and the Material 3 libraries (some components like pull-to-refresh are in falback mode on Material 2, though) so it should respect the guidelines, e.g. for text fields, bottom navigation, navigation drawer, top application bar, etc.

Where there were blatant violations it has been reported and fixed in the past, e.g. here, here or here. However if you are referring to post layout, the choices are not configurable except for full-width images.

There was a graphic designer once who told spacings were “all wrong” but when asked for suggestions he disappeared. If we could isolate the most painful points and make targeted interventions, it would be super. The next months are going to be dedicated to stabilize and improve the app rather than adding new features.

Is this because you are trying to maximize the number of offended people?

Definitely the second one. The email is safe, it was in a conlang nobody understands except myself.

The same amount of cookies a good cook could cook if a good cook could cook cookies, I guess.

I am one of the best overthinkers of the world, that is why I’m into software development.

I am really an awful car driver, instead.

Not sure, but you reminded me I never check mine. Are you sure the reservoir is not leaking?

That wouldn’t be a bad thing in any case would it?

Spoilers are supported (but not nested ones) unless they contain complex items like lists, in which case itemization is removed in the sanitization stage.

Anyway we’ll continue improving the rendering in future pull requests.

It’s unlikely that any dev “kills” his work after being so committed to it and leaves users, whom he knew almost one by one, with a handful of dust.

This fork is the new official one. A new community has been created recently to replace the old one too.

We are planning to release a new version, at least on GitHub asap. The announcement is likely to be given in tomorrow’s Q&A session (the monthly AMA).

The repository N7-X is a fork of the original one, you can then see what we did since August 1st here. We did not change any binary images except the static assets of the README.md file (which is not shipped in the app packages, it’s just a documentation file).

The improvement in Markdown rendering was even planned, since the “Enable experimental Markdown rendering” option had been added in the Settings screen in debug builds here.

Some comments about the app being last in the benchmark, and about all other apps having scored better made him think his reputation as a developer could be damaged in the real world, so he asked the package name to be changed as done here and here and to use an anonymous GitHub account.

It seems that they have decided to restart here and create a new community here.

If the project gains adoption, we can hope to have it on IzzyOnDroid. As for F-Droid, there have been several issues with reproducible builds, but technically the ones related to l10n resources had been solved. It could be worth trying again.

update: we have decided to continue the project starting from the latest active fork and re-create a new community here.