Technology

PWA = progressive web app = a webpage-based app, as opposed to a native app for whatever OS you're using.

for those like me who didn't know what it meant

Ive been exclusively browsing on mobile web, same as I did reddit. This layout is much more user friendly forsure.

I'm also finding it really effective. I only hate that backing out from a post is a crapshoot on whether it preserves my scroll position, resets to the top, or reloads the entire feed.

When you think about it it's so weird that it feels like a novelty when a website works well as a website without needing dedicated software, but that's enshittification for ya, has us so used to that artificial barrier that we accept it as normal when it isn't

The Web app is really good! The only issue I have with it since it got updated to 0.18 is that when you click a post link and press back to go to your community, it reloads the entire community and takes your scroll position all the way to the top. It's really killed the experience on mobile for me and it didn't do that prior to 0.18 I found.

Anyone else having the same issue?

Installing it as a PWA on my iPhone causes the history buttons to disappear (since they're part of the browser). This means that if I open a comments page, I can't get back to the post list again. I can tap on the logo to get to the main page, but my scrolling position is lost, so I'd have to scroll down to find where I stopped scrolling last time.

Yeah no, still have to use an app.

Whichever way you look at it, Lemmy is pretty great.

Oh yeah I tried it. And it even worked better than jerboa in some ways until jerboa had some updates. It still has some features that jerboa doesn't have, like opening links to other instances within your own instance (that's a huge problem right now for me). So yeah the webpage version is still competitive with this app but probably not for too long.

Did any of you guys try it as well? What's your opinion?

In respect to Lemmy as a whole, I'm trying to exercise a lot patience.

One of the first things I did was install it as a PWA. It has a sleek UI, but some bugs makes it incredibly hard for me to use. One of the worst is an issue with several of the combo boxes which repeatedly flashing on use. I have to try hitting the appropriate selection multiple times in hopes of it eventually taking.

I use Jerboa most of the time inspite of the many bugs, but I usually end up having to open the PWA for missing functionality.

Like I said...

Lots... And lots...

And lots... of patience.

Agreed! Only deal breaker I can see for me is that using a PWA with Safari in iOS instead of Memmy means that when I open a link and go back it starts from the top again. Obviously doesn’t occur when I can open a new tab in the browser but still definitely annoying.

I started using Lemmy like that, without any apps. It's fine, specially on desktop.

Yup, and via hermit as well.

It has benefits over jerboa in that everything works right.

But jerboa is a better overall experience because of the way it uses the screen in a balanced way. Coming from reddit 3rd party apps, browsers and PWAs are so clunky. Even old reddit suffers from that, though. New reddit at least is visually closer to app layouts.

Which is tangential. But until jerboa catches up, it's going to be glitchy, which is annoying in its own right, like some community links just crashing the app.

0.18 will also massively improve the user experience for y'all (whenever Beehaw updates). They ripped out the old websockets architecture, which eliminates all of the weird glitches like upvotes disappearing or random posts popping up in your feed.

I’m primarily using Mlem on iOS cause the PWA was always kinda janky for me

I'm trying out Jerboa but also definitely prefer the current web interface as a PWA on Android. I'd rather have just a great responsive mobile and desktop web interface as my main way to use Lemmy.

I think that we get too used to relying on mobile apps because the corpo sites don't care about doing anything beyond the bare minimum cookie-cutter UI to get users, and so we rely on this party apps to actually provide useful features.

I'm hoping that the fediverse can bring out a lot of interesting and useful web design options, for Lemmy and Mastodon and the other federated tools. Having something that is open and beautiful (and functional) should be a part of the plans for increasing adoption and drawing in more people to the community.

I've never understood the appeal to make a standalone app when a solid PWA can be just as good.

It really is pretty good, especially after 0.18. It’ll obviously be great when high quality apps are available, but the mobile experience is already good enough for being completely free.

Entirely agree. Firefox mobile shortcut is the best alternative out there in terms of UX

I’m really not a fan of the lemmy / kbin web UIs but I recently installed wefwef.app as a PWA and I really like it.

Personally, I have not setup an app yet. Web version is all I know so far, and I'm coming from old.reddit as my previous standby anyways. I mistakenly paid for Fedilab, only to find it doesn't support Lemmy, or at least not the instance I'm on.

Lemmy web does what I want and expect so far, although subscribing across instances could be smoother.

I've been using the PWA on my tablet and I switch between the PWA and jerboa on my phone. The PWA seems more stable but the upvote and collapse comment buttons are a little too small for my taste.

It's the only pwa ever to work for me. I use firefox and I'd say this is as fast as when I use jerboa. And I like the way it looks too.

I don't really like the top buttons for sidebar subscribed etc. Jerboa moves all the information into better spots I think as it treats the interface as more of an application then a web page.

I'm posting currently from the PWA after I enabled 2FA on my account (not currently working with Jerboa). It's nice and works well, but I prefer the more compact list view present in Jerboa. Other than that, no complaints!

I‘m using both Lemmy and kbin in my browser just fine. Though I‘d like to use a nice iPhone app eventually, it‘s not strictly necessary for me to enjoy browsing and posting.

I've been really enjoying thunder for Lemmy.

I only use the web UI, jerboa didn't click with me. The only issue I have with it s that collapsing comments can be tricky.

This is how I've been using kbin.