After all the other comments I was thinking randomly auto select one of the instances that meets certain criteria, but you make a good argument. Giving people choice over their server was what I was initially thinking when I came up with this planet analogy.

That’s what I was thinking! But I’m not sure that is better than just randomizing the default instance. Randomizing would have almost the same effect with much less user friction.

I’m so dumb. That literally solves so many problems. I just have to confirm that works with the login endpoint. Thanks!

Edit: I’m not dumb. You can’t login with your instance at the end of the username. I also need to check if @ is a valid username character.

I’ll look into it, thanks! Maybe I’ll run it by a non technical friend and see if they get it.

What I could do is pick an instance at random and see if I can write that instance to app storage that persists on reinstall. That way, they don’t lose their account by not remembering what instance. That doesn’t solve the web.

The issue is password managers save username and password, but I need to save instance as a 3rd value. I wonder if I can prepend the instance to the front of their username in a way that the password manager picks it up, then slice it off later when they log in. But that’s kinda hacky.

Ooo yes! But I would like keep it much shorter.

Remember this is an onboarding flow for an app. It has to capture the user and explain things well without losing their attention.

What I want to avoid is “hey, select an instance from this menu”. “Wtf is an instance?”

Voyager gets around this by defaulting to an instance (lemmy.ee I think) before you log in, but my plan was to have them select when they launch the app for the first time.

Write a letter to the lemmy devs and ask them to rewrite the backend to use htmx.

I disagree. I spent some time earlier this year working on a BlueSky client that would work completely without JavaScript. Working without JavaScript means it has to run on a web server somewhere. Using JavaScript means the client can run entirely on your computer with the only dependency being the Lemmy server you connect to. And since there are many Lemmy servers, this means no single entity that can pull the plug on you.

The only alternative I see is a native app that runs a non-JS client on your computer, or maybe WebAssembly? Seriously though, modern JavaScript is actually very capable. You might be dismissing it only because it’s popular to hate on JavaScript or maybe the current Lemmy clients aren’t good. That doesn’t mean the underlying issue is JavaScript.

I’ve abandoned my BlueSky client to work on a Lemmy client that will be written in JS but can run entirely on your computer.

I’m working on my own Lemmy client that I’m hoping will be both a better UI, but also universally better as an app (phone and tablet), MacOS app, and on the web. Voyager provides a web version, but it’s not optimized for larger screens.

My app will deliver the best experience on all screen sizes and will take the best of Reddit, Voyager, etc.

I’m 14 days in lol but if anyone is interested please DM me. I’m happy to share what I’m working on, but I just ask you have realistic expectations as this will likely be 6+ month project to deliver something that can actually compete with existing clients.

I also prefer the look of the advantage.

Geist Totem also looks sick!

Yeah, but it didn’t seemed as stable or well built as the Advantage. And for a travel keyboard it’s not flat enough imo. But I know a lot of people like it and I didn’t actually get a chance to try it. But the Advantage does feel very solidly built.

That’s perfect! Thank you!

Interesting. The only type of ortho keyboard I’ve used is a tented split ortho keyboard. Didn’t consider that I might not prefer ortho without the other features

I’m working on my own app for lemmy, but it’s so early stage I have a long way to go. Literally started on it a week ago. And honestly I’m not sure if anyone will ever use it.

But I cross posted this to the lemmyapps community. I think the maintainers of some of the more popular lemmy clients are active there.

Ohhh that makes sense! Thank you!

I was just looking at image_details but for the height and width of the image. I see this exists in the TypeScript client schema, but I’m not seeing it populated for any posts. Any idea when this is actually populated?

Knowing the height and width of images before loading them would reduce layout shift.

I wouldn’t mind a weekend project! How do keycaps work for custom layouts? I don’t have a 3d printer and that’s the area I feel least comfortable in if that’s required.

Does Lemmy need to implement this? You might be able to pull most of this data from the API. I might try and build something like this myself at some point, but likely won’t have time until next year.

If you didn’t buy the Advantage 360 yet, there is a refurbished store and I found a $50 off coupon. Saved about $100 on the Advantage 360 Pro. The pro wound up being cheaper. You can use it for the backlight but wired if you don’t want Bluetooth.