Sync for Lemmy v120 release notes. Notifications, revamped messaging and finally out of beta!

2 years ago by Ljdawson (Sync dev) to c/syncforlemmy

Key points

Message notifications are back!
A big refresh to messaging
- Added a new unified inbox option "all" combining comment replies, mentions and direct messages
- Quick action buttons are now shown for comment replies, mentions and direct messages
- Comment reply actions (more icon) now shows the user and community rows (with additional options)
- Comment replies now show the community icon and post title
- Comment replies have had a visual refresh
- Comment replies, mentions and direct messages can now be quickly reported and marked as read
- Comment replies, mentions and direct messages can now be marked as unread
- Added a quickly reply swipe gesture
- Added page dividers
- Your own send direct messages can now be deleted
- Direct messages are now shown in threads

New

Added .webm support to the image viewer and image peek
Added "linked instances" and "blocked instances" to the instance chip group

Changes

Experimenting with always showing the community icon in feeds
Updated the reply icon

Github issues closed

View mode not updating properly #402
No messages returned snackbar doesn't automatically go away #333
Add ability to disable "view more" toast messages #365
Allow images in comments to use shared element transitions #391
Add new app icons to replace the legacy S4R ones that were removed #389
Add option to swap upvote and down vote colors to match Lemmy #386
Username doesn't show in the account picker if there is no display name #451
Account settings save button not disappearing after saving #448
When swapping between automatic and manual theming, some elements don't change color properly #479
Override sort dialog shows cancel button twice #484
Username of non active account in account picker is empty #492
Crash on startup with latest update #445
Missing username in picker #478
Not showing link options properly and crashing when clicked #513

Other fixes

Fixed a title displaying issue caused by the recent change to titles
Fixed a crash when clicking link options on a text post
Fixed a bug where the description of the current messaging section in the toolbar wouldn't update correctly
Fixed an issue with a broken lift target in messaging causing the status bar not to change color

v122 adds support for a super secret upcoming new feature...

mipadaitu 90 points 2 years ago

This is exactly the reason, after using Sync for YEARS on reddit, I paid for Sync on Lemmy the minute it was available.

This is absolutely the best application for browsing this type of forum. I get why some other folks prefer FOSS/Free/Non-ad based apps, but I have no qualms about shelling out the cash for a really well designed app that I use just about daily.

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ljdawson 46 points 2 years ago

(シ_ _)シ

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Cold_Brew_Enema 31 points 2 years ago

Yeah its not even close. Lj, you are an extremely skilled developer. Thanks for making such a good app

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Macallan 3 points a year ago

When are we getting another update?

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anonymoose 35 points 2 years ago

Added .webm support to the image viewer and image peek

This, along with the other image viewer fixes is a massive quality of life upgrade! 🙌

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lazycouchpotato 35 points 2 years ago

Sync apps have been my go-to for 10 years. Here's to 10 more 🍻

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ljdawson 24 points 2 years ago

🍻

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sabreW4K3 24 points 2 years ago

Holy shit. This looks like an epic update!

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Coelacanth 20 points 2 years ago

Sync is actually just the best.

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Skanky 17 points 2 years ago

You're the best LD!

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ljdawson 15 points 2 years ago

♥️

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can 16 points 2 years ago

In the play store description I noticed you refer to "subs" but they're called "communities" here.

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ljdawson 21 points 2 years ago

Cheers I'll change that.

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can 11 points 2 years ago

Great. You've been killing it lately, thank you.

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can 4 points 2 years ago

While you're at it this setting should probably say "Body" or maybe "post body" instead of "selftext".

Settings shortcut: View type > Show selftext previews

Edit: oh, found it in a couple other spots

Settings shortcut: Post options > Long press selftext to select text

Settings shortcut: Link handling > Expanded selftext links

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kamenlady 2 points 2 years ago

It's been "selftext" since day 1 on reddit iirc. This should stay the way it is. It's part of Sync's identity imo.

When i noticed, back then, i found it funny. Idk if it's intentional or a forgotten placeholder that survived.

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can 10 points 2 years ago

At a certain point Lemmy and Sync are going to find users that weren't redditors and I could see it causing some confusion. It's minor though. Bothers me less than "subs" for sure.

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TransplantedSconie 3 points 2 years ago

Hey, think you could tinker with the "Glide Failed to Grab This Image" bug? It's happening more and more now, and it even happens to images I post.

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Jeze64 14 points 2 years ago

Common LJ W. Happy lifetime Ultra supporter.

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kratoz29 14 points 2 years ago

Excellent work boss, as always 👍🏻

Edit: Wow the messaging section is looking good, Sync for Reddit never looked that nice!

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Muscar 13 points 2 years ago

Superb! Thank you for the hard work!

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CrinterScaked 12 points 2 years ago

Thank you so much for the continued updates!

Something about the fixes for usernames not showing up appears to have undone the fix for #122. I can see my username in plaintext for the current account even though I have hidden the display names.

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d3Xt3r 11 points 2 years ago

This is awesome, nice work!

Hope push notifications are next! (yes, I'm on Ultra)

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UESPA_Sputnik 9 points 2 years ago

Notifications! Yes! Thank you.

(Can someone please reply to this, so that I can test if they work for me? Thanks. 🙂)

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MontyGommo 4 points 2 years ago

Hello, friend

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UESPA_Sputnik 5 points 2 years ago

Thanks. It doesn't seem to work though. I've set it to check for messages every 10 minutes but I get no notification. (The app was closed during that time) 🤔

Does anyone have the some problem? I'm on Android 14 on a Pixel 7 Pro.

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ljdawson 6 points 2 years ago

Able to reproduce this. Seems like setting anything under 15 mins causes an issue. Will patch today.

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UESPA_Sputnik 2 points 2 years ago

Doesn't work with a setting > 15 minutes for me either. I currently have it set at 30 minutes and didn't receive a notification about your reply.

Thanks for looking into it!

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MacedWindow 8 points 2 years ago

Much preferred the old inbox. If I get 5 replies to a comment I dont need to see the post title above all of them (I dont really want to see it above any of them.) I clicked the "show post titles in replies" option in the messaging options section to off but it made no difference.

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can 5 points 2 years ago

I'm wondering that also. The extra functionality is nice but it's going to take some getting used to. I'll adjust though

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can 8 points 2 years ago

Great work, thank you. I'm wondering if you've put any more thought into displaying downvotes on comments? Now that post editing is fixed that's basically the only thing I keep going back to the PWA for.

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Shadow 7 points 2 years ago

New messaging looks awesome!

Is there a way I can bind sync to be my default app for links to my instance? Annoying that someone sends me a lemmy.ca link and I have to go find it manually in sync, or just view it in my browser.

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kellenoffdagrid 8 points 2 years ago

Oh true, Fediverse links are still not handled ideally. I know there's technical limitations to fedi app developers keeping an up-to-date list of domains that their app can open links from, but it would definitely be nice if there were some easier way to do things.

One side note, I've noticed that Megalodon (a Mastodon client) has a pretty good workaround for this issue -- if you use the share sheet to share a link with Megalodon, it gives you the option to post the link or to attempt to open the link in the client. That'd be a pretty killer feature to have in Sync, if there isn't some easier/better way to make it easier to choose certain Lemmy domains to open in Sync by default.

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Hate 5 points 2 years ago

Android Settings -> Apps -> Sync -> Open by default

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Shadow 2 points 2 years ago

Ah that makes sense, thanks! I was looking in the sync options.

Edit: odd it doesn't work. I added every domain, then click a lemmy.world link in discord and it still opens chrome

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Hate 7 points 2 years ago

hmmm, not sure if chrome has this, but for Firefox I use the "Open in App" button, since I have "Open links in apps" set to Never.

Though I can replicate your issue, clicking a lemmy link in Discord brings me to Firefox, whereas clicking a YouTube link in Discord takes me directly to the YouTube app (technically the ReX app)

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mzesumzira 4 points 2 years ago

I had the same issue, you could try Lemmy Redirect (the github repo is named after the Mastodon proxy, but the Lemmy one is there as well), works for me.

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Alsephina 7 points 2 years ago

Any plans on emoji pickers for instances with custom emojis?

Custom emojis also currently render much larger than they should.

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altima_neo 6 points 2 years ago

Thanks boss! Much appreciated

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theUnlikely 6 points 2 years ago

Not sure if you know this already, but spoilers made by people using the website version don't load properly.

The markdown for spoilers can be found here https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/02-media.html

test spoiler

TEST

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theUnlikely 7 points 2 years ago

Hmm that's weird, that one worked. But if I try viewing this post https://sopuli.xyz/post/10635149, the spoilers are a mess.

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mom 3 points 2 years ago

My experience exactly when I tried mentioning the spoiler problem (there's a markdown-specific post here if you wanted to add anything else, btw)

I think there are 3 ways of marking spoilers and Sync only recognizes 1 of them or something. Even on this community's about section there's a spoiler that doesn't work in the app.
¯\_ (ツ) _/¯

the spoilers are a mess.

Yup. They are (for now)!

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can 3 points 2 years ago

Sync actually makes one up based off reddit. Click the markdown button presently and your spoiler won't work on the website. This is being reworked though.

!see!<

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sadbehr 6 points 2 years ago

Nice one.

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Vashtea 5 points 2 years ago

Excellent!

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runswithjedi 5 points 2 years ago

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wahming 5 points 2 years ago

The new default inbox view is pretty unreadable, at least for me. The entire screen is filled by like 1.5 replies, there's tons of dead space. Is there any way to change the view options of the inbox? I can't seem to find any.

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ljdawson 3 points 2 years ago

Not currently. What would you like?

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wahming 8 points 2 years ago

An option to hide the buttons below each reply unless you short / long press the comment, similar to how the normal comment section currently works. That would compress the space each reply takes by quite a bit.
An option to replace the post title with the context of the reply, what comment was the reply posted to? The post title is very frequently irrelevant to the actual discussion taking place.
Have the same swipe options apply to replies as to comments. E.g. upvotes, downvotes, etc.

Granted, I'm not a UI expert, so this is my personal feedback.

Edit to add: This is not to say I hate the changes, love the recent progress on the app :)

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tb_ 4 points 2 years ago

Currently, whenever there has been a new reply, the inbox defaults to (and then remains at) "all unread".

I like having it on "all" and would like for it to remain there.

Could this be an option? For messages to remain at whatever tab they were last set to and stay there when there are new messages.

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CrayonRosary 2 points 2 years ago

Overall, I prefer the old version. Sometimes I need to be reminded of the context of a reply, I can just tap the reply. Other times it's obvious from the message itself.

Right now the post title font is larger then the reply font. It should be the other way around. The reply should be the most obvious thing, and the ancillary stuff should be small and compact. But including the title at all should be optional, as well as the icons.

I personally don't want to see user avatars or community icons or even the post title, really. I also don't need it to have a cute speech bubble. The reply should use the full width to save vertical space.

There's a lot of wasted space for one line replies. And longer replies end up being taller than need be because of the indent. And seeing the same post title over and over is oddly bothersome.

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richieadler 5 points 2 years ago

I cannot open the inbox. I get "Error opening page".

Device information

Sync version: v24.03.20-17:18    
Sync flavor: googlePlay    

View type: Small cards    
Push enabled: false    

Device: lavender    
Model: Xiaomi Redmi Note 7    
Android: 10

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ljdawson 3 points 2 years ago

For all sections?

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richieadler 2 points 2 years ago

Yes.

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ljdawson 4 points 2 years ago

Any chance you could try a different account?

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richieadler 3 points 2 years ago

Weird, it works in another account 🙄

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richieadler 2 points 2 years ago

I tried. My main one cannot access the inbox, others can. Any ideas?

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mom 4 points 2 years ago

Love the update! Thank you, Mr. LJ!

Sadly though, I just got my first reply notification (yay!) … and the inbox notification badge that tells me I have 1 new only shows up on the bottom nav bar and not in my left drawer or more actions inboxes..

I can screenshot them if you need me to.

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ljdawson 4 points 2 years ago

Which action boxes?

Adding it to the drawer is on my todo

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mom 4 points 2 years ago

Using the "More Actions" menu via the three-dots button at the top of my Subscribed feed, this is my view:

In the lower left of that menu is my Inbox icon, with no "new messages" badge. (I admit I don't know all the right words) In the dimmed bg you can see my Bottom Nav bar, with a badge on it.

(Cropped view of the 2 inbox icons)

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sanguinepar 4 points 2 years ago

Question - I notice that the little nav bar dot with a number to indicate new replies or messages is now showing in dark grey rather than orange. I had a look in settings, but I can't see a way to choose the colour for that. Anyone know of a way?

Normally appears here when there's a new reply:

In case it's useful...

Device information

Sync version: v24.03.19-19:12    
Sync flavor: googlePlay    

View type: Smaller cards    
Push enabled: false    

Device: raven    
Model: Google Pixel 6 Pro    
Android: 14

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can 4 points 2 years ago

Is your theme base colour grey?

Settings shortcut: Theme management > Theme base color

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sanguinepar 3 points 2 years ago

It is, yeah - I guess that's the setting for the notification. Thanks very much :-)

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spiderman 3 points 2 years ago

Hi, right now ultra users can either add a new user tag or remove it. Can you please make it editable too? @ljdawson@lemmy.world

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sexual_tomato 3 points a year ago

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Shadow 2 points 2 years ago

This link shows up weird in my feed

https://upload.chat/...

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Tom9870 2 points 7 months ago

This is the best app except spoiler is still broken and has been for two years. Dev can we help with this, please post source because the app is so close to perfect.

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tinned_tomatoes 2 points 2 years ago

I wish this Sync had the "sort communities list by times visited" option like Sync for Reddit

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LovableSidekick 1 point a year ago

Not sure if this is the right place to comment, but I love the recent reordering of comment buttons so Save or Post is the first button. This addresses one of my very few negative thoughts about the UI. Tabbing multiple times to get out of the editor and then hit Enter just became tabbing once. Thank you to the Lemmy team!

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Bassiette -6 points 2 years ago

Is the free version showing ads ??

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mom 13 points 2 years ago

Yes, it does show ads. It does that. (The same way a lot of apps handle free-tier.)

There are other Lemmy apps out there that don't show ads, but I think Sync is the most polished of the bunch.

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