Making this post to communicate some rough thoughts I have. Everything is still in flux so nothing is certain yet. Will make edits to this post as I flesh these ideas out.
I’m planning to implement several design changes I’ve been thinking about for a while. The primary purpose of these changes is to make the default post feed look better.
Rest assured all of these changes will be configurable so if it’s not to your taste you can switch back. Most of these changes should only apply if you have default settings as well.
Here that the design changes I’ve been thinking about:
- A lighter, more compact version of the post header. Currently the post feed without header is very minimal which is fine but as a result it hides information that could be useful such as a description of the community. The post header offered in Summit is a bit large and might show too much information. I’m looking for a compromise between the two so you see a bit more information but it doesn’t take up as much of the screen. I’m planning to have this light header on by default.
- Smarter individual post headers. Currently the default post header shows a large icon, the community name, when it was posted, the author and some tags of the author. This is a ton of information and it can take up a decent amount of screen space. it might be better to reduce the information slightly and have it adjust based on the context. Eg. if you are browsing a specific community, the community name being on every post is less useful. The aim of smart headers is to minimize the amount of information presented on each post item in the feed while still showing you the most important information.
- A new post layout that will be a redesign of the post list layout. The post list layout is my personal favorite layout but it’s looking outdated. I’m considering making a new post list layout that will be a mix of the current post list and the compact layout with a more modern design. This will be the new default layout.
Changes so far
- Fix a bug where post/comment scores can get stale and not update.
- Fix a bug where jump to comment button doesn’t work.
- Fix a bug where sliders in settings can be finicky.
- Fix a bug where rotating the screen continuously on the post feed will cause the post feed to become blank.
- Fix a bug when loading child comments where only 10 comments can be loaded.
- Add setting to disable generating thumbnails from video urls.
- Fix a bug where spoiler tag aren’t parsed if there isn’t a space between “:::” and “spoiler”.
- Fix a bug where the bottom bar is obstructed in post screen if a post is opened via link.
- Fix a bug where errors in the post feed can block all other UI elements, forcing the user to back out of the app.
- Fix a bug where hide bot accounts setting is not visible.
Is there a before/after comparison picture we can see to know the difference?
Not yet. I’m still designing the UI. Post will be updated with designs once I have them.
Can you make a new post? Lemmy doesn’t tell me when a post gets updated. 😞
Sure.
Good news. I like Summit, but it’s definitely got room to improve aesthetically.
Those ideas sound really good! I would like to comment a couple of things I’ve been thinking about as well if that’s ok.
Sometimes posts will show duplicate pictures/videos, I don’t know what causes this but it makes the feed pretty cluttered sometimes. I can find examples if it helps.
The other thing is the comment icon on the post feed. When you tap on the comment icon currently, it takes you to the post page. This is redundant because tapping on the description area does the same thing. It would be nice if tapping this button from the post page would take you directly to the comments section of a post. This feature is especially nice for extra long posts. As an example, piefed has this feature as well.
The jump to comments function used to work but I think it broke at some point. Will fix in the next update.
Oh, that’s good to hear, thank you!




