cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/3232301
Status & Download Links:
| Firefox v1.2.4 | Chrome v1.2.4 | Edge v1.2.3 |
|---|
Download from source: release v1.2.4 (github.com)
- While Edge and Opera are awaiting approval, you can install v1.2.4 from here, or through the Chrome store
Hi everyone!
On the surface, this update brings a handful of features integrating the extension with other tools and services. We have the first of many features from the LemmyTools userscript, as well as the support for Alexandrite and Photon frontends. You can also directly search for communities through Lemmyverse.net and for posts through search-lemmy.com, among other small changes.
The biggest change was behind the scenes. I’ve completely refactored the code throughout the extension. Now that we have a clearer plan for the extension, I simplified all around, such as consolidating most functions to a central utils.js file. I also reworked the settings, and unfortunately this means you may have to add your home instance again. Moving forwards, it should be a lot easier to maintain the extension and for people to collaborate, which brings me to:
Want to help?
Get started:
I’ve put together some notes on how the extension is structured for those that want to help. The extension itself is fairly simple, and it doesn’t use any particular framework or anything. It should a great first project to work on, even if you are just learning or new to web development.
Having more people add to one place would make it easier for users that are juggling many extensions and userscripts. That’s why I’ve been focussed on having a more intuitive structure for the project and leaving detailed notes and comments. I’m also likely not going to have as much time starting next month so I’m trying to do what I can now to get everything rolling.
If you don’t know where to start or just have an idea, let me know and I’ll see what I can do :)
As always, you can add new ideas and issues here: https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant/issues
All new improvements with v1.2.4
New Changes
- search for communities through Lemmyverse.net or for posts through lemmy-search directly from the popup or sidebar
- You now have the option to hide the default Lemmy sidebar (more LemmyTools features to come!)
- Replaced non-functional ‘subscribe’ button on foreign
/communitiespages (only when no account is signed in, so not to replace something functional) - Support for Alexandrite & Photon frontends. Test them here:
- Alexandrite: https://a.lemdro.id/c/lemdroid
- Photon: https://nu.lemdro.id/c/lemdroid
- New ‘communityNotFound’ button to account for alternate frontends: https://lemmy.ca/c/lemdroid@nu.lemdro.id
- Fix for generated link on CommunityNotFound pages
- Completely refactored the code to move repetitive functions to a utils.js file
Future Plans:
- Exploring a ‘Reddit migrator’ tool, similar to the mobile tool in Voyager, powered by lemmyverse.net
- Adding more features from LemmyTools Userscript, with help from /u/howdy@thesimplecorner.org
- Prepping for Firefox Mobile app, now that they are opening mobile up to all extensions!
- Keyboard hotkeys, possibly collaborating with someone that already implemented something similar
- Adding icons and simplifying the design, as the menus are getting very wordy
- settings to limit onboarding / help instructions
- Ability to have multiple ‘home instances’
- Finishing the setup so that people can contribute translations / other languages to the extension.
Do you have a road map or design goals? I’m wondering if you’re going for a RES for Lemmy sort of thing, which has lots of features to help users, or are you sticking to one area in particular?
As an example, I’d be keen for the abilty to have different defaults for different feeds (say, posy sorted to Top day for Subscribed, Comments sorted by New for Local, and posts sorted by Hot for All). This seems a bit complicated and you might not want this in the default lemmy UI, but for power users they could use an extension like yours to get this advanced functionality.
Is that what you’re going for?
I need to set up a proper roadmap, the closest I have right now is https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant/wiki
RES for Lemmy would probably be an end goal, and at this point I’m not sticking to any particular area. It’s more that I’m working on the things that I figured out how to do since I’m learning lots as I go. For example, multi-account switcher is a commonly requested feature from RES and something I’d really like to use myself, but I’d need someone with more experience to check my code to make sure I’m not leaking account details anywhere.
Having default sorts should be possible, and a simple way might be to just check the URL. So if on a lemmy site & on home page, it would check if “dataType”=Post and if “sort”=“TopDay”, and if not it will swap the URL. I’ll see if it works in practice and maybe push it in the next update :)
Thanks!
On another note, you have a comment about being unable to jump to the same post on your home instance. If you search a post URL on your home instance, you can find the post on your home instance. Is there a way to use a search API call to find the post on your hone instance?
Yea someone actually just commented on the API and I should be able to find posts by link/title on other instances. Previously I was trying with the simple URL manipulation, but this would be a reasonable workaround. I’ll give it a try soon :)
That was one of the first things I wanted out of this project, so it would be amazing to get it going
