A Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile client for Lemmy.
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Raccoon for Lemmy is a client for the federated aggregation and discussion platform Lemmy.
The project started as an exercise to play around with Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) and Compose multiplatform and gradually grew as a fully functional client with many features.
- view post feed and comments with different listing and sort types;
- possibility to upvote and downvote (with optional swipe actions);
- community and user detail;
- user profile with one's own posts, comments and saved items;
- inbox with replies, mentions and direct messages;
- global search on Lemmy with different result types (all, posts, comments, user, communities);
- create and edit new posts (with optional images);
- reply to post and comments (and edit replies);
- mark posts as read and hide read contents;
- custom appearance (color scheme, fonts, text sizes, post layout, etc.);
- custom localization (independent of system settings);
- block users, communities and instances (the latter requires Lemmy >= 0.19);
- report post and comments to moderators;
- support for multiple accounts (and multiple instances) with account-specific settings;
- lazy scrolling (referred to as "zombie mode");
- explore all the communities on a given instance in guest mode;
- multi-community (community aggregation);
- community moderation tools and moderation log.
Most clients for Lemmy currently offer the first points (with various degrees of completion), so there is nothing special about Raccoon for Lemmy, whereas the last ones are less common and are directed to more picky users (like me) who like to explore the Lemmy ecosystem and want to be able to group feed contents arbitrarily.
I like to be able to customize the appearance of my apps, so the ability to change font face or size and colors was of paramount importance to me. Similarly, I like when I can use an app in my native language and change the UI language independently from the system language, so localization is a first-class citizen in this project too.
If you are a moderator of a community, it is also good to be able to moderate content from your mobile device instead of using the web interface, but in-app moderation is rare in the existing clients (and even more so in open source clients). Raccoon For Lemmy is trying to bridge this gap and offers some extent of moderation tools (feature post, lock post, distinguish comment, remove post/comment, ban users and the ability to revert any of these actions).
The application is under active development, so expect new features to be added over time. Have a look on the issues labeled with "feature" in the issue tracker to get an idea of what's going to come next.
If you have ideas, feedback, suggestions or comments remember to speak up and use your voice. You can add reports or request features and they will be considered.
Because raccoons are so adorable, aren't they? 🦝🦝🦝
Joking apart, one of the main goals was to experiment with KMP and learn how to properly deal with the challenges of a multiplatform environment, and a medium-sized project like this was an ideal testing ground for that technology.
Secondly, as a means to dig deeper inside Lemmy's internals and become more humble and patient towards other apps whenever I found anything lacking or not implemented in an optimal way (according to my taste).
In the third place, I felt that the Android ecosystem of Lemmy apps was a little "poor" with few native apps (fewer open source), while the "market" is dominated by iOS and cross platform clients. I️ ❤️ Kotlin, I ❤️ Free and Open Source Software and I ❤️ native app development, so there was a "niche" that needed to be filled.
Moreover, developing a new client was an opportunity to add all the features that I needed and that were "scattered" across different apps, e.g. I liked the feature richness of Liftoff (e.g. the possibility to explore all the communities of an external instance in guest mode), the multi-community feature of Summit and the polished UI of the really great Thunder and I wished I could have them all in the same app.
This involves a high level of discretion and personal taste, I know, but this project is all about experimenting and learning.
- Koin for dependency injection
- Voyager for screen navigation
- Ktor and Ktorfit for networking
- Moko resources for resource management
- Multiplatform settings for encrypted preferences
- SQLDelight and SQLCipher for local persistence
More info about the technologies used in the project can be found in the CONTRIBUTING.md.
Here are some options to install the application on your device.
- open an issue on this project's issue tracker to report bugs or request new features
- create a post on the project's community on Lemmy.world for broader questions, opinions, personal feedback, suggestions, insults or whatever you feel like writing
- join the Matrix space dedicated to the project
- if you are a translator and want to help out with l10n or submit some corrections but you don't feel confident with repository forks, pull requests, managing resource files, etc. feel free to drop an email or contact me in any way.
Please remember: every contribution is welcome and everyone's opinion matters here. This is a community project, open source, ad-free and free of charge, and it belongs to us all so don't be afraid to get involved.
And don't forget every 🦝's motto: «Live Fast, Eat Trash» (for shortness L. F. E. T.).