It’s been a very busy couple of weeks for me since the AppStore release. I have not had much time to keep up with new beta posts, so this post aims to cover all the changes in v0.4.0.x updates.
As I am sure most of you have noticed, Arctic finally has a new default icon. I’m super excited about this. The original icon was only ever meant to be a placeholder, and it ended up sticking around far longer than I had intended. With the new icon, I’ve set up a full set of branding resources that I will be open-sourcing later this week to enable community icon contests in the future.
Widgets are here! I’ve added the first set of widgets finally. This set is fully configurable so you can set up feeds based on specific accounts, communities, instances, sorting, etc. I have a lot more widgets planned, and I will try and roll out a new set every couple of updates.
Crosspost rendering has been improved. Crossposts will now embed the original post and display it inline, this helps with following the original thread and it looks a lot better than a long blockquote. I’ve also added a crosspost indicator to post views, so even from the original post, you can browse all the crossposts for the original link.
Link peeking has been enabled. You can now long-press any link and peek at its content just like in Safari. With this addition, I’ve also added some convenience options for opening YouTube links in Piped or opening them in the YouTube app.
Full-screen scrolling has been added. You can enable Hide Bars On Scroll and the top and bottom bars will be hidden while scrolling to enable full-screen viewing.
The markdown editor has several new improvements. Inserting links and images has gotten smarter, when inserting, the selected text will automatically be added as the link title or URL if applicable. Lists will now automatically continue when pressing return while composing a list. Special markdown characters will now render in a muted color while editing. I’ve also added actions for changing indentation (tabs).
There are too many changes to write about each one individually, but as always you can find the full change-logs below. If you encounter any issues in the latest release, please let me know. I am hoping to submit a new update to the AppStore this weekend.
Thank you, to everyone for all the feedback and suggestions. It’s been a huge help in improving Arctic!
Changelogs
v0.4.0.3
- Added 2 new icons Mystic Globe and Outline
- Added context actions for youtube links to open in Piped, or open in the YouTube app
- Added option to preview posts when long-pressing a post cell
- Fixed an issue that could cause a crash when long-pressing a link preview
- Fixed a crash that could occur when pressing return while composing a comment or post
- Fixed an issue where forward navigation could show an incorrect font size
- Fixed an issue that could cause a zooming transition when using forward navigation
- Organized sketch projects for open-source release of branding
v0.4.0.2
- Added a new default icon for Arctic
- Added support for OpticID on iOS 17+
- Added a new changelog controller
- Added option to embed crossposts in post views
- Added crosspost indicator, and browser to open post views
- Added support for peeking URLs in markdown by long-pressing links
- Added options to upload images from the Account and Community settings page
- Added option to set the matrix user ID in account settings
- Added swipe actions to profile view cells
- Added long-press actions to profile view cells
- Added toolbar actions for indentation in the markdown editor
- Added support for automatic list continuation when pressing return in the markdown editor
- Fixed crash when editing blocked communities
- Fixed some warnings during the initial layout of post-feeds
- Fixed an issue that could prevent post cells from updating when needed
- Fixed a UI glitch that could happen when swiping cells in some views
- Fixed comment swipe actions not displaying “Unvote” option for voted comments
- Fixed indentation for root comment cells being larger than needed
- Fixed video controls not working in link previews
- Updated the Lights-Out icon
- Updated special character detection in the markdown editor
- Updated post-composer layout to improve keyboard handling
- Updated rendering of app icons in the settings menu
- Improved handling of videos in the media viewer
v0.4.0.1
- Added the first set of Widgets, This widget set allows configuring your own post feed
- Added support for removing drafts from the draft history
- Added option to disable comment listing modes, this is enabled by default.
- Added scaled and controversial sort types to the default post sorting options
- Added option to insert image from a URL in the markdown editor
- Improved markdown editor to handle link and image insertion better. highlighted text will now pre-populate the link entry
- Fixed jumpy behavior when selecting context text in comment replies
- Fixed crash on first launch when opening an external url
- Fixed voting in post feeds with vote buttons disabled, this will now update the cell appearance
- Removed post feed action for opening Experimental SwiftUI view
v0.4.0
- Added option to set the vote display style (separate, combined, none)
- Added option to disable voting buttons in post cells
- Added option to hide top and bottom bars while scrolling
- Added the Mod Zone to the inbox view
- The unread badge will now include any unread reports and applications
- Updated the markdown editor to render special markdown characters as muted
- Updated the community selector to default to listing all communities when in guest mode
- Fixed a crash that could occur when changing accounts
- Fixed an issue with markdown badges where they could be wrapped over multiple lines
- Fixed Lemmy user and community links not working after v0.3.0
Links
- Website: getarctic.app
- TestFlight: testflight.apple.com
- AppStore: apps.apple.com
- Issues: github.com
- Community: !arctic@lemmy.world
Wow, I must not have used Arctic in a while, but some work was definitely put into this, so thank you. It is much more polished than I remember. I love the
Some requests I would love to see and would make it hands-down my favorite Lemmy app:
Seriously, thank you for the time and effort. Things like this make alternatives to commercialism possible, which hopefully puts the emphasis back on sharing and interacting with people (and not just about getting clicks and money).
Thank you so much! I have definitely put a lot of work into Arctic in the last few months, I’m glad it shows and you’re enjoying it!
For this I am planning to add full theming support. Themes like Sepia, Dracula, Mint, Lemmy-UI etc I am planning to have presets for, but I’m also planning to add a theme editor so users can design and share their own themes. I unfortunately did not implement support for this earlier, so it will take some time to add full theme support as I now have hundreds of views to update.
I added support for favoriting communities in yesterdays update. If you have any feedback about the implementation, please let me know!
This will be added in with the theming options
There are settings to select different comment themes in Appearance Settings, but I’ll also be adding settings to add custom comment themes.
I actually played with a similar feature yesterday where a double tap would jump to the top, but it added a delay to the single tap jump and made it feel laggy. I may take this suggestion and add a setting to toggle the behavior.
There is actually a setting for this, however it behaves as Remember last selection I’ll add a setting to toggle between remember last, and always use default.
I’m planning to add this in, however it’s going to take a bit more work than one may think. Arctic does some aggressive caching for rendering feeds in order to improve performance. I need to update the caching system to support hiding content without corrupting the cache, otherwise the feed would need to be reloaded every time the toggle is switched.
Once again, thank you! I really appreciate the detailed feedback and I’m very glad you’re enjoying Arctic. I apologize for the late response, I’ve been very busy the last few weeks.
I also forgot to call out the Mod Zone. That is pretty nice, so I dont need to switch back to mobile browser every time to check for reports.
The only feedback I might suggest on the favoriting is that maybe instead of both favorite and unsubscribe in the same direction, make favorite swipe right and unsubscribe left to avoid accidentally unsubscribing.
Im especially excited for the sepia theme and additional comment cascade options. I think they really change the whole way my brain organizes the content.
Make sure to take breaks and don’t burn yourself out. Projects can be exhilarating but I’ve seen so many people push to meet all the demands and then exhaust themselves.