Join the Arctic For Lemmy beta
testflight.apple.com
Available on iOS

This is a relatively small update to address a few issues with v0.4.2.3.

The biggest issue this update addresses is scrolling behavior and performance. The previous release had a bug that would cause poor scrolling performance in post feeds, and issues sizing cells to fit their content. This update addresses this, and offers a significant improvement to scrolling in Arctic.

This update also adds support for native instance blocking, finally. Instance blocking was added to Lemmy in v0.19, after Arctic already had instance blocking built up in. This version will now use the native blocking feature for instances running v0.19+, and fallback to internal blocking on older instances. This update will also automatically migrate your instance blocks from Arctic, to Lemmy.

You can now use search in Arctic’s settings. I know Arctic has a lot of settings, and it can be difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for, you can now search for most options. This is still a work in progress, and not all options are searchable yet. I’ll be improving on this in future updates.

Arctic for macOS open TestFlight

Arctic is now officially in beta for macOS. I know some users with silicon macs have been using the iPad version of Arctic for a while now, but macOS is now supported on intel macs as well. This version offers a lot of Mac specific fixes and improvements over using the iPad version on Mac. Note that this is the first Mac beta, and there will be bugs. There is still a ton of changes coming for Mac, primarily with the UI to improve support for the use of a mouse or trackpad, and make better use of the larger screen space.

v0.4.2.4 Changelog

New Features

  • Added action menu to user and community buttons on post and comment cells/
  • Added options to toggle haptic feedback for various actions/
  • Added support for instance blocking using native Lemmy API, this will fall back to internal blocking on instances running versions older than v0.19.x.
  • Added support for searching Arctic’s settings /
  • Added support for opening links to options in Arctic’s settings e.g., arctic://settings.root/Settings/Appearance#App%20Theme Will open Arctic to the theme settings.
  • Added options button to theme cells in the theme browser/
  • Added color descriptions in the theme editor.
  • Added option to configure the swipe action angle threshold/

Changes

  • Updated support for stripping Markdown in push notifications.
  • Updated toast messages appearance and improved dismiss gestures.
  • Updated link preview generation to prioritize links in the order they will be displayed
  • Updated scrolling behavior to reduce stutters and jumps while scrolling.
  • Updated behavior when blocking, or subscribing. These actions should now be represented immediately in action menus.
  • Updated large post default settings to display community button on the top of post cells.
  • Updated default swipe action threshold to reduce false triggers while scrolling.
  • Updated markdown and HTML parsing for link preview descriptions.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue allowing Spoilers to be shown in push notifications.
  • Fixed an issue allowing Spoilers to be shown in post feeds.
  • Fixed a layout issue allowing voting buttons to be compressed on post cells.
  • Fixed an issue where link previews in comments would display an extra line of compressed text.
  • Fixed an issue preventing paged gallery views from responding to taps when contained in a crosspost view.
  • Fixed an issue where cells would not resize when a link preview was loaded.
  • Fixed an issue preventing post cells from sizing properly when new content is loaded.
  • Fixed an issue that could allow system swipe actions to display, even if custom swipe actions are enabled.

Links

  • TheRealCharlesEames@lemm.eeEnglish
    7·
    1 month ago

    First time trying Arctic and it’s great. Love all the options and overall impression of maturity I get from the app. Few notes from a picky Product Designer:

    • I can’t figure out how to join a community (I’m trying to join Arctic)
    • The app icon options don’t spark joy or make me want to keep the app on my home screen.
    • very picky, but a little more padding above posts would be nice (especially when the community label on top is turned off)
    • very picky, but a 1px subtle highlight on the top and bottom bars would be helpful, especially if the bar shadows are disabled (on dark mode)
    • The profile header seems underbaked
    • ~~I couldn’t find this post to edit it from my profile. ~~ Found it, but took some extra brain cycles
    • “Edit” instead of Done while editing a post is weird
    • I keep opening the post options while scrolling the feed with my right hand
    • An option to disable guest mode would be nice, I don’t think I’ll ever use it and the extra account option can distract from my intention
    • I prefer how Mlem handles the subscription page (more compact with instances on the right of the community name). The typography is a little odd in Arctic
    • Would be nice if the image transition animation were quicker
    • I see that you made improvements to scrolling performance, but I’m still experiencing a little judder
    • Seeing “no content here” as a loading state for content is odd
    • An option to hide the iOS status bar in addition to the other bars (on scroll) might be nice
    • An accent color of white is seemingly not compatible with the iOS toggle buttons

    Is there anyway to disable the fresh open splash screen?

    Are account specific settings in the plans?

    Where did the Arctic name come from? Does it inspire any design decisions?

    I’ll take a look at the iPad version and report back

    • Jonathan@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 month ago

      An option to hide the iOS status bar in addition to the other bars (on scroll) might be nice

      That one’s been bugging me too, I don’t use the hide-on-scroll because the status bar drags my eyes to it constantly.

      • CreatureSurvive@lemmy.worldOPM
        4·
        1 month ago

        I’m working on this right now, I’ll let you know how it goes.

        [Edit]: This is fixed now. The status bar will be hidden with the navigation bar.

        • Jonathan@lemmy.world
          2·
          22 days ago

          Looks and works great so far in the newest beta! Thanks a bunch, I appreciate all the work you’re doing!

          • CreatureSurvive@lemmy.worldOPM
            2·
            21 days ago

            Great to hear! Personally I prefer to keep the status bar visible, so I ended up adding this as an option, and updated the design to add a background for the status bar while scrolling, or hide it all together. This seems more in line with what you’d expect from other apps.

            • Jonathan@lemmy.world
              1·
              21 days ago

              Seems to work great, I like it! Now I’m torn though, I might like it better with status and new background design. See, now you’ve given me option paralysis (which is fine by me, I’m an option addict, always changing stuff around)!

    • CreatureSurvive@lemmy.worldOPM
      2·
      1 month ago

      Thanks for taking the time to test it out, and provide feedback! It’s always great to have a designer look at Arctic.

      • Subscribing to a community can be accessed from the (…) menu on any post, or community feed. (…) -> Community -> (un)subscribe. When searching for a community, you can also use a side swipe to (un)subscribe
      • It is definitely time I work on some more icons, it has been a while since I added any new ones. All the icons are made by me, and I am not any kind of graphic designer. My plan for this was actually to run a month icon competition for new icons.
      • Padding above posts, are you referring to spacing between posts, or the actual padding between the top of the post cell, and the title?
      • Bar highlights? Im not sure I follow what you mean here. The bar shadows(delimiter) due just that, unless I am misunderstanding.
      • Indeed, the profile header needs some love. I actually redesigned it recently, and it is an improvement over what it was, but still not what I want.
      • Honestly, now that you mention it, I think I should probably replace the Edit / Send button with a Submit button for consistency.
      • Opening the post options while scrolling has happened to me a couple of times, but I haven’t found it to be a consistent issue. I can look into it.
      • I just added an option to disable Guest Mode in the Account Switcher, it will still be accessible from the Account section in settings.
      • I’ve had one other request for a compact subscription list. The reason I opted for splitting into 2 labels is because the community name and community handle are not always the same. I’m going to work on adding a compact layout for this though.
      • Which image transitions are you referring to? I believe most images are displayed without an animated transition, but there are a few exceptions.
      • Scrolling performance is still being worked on. Since the Lemmy API does not provide enough metadata to determine the final display size of content, additional network requests are needed to determine the size. I’m working on improving this to minimize the hitches while scrolling.
      • You are right about the loading state, I need to update this behavior.
      • I’ll add an option for hiding the status bar with the top bar. I tried this before, but I was unable to get it working. I’ll look into it again.
      • Hmm, I hadn’t noticed the issue with white accent color before, Im not quite sure how I’ll handle this yet, but I’ll look into it. I definitely don’t want to add another theme color just for switches.

      Disabling the splash screen on first launch is not possible. This is not set on a timer or anything. iOS automatically manages this, and hides it as soon as the main view is loaded. Without this in place you’d be looking at a black screen while the app loads. I can look into improving the launch time though, this would minimize the display of the splash screen.

      I am planning account specific settings, but I have not figured out how I would like to manage this yet. Arctic has a lot of settings, and I don’t want to make things tedious by making each account adopt its own settings. I’d rather like to add a way to override specific settings for individual accounts. I’m just struggling to figure out how to implement the user interface for this.

      The name Arctic comes from lemmings. The lemmings natural habitat is typically the arctic tundra. I wouldn’t say that the name Arctic has inspired much in terms of design choices. Though i would love to find ways to incorporate this into the design for stronger branding.

      I will say the iPad version is still needing a lot of work. It’s not full of bugs or anything like that, but I haven’t made great use of the larger screen space. I’m still in the planning stages of redesigning this. I’d like to take better advantage of the screen space, and have the layout update dependent on context.

      Anyway, thanks for all the feedback. This has given me a lot to work on!