Arctic @lemmy.world CreatureSurvive @lemmy.world 10mo ago

Arctic v0.3.x is out on TestFlight!

testflight.apple.com Join the Arctic For Lemmy beta

Available on iOS

Sorry for such a delay in posting release notes, I’ve been very busy the last few weeks, and almost all of my free time has been spent working on updates. Since my last release post, I’ve released v0.3.0, v0.3.1, v0.3.2.

Arctic gained quite a few new features in these releases. I’ll list off some of the most notable changes, and as alway you can find the full list of changes below.

v0.3.0 was primarily focused on markdown rendering improvements. I added support for Lemmy spoilers, subscript, superscript, highlights, and syntax highlighting. Code and blocks are now rendered with a styled background for better distinction.

v0.3.1 added an all new private messages view. Messages are now sorted into conversations, and displayed in a iMesages style feed. You can now edit, delete, and report private messages. This release also included forward navigation. If you swipe back in the navigation stack, you can swipe back forward and pickup where you left off. There is also a new action to quickly switch the post layout while viewing a feed.

v0.3.2 added options to hide read posts, and mark posts as read while scrolling. There a new post layout Headline which is a compact style that only displays the post title. I also improved the layout of other compact layouts. Reddit gallery links will now be rendered as regular image gallery posts.

I’ve also spent some time preparing the first AppStore release for Arctic. I just about have everything ready for submission, with only iPad previews left to design. I hope to submit the first release to the AppStore by the end of the month.

One last thing I would like to include in the first official release, is a new default icon for Arctic. I’ve tried my hand at a few icons now, and so far I’ve not found any that feel adequate. If anyone here is a graphic designer or digital artist, feel free to reach out to me.

v0.3.0 Changelog

Added support for new Markdown features to the Markdown Editor
Added a loading indicator for Lemmy Explorer
Added option to set the instance used for Guest Mode
Added font size preview when using the font size slider
Added appearance settings for adjusting the style of the top and bottom bars in Lemmy
Added a warning message that will show at the end of feeds if you're viewing a filtered feed eg: listing mode set to Local
Added a new preview controller when composing a post or comment
Updated Swimmy to use a single instance of Lemmy Api for all API calls
Updated the account switcher to use the applied font settings
Updated to save and restore listing mode when switching to/from guest mode
Updated Markdown rendering:
- Added support for syntax highlighting in code blocks
- Code blocks and inline code will now be rendered in a box
- Block quotes will now be rendered in a quote box
- Added support for _subscript and ^superscript
- Added support for ==highlight==
- Added support for Lemmy spoilers
- Added settings to adjust syntax highlighting behavior
- Added support for loading remote images inline
  - Note: This behavior is not enabled yet, I still have more work to do to support videos and animated images
Fixed issue where non-account cells could be reordered in account settings
Fixed Safari Open In extension causing a crash due to a previous update
Fixed Lemmy Explorer failing to load Communities
Fixed issue where the tab-bar profile title would not update for Guest Mode
Fixed an issue that could cause font size changes to not apply unless using the iPad layout
Fixed color themes not applying to the top and bottom bars immediately
Fixed issue where the listing mode could unnecessarily change when switching to guest mode
Fixed issue where changing the sorting/listing mode when viewing a post would not reload the feed if the feed was empty before changing

v0.3.1 Changelog

Added a new Private Messages controller similar to iMessage:
- Messages are now displayed in conversations based on the recipient
- You can now edit, delete, and report messages
Added forward navigation, swipe from the right edge of the screen to re-open previously open views
Added support for selecting text in the reply view context preview
Added an option to the Posts Feed action menu to quickly change the cell layout style
Added option to lock Arctic using biometrics (Face ID, Touch ID, Passcode), with an optional timeout before locking
Added a timestamp to inbox comment cells
Added additional support for internal Markdown customization (user settings coming soon)
Fixed issue with the Syntax Highlighting settings page, where the preview would render incorrectly on iOS 16+
Fixed issue where editing a post multiple times would not reflect the previous changes when re-opening the editor
Updated font size and color in generated initial icons
Updated the markdown editor to respond to font size changes

v0.3.2 Changelog

Added option to mark posts as read while scrolling
Added option to hide read posts in the home feed
Added option to hide read posts in community feeds
Added new post layout style Headline: a compact style that only shows the post title
Added support for fetching images from Reddit gallery links
Added support for viewing YouTube and Piped videos from opened posts
Added support for opening links in private messages
Added support for markdown [[BADGES]] (color defaults to red for now)
Added a delivered notifications manager for deleting notifications once they are read in-app (not enabled yet)
Added notification permissions status cell to notification settings, this is intended to assist users when encountering an error while enabling notifications
Updated unread count polling, polls now allow for threshold waiting to reduce network calls.
Updated support for inline HTML in markdown, HTML will now render with the correct font
Updated NSFW blur view layout
Updated HLS stream support to reduce stalling when playing streams
Updated post spacing for compact post layouts
Fixed media seek gestures blocking the navigation swipe gestures
Fixed forward navigation transition causing a zoom effect for some views
Fixed issue where canceling a navigation transition would clear the forward navigation stack
Fixed an issue preventing videos from opening in the media viewer when viewing a post
Fixed an issue where media gallery views could display duplicate images
Fixed issue allowing a link preview to be displayed in a media post
Fixed a crash that could occur when opening the media viewer in rare cases
Fixed a crash that could occur when attempting to open a URL that not http(s)
Fixed issue where animated images could display out of bounds when viewed in a paged media viewer
Fixed spoilers incorrectly indenting paragraphs after the first line
Fixed issue where selecting the active account in the account switcher would reload feeds
Updated support for parsing lemmy semantic versions

Links

Website: getarctic.app
TestFlight: testflight.apple.com

17 comments

As a new user coming from another, seemingly abandoned app, I have to say that you’ve done a great job so far! Keep it up!
- Glad you’re liking it so far! I will say I am planning long term support for Arctic. I’ve been running the TestFlight beta for about 6 months now, and I’ll finally be releasing to the AppStore in the next few weeks. I’ve poured a lot of time and effort into this project and I have a lot more planned for the future.
Yay can’t wait for the official App Store release! I’ve been hanging out for this app to be released, can’t wait to try it out soon!

Also, I am a graphic designer. So I can mock up a few icons or any other graphics you need.
- I’m sorry, I somehow completely overlooked your comment. I did just release the AppStore version yesterday feel free to try it out and let me know what you think.
  
  I’m also very interested in a new default icon and logo. I’d definitely like to discuss that with you. I’m of course happy to include credits in Arctic as well.
  
  Been trying out Arctic, has been really great so far! Being a big Apollo fan it reminds me of that which is fantastic! Looking forward to see how the app develops.
  
  Absolutely, I can send you some rough concepts for an icon/logo to see if that’s the kind of direction you want to go and take it from there if you like.
After having tried every other app out there (Memmy, Mlem, voyager, Avelon, thunder, lunar, and some others), I’ve finally found Arctic that seems to combine the best of all of the apps and more!

Looking forward to this releases in stable!
- This is great, I’m glad you’re enjoying Arctic. We should hopefully have an AppStore release within the next week if all goes well!
  
  Let me know if you have any feedback.
Awesome updates! I am always excited when there is a new TestFlight update for Arctic.

Hiding posts is awesome, but is there a quick way to show hidden posts again?
- Glad you’re liking the new updates!
  
  Mark read on scroll and Hide read posts were honestly a last minute addition before releasing the last update. I didn’t think to add a quick toggle at the moment since I was a little pressed on time. I will add a toggle for this in the action menu for the next update.
I went to the website and viewed the screenshots. Arctic is almost an exact copy of Voyager which is almost an exact copy of Apollo. I don’t really have a problem with that but for those of us using Voyager, what are/will be the differentiators? Why jump ships?
- So Arctic started as a personal project without the intention of releasing it. I had been an avid Apollo user since its launch and thoroughly enjoyed using the app. I decided to model Arctic based on Apollo for myself.
  
  Once I had a near full feature set, I decided I might be interested in publicly releasing Arctic. At the time there was only one other native Lemmy app for iOS (mlem), the rest were either web-based or using react native. I didn’t intend on making an Apollo clone as a public project, but that is exactly where this went. I’ve been trying to breathe some alternative design into the app as it’s progressed, and I will continue to do so.
  
  I know you were not necessarily asking about the design, I just thought I should share a bit about The roots of the project and its design.
  
  As for what makes Arctic stand out; Firstly, I’ve not used Voyager or really any other Lemmy app for very long (a few minutes, maybe hours), so I cannot speak much on what Arctic offers that others don’t.
  
  Arctic is currently the only iOS app I’m aware of that is written in pure Swift using UIKit rather than SwiftUI. For the most part, this does not make much of a difference to the end-user, however, this does allow for some optimizations that are not available in SwiftUI apps, and from the feedback I’ve received, Arctic offers better performance compared to other native alternatives.
  
  Arctic is currently the only native iOS app that offers Account push notifications, and Community notifications for free (to the best of my knowledge), please correct me if another app offers this.
  
  Key Features:
  
  No advertisements or trackers, ever
  
  Native support for media, photos, videos, gifs, etc
  
  Robust media viewer to view content in full detail
  
  Rich link previews in posts and comments
  
  Customizable swipe gestures to make navigation a breeze
  
  Account quick switcher, supports unlimited accounts
  
  Community switcher, quickly jump between communities
  
  Account push notifications, badges, replies, mentions, messages, reports, applications
  
  Community push notifications. customizable notifications for communities based on filters
  
  Content filters, exclude content by keyword
  
  Smart cache keeps browsing fast, and storage free
  
  Rich markdown editor, for composing new content
  
  Upload manager for keeping control of uploaded media
  
  Lemmy Explorer integration, browse Lemmy Explorer directly in the app
  
  Full-featured client, if you can do it on the website, you can do it in Arctic
  
  In the end, I I encourage everyone to try out the all the available apps and find what suits them the best.
  
  Thanks for the in depth response, I’ll check it out
I'm not a graphic designer, but I threw some prompts at Bard to generate some possible icon ideas. I don't know the rules/laws on using AI generated images for commercial use, but thought it'd at least be fun to share the images here.

**Edit to add a few more. I'm having too much fun with this...
- These are great!
  
  I’m not sure I’d want to use AI content for this though. I may actually use this as a template though to give a starting point for new icons. I want to stick with a glyph styled icon rather than the hand-drawn style.
  
  Oh, for sure! Honestly, I was just having some fun with those.
Great series of updates! Hide read posts on scroll was the last missing piece for making it my new default Lemmy client! Looking forward to the App Store release and new icon! Thank you for your work!
- Always a pleasure! Glad the new updates are treating you well. I just submitted Arctic to the AppStore for review, and if all goes well, the AppStore release will be out in the next week or so.