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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.

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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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

Arctic v0.2.1 is now available for testing on TestFlight!

Sorry for the delay with this update, it took longer than I had originally planned. I’ve had a busy couple or weeks, and have not had as much time as usual to work on Arctic. Additionally this update was larger than past updates, with larger features and more commits than any of the previous updates. In the future I will try and keep the updates coming more frequently,

Notable new features

This update comes packed with some exciting new features. Arctic now has support for iPad layouts (split view, slide over, full screen). This is still a work in progress and will improve in future releases. Collapsible comment chains are finally supported, tap or swipe any comment to collapse it’s content and children. Mod tools have also joined the party! You can access mod actions when viewing content from any community you moderate. Just open the action menu for any post or comment for quick access to (ban user, remove content, speak as a mod, feature or lock a post). You can also review and resolve user reported content in the new Mod Zone accessible from the sidebar, and community action menu.

Mod tools and iPad support are still a work in progress and any feedback on theses features is more that welcome.

Less notable new features

Arctic now has Lemmy Explorer (lemmyverse.net) built in. This allows for browsing and searching thousands of instances and communities inside Arctic. Currently, you can access this through Lemmy Explorer in settings. However, I’m working on integrating lemmyverse databases directly in the Search tab, and in the Community browser to allow for better search results, and increase community discovery.

Media viewer action buttons are working now, not much to explain here. You can now vote, share, save, open in browser, etc directly from the media viewer.

Upcoming features

Better iPad support. I plan to add support for 3 column layout, and a context aware sidebar. I’m also working on adding support for multiple windows, so you can browse multiple accounts, or use mod tools while browsing etc. this may take some time and likely won’t be coming in the next release.

Mod tool improvements. Better UI support for moderation, currently the UI doesn’t properly update for all mod actions. Additional convenience actions for mods, such as speak as mod, and feature posts etc before submitting the post/comment.

Comments feed, view instance or community comments in a feed similar to the posts feed, this is to match the web UI.

Chat mode for comments. Disables hierarchical comments to view comments with absolute sorting. Additionally, child comments of deleted or removed comments are not shown.

Adaptive layout. Currently long usernames, or deep nested comments, etc cause some wonky UI, where elements will overlap. I’m working on adding better support in these cases to allow the UI to adapt.

Accessibility improvements. Voiceover should already be working fairly well, however there are a lot of areas for improvement. I’m working on going through the whole UI to ensure all elements are properly supported.

State synchronization. I know I’ve mentioned this before, and I haven’t gotten to this yet. I have a pretty good idea of. How I’m going to handle this, it’s going to take some time to implement though.

Customizable swipe actions. Adding support for user customizable swipe actions. This will also come with distance based triggers rather than the current drawer style swipe actions.

Until next time

As always, thanks to everyone for testing Arctic and providing feedback. We still have a fairly small community here, and I would like to increase engagement, so everyone feel free to post any feedback or suggestions here.

V0.2.1 changes

v0.2.1

• Added support for collapsable comment chains
• Added split-view iPad layout support (also supported on full size iPhones)
• Added option to select app layout (iPhone, iPad)
• Added Moderation options to post and comment action menus (must be a moderator for the community)
• Added Mod Zone for viewing post/comment reports, and resolving them
• Added Lemmy Explorer for browsing communities/instances
• Added support for uploading images from the Files app
• Added support for loading video thumbnails (WIP)
• Added option to save, copy, or open in browser any media
• Added swipe actions to the posts feed
• Added option to select text from the detailed post view
• Added support for refreshing the profile page
• Added open in browser option to community feeds
• Added alert for viewing detailed account score, and account age
• Redesigned settings page, and organized options
• Increased the posts feed page size
• Optimized image loading, and memory usage
• Refactored the profile view and added support for viewing save comments
• Fixed posts with no comments not displaying a no comments message
• Fixed issue that could cause community feeds not to load on certain instance
• Fixed issue where canceling an image upload would result in an infinite loading screen
• Fixed crash when deleting an image from the Upload Manager
• Fixed search bars on iOS 16 to match the layout of iOS 15
• Fixed layout issues after device rotation
• Fixed media viewer action buttons not working
• Fixed issue where posts would fail to load due to unencoded urls (matrix urls)
• Fixed crash that could occur when submitting a new post/comment
• Fixed sidebar banners displaying the icon rather than the banner
• Fixed comment reports opening a post report
• Fixed alerts displaying underneath the media viewer
• Fixed moderator list in profiles always displaying your own moderator list rather than the selected user
• Fixed crash that would occur when adding or changing accounts
• Fixed delated/removed comments always displaying "deleted by creator"