Comment by anlumo@feddit.de on Maybe a controversial opinion, but Lemmy is pretty great as a PWA

So Jerboa broke on my phone just now and I didn’t want to stop browsing Lemmy. Unfortunately no suitable alternative was found so I just decided to check if I could open it in my browser and install it.

To my surprise, it worked. And it works really well quite frankly. Sure, the UI is different, but I’m not at all missing any features.

Did any of you guys try it as well? What’s your opinion?

If not, did you even know that was a possibility? It quite frankly never crossed my mind, because Reddit and other platforms always force you to use an app when you open them in a browser.

Installing it as a PWA on my iPhone causes the history buttons to disappear (since they’re part of the browser). This means that if I open a comments page, I can’t get back to the post list again. I can tap on the logo to get to the main page, but my scrolling position is lost, so I’d have to scroll down to find where I stopped scrolling last time.

Yeah no, still have to use an app.

I don’t have it installed right now but I’m pretty sure the system-wide back-swipe gesture still work here, doesn’t it?

Yes, works well, no issue.

Yeah, I discovered that after posting that comment. I never use those gestures, so I forgot to try that.

How do you go back in an app? Do you always tap the button at the top? For me that’s super impractical and I even got a small iPhone.

I can’t reach the left side of the screen with one hand anyways, so both ways are similarly uncomfortable.

Oof, same on Android. That’s a complete deal breaker for using the PWA.

Why dont you use the back button on Android?

Well, for starters there is no back button in the PWA on Android. Swiping from the right to go back completely refreshes the feed.

the back button works fine when I use Firefox and install a PWA with it.

You can see it happening here https://streamable.com/6alycz

like I’ve said, it works fine for me: https://streamable.com/fb300o

Yea I can hold down on the button and get the normal history menu from Firefox. They may be using gesture navigation tho and idk how that is affected.

I use gesture navigation and the back button works without reloading.

Strange that’s happening for you. It’s definitely not an all android thing. Must be something about your specific model or your settings. The only time my button bar disappears is with games and even then it’s still accessible by swiping up from the bottom.

This is interesting, I checked all the apps (that are running/enabled) on the two android devices in my household. Mine is set up with the traditional android UI triangle, circle, square, visible whereas my partner’s has the “slide up” feature enabled where the back, home, and “background” buttons need you to slide your finger up or they aren’t visible. Both seem to remain present and usable in apps, although the back button does cause “too much of a back avtion” in the third party camera app she uses, taking you home vs. back a step. These devices are both unlocked (but not rooted currently) devices activated on at&t firstnet. My coworker has a Verizon issued (came from the carrier) Samsung Galaxy and the triangle, circle, and square buttons are missing in a few apps, and totally inaccessible. I am not a fan of how much bloat cell carriers add to their android devices, so much so that I would say the coworker’s phone is running a “Verizon Samsung version” of Android. I did a quick search and didn’t find a full list anywhere of variations of Android by carrier or model phone, but I did find a number of users with similar observations about the extreme variation.

This is not an issue for me. I swipe back and it returns to where I left.

Count yourself lucky because as you might imagine the bug makes it unusable. It even happens on regular mobile browsing.

which app are you using? I can‘t seem to find any on my (Swiss) AppStore…

I have signed up for TestFlight beta testing for Mlem.

thanks, I tried that for a few days but turns out I can‘t live without a search function… trying wefwef now! so far pretty great

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Maybe a controversial opinion, but Lemmy is pretty great as a PWA

Technology

!technology@beehaw.org

Community stats

Community moderators