Is it difficult to build a web app for Lemmy?
Is it difficult to build a web app for Lemmy?
Context, I’ve got some web dev experience but it’s all self taught from enjoying it as a hobby. Personally, the design aspect is probably worse for me.
I’ve been toying with the idea of trying to do something with the Lemmy API (even if it’s never shared publicly) but I’ve seen a handful of people complain about the API, is it really that bad?
I’d probably use React if I did do something.
EDIT: This is a prototype design I came up with, I'll play around with the API and see what I can do. I think that it could be a fun project, thanks for all the help!
Post Card:
Voyager was previously called wefwef, and at the time it already had the wefwef.app which you could use as a web app. When Lemmy became more popular, there were hardly any apps available at the app store, so I used that web app instead. It was pretty good, but later I switched to a proper app when those became available. Anyway, it’s all open source, so have a look at the github page to see if it looks hard or easy to you.
Which app did you switch to?
Initially, I installed all of the apps and started using them. When I noticed that one app was annoying me in some way, I added that line into a spreadsheet, and tested if all the other apps were any better in that regard. After a while, my list had about 20 important features and ratings for each app. After that evaluation period, I settled on Bean, Mlem and Voyager. For several months, I was quite happy with Bean. Every now and then I stumbled upon a situation that Mlem handled better, so I kept switching between the two when needed. I didn’t use Voyager that much, but I kept it anyway, because it had a lot of the features I appreciate.
One day, the suspicions of many Bean users were confirmed, and the app officially died. I just switched to Mlem and Voyager. At that point I also installed Thunder, because it had a fairly good score in my spreadsheet. Currently, I’m keeping it as a backup just in case Mlem or Voyager fail me.
At the moment, Mlem is my favorite Lemmy app for reading, voting and writing short comments. Voyager on iPad can handle long comments much better, and that’s the app I’m using at the moment. Maybe I’ll just use Voyager on the tablet and Mlem on the phone…
I haven't looked at the Lemmy API, but generally speaking hard or not is subjective. Try it, get your hands dirty. Take a stab at testing how it works. Set some very basic targets. Split it up into tasks. If one task proves more complicated than expected, split it up into smaller tasks. If you get stuck, move to another task. You can always get back to those later. Things fall in place with experience.
You could reach out directly to some of the app developers. Their usernames are listed on the !lemmyapps@lemmy.world megathread. Also check out !lemmy_dev@programming.dev for other applications of the API. A lot if people are doing some pretty creative stuff that is worth checking out!
I wasn’t aware of !lemmy_dev@programming.dev, thanks for sharing!
Like kbin.social ?
you know there is already an open source web app for lemmy, right?
With your mindset we'd still be in the stone age.
You know there are already stone tools, right?
Some of these web apps are way past the stone age.
But yeah, if OP wants to build another one, I'm all for it.
The comment is worded poorly, but it's not bad advise. Being open source they can take a look at the code as an example, or could take it and fork it to meet what they are looking for.
Sometimes you want a specific feature but other app developer don't find time or aren't interested in the feature or you just want to practice creating apps from a to z