I relatively recently reinstalled my OS (distro-hopping to Fedora KDE) and as I was installing my various everyday programs, I began to wonder whether there were any solid competitors to VSCode in the space other than IntelliJ products (which I strongly dislike compared to VSCode already). I've used VSCode for a while, but I've definitely noticed my experience with the app getting a little bloated and overwhelmed. But I'm not keeping my finger on the pulse of new IDEs, so I don't know if there's anything new (or at least a solid alternative of some sort) out there that people are switching to.

I'm on Linux, so nothing Mac-exclusive. I know VSCode's extension library is probably hard to match given its popularity, but I'd hope for an alternative that at least has potential to have extensions to cover lesser-known languages and file formats for me. I liked the look and feel of VS Code when I switched to it years ago, so I'm all for apps with similar vibes, but I'd like something that feels faster and more focused.

Please don't recommend vim. I've already heard of vim, and if I wanted to switch to it I would have already.

Looking Back on Temple of Elemental Evil

My table wrapped up T1-T4 Temple of Elemental Evil a few months ago, and I decided to take a break before moving on to I6 Ravenloft to play some video games for a bit. It's a good thing, too, because there's been several hospitalizations and deaths so far this year, but that's a topic for elsewhere.

After having finished it, I can confidently say that I don't really get all the hype T1-T4 gets in this day and age. Perhaps when it was new, but I still see people today lauding its greatness. It was... fine. T1 had a very strong start, no real complaints there, but as the book went on it meandered more and left a lot to be desired in the third and especially fourth floors of the dungeon. I've heard rumors that Gygax was unable to finish it in time due to being pulled away for TSR business often, so he gave all his notes to Mentzer to complete the work. I would believe it, personally. I've also since been told that the campaign book has an errata, so perhaps that fixes a lot of our issues with it, but I've not read it; no real interest in running this again.

The Upcoming Ravenloft Run

Moving past that, though, we'll be starting back up on April 11th with the group's first batch of characters going to the castle representing Ravenloft to have dinner with the Count; some of them received a letter inviting them over to congratulate them on their work within the region and on the power they've gained. The players know what they're getting into, but the characters don't. Joining us this go around are:

• Rowan Human Magic-User 7 (~66k XP)
  • Henchman Freya, Human Fighter 5 (~18k XP)
  • Henchman Rikka, Human Fighter 5 (~18k XP)
• Iskandar, Human Magic-User 8 (~106k XP)
  • Henchman Thorgisl, Human Fighter 2 (~2k XP)
• Ser Duncan, Human Paladin 6 (~55k XP)
• Melceth, Human Cleric 7 (~55k XP)
• Elowyn, Elf Fighter 5 / Magus 5 (~55k XP)

Looking Ahead to the New World

Regardless of what the results of the Ravenloft module are, there will then be a time skip of a couple or few years before a portal to a new setting, Jovian, will be made available to the group; a planet with two suns--a very large, incredibly bright one representing Bahamut and a much smaller, dimmer one representing Tiamat--that is bathed in an eternal twilight. Two major themes I aim to hit with this setting are reclamation and perseverance.

To go along with the change in setting, I am also planning on making other changes to the game. We are:

• finally getting rid of the gnome
• retaining the half-ogre
• adding the mul, which are a half-human/half-dwarf race from Dark Sun
• removing the Assassin class
• adding the Runecaster class
• replacing the base Cleric class with a specialty priest for each of our 17 deities
• allowing halflings to be Illusionist in the absence of the gnome
• allowing mul to be Occultists, a custom class of my making
• allowing half-orcs to be a Magus, another custom class of my making, in the absence of the Assassin

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

Recently:

Version 1.5.0 (Mar 21, 2026):

• Search for posts
• [Android] Fixed touch ripple on inbox conversation rows
• [Android] Fixed support for high-RAM devices
• [Android] (1.5.1) Fixed comment reply sheet on Android 11-14
• [iOS] Fixed blur on Sort button on iOS 26
• [iOS] Fixed ugly shadow between panes on iPadOS 26
• [iOS] Fixed overly large vote label on own comments

Edit: Currently on TestFlight only on iOS for the next week or so.

[iOS] Version 1.4.5 (Jan 2026): Fixed UI bugs on iOS 26

[Android] Version 1.4.5 (Apr 2025): Fixed YouTube bugs, voting bugs on Android 11 and earlier

Search has been near the top of my to-do list for a long time, so it feels good to finally release this feature.

I did some custom UI this time and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Despite its basic appearance, it required a decent amount of detailed UI programming on both Android and iOS, to avoid breaking the adjacent Sort feature. I also had to redo the search results screen a few times, due to navigation quirks on each platform.

There are a couple related features that didn't make it this time: Searching for posts and comments within your own profile is not possible yet. Also "find in page" for comment text is not here yet either. These are both pretty high priority to me, and as usual it's a matter of making time and finding motivation to work on it.

Also on Android, expect a hotfix v1.5.1 coming out soon, to fix the comment reply sheet on Android 11-14. Big thanks to the user who reported this bug! The hotfix is already available to sideload, and under review on Google Play, as of this writing.

Previous topic: April 2025

Where to get it

Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
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If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

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You know the trope: an epic fantasy world with magic materials that have strange properties or give people superpowers or what have you. It seems half of the time, this material is a type of crystal with some kind of electric power, and the other half of the time it's a type of metal that's basically steel, but stronger or something. The main examples that come to mind are Marvel, where you have the Soul Stones, Adamantium, and Vibranium.

Are there any other cool types of materials to use for this type of resource? Like maybe an obscure type of material that certain scientists study, but the general public doesn't know much about?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I'll be brief. A friend of mine told me about an Android app called Slowly, which simulates sending letters to people around the world with a time delay representing their distance. I answered that I probably would rather send actual letters instead. I installed Slowly but it is a hellhole of gamification and aggressive monetization. So I went back to the idea of just sending letters to people that I write on paper. I am new to this and several websites exist to facilitate finding pen pals. One of them, Global Penfriends, also has an internal messaging system, which I felt kinda misses the point? Anyway, I think that might be a great inexpensive hobby but I have no idea where to begin with. Some websites have premium tiers too, but it is not clear if this is something I would need.

Any suggestions?

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.