Every time I go to Reddit and I’ve been signed out for some reason, I see the “new” design (which is almost 4 years old at this point) and am reminded of just how bad it is. And every time I use...
Every time I go to Reddit and I’ve been signed out for some reason, I see the “new” design (which is almost 4 years old at this point) and am reminded of just how bad it is.
And every time I use Safari (where RES is unavailable), I am reminded that some of most useful features of Reddit are actually features of Reddit Enhancement Suite. I’ll wonder where the show all images” or infinite scroll are.
It’s impressive that they’ve made it this long. A decade of constant support for an open source project is impressive and deserves kudos.
I remember when RES stopped supporting Safari due to Apple putting Safari's extension ecosystem behind their garden wall. That was around the time I stopped using Reddit in a browser. Vanilla...
I remember when RES stopped supporting Safari due to Apple putting Safari's extension ecosystem behind their garden wall. That was around the time I stopped using Reddit in a browser. Vanilla Reddit, sans RES or a dedicated app to smooth it out, either in the old or new flavors, has a terrible UX. It's a sort of amazing lesson in how much more important content is compared to software UX in determining popularity. I'd go so far as to say vanilla Reddit is user-hostile site. But, users will live with it or find their own workarounds to continue to get access to the "the front page of the internet".
Definitely a good example of “content is king”. That whole thread is full of people talking about the hoops they jump through for people to make Reddit usable enough that they will put up with it...
Definitely a good example of “content is king”. That whole thread is full of people talking about the hoops they jump through for people to make Reddit usable enough that they will put up with it just to access the content.
I use Reddit almost exclusively through the app since Safari support was dropped.
I was a beta tester for new Reddit. At the start there was no dark mode so I made the first dark theme and I think an admin gave me gold. That was my most positive experience for new Reddit.
I was a beta tester for new Reddit. At the start there was no dark mode so I made the first dark theme and I think an admin gave me gold. That was my most positive experience for new Reddit.
End of an era, that's for sure. I remember discovering it and being absolutely amazed at how well it worked and just how many features made Reddit usable around 2011. Features have slowly stopped...
End of an era, that's for sure. I remember discovering it and being absolutely amazed at how well it worked and just how many features made Reddit usable around 2011.
Features have slowly stopped working or just barely hanging on for the last few years, the fact that someone has stuck behind is a testament to the community.
I use RES. I just want them to keep it the way it is. I really don't care about new features or the redesign, I just want it to keep working. Fortunately I'm pretty sure most of the people who use...
I use RES. I just want them to keep it the way it is. I really don't care about new features or the redesign, I just want it to keep working.
Fortunately I'm pretty sure most of the people who use RES share this opinion, and since it's open-source, if Reddit does make any breaking changes people will step up.
Unfortunately, you might have missed the underlying message. People aren't stepping up to help maintain RES even though it is needed. Projects like this and other open source projects don't need...
Fortunately I'm pretty sure most of the people who use RES share this opinion, and since it's open-source, if Reddit does make any breaking changes people will step up.
Unfortunately, you might have missed the underlying message. People aren't stepping up to help maintain RES even though it is needed. Projects like this and other open source projects don't need people to step in to save the day. They need people willing to contribute over longer periods of time to help contribute and keep things stable and currently those people are barely there.
My hope is that people don't step up because everything works fine and they don't desire any more features, but if features that they use start breaking they'll be motivated to fix it.
My hope is that people don't step up because everything works fine and they don't desire any more features, but if features that they use start breaking they'll be motivated to fix it.
So your hope is that only after everything has started to fall apart, as the userbase is slowly crumbling because things stopped working, some of those users will decide to try to help instead of...
So your hope is that only after everything has started to fall apart, as the userbase is slowly crumbling because things stopped working, some of those users will decide to try to help instead of leave and learn how the entire system works overnight so they can fix it by morning, despite having to learn all the intricacies of 1.) how Reddit works, 2.) How RES works, 3.) How the two interact, and 4.) What changes were made to Reddit that have altered the RES requirements, and then, as an additional point, 5.) discover and implement the necessary changes to restore functionality?
Obviously it would be better if some developers felt compelled to start learning to maintain the project today, some people decided to port it to new reddit, some people felt like adding new...
Obviously it would be better if some developers felt compelled to start learning to maintain the project today, some people decided to port it to new reddit, some people felt like adding new features, etc. It's sad that it has to be put in maintenance mode.
That said, a lot of open source seems to be about scratching one's own itch. I still believe that there are users who know enough about rest apis and browser extensions and care just enough about their favorite features, so that the core will keep working for at least a few more years, even if every now and then it breaks for a few days.
I'm still on old Reddit so I'd be fine if it just stays the way it is. It does look like there are fewer people with the knowledge to maintain it though.
I'm still on old Reddit so I'd be fine if it just stays the way it is.
It does look like there are fewer people with the knowledge to maintain it though.
Reminder for anyone who didn't know or forgot, but there is a similar (less full-featured, but useful) browser extension for Tildes called Tildes ReExtended, courtesy of @Bauke. Looks like it...
Reminder for anyone who didn't know or forgot, but there is a similar (less full-featured, but useful) browser extension for Tildes called Tildes ReExtended, courtesy of @Bauke. Looks like it hasn't been updated in a while, but it works fine for me.
One of these days I'll find the motivation to get back to it and implement all the outstanding features, but until then rest assured I'll at least keep it working as intended.
One of these days I'll find the motivation to get back to it and implement all the outstanding features, but until then rest assured I'll at least keep it working as intended.
I don't post on Reddit anymore, but on the odd occasion when I want to look for something on there I'll use one of the various public instances of Libreddit. I find it to actually be a pleasant...
I don't post on Reddit anymore, but on the odd occasion when I want to look for something on there I'll use one of the various public instances of Libreddit. I find it to actually be a pleasant experience as long as you know the specific subreddit and/or a specific search you want to do. The official site is so user-hostile with pushing the app and logging in and randomly redirecting to the front page instead of what you actually clicked that it's completely unusable. Old reddit is also fine, but not as nice to look at.
TL;DR:TL;DR: It’s not quite dead, Jim. But it is on life support maintenance mode.
TL;DR: RES development has dwindled as the team members have grown busy, moved on to other projects, etc. Support for "new" reddit has not gained much traction/interest from developers, so without additional contributions, RES development will be mostly infrequent / in life support mode. More details below.
The State of RES
Reddit Enhancement Suite has been around since 2010. It has had many passionate developers (over 280+ people have contributed to RES), over 200 releases and we have worked with companies such as Microsoft to launch extensions for their platform. The project has seen amazing developers come and go from the project as well go through multiple significant re-architectural changes. It's been the love and passion project of many developers for a long time.
However, over the past few years we have seen a slowdown on the project as people move on, and not a lot of interest in supporting the project. Right now the project is supported by 2 people and these are primarily bug fixes or dependency updates. You can see from the project graph what this looks like in terms of activity, with significant drops over the past few years.
It is with great sadness of the RES team that we are putting RES on life support mode for the foreseeable future.
What does this mean?
RES will continue to be on the extension marketplaces for Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Opera for as long as possible, however we will no longer guarantee full support with whatever changes Reddit decides to make.
We may do updates to fix random bugs/release new things that have been merged from PR by other people, however this will be at the discretion of the team.
Unless new volunteers step up to do so, the existing RES team will not be working on support for the redesign, or be looking to support other browsers.
Support from core developers will be limited.
This isn’t to say we are just going to drop and run. People will still be around, just not actively working on it.
Why?
This has been a hard decision by those who are still around on the team, but simply put people do not have the passion or the time to work on the project anymore. RES has taken up a lot of time in people's lives and has been around for over 10 years. The Reddit that existed back then is significantly different to what we know Reddit to be now. We do receive PR’s from the community, but the core developers who understand its internal workings have mostly moved on.
A once vibrant community of developers making cool things for Reddit is now a shadow of its former self as fewer and fewer people are willing to invest the time and effort into passion projects like RES. As it stands right now, the RES developer team is missing the sustained, systemic support from Reddit that we want to enable the ability and inspire the confidence to build browser extensions for new and changing reddit.com experiences. With Reddit now being closed source and not the developer-friendly platform it once was, the confidence people have to contribute to projects like this is low: future changes or additions to the platform may break those contributions and require further updates. Whilst we have seen individual attempts by Reddit to try to alleviate these concerns, sadly they have not yet been widely adopted by the company and didn’t get the full support required to become impactful.
Toss a coin to your dev team
While you're here, we'd appreciate if you demonstrated your thanks for how much has RES improved your redditing – both in the comments and/or the tip jar. Please contribute to the Reddit Enhancement Suite dev team via PayPal, Bitcoin, Dogecoin. It'll make the team feel good for the efforts they've put in over the past decade and more to improve your lives.
A few members of the RES team will be around in the comments to answer your questions.
EDIT: We are currently rolling out v5.22.10 to fix a few bugs.
Every time I go to Reddit and I’ve been signed out for some reason, I see the “new” design (which is almost 4 years old at this point) and am reminded of just how bad it is.
And every time I use Safari (where RES is unavailable), I am reminded that some of most useful features of Reddit are actually features of Reddit Enhancement Suite. I’ll wonder where the show all images” or infinite scroll are.
It’s impressive that they’ve made it this long. A decade of constant support for an open source project is impressive and deserves kudos.
I remember when RES stopped supporting Safari due to Apple putting Safari's extension ecosystem behind their garden wall. That was around the time I stopped using Reddit in a browser. Vanilla Reddit, sans RES or a dedicated app to smooth it out, either in the old or new flavors, has a terrible UX. It's a sort of amazing lesson in how much more important content is compared to software UX in determining popularity. I'd go so far as to say vanilla Reddit is user-hostile site. But, users will live with it or find their own workarounds to continue to get access to the "the front page of the internet".
Definitely a good example of “content is king”. That whole thread is full of people talking about the hoops they jump through for people to make Reddit usable enough that they will put up with it just to access the content.
I use Reddit almost exclusively through the app since Safari support was dropped.
I was a beta tester for new Reddit. At the start there was no dark mode so I made the first dark theme and I think an admin gave me gold. That was my most positive experience for new Reddit.
End of an era, that's for sure. I remember discovering it and being absolutely amazed at how well it worked and just how many features made Reddit usable around 2011.
Features have slowly stopped working or just barely hanging on for the last few years, the fact that someone has stuck behind is a testament to the community.
I use RES. I just want them to keep it the way it is. I really don't care about new features or the redesign, I just want it to keep working.
Fortunately I'm pretty sure most of the people who use RES share this opinion, and since it's open-source, if Reddit does make any breaking changes people will step up.
Unfortunately, you might have missed the underlying message. People aren't stepping up to help maintain RES even though it is needed. Projects like this and other open source projects don't need people to step in to save the day. They need people willing to contribute over longer periods of time to help contribute and keep things stable and currently those people are barely there.
My hope is that people don't step up because everything works fine and they don't desire any more features, but if features that they use start breaking they'll be motivated to fix it.
That's not how software maintaince works though ¯\(°_o)/¯
So your hope is that only after everything has started to fall apart, as the userbase is slowly crumbling because things stopped working, some of those users will decide to try to help instead of leave and learn how the entire system works overnight so they can fix it by morning, despite having to learn all the intricacies of 1.) how Reddit works, 2.) How RES works, 3.) How the two interact, and 4.) What changes were made to Reddit that have altered the RES requirements, and then, as an additional point, 5.) discover and implement the necessary changes to restore functionality?
Obviously it would be better if some developers felt compelled to start learning to maintain the project today, some people decided to port it to new reddit, some people felt like adding new features, etc. It's sad that it has to be put in maintenance mode.
That said, a lot of open source seems to be about scratching one's own itch. I still believe that there are users who know enough about rest apis and browser extensions and care just enough about their favorite features, so that the core will keep working for at least a few more years, even if every now and then it breaks for a few days.
I'm still on old Reddit so I'd be fine if it just stays the way it is.
It does look like there are fewer people with the knowledge to maintain it though.
its a shame. res + toolbox + old.reddit make for the best reddit experience. I hope someone with the knowhow gets involved.
Reminder for anyone who didn't know or forgot, but there is a similar (less full-featured, but useful) browser extension for Tildes called Tildes ReExtended, courtesy of @Bauke. Looks like it hasn't been updated in a while, but it works fine for me.
One of these days I'll find the motivation to get back to it and implement all the outstanding features, but until then rest assured I'll at least keep it working as intended.
I don't post on Reddit anymore, but on the odd occasion when I want to look for something on there I'll use one of the various public instances of Libreddit. I find it to actually be a pleasant experience as long as you know the specific subreddit and/or a specific search you want to do. The official site is so user-hostile with pushing the app and logging in and randomly redirecting to the front page instead of what you actually clicked that it's completely unusable. Old reddit is also fine, but not as nice to look at.
Also on tildes right now: how civilizations fall…