Are there any thoughts for a notification system or a mobile app?
While browsing through the Tildes documentation, I stumbled across this in the Technical Goals section:
Tildes is a website. Your phone already has an app for using it—it's your browser.
Tildes will have a full-featured API, so I definitely don't want to discourage mobile apps overall, but the primary interface for using the site on mobile should remain as the website. That means that mobile users will get access to updates at exactly the same time as desktop ones, and full functionality should always be available on both.
This got me thinking. Despite Tildes preferring mobile browsers over an app, is there still a chance for one? I usually avoid using websites on mobile unless I must, as mobile websites generally don't have the full functionality of the website. Labelling comments 'Exemplary' and 'Malice' on mobile is an example of what doesn't work (there's more), and it's usually very unresponsive for some of the things that still do work. Also, there aren't any notifications on mobile websites and some people, me included, have cumbersome browsers that make the feel of using the website slow and laborious.
Another thing is, if the app has no chance of happening, could Tildes get desktop notifications? I usually like to respond to replies to my topics and comments as quickly as possible and I'm not a fan of the whole 'constant login to check my notifications' thing. Email notifications aren't possible because of Tildes' privacy belief.
I, for one, would prefer it if it just stayed as a web page. I kind of resent the glut of apps out there that would work better as web-sites. Mobile users should be better habituated to using the open internet instead of having app-centric experiences of the web. This would go a long way towards restoring control to the user instead of having their experiences mediated by black-box applications.
The mobile version of the site could use some (very minor) UI/UX tweaks, but it works well enough and is probably the best mobile experience of all the major Social Media services I've used, mostly because it doesn't gum up the works with scripts, take up real-estate to serve ads, or put up lightboxes and modal dialogs everywhere.
If you really want it easy access, you can save the site to your home-screen as a web app. The site can even be configured to serve you notifications, but that's another thing you're better off not having. It's better for your mental health to only check stuff when you want to instead of having sites pester you to look at them. It's also better for the community and the quality of the discourse if we encourage people to post when they're focused and actively engaged rather than hastily firing off hot-takes. That design pattern is responsible for a lot of the reductive strawman-centric discourse we see on sites like Twitter. It feels good to get a quick hit, but it makes better conversations if we encourage people to take it slow.
Alright — I added to Tildes to my home screen, and I actually agree with you now. It's working really well and I have no problems any more (probably because I'm using Safari). Thanks for explanation, it's much appreciated.
This is my own personal demon, but do you find the text size too small on Safari, or any other iOS browser? I've been in touch with @Deimos regarding this because I thought it might be something I could control on my side (I had already researched and it's really not, but I had hope). After playing with every accessibility option on iOS, I don't see a practical way to improve it, but it's nigh unusable for me on my phone, a Xs. I really just browse on desktop because of it. Image for context. That's ~4-3/4" of vertical space, with 36-ish lines of text.
I have the same text size, and I have no problem with it.
Yeah, I figured it must be working for most people, because I don't see much mention of it. I do wear glasses, and don't have a problem with the vast majority of websites I visit, but Tildes text is just too tiny for my aging eyes. I'll just stick to desktop, although it would be nice to be able to use the site on mobile. Thanks for the reply. @esrever so I don't double-post.
It seems fine to me on my 6s on 12.1.2. Perhaps it just comes down to personal preference here, as the font size I have set in my main reddit app is actually even slightly smaller.
Maybe there could be a few customization settings in the future to allow for user preference in this area?
I’ve added it to my home screen on iOS, and that’s been working out fine for me so far. I wish more sites would prioritize their mobile site over their app.
That’s what I do, but that only works for Safari and I personally use the DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser. Luckily Tildes is great with privacy and they have no ads or trackers, so it’s safe to run in Safari.
Why did you choose DDG over, say, Brave? Or even over a content blocker for Safari?
Not OP, but for me, "Why not Brave?" Take your pick:
Which is really a shame because the BAT idea is a good one.
I'm in agreement with @cfabbro, and another reason I don't use Brave is because it's Chrome-based and I want to distance myself away from Google.
I'm pretty sure tildes on mobile is fully features. I have no problem tagging things. I'm sure once deimos opens the api there will be a few apps popping up
Works fine for me - what happens if you try? Is there just no dialog box?
There's no technical restriction enforcing that; websites are free to send notifications, it's just that nobody has implemented it for Tildes yet :)
OTOH, I'd be surprised if nobody made an app ever.
I added the site to my home screen, and it works fine and dandy. I managed to label comments 'Exemplary', and that's probably because I'm using Safari for Tildes. Thanks anyway — I don't find notifications to be too bad a problem for me. Either way, I think people would make Tildes clients once the API is released and once more people join Tildes (perhaps by 2020/2021).
Also keep in mind that there's a limit on how often you can use the 'Exemplary' label. When you use it, it's blocked for 8 hours before you can use it again.
Yes, I’m aware of that.
I was actually just thinking that I should totally write a terminal browser for this :D
We talked about maybe turning the reply box here into a sort of terminal. How's that for a strange feature?
!remindme 12 days
Why should that be a bot? Seems like a great command line style trigger for the reply box. Then we won't have all those damn bot-triggering comments everywhere. The idea of building a command line into the interface is oddly tantalizing, imagine where that could go long-term.
I think we first discussed it in the tildes slack before there was even a tildes. It's come up in threads like this before as well. Someone pointed out that this sort of thing's been done before too. Also if you consider the bots on slack, discord, and IRC, they aren't all that different in form/function to how a command line interface might work in a place like this. Reddit's bots also provide an entire galaxy of examples. I think it's a very interesting idea. Not something Tildes 'needs' but someday it might make sense as a solution to certain kinds of problems.
Maybe some kind of "promotion value" applied to a thread on a new reply, with that value being divided by the depth of the reply?
What would be the benefit of a terminal interface?
I'm liking it as a website on mobile so far, but the blue links/text on black background with the black theme are a pain to look at in the dark with minimum brightness.
Maybe another color or a less saturated blue would be better. The solarized dark theme is terrible with low brightness too.
Do you have any examples of themes that do work well? It's quite easy to add more themes now, so I'll probably look to add some new ones and/or update the existing ones before too long.
*cough* Dracula *cough* ;)
I would absolutely love to have it available natively so I can use it on mobile. iOS has no Stylus like system for any of the available browsers AFAIK.
I'll second that. Dracula is rather good, and has good element contrast.
Please. I'd pay monthly for it. I hate to be such a huge fanboi, but Dracula is just so damn easy on the eyes. I want it adopted to skin an entire OS.
I’d love it if @Deimos added Dracula.
Hard to say because i rarely see a dark website that's neat to look at. Since i mostly access them on computer and i rarely use at night, the bright color doesn't concern me.
But tildes (like reddit) on mobile i use mostly at night and it's a problem. With reddit i used the RedReader app with the dark theme.
Maybe try something based on nord or base16?
https://arcticicestudio.github.io/nord/
http://chriskempson.com/projects/base16/
Or maybe creating in real time or trying the examples on https://terminal.sexy/
I think the only way to know is implement some and use it here. between nord and base16, i think base16 has better contrast.