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.
I’m also finding it really effective. I only hate that backing out from a post is a crapshoot on whether it preserves my scroll position, resets to the top, or reloads the entire feed.
PWA = progressive web app = a webpage-based app, as opposed to a native app for whatever OS you’re using.
for those like me who didn’t know what it meant
I’m posting currently from the PWA after I enabled 2FA on my account (not currently working with Jerboa). It’s nice and works well, but I prefer the more compact list view present in Jerboa. Other than that, no complaints!
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?
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.
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
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
Oh yeah I tried it. And it even worked better than jerboa in some ways until jerboa had some updates. It still has some features that jerboa doesn’t have, like opening links to other instances within your own instance (that’s a huge problem right now for me). So yeah the webpage version is still competitive with this app but probably not for too long.
Ive been exclusively browsing on mobile web, same as I did reddit. This layout is much more user friendly forsure.
The benefit of not having half the screen devoted to trying to get you to download the app is a huge bonus.
This Apollo-like webapp is new too, and I like it quite a bit: https://wefwef.app
