Comment on But have you tried Jerboa?
mintiefresh@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
I was using Jerboa up until now and am now using Sync because I used it for Reddit.
…and that’s it. I don’t understand why this gets so much talk. There are so many options. Just use something. We all want Lemmy to grow so I don’t see the problem.
I started off using jerboa. Just installed sync to see what the fuss is about. At the core it’s pretty much the same. One thing sync does better, at least on my phone, is smoother loading/rendering of content. There were times id actually use Lemmy web instead.
With that said, my favorite reddit app Boost, is working on a Lemmy client too. So I’m looking forward to that as well.
Am I ditching jerboa? No, not yet.
Amen 🙏
I put this in a other thread, but am genuinely interested in getting feedback.
I’m currently on Jerboa and downloaded/installed sync yesterday. As a former RIF user, I don’t have a horse in this race. I am more familiar with Jerboa, but find the overall feel of both (admittedly, without a lot of use), to be pretty comparable.
That said, I kind of like some of the ideas in Jerboa more? For example, tap to minimize comments and their children on Jerboa is quite a bit faster. I’m kind of sad that both make selecting some of the text in a comment hard and miss the dedicated RIF collapse/expand comment tree button. Jerboa also matches the font size of everything else in my UI better than Sync. For example, the font size of this reply and my keyboard are the same in Jerboa. In Sync the in-app font size is quite a bit smaller.
At the end of the day, I think that both apps are going to be largely comparable for a fairly casual user like me. I bet both offer more functionality than I’m using, but so far I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
You can customize both those options in Sync. I had the same initial issues, but you can switch comment collapse to single tap as well as increase font size.
Sync is very very customizable.
Will have to try customizing it, thanks for the pointer. I’m still not sure what benefits it beings other than a somewhat smoother UX though.
I am exactly your use-case. Was using RIF, then I’ve been using Jerboa up until Sync was released. I never used Sync for Reddit.
My opinion on the two differs from yours, however. Sync seems SO much better than Jerboa to me. Yep, the font was small but I was able to embiggen it. Everything else seems faster and more intuitive. Jerboa was so buggy for me.
I was jumping between Voyager, Jerboa, Thunder, Connect, Summit, Liftoff… Was using one until one or two things got on my nerves enough, then jump to another, then repeat. Since Sync came out I can finally settle in one place where I feel at home. Not dissing the other apps at all, they are very usable and do most things well, but there were always those couple of things not quite right… And of course it wasn’t the same things in all the apps.
Jerboa was a bit buggy initially, but the only bug I’ve experienced recently was trying to expand hidden comments in a post with a ton of comments. That caused it to crash. It is slow to load some days, but I’ve been caulking that up to a slow instance. I could see how an app could work around that problem by not loading the slow instance but that seems… non ideal? Better CX sure, but it means different users would see different content based on what app they’re using.
As a former RIF user I like the way the comments look on synch better. Reminds me or RiF
Indenting in jebora does leave something to be desired, lol. I’ve gotten some good pointers, will have to keep trying sync.
Another killer features Sync has that (AFAIK) no other Lemmy android apps currently have:
long pressing a community in the community list drawers will open that community in a new activity windows, essentially the android equivalent to open in a new “window”. Use your phone’s app switcher to switch between these “window”. There is even an option to allow you to open posts in a new window as well. Very handy if you want to write a comment while looking for some information in another thread, or if you’re on a tablet and want to pin multiple sync windows on the screen.
Sync will open links to a lemmy post natively instead of in an embedded web browser.
I’ve tried a few apps (Liftoff, Wifwif or whatever it was called, and now Sync). I’ve not stuck with any of them, despite the fact I used RiF and later Boost both for years.
They just feel too early stage. Eg, Wifwif was super sluggish and I accidentally cancelled multiple long comments I typed up by trying to scroll, which is a big oof. With Sync, I noticed the comment hierarchy was messed up and when I went to post about that, I couldn’t do it from within the app because posting isn’t supported yet (feels like a big thing to be missing).
So for now, I’m still just using the website. And not with the PWA, because support for multiple tabs is really great and avoids weirdness with scrolling when going back.
I’ve been using Liftoff but Sync feels a lot more polished except what it does with the comments sometimes - showing child comments with no parent. Liftoff would show the parent comment so I don’t know what’s up with that.
Long time RiF user but no LiF 🤷♂️
Because third party apps are literally the point that drove a lot of people to Lemmy in the first place. It’s classic selection bias.
I don’t understand why this gets so much talk
Because proprietary software is unethical.
Xeknos@lemmy.world 10 months ago
This. I’ve been using Jerboa ever since making the switch to Lemmy. There wasn’t much of a learning curve and it basically does what I want, so I’m happy with it.
havocpants@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Me too, I have no idea where the complaints about Jerboa are coming from. I mean, it shows posts and comments, how radically different are these alternate apps? They all look the same to me!
Xeknos@lemmy.world 10 months ago
There’s some slight functionality differences and maybe some customization: for example, Relay had swipe controls which were pretty nice.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 10 months ago
I wish they’d just fix the bug when pressing backspace to edit comments.
abrasiveteapot@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Seconded. Jerboa is much better than lookout which I also tried, but the backspace bug is irritating
ryannathans@lemmy.fmhy.net 10 months ago
At least the inbox isn’t permanently unread now