Not a feature request more like a list of Trouble Tickets. Our valiant leader /u/Cicero suggested I list issues I've run into with the Mainchan app. The attached images are visual examples of some of the formatting and other issues I list below. So here goes in no particular order:
Mainchan App Issues
System: Android
1) Scrolling goes all wonky. On my device when I swipe to scroll it initiates as a click action. Meaning the system default onClick sound plays with each swipe. Scrolling can also become unresponsive or jerky. That's sometimes due to the swipe-down page refresh or the lazy-loading of more content when you reach the bottom of a page since each causes scrolling lag which is unavoidable. However page scrolling can also just become laggy all on it's own requiring more than one swipe to get it moving again.
2) Icons can become unresponsive to clicks, requiring multiple tries to register a press, most noticable when it happens to the comment or share buttons.
3) The text-wrapping for post titles causes line breaks in words so we have titles like:
NASA spacecraft captures 1
st photo of it's giant solar sa
il while tumbling in space
and
Linking Park Unveil Emily Ar
mstrong as New Co-Vocalis
t, Announce 2024 World To
ur and Album
4) In longer post titles next to thumbnail images the text formatting can break leading to some of the text being misaligned and flowing under the thumbnail rather than staying parallel (see image #4. oddly this doesn't happen for every long-titled post). Combined with the broken words this can make post titles look like:
XXXX The X's are the thumbnai
XXXX l and this is the post t
XXXX itle. When the text fl
ows past the image it wi
ll wrap unattractively like
this.
This should look like...
XXXX The X's are the
XXXX thumbnail and this is the
XXXX post title. Here words
aren't broken up and the
text stays aligned no
matter how long the title
gets.
5) The same text wrapping problem also effects subchan titles and the subscribe button next to it (see image #3).
6) Link posts should take users to the comment page for that post rather than opening the link. The Reddit App functions this way. Once on the comment page the user can click a small, right-aligned, thumbnail to launch the linked site.
7) The font size is too large. Three posts show before the fold in the Mainchan app while 6 posts fit in the same space on the Reddit app due to the difference in font size.
8) The loading page is pretty ghetto and it's bright off-white (see image #1). For users (like me) who dark-mode everything that's a blinding flash in the middle of the night when opening Mainchan. Reddit solves this by flashing a black screen with their logo centered as the app loads (their loading screen is black regardless of dark or light mode).
9) There is no way to view/browse the full list of subchans. Clicking the "Subchans" icon only lists subscribed and popular subs. It should also have a way to view the full subchan list as well as show the user the subs that they moderate (or the subs you moderate should be listed on your "Profile" page).
10) "OC-Only" and "Text-only" toggles should have icons like the rest of the options in the slide-out menu. The user profile pic here should be a lil smaller as well to allow for "NSFW" and "Nightmode" toggles (assuming you plan to implement mode-switching in the app and aren't hiding the NSFW toggle from Apple or Google).
11) Content Creator Program (huh, CCP, unfortunate acronym), About, Announcement, Content Policy, Leaderboard, and Claim a Sub all seem to be missing.
12) No option to create a subchan
13) No text formatting options when making a comment (see bottom of image #2)
14) Any plan to support subchan themes?
15) Subchan rules can only be accessed from the "Create a Submission" page and not each subchan itself. The "rules" link should also be either above or below the Subscribe/Unsubscribe button on subchan pages.
16) The post button at the bottom is not aware of what sub you're viewing so no matter where you are you have to hit "Post", then search for the sub you want to post to (very responsive, snappy search btw) before you can start making the post. The post button should take you directly to "Create a Submission" when you're on a subchan page and only require you to search when you're on the homepage or /s/All.
17) None of pages the bottom navigation leads to have a back arrow in the header (like sub and comment pages do) nor do they work with the phone's back button to return you to the previous page. This leaves hitting the home button as the only way to backtrack.
18) The slide-up menu used to display subchan rules and sorting options is great, seems like something that could be used for some of the things mentioned earlier like displaying your moderated subs, links to Content Creator Program, Content Policy, etc...
19) None of the moderator options (mod mail, ban, reports archive, sub theme etc.) is accessible in the app. I also don't see the options for users to appeal a ban. The mods for each sub are not listed either.
Edited 3 months ago
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Want to leave a comment?
also I appreciate the feedback!
I'm currently working on implementing video shorts, and I had other fixes I needed to work on, so it might take a while to get to these.
1) It's hard for me to recreate this issue on my end. /u/Trucidare has this issue as well. It might end up getting fixed, idk.
2) I'd have to play around with the app more to replicate this.
3) Noted
4) wtf why is the text so big on your device? What device are you using?
5) Yeah this is happening because the text is so big for your device. Would really like to know what device you have. Do you have some kind of accessibility settings that makes text bigger?
6) I think this is an option on reddit. Either way you can just click on the comments button.
7) yea
8) I was going to get rid of the "Loading..." text, it's just for me really.
9) Yeah I'll expand on the subchans screen. For now it's pretty basic.
10) Suggestions for an "OC" icon?
11 and 12) Yeah a lot of things are missing. Some on purpose, some I don't know if I'll ever implement in the app. The app wasn't designed to have all the same stuff the website has, it's just supposed to be a convenient way to use mainchan on a mobile device.
13) I'll do this at some point, same with emojis.
14) Not on the app, no.
15) Noted
16) I'm aware. This would be hard to implement. I'll do it at some point.
17) neither does the reddit app
18 and 19) I'm not adding mod support at the moment to the app. If mainchan gets popular, sure. At best I might add a notification that you have modmail and that you need to go on the desktop site to deal with it.
For issues that require back-end coding are you using one of the various AI coding tools? If not you should. Could make some of these bug fixes a lot easier. Just paste in your current code, describe the bug and ask it the AI to fix it while you puff some of the Halfling's leaf.
Perfect use case for an AI assistant to fix for you.
Are you testing one multiple devices and OS versions? I know Samsung offers Device Lab and there are various other services that offer cross device/OS mobile app testing as well. I'm assuming you're already testing in an emulator so just throwing some other testing methods out there in case you haven't given them a shot. If you haven't tested with any such services they could probably be a big help in spotting issues you're having trouble replicating locally.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8. A pretty old model since I refuse to update to the newer models that lack a headphone jack. (The foldables are tempting but I'm holding out til Samsung solves the ugly screen crease).
It's not the text size. I just set the text to the smallest size my phone allows and you can see in the attached image the formatting still breaks sometimes (and also, confusingly, still doesn't break sometimes). Besides if the formatting is reliant on the font size being medium-small to work that's just setting yourself up for issues when font sizes vary so wildly across mobile devices. Gotta make sure even big ass elderly people fonts don't gunk up the works (as someone who's made government websites where I had to account for the unknown font sizes on unknown screen sizes I know the PITA of this requirement but it's worth it just in terms of bullet-proofing your layout).
This one's a user experience issue. I guarantee it will be a pain point for most new users since clicking a small, unlabeled icon UNDER the link/title they think they're supposed to click is highly unintuitive. Smoothing out such UX pain points will help in acquiring new users and making they stick around.
Just giving that page the dark mode bg color and a centered Mainchan logo would bring it in line with most every major social app's loading splash.
Cool. cool.
Best AI suggested idea "Light Bulb: A classic symbol of ideas and creativity, a light bulb can represent innovative thoughts and original concepts." Second best was a writing quill.
In pro-dev speak you've described an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The least product possible to give a working something to users so you can start generating returns. That's all well and good. I'd advise you to plan on getting all of the features of the website into the app though. Especially the Content Creator Program (CCP) since that it will be a major driver of users and revenue once it's actually rolling. BTW while I'm on the subject you should definitely roll out Reddit-style ad posts ASAP, not big ass images, just regular posts that are slightly highlighted to show they're ads. Y'know tasteful. Not a whole lot of em, just enough to keep the lights on and maybe start funding the CCP.
The Reddit app does obey the phone's back button in those instance though, Mainchain app doesn't.
I get your logic there. The user ban appeal should definitely be in the app tho.
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That said...
Feature Request: Increase the character limit and include a character count down near the text input box. I had to battle with it to post this and I had no indication why I suddenly couldn't type anything anymore.