The Fediverse deserves a dumb graphical client

(adele.pages.casa)

59 points | by speckx 3 hours ago

10 comments

  • not2b 42 minutes ago
    I looked at it and it is impressively lightweight. It would help if it could collapse duplicate notifications, right now the notifications page is filled with repeats even though I'm not all that popular on fedi.
  • ndegruchy 3 hours ago
    In addition to this guys app, there's also brutaldon[1]. A web1.0 client that serves as a web interface for mastodon.

    [1]: https://brutaldon.org/about

  • alsetmusic 23 minutes ago
    Are there any plans to add support for Lemmy?
  • floren 2 hours ago
    Sidebar, am I alone in absolutely hating "smol"?
    • dgunay 9 minutes ago
      No, there's tons of backlash against the "le reddit chungus" era of memes like doggo pupper smol bean etc.
    • all2 1 hour ago
      Its the memetic inverse of "swol". Dunno if that helps or not.
    • CitrusFruits 55 minutes ago
      [dead]
  • prmoustache 27 minutes ago
    Adële is building and hosting small but really nice things in the spirit of the internet as I knew it before the Great Enshitification Malaise Era we are living in.

    Thank you Adële.

    Note to myself: stop commenting and update your damn gemini capsule

  • righthand 1 hour ago
    Wouldn’t removing the dumb excessiveness of most graphical clients, make it a “smart” client?
  • kogasa240p 46 minutes ago
    What about Akkoma?
  • guywithahat 2 hours ago
    Somewhat unrelated but these sorts of clients are becoming great targets for AI coding. I've been able to create minimal gtk C++ apps for small sites with good API's in relatively little time, and they run beautifully since they're native apps.

    I like the project though, it'd be cool to have a picture of what it looks like either on the git page or the blog article but I like the spirit of the project.

  • superkuh 3 hours ago
    It really does. But also, having to do this points out a glaring flaw in the design of the fediverse websites. They're applications and not documents. They require executing complex code from unknown third parties just to show a bit of text and some multi-media. This isn't needed at all. And it wasn't like this till mastodon v3 when they broke it.

    Despite requiring Javascript execution mastodon actually does have the post contents of a URL in the hidden meta-content HTML header on the page where it scolds you and blocks you for not executing their arbitrary code. All they'd have to do is put that same text in the HTML as actual <p> text. And it's not just mastodon instances, the other fediverse "applications' are just as silly in their intentional breaking of accessibility for no reason.

    • capitainenemo 1 hour ago
      At least Xitter has Nitter proxies after they went full Javascript - which is also great since it allows accessing content that's often behind a registration wall.
    • lynx97 2 hours ago
      I have yet to find a social network which is actually accessible. The Google thing (circles?) was never actually useable, it was the biggest horror show of all. m.facebook.com was basically the only website that was ever really accessible. All the other players, including the "free and morally superior" alternatives couldn't give two fucks about people with disabilities, which reflects nicely on the fact that they are actually not an alternative, they are a playground for misguided developers...

      Fact is, if you are launching a social network which is not accessible from the get go, you are part of the problem. You have no moral high ground, you're just playing around and widening the digital divide, leaving people behind.

  • mindslight 2 hours ago
    First, I take issue with the idea of calling something "dumb" for trying to avoid modern app bloat, even as marketing. I understand the precedent of a "smart" device being something that backhauls your personal information to the surveillance industry (decidedly not smart!). But still, can we find a better name for the concept? "Native" ? "Lean" ? It shouldn't be about giving up some purported betterness of bloaty software, but rather about the benefits we get by doing so.

    Second, it's kind of depressing that this is still tying itself to web technologies. What about a straightforward desktop client that uses a native desktop toolkit? I get that this is a difficult problem because a lot of protocols bake in reliance on web technologies and whatnot, but if I am looking for a simple graphical client I would expect something that aims to not simply dump content into webviews, nevermind still being dependent on an actual browser!