Photon

One year ago, on June 24, 2023, I saw the migration to Lemmy. I wanted to make something like libreddit, so I decided to mess with Lemmy's API. Lemmy became something I wanted to use daily, so I got to work, and I made the first commit:

I started with something that reused components from another project of mine, Imagi. It looked awful and had no features. But, some people actually started using it, and I was motivated to continue this.

After about a month 0.0.1 was released, with very basic features.

One of the earliest Photon versions

The only thing that's missing from the new navigation layout is in my opinion an easily accessible "Frontpage" button like there was in the old navigation layout. So I made a pull request to re add the Frontpage, Settings and Explore buttons back into the sidebar for easier access.

On ... https://phtn.lemmy.blahaj.zone/

the "random" thread loader runs twice.

I am on a slow rural connection so it may not be noticeable in town.

I go to read the first post, then page gets replaced by different posts.

This does not happen on... https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/

I think there is yet another theme for blahaj, but have not tested it.

I feel currently Photon is the best web UI for lemmy, while Photon's front page only provides feeds of posts, but lemmy-ui or Alexandrite further provides feeds of comments. Personally I think feeds of comments are a good way to find interesting contents. Will Photon consider add such a feature?

I have an issue with proton. I hosted the software on my own homeserver with portainer.

Often it comes the failure "TypeError: NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource."

when i try to upload images

or

when I try to post something

in photon. It doesnt work in Firefox (Mac) or Safari (iOS, MacOS).

The instance is not the problem. It works with voyager.

This is great on OLED screens, the background is true black and darker colors are used in many spots. Orange is the accent color to not burn your eyes with blue light, but you can change it.

{"other":{},"primary":{"900":"#000000"},"zinc":{"900":"#0a0a0a","925":"#000000","950":"#000000"},"slate":{}}

New stuff

• Revert the positions of most navigation buttons (Home on left, profile on right)
• Add "adaptive" options to dock settings
  • This will make the dock's position (top, bottom, floating or not) change based on your screen size (it is now the default)
  • So on mobile, you'll have a bottom, floating dock but on desktop a top panel

Fixes

• Add autofocus to search bar #319
• Don't hide titles on iframes #317
• Add refresh button to inbox page #313
• Dock covers sidebars as a top panel
• Add maxlength to password form #312

Update: Photon v1.29.4 has addressed these concerns. Let me know what you think here

It seems the navigation is widely disliked by many people. I want Photon to be the most intuitive UI, so I'd like to fix this. Which of these should I do?

A - Revert the positions of the items on the navigation bar (Profile on right, home on left)

B - Have the default navigation be top on desktop

C - Move some things out of the profile menu into the navbar.

D - Revert the navbar entirely

Or give any other ideas you have. These changes were pushed early because I did not see any pushback early in the betas.

My only fear is that changing it back yet again will have ruined the muscle memory for both types of navigation.

I'll be releasing some betas soon to adjust navigation and take in more feedback before committing.

Why was "Profile", "Inbox" and "Saved" switched with "Home"? On a big screen "Home" is all the way in the top right corner even though it is an action that is used way more than viewing your profile, inbox and/or saved posts/comments?

And there is no reason to have the menu that is accessed by your profile pic to be in the opposite corner. IMO this is all very unintuitive.

At least return the home menu point to the left column menu. Please.

It feels like these changes were mainly done for mobile and desktop was a bit forgotten.

What's Changed

• Redesign navigation
  • If you dislike the change, go to settings and press "Legacy Navigation Style". This will make the navigation similar to before
  • You can see 5 of the most recent posts and communities for quick access.
• Use your accent color in more places
  • You can change your accent colors in the theme menu.
• Improve design consistency
• New font option
• Change animation curves to be more bouncy
• Add option to make featured posts more compact
• Remove hooks.server.ts to make requests faster

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Xyphyn/photon/compare/v1.28.4...v1.29.0

Been using photon for a while now and I really enjoy the minimalistic design!

However, not user about this new floating bar, look very "phone" to me, and I dont really see the utility of having previously-visited posts and communities.

I had it made by ChatGPT 3.5, so the theming is not perfect. I don't have the time to mess with this right now.

If you are feeling generous, you may customize it and post the changes in the comment section of this post.

{
  "other": {
    "white": "#fbf1c7",
    "black": "#282828"
  },
  "primary": {
    "100": "#ebdbb2",
    "900": "#282828"
  },
  "zinc": {
    "50": "#ebdbb2",
    "100": "#d5c4a1",
    "200": "#bdae93",
    "300": "#a89984",
    "400": "#a89984",
    "500": "#a89984",
    "600": "#928374",
    "700": "#7c6f64",
    "800": "#665c54",
    "900": "#504945",
    "925": "#3c3836",
    "950": "#282828"
  },
  "slate": {
    "25": "#ebdbb2",
    "50": "#d5c4a1",
    "100": "#bdae93",
    "200": "#a89984",
    "300": "#928374",
    "400": "#7c6f64",
    "500": "#665c54",
    "600": "#504945",
    "700": "#3c3836",
    "800": "#282828",
    "900": "#282828",
    "950": "#282828"
  }
}

Photon Announces Revamped Design

We're thrilled to unveil a significant redesign of Photon, the user interface for the fediverse! Since its inception, Photon has strived to make the fediverse more accessible with a user-friendly design.

Mono-Light addresses a key request from our community: increased information density. This redesign allows you to view more content at a glance, streamlining your fediverse experience.

Here's a glance at our new design:

As you can see, every UI element has been streamlined while still remaining beautiful. You can see so much more at once, with no sacrifice to usability. Got fat fingers? just cut a bit of it off.

You can expect this new design to roll out by the end of today, April 1st.

A very minimalist theme, based on the amazing work of https://draculatheme.com/

Red/orange: {"other":{"black":"#23252e","white":"#f8f8f2"},"primary":{"100":"#ff5555","900":"#ffb86c"},"zinc":{"50":"#f8f8f2","100":"#f8f8f2","200":"#ffb86c","300":"#f8f8f2","400":"#f8f8f2","500":"#ffb86c","700":"#23252e","800":"#23252e","900":"#23252e","925":"#282a36","950":"#282a36"},"slate":{}}

Orange/yellow: {"other":{"black":"#23252e","white":"#f8f8f2"},"primary":{"100":"#ffb86c","900":"#f1fa8c"},"zinc":{"50":"#f8f8f2","100":"#f8f8f2","200":"#f1fa8c","300":"#f8f8f2","400":"#f8f8f2","500":"#f1fa8c","700":"#23252e","800":"#23252e","900":"#23252e","925":"#282a36","950":"#282a36"},"slate":{}}

Green/Yellow: {"other":{"black":"#23252e","white":"#f8f8f2"},"primary":{"100":"#50fa7b","900":"#f1fa8c"},"zinc":{"50":"#f8f8f2","100":"#f8f8f2","200":"#f1fa8c","300":"#f8f8f2","400":"#f8f8f2","500":"#f1fa8c","700":"#23252e","800":"#23252e","900":"#23252e","925":"#282a36","950":"#282a36"},"slate":{}}

Purple/pink: {"other":{"black":"#23252e","white":"#f8f8f2"},"primary":{"100":"#bd93f9","900":"#ff79c6"},"zinc":{"50":"#f8f8f2","100":"#f8f8f2","200":"#ff79c6","300":"#f8f8f2","400":"#f8f8f2","500":"#ff79c6","700":"#23252e","800":"#23252e","900":"#23252e","925":"#282a36","950":"#282a36"},"slate":{}}

Synthwave: {"other":{"black":"#23252e","white":"#f8f8f2"},"primary":{"100":"#8be9fd","900":"#ff79c6"},"zinc":{"50":"#f8f8f2","100":"#f8f8f2","200":"#ff79c6","300":"#f8f8f2","400":"#f8f8f2","500":"#ff79c6","700":"#23252e","800":"#23252e","900":"#23252e","925":"#282a36","950":"#282a36"},"slate":{}}

My favourite theme for Atom/Pulsar by colortom, now available for Photon ;)

{"other":{"black":"#292929","white":"#bfabab"},"primary":{"100":"#db9243","900":"#428a58"},"zinc":{"100":"#6e9ba8","200":"#d3294e","300":"#bfabab","400":"#bfabab","500":"#85af4e","700":"#2c2e33","800":"#2c2e33","900":"#242424","925":"#292929","950":"#292929"},"slate":{}}

Edit: Fixed secondary accent color.

Based on the awesome job of WFH@lemm.ee documenting the stuff and applying it to solarized, I tried to do the same with my vim favorite theme: everforest. It's far from perfect (I'm not at all a designer), feel free to improve your way (and share updates in comments). The zinc theme is probably more refined because I use only this one, I tried to make slate match the palette but as I'm not using it it's more difficult.

A screenshot:

{
  "other":   {
    "white": "#FDF6E3",
    "black": "#002b36"
  },
  "primary": {
    "100":   "#A7C080",
    "900":   "#8DA101"
  },
  "zinc":    {
    "50":    "#D3C6AA", 
    "100":   "#A7C080",
    "200":   "#DBBC7F",
    "300":   "#D3C6AA",
    "400":   "#D3C6AA",
    "500":   "#D3C6AA",
    "600":   "#4F585E",
    "700":   "#4F585E",
    "800":   "#425047",
    "900":   "#232A2E",
    "925":   "#2D353B",
    "950":   "#2D353B"
  },
  "slate":   {
    "25":    "#FDF6E3",
    "50":    "#FDF6E3",
    "100":   "#EFEBD4",
    "200":   "#E0DCC7",
    "300":   "#E0DCC7",
    "400":   "#D3C6AA",
    "500":   "#5C6A72",
    "600":   "#5C6A72",
    "700":   "#5C6A72",
    "800":   "#5C6A72",
    "900":   "#8DA101",
    "950":   "#8DA101"
  }
}

As there is no documentation (yet), I've done this by trial and error, feel free to tell me if stuff doesn't behave correctly :D

Based on the amazing color scheme by Ethan Schoonover: https://ethanschoonover.com/solarized/

{"other":{"white":"#fdf6e3","black":"#002b36"},"primary":{"100":"#859900","900":"#2aa198"},"zinc":{"50":"#eee8d5","100":"#eee8d5","200":"#d33682","300":"#eee8d5","400":"#eee8d5","500":"#2aa198","600":"#93a1a1","700":"#657b83","800":"#0b3f4d","900":"#073642","925":"#002b36","950":"#002b36"},"slate":{"25":"#fdf6e3","50":"#fdf6e3","100":"#eee8d5","200":"#eee8d5","300":"#eee8d5","400":"#2aa198","500":"#268bd2","600":"#0b3f4d","700":"#0b3f4d","800":"#0b3f4d","900":"#002b36","950":"#002b36"}}

For future reference, here's what I've gathered so far:

Slate (LIGHT)

• 25: Central window background
• 50: Global background
• 100: instance, background hover left bar, pictures background
• 200: outlines
• 300: buttons bottom outline
• 400: ???
• 500: instance
• 600: sidebars text color, OP username, post date, reply button
• 700: ???
• 800: ???
• 900: titles, comments, upvote/downvote buttons
• 950: ???

Zinc (DARK)

• 50: ???
• 100: titles, comments
• 200: upvote/downvote buttons, settings comments
• 300: post text
• 400: sidebars text color
• 500: user instance
• 600: theme buttons outline (?)
• 700: button top outline
• 800: outlines, background hover left bar
• 900: Buttons, instance, cards background
• 925: Central window background
• 950: Global background

Primary

• 100 Main UI accent color - DARK
• 900 Main UI accent color - LIGHT

Other

• Black: ??? Seems to always be black
• White: card background - LIGHT

I don't really like Nord themes so I won't personally use this but here you go:

{"other":{},"primary":{"100":"#8fbcbb","900":"#5e81ac"},"zinc":{"50":"#eceff4","100":"#e5e9f0","200":"#d8dee9","400":"#d8dee9","500":"#e5e9f0","700":"#4f586a","800":"#4c566a","900":"#434c5e","925":"#3b4252","950":"#2e3440"},"slate":{"25":"#eceff4","50":"#e5e9f0","100":"#d8dee9","200":"#d8dee9"}}

v1.28.0

• Add custom theme support
  • Access from the settings page or clicking "Color scheme" in main menu
  • Instance themes are coming later
• add pasting images directly into comments
• fix sidebar collapsing stuff

Try a theme

To import/make a theme, go to settings > theming. You can also click "color scheme" in the main menu.

I made a catppuccin theme for photon. Import this:

{"zinc":{"50":"#cdd6f4","100":"#bac2de","200":"#a6adc8","300":"#9399b2","400":"#7f849c","500":"#6c7086","600":"#585b70","700":"#45475a","800":"#313244","900":"#1e1e2e","925":"#181825","950":"#11111b"},"primary":{"100":"#a6e3a1","900":"#7287fd"},"other":{"white":"#ffffff"},"slate":{}}

and voila! This theme only changes dark mode colors right now.

This theme only works in dark theme for now

Theme (importable in Photon v1.28.0+)

{"zinc":{"50":"#cdd6f4","100":"#bac2de","200":"#a6adc8","300":"#9399b2","400":"#7f849c","500":"#6c7086","600":"#585b70","700":"#45475a","800":"#313244","900":"#1e1e2e","925":"#181825","950":"#11111b"},"primary":{"100":"#a6e3a1","900":"#7287fd"},"other":{"white":"#ffffff"},"slate":{}}

This was mostly a bug fix and polish update

• Fix assymetrical buttons on mobile
• Make posts that fit maximum height expanded by default
• Fix and close #248 (Highlighting text and clicking link should wrap text in link)
• Add community and user banners
• Performance: make docker server use bun instead of node
• Migrate to Sveltekit 2
• Improve post vote hitboxes
• Add a loading spinner for photon instances where SSR is off
• and more!

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Xyphyn/photon/compare/v1.26.0...v1.27.0

How about embed video in to body post? Can you implement this?

[options]

🍏 apple ::: This is an example of option 1

🍌 banana ::: This is an example of option 2

🍊 orange ::: This is an example of option 3

[/options]

What's Changed

• Add phtn.ngn.tf to the instance list by @ngn13 in https://github.com/Xyphyn/photon/pull/230
• Upgrade mono-svelte to v0.4.3
• Redesign main menu
• Add icon and banners to admin config
• Fix community settings button appearing when it shouldn't

New Contributors

• @ngn13 made their first contribution in https://github.com/Xyphyn/photon/pull/230

Full Changelog: https://github.com/Xyphyn/photon/compare/v1.24.1...v1.25.0

The Photon community has moved from lemmy.xylight.dev to lemdro.id, because it's getting difficult to have to keep my old instance online.

All updates and questions should go here from now on!