Gluon for Micro.blog

I didn’t think it would be easily possible… but I can see a future here, now that I can re-use all of the logic layer at least. The UI would have to go… One for 2020 for sure!

😱

Just pushed out an update, for Gluon, for all iOS users (build 69). You can read about it here. 😍 More to come soon!

I’m happy to announce that I rewrote a fairly big chunk of the underlying code for Gluon.

The past few weeks have given me doubt on the maintainability of the, now huge, codebase. So I decided it was time to tackle it.

The major upgrades have to do with storage handling and how your data is stored on the device. Before this update there were too many steps involved and it was a nightmare to implement certain things with ease. For example switching to the correct feeds depending on your account (yep, account switching).

With that I also took time to store any Discover posts separate to your main account, as these are accessible even without an account. Again, this removes loading steps for the app.

I’m really happy with the way it works now and it gives me great confidence to implement features I have in mind.

The first of these features was to re-introduce multiple accounts with easy account switching. Not only that, you’ll be able to register for push notifications (iOS only for now) on both accounts and receive them on the same device. Pretty handy if you have several accounts. Note that it won’t switch accounts yet when you tap a notification… working on it!

Before I go further I must warn everyone using it… whilst I did my best to avoid headaches (I had many different problems already), please expect this to be one of those updates that breaks the app - I’m confident it won’t crash, but just bear that in mind. If for some reason you can’t get it to start, delete the app (OMG!!) and grab it again. If it doesn’t crash it will ask you to log in again… which I’m hoping it will do.

Anyway, now that’s out the way, here is a screenshot of the really simple account screen found in “More/Settings” and also when you long press on your profile image:

You can add as many as you want. Once you press the “Add +” button you’ll get the login screen, just like you should be used to with this update 😅. Once logged in you’ll be switched to that account automatically - you’ll see that by the “Active” text.

Switching accounts is as easy as selecting whichever account you want. It should be relatively fast, depending on your feed.

If you find yourself on your timeline, or elsewhere, just long press your profile image and you’ll open up the same screen where you can quickly jump between accounts. It will also automatically close the screen once it’s switched here.

Anyway, I’m happy with the way that works now. Hope some of you will find it useful.

There are some other changes especially to the Discover sections. It’s mainly a tidy up of the screens, so they don’t feel so cluttered, and also a few things in search so the keyboard doesn’t always get in your way when you already did a search previously.

This update is being pushed out now for iOS. It all works for Android too, but I want to re-visit some “profile” stuff here, as I don’t want to confuse you what account you’re in. So Android support for this is coming soon also.

More to come and happy testing.

Went to bed at 03:00 AM. I’ve been working on re-writing a major, underlying, component for Gluon. I’ll blog about it when I ship the update. It’s been totally worth it!

Pushed out an update to Gluon for both Android and iOS.

It mainly sorts auto-theme switching issues, on iOS, and also tweaks a few other areas here - for example when the app has been suspended by the OS.

There is a small tweak to the UI here too, which removes some of the borders from the top and bottom bar. It looks a bit cleaner in my eyes and is less visually distracting. Also gave the screen titles a heavier font on iOS.

Here it is with pure white:

I'll sleep on it I guess.

The Discover More section also got a bit of attention and there is more to come here. I mainly fixed an issue with the previously selected emoji category being shown when you navigate to a different one. And to finish it off, I added the new emoji categories (🧶🎨🖌🏕⛺️🍺🍻🍷).

Then I decided to add a more prominent “Micro Monday” header with the Micro Monday podcast artwork. Although, again, I’ll sleep on it.

I’d love to add a few more community specific items to Gluon, which should round it off nicely, and make it a bit more personal with the platform.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Thank you to everyone testing and sending feedback. Keeps me going!

I just pushed out a bigger update to Gluon. I re-wrote the theme logic which also enables auto theme switching (iOS only for the short moment) depending on the OS. Still has a few minor issues, but really happy with the result so far.

Happy I took the time today to work on that as it opens up a few doors for future expansion, without the headache.

Out for iOS TestFlight and Android Internal Test Track.

One of the bigger jobs for Gluon is to re-implement the theming system. Feeling brave today so will make a start on that. With that done, that will leave two posting related items on the to-do list.

UPDATE: Micro.blog is back in action! All systems go 🥳

Looks like there are a few errors on Micro.blog today. This means that Gluon will have problems grabbing the latests feeds. Also affected is replying and posting and others. Not affected are hosted sites, as far as I can tell.

For now, this is what currently works:

• Sign in with a known token - if you know it you can get in, but nothing else.
• Get yours and others user profile
• Get your favourites

I’ll post an update as soon as I notice it being back up.

I’m thinking of implementing some sort of status check in Gluon to handle these very rare circumstances… at the moment there is nothing and it silently fails. Room for improvement!

I’m happy to announce that Gluon is available as a public beta for Android. It was about time to get it out without having to email me for an invite. The Android version, as it stands, has feature parity with the iOS version (except push). Considering the iOS version is available via TestFlight it’s only fair to go ahead and do the same for Android.

Saying that, it’s far from finished, but I’m in really no rush to ship - it’s just how I work and I rather not rush things.

For the moment Android still lacks push notifications, this is a limitation with Micro.blog at this moment and something I hope will be addressed soon.

Anyway, here is the link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vincentritter.gluon.android

If there is anything just give me a shout and I’m happy to look at it for you.

Whilst Android is a much smaller target market, I really really appreciate all the great feedback from you all! It just shows me what a great community we have at Micro.blog!

Just released a small Gluon update for posting. Now includes a title bar, if you want to set a title. Also added the toolbar that you can find when replying (will add more options this week). Update out on Android and iOS. More to come very soon!

Thank you so very much to everyone that emailed me about Gluon on Android. I’ll be replying to everyone, that had feedback and found bugs, over the coming days.

I’m happy to say that the new build for Android is now available.

This brings the app to the same state as iOS with a few specific tweaks to work around the differences between the platforms.

It’s not perfect and I already found a few issues, but they’re not deal breakers!

I’ll be emailing everyone, that emailed me, with a new link.

Due to some early mistakes, I had to create a new app on the Play Store, which can be confusing. Please uninstall the old app, if you’re running it, before installing the new one. I also renamed the old one and added a big “[DEPRECTAED]”.

Anyway, I’m happy the way it works now and it clears a way for the future release.

Also note that the app is now on an “internal test track” which means that updates will come pretty much instantly… however I can only invite 100 testers to this.

I had to create a new Google Play Store version for Gluon. That means Google will review the app before I can update everyone with a new link for testing. Excited though! This means it’s on par with the iOS version.