Gluon for Micro.blog

Just pushed out an update to Gluon that adds video playback for timeline items. I know I’m late to the party! The videos repeat/loop and they are muted as default. You’ll get your normal iOS/Android controls. I’ll add a few settings to this feature.

Pushed out a smaller, but bigger behind the scenes, update for Gluon.

I gave some loving to the Android version and fixed a few bugs! Also added experimental local push notifications for mentions on Android. Give it a go!

iOS now also has local push notifications again! I pretty much re-wrote the background fetching so it should be much much better in handling background tasks. Which brings me to my next point:

The app used to, 25% of the time, ask you to log back into the account randomly… I REALLY hope I have now fixed this. Please let me know if it works for you! I’m testing like crazy, but the more feedback I have the better!

Also, I want to apologise for all the “Gluon” noise! I’m testing between two accounts with different devices… I promise to blog about other stuff than just Gluon 😊 It’s where my head is at at the moment!

I’m hoping to wrap it up in the coming weeks to get it out there into the wild.

Coming soon to Gluon:

It’s approaching 02:00 AM here on this lovely, rainy, Friday. However, the rain isn’t going to stop me from enjoying myself! So, I’m introducing a new section on the Discover screen (on iOS for the moment)… Search.

You can now search for both Posts and Users.

Here is a screenshot of the result page for posts:

And users also, just like the just announced new feature of searching for domain names:

All you have to do is type your query and hit search on the keyboard. It will go ahead and fetch both posts and users. The items “Posts” and “Users” let you actually switch which ones you want to view. They both also contain a loading icon, so you know which one is finished or not. And of course a count too of the results.

I’m still deciding on styling here, however I’m happy that it’s functional - which was my aim for tonight.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it and look forward to your feedback. Look out for the update on iOS (20190517.1).

Thanks:

I want to give thanks to Jimmy (@jmreekes) for great feedback on the Android app and finding a few bugs! Thank you Jimmy 😊

Always interesting to see the limitations I come across when building Gluon cross platform for Android and iOS. Android having its own set of rules, same with iOS. Happy though that 90% works cross platform. Certainly makes it interesting!

I introduced a bug on Gluon that deletes a few posts from your timeline (only the timeline that you see and doesn’t affect any posts!). Working on getting a fix out soon.

Today I worked on getting some sort of posting into the app. So, if you’re hosting on Micro.blog, you can now post a short post.

It’s still very much a work in progress but I wanted to get it off my chest.

So, if you have a site on Micro.blog you’ll be presented with a “New Post” button at the top bar on the main timeline screen. This will use your “default” site and post to it.

You cannot set a title just yet, but I’ll get to it after the weekend. Image uploads are also not yet present. It’s all coming.

I’m going to take some time and work on both the Reply and Posting screen to allow you to preview the post and also add markdown shortcuts for those that are new to it all. Also I have other features planned for those screens, but I’ll sit on it until I have something to show.

What about self-hosted sites? It’s coming! I’ve built the groundwork so any Micropub based site can be used, however it also requires me to set up new screens with options and other logic, so bear with me on this. It’s certainly coming! My own site is self-hosted, so it’s something I want to do for sure!

Anyway, still a way to go and I’m happy with the way it’s going so far.

Started work on Posting from Gluon. On login, or when you reload your feed, it will check if you have a hosted site on Micro.blog. If so, the button will show. Will continue tonight with adding the actual posting screen and logic.

Pushed out a small update to Gluon. I’ve added the Micro Monday link on the "Discover more” section, tweaked Wordpress emoji image handling (now real emoji), and you can open images in a browser which is the first step before I add the modal.

Happy Sunday everyone.

I just pushed out and update (20190512.2) to both Android and iOS.

Changes

In this update I concentrated on adding the Discover More sections, which allows you to select sub categories by their emoji tag. Here are a few screenshots for both iOS and Android:

I’ll probably add the Micro Monday link too and something else that I’ll pop in as a surprise release at some point.

Android fixes

There were a few Android fixes in this release too. Namely:

• Fixes layout issues on the reply screen.
• Reply screen can now be closed (I added an icon).
• App icon will only show once on the home screen (Thank you Paolo - @amoroso)

Next steps/Plan

I’ll probably be working on posting next, as that’s a pretty big feature that is missing! I’m also planning to bring back the photo viewer soon. There are also loads more things I want to add, but I’m putting it on a list at the moment as I want to look at launching the app. I want to also re-integrate Push notifications before I do that.

Also need to give some TLC to the Settings screen.

In terms of launch date… I don’t know.

Hope you enjoy this update, and please let me know any feedback: [email protected]

I think I figured out the issue with the Android build for Gluon. Seems it’s not signing the app properly. Gonna play around and see.

It’s been some time, but here are the release notes for the latest build (20190510.1).

— — —

This is more of a tidy up build, with one big piece of bad news. So bad news first:

• Local Push Notifications: This has been removed from this build. I had too many problems with unreliable app crashes. This was not acceptable to me, so I removed it. Push notifications will come before launch, but in a different form. TBC.

Now the other bits:

• Removed the bog loading bar in favour of a spinning loader. Keeping it simple.
• Tweaked some icons.
• Removed “Following” count on your profile screen. One less number to worry about. Might do the same with other profiles.
• Your feed should update more regularly as you browse the app.

— — —

I’ll be writing another lengthier post about Push Notifications and the replacement.

I’m happy to announce that I just enabled the Alpha version for Gluon on Android. If you’ve emailed me and asked to be on the list, you should start seeing the app. There will be an email, from me, with a bit more info (for opting in).

Some notes and bugs:

This build is the exact same version as the iOS one, with a few exceptions. The exceptions being mainly bugs on Android, but here they are:

• Profile image for your logged in/active user is currently an icon only.
• Theme - switching back to another theme, after switching, is buggy. So don’t press that RED button 😏 I know you want to! If you do… well I warned you.
• Some black text is the default Android version of black. Mainly visible on profiles.
• Replying - it works but you can’t cancel out of it unless you get rid of the keyboard and press the hardware/software back button. Also, the UI is pretty weird here.
• The loading spinner is quite far up the screen.
• You get TWO app icons for the price of one. Yep, two icons on your home screen! Why? I don’t know.

There is probably something else, but those are the main points that I thought were important to touch on. So now to the really IMPORTANT point:

The app, may fail to launch no matter what you do. This is the issue that kept me back for months as I really didn’t know why the release build would crash instantly. So if it happens to you let me know. I’m confident it was just some bad configuration, on my part, on the device.

Pushed out an update to Gluon before heading to bed. Wanted to get into it again after just over a month away from it (gonna explain why soon). I have many things planned - all to be revealed soon. Also need to give Android some loving too.

I have two questions for anyone using Gluon.

• I’m planning on removing “Favorites” as a prominent tab item and replace it with “Photos”, which will be a specific timeline just with photos (and some other cool photo things). Favs will live under your profile instead. Good idea? Bad?
• ”Your Feed” - I’m planning to rename this to either “My Feed”, “Feed” or “Timeline”. Which one do you prefer?