Alpha Release [v0.5.0]: Improved inbox, additional account settings, post hiding, and more!

Hey everyone, Thunder v0.5.0 is finally here! This release cycle took a quite a bit of time, but introduces a lot of new features, changes, and fixes which should make for a even better Thunder experience. If you have any suggestions or feedback, feel free to discuss it in the Thunder community or on GitHub.

If you're enjoying Thunder and would like to show some support, star this project on GitHub! This helps gain visibility for the project and allows more contributors to help with the continued development of Thunder. If you'd like to show some appreciation, here is a post with details on how to donate to the active contributors of Thunder.

Important: Your feed settings (default feed type and sort) will now be based on your Lemmy account settings. The previous feed settings will now ONLY apply to guest accounts. As such, you may have to re-configure your default feed type and default sort type if you were previously using the in-app settings.

Now onto the update notes. This update brings a few major features:

🎉 New Features

• The inbox page has been completely re-written with an updated design to more closely align with Material 3 design guidelines. There's also been a number of fixes to support quick actions within the inbox page (e.g., voting, saving, etc).
• Thunder now respects more of your Lemmy account settings including your default feed/sort settings. You can update your display name, bio, email, and much more in the new Account Settings page. You can also quickly switch between different accounts to modify your Lemmy settings across all your authenticated accounts.
• Additional Lemmy 0.19.x features have been added to Thunder including the ability to hide posts, custom thumbnail support, site content warnings, and more. We are still continuously working on bringing Thunder up to feature-parity with Lemmy, so let us know what features you would like to see.
• Custom user notes/labels are now available in Thunder! This will allow you to add any custom notes to a given user. You can add user labels from the settings page via Settings -> User Labels. Alternatively, you can add labels through the action sheets by long pressing on a given comment and selecting User -> Add User Label.

ℹ General

• The create/edit button for posts and comments have been moved to the markdown toolbar. This should hopefully make it more accessible for one-handed use.
• URL filtering has been added to keyword filters. Simply add a new keyword filter with a URL, and it should be hidden from view.
• Link sharing has been improved to support additional media/external links.

And much much more. I can't go through all the changes in the changelog, but for those who are curious, feel free to check out the full changelog below.

We have a Matrix space if you would like to join in on discussions: https://matrix.to/#/#thunderapp:matrix.org

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Additions

• Refactor inbox page by hjiangsu
• Add additional account settings by hjiangsu
• Add support for custom user labels by micahmo
• Add support for hiding posts by micahmo
• Add ability to create links to app settings by micahmo
• Add account birthday indicator to users by micahmo
• Add ability to import/export local app database by micahmo
• Add post/comment language metadata by micahmo
• Add community stats for community visibility/local subscribers by micahmo
• Add ability to create block quote from selection when commenting by micahmo
• Add ability to re-order user accounts by micahmo
• Add ability to upload multiple images at a time for a post/comment by hjiangsu
• Add support for site content warnings by micahmo
• Add support for custom thumbnails in posts by micahmo
• Add ability to sort inbox by ggichure
• Add ability to view post as a different user by micahmo
• [Experimental] Add debug setting to customize image dimension timeout value by hjiangsu
• [Experimental] Add new experimental post page by hjiangsu

Changes

• Extend keyword filters to URLs by hjiangsu
• Remove page scroll animation when switching between bottom navigation items by hjiangsu
• Decrease layout jank originating from images within comments, and improve image error states by micahmo
• Disable account switching when editing post/comment by micahmo
• Defer loading image dimensions when opening image preview by micahmo
• Improve link sharing for images/video URLs by micahmo
• Show placeholder icon for posts without thumbnails by micahmo
• Allow snackbars to be closed on action by micahmo
• Immediately remove blocked users/communities from feed, disable ability to block self by micahmo
• Use community/user display names globally by micahmo
• Show community/user sort type on community/user headers by micahmo
• Use user/community format styling to cross-posts by micahmo
• Fallback to opening non-Lemmy instances in browser by micahmo
• Improve feedback when subscribing/unsubscribing to community by hjiangsu
• Move create/edit post button into markdown toolbar by micahmo
• Move create/edit comment button into markdown toolbar by micahmo
• Show voting when hidden scores are enabled by hjiangsu
• Add option to navigate to user's instance from post actions by micahmo
• Disable "Subscriptions" sort type option for guest accounts by micahmo
• Remove images from push notifications, improve UnifiedPush logic by micahmo

Fixes

• Fix table column markdown alignment by hjiangsu
• Fix mark post as read when previewing media on 0.19.4 by hjiangsu
• Fix sidebar lag when subscribed to a large amount of communities by hjiangsu
• Fix superscript/subscript parsing edge cases by micahmo
• Fix image overflow when rendering inside a spoiler tag by micahmo
• Fix issue where optimistic voting would not reflect upvotes/downvotes properly by micahmo
• Fix post text preview showing raw markdown by hjiangsu
• Fix snackbar positioning when opening/dismissing keyboard by micahmo
• Fix labeling and minor semantics by micahmo
• Fix text field spell check causing exception on ** text by hjiangsu
• Fix minor typo in 'Change Password' page by wadamT
• Fix semantics for link information by hjiangsu
• Fix share text post by micahmo
• Fix image proxy handling by hjiangsu
• Fix for markdown toolbar not showing above system keyboard by hjiangsu
• Fix dim read posts setting not being applied for card view by hjiangsu

Misc

• Fix macOS build errors by hjiangsu
• Remove javaToolchain binaries by hjiangsu
• Remove push package Android dependency by hjiangsu
• Update PR template by hjiangsu
• Update instances by github-actions
• Update translations from Weblate by hjiangsu
• Update Turkish localizations by mikropsoft
• Migrate anonymous instances to database by micahmo
• Minor under-the-hood feed related changes by hjiangsu
• Improve parsing of video speed setting by micahmo
• Move experimental push notifications under experimental flag by micahmo
• Add more push notifications debugging by micahmo
• Migrate draft storage to local database by micahmo

New Contributors

• wadamT made their first contribution