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This update brings the Inbox into the app. Inbox allows users to easily see any new messages, replied or mentions when they are within the app (note this update does not add actual notifications). The inbox also allows users to perform actions on these messages, from seeing the context of the message to replying to the message itself.

This update also adds some missing settings, such as the ability to change the font size of the comments or post. Note that the font size of posts in the list and posts in the post screen can be adjusted independantly of each other.

This update ended up being a lot larger than anticipated because I understimated the complexities of Lemmy's inbox system (Lemmy pretty much has 3 separate inboxes).

Fulle changelog:

• Added the inbox screens (unread, all, replies, mentions and PMs)
• Added a full fledged caching system for the inbox specifically
• Added a context view for inbox items based off of comments (ie. replies and mentions)
• Added an inbox badge to show how many alerts you have without having to visit the inbox
• Added the settings to adjust text size for both posts in the post screen (not the post list screen) and comments.
• Added the new sort orders for posts
• Added more error messages for specific types of errors.
• Increased timeouts for network calls. This should help a bit when the server is struggling
• Fix a bug where the communities pane will permanently show a spinner if no account is signed in
• Improve error handling for loading posts. If comments fail to load but the post loads then the post will be shown, with an error in the comments section.
• Fixed a bug where the history tab UI will not refresh when history items are removed.
• Fixed some margin/padding issues
• Updated the look of up and down votes.
• Shifted some UI elements around to be more consistent with the rest of the app going forward. The account button has been shifted to the top right. The overflow button is now a FAB. The create post button is in the overflow menu. This isn't the best design. When the community pane is done, I will probably also add a create post button there.

My original plans were to put up this post after the last update was released which ended up being v0.1.17 due to a random bunch of bugs caught during tests.

However, since Google is taking over 21 hours to approve my changes I've decided to not wait and just put this post out now. I had a great title in mind for v0.1.17 too. It was going to be "Update You" because it contained a bunch of settings users can change plus gave users the option to use Material You, but oh well.

The current plan for this update is to finish up adding some settings I had in mind and wrap settings up for now (there will be a lot more settings to add later on). The main settings to add are options to configure the look of comments and posts on the post screen (note that the previous update which is still in review added configuring posts on the post list screen).

If anyone has some killer setting they want me to add before I wrap this up, let me know in the comments.

Changes so far:

• Lemmy servers are really struggling after the massive migration of users from Reddit. I'm bumping minimum wait times for some operations in the app for the time being in hopes of increasing usability. I may reduce these numbers later when/if the server performance is improved.
• Added the settings to adjust text size for both posts in the post screen (not the post list screen) and comments.
• Fix a bug where the communities pane will permanently show a spinner if no account is signed in
• Added the new sort orders for posts
• Improve experience. If comments fail to load but the post loads then the post will be shown, with an error in the comments section.
• Add more error messages for specific types of errors.
• Fixed a bug where the history tab UI will not refresh when history items are removed.
• Added account inboxes

Update

Normally I would do a release here to finish off the settings screen for now but since the app is still in review on Google's side I literally cannot do a release. So I will move to the next item on the road map: Account/User stuff.

Update 2

A lot of low level changes being worked on. As more screens are added, UI patterns within the app is becoming more and more critical. It's also critical these patterns are designed well at the beginning so that they do not need to be rewritten later on. This work is critical to the inbox screens I am working on as they will behave very similarly to the community page as you will see.

Update 3

Need to get better at providing updates.

The update is I'm still working on "Inboxes". The feature just ended up being a lot more than originally assumed. It almost feels like I'm building another app due to how many sub features are involved in this. I will try to get a release out by the end of the day but understand that this is a stretch goal. There is a lot of work to be done here.

There are a lot of complexities with managing an inbox with the API that lemmy provides. These complexities result in hundreds of edge cases, each requiring special attention. My current strategy with inboxes is to deprioritize private message support. They will still be supported by inboxes, they just will... suck (lemmy's website doesn't do a great job either so that's my excuse). This will allow me to get inboxes out faster.

Update 4

v0.1.20 is out to beta but there are some minor issues that I'm unhappy with. I will be doing a fast follow up release. Also thank you so much to everyone who gave super quick feedback on the release. The main changes are:

• Revert adding borders to all cards
• Increase title padding of compat layout
• I got carried away with how frequently to invalidate the inbox that now the cache is pretty much useless. Dialed that back a bit so inbox should feel less terrible to use. It will still start free on each app launch just to avoid the dreaded outdated inbox.
• Fixed some margin/padding issues
• Fixed a bug where content in the context card in the message screen in the inbox section (that's a mouthful) will not load after the card is collapsed and expanded again.