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Thanks for making a native android version! (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by rbits@lemmy.world to c/voyagerapp@lemmy.world

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Just built it from source while waiting for Google to approve the app, and it's great. I had to use Firefox for the PWA because I need links to open in firefox when I click on them, but Firefox doesn't handle PWAs vey well. The native app fixes all these problems. Excited for it to be on the Google Play Store!

Also aeharding@lemmy.world will you upload the android app to F-droid? It would be nice to have it there rather than having to install it from the play store.

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[-] aeharding@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago

Good to hear building wasn't too difficult!

I'll have to look into F-droid! I'm not too familiar with the submission process.

[-] Jz5678910@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Thanks for all the work that you do! Voyager is a fantastic app.

Another thought, if it's feasible, maybe also post the apk releases on GitHub? So people have the option to download from there directly or use an app like obtanium to grab it from GitHub.

[-] gunnm@monero.town 1 points 1 year ago

Can you upload the APK to GitHub too? So we can use it with apps as Obtainium.

[-] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

H-how did you take a screenshot of the screenshot screen? 👀

[-] esty@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

that’s not the screenshot screen though, it’s the app switcher (but you can screenshot the screenshot menu i think)

[-] Im_Cool_I_Promise@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

you can take a screenshot of any screen with volume down + power I believe. volume up + power puts the phone on vibrate.

[-] kratoz29@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Does it feel smoother than the PWA?

[-] rbits@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Definitely, or at least the firefox one

[-] kratoz29@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Oh yeah, I have heard Voyager never was good on Firefox, so it is safe to assume you have a better performance with the APK.

[-] kenbw2@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I guess only because the native app uses the inbuilt Chromium based rendering engine

Torn about whether to keep using Firefox to support its market share

[-] topinambour_rex@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

As a browser it works well on my s9. Honestly the only time I use chrome now on android, it's when I use the voyager app. I even replaced the google search bar on my homescreen by the firefox one.

[-] SilentStorms@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

Just FYI it is possible to open links in Firefox despite Voyager being installed as a Chrome PWA. Click the link to open it within the app, then hit the 3 dots and "Open in Firefox" should be an option.

[-] keltaris@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Not sure if this is different depending on the backing browser, but my experience with this is that it works great to open the link, but when you hit the back button to go back to Voyager, you get kicked out to your home page instead of back to the thread you were in.

This might not be caused by opening a page in the same browser as the PWA (could be due to issues with the back button that I think we're fixed in the latest build? Or was that about the native apps? Can't remember) but I've been assuming that's part of the issue 🤷‍♂️

[-] big_duck_energy@partizle.com 5 points 1 year ago

This is probably a dumb question, but is it still a Progressive Web App?

[-] kryllic@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

Yep! They're offering the PWA and native versions with feature parity

[-] big_duck_energy@partizle.com 5 points 1 year ago

Wow, they've accomplished so much so quickly.

[-] shashi154263@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

How do I build it? Do I need Android Studio?

[-] rbits@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I don't think so. You need to run npm build or something, then install ionic and capacitor, then run npx cap init, then go into the android folder and run ./gradlew build

[-] botorfj@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

where did you get the instructions?

[-] rbits@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I just saw a gradlew file in the android folder so I ran gradlew build, and then I searched up the error messages I got until I fixed them

[-] botorfj@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

i am getting an error which i couldn't find a solution for, it's complaining about line 12 in /android/app/build.gradle . can you help me please?

[-] rbits@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Oh I forgot, you need to set the CI_BUILD_NUMBER environment variable to some number (I just set it to 1)

[-] botorfj@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

i'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but how do i do that?

[-] rbits@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It's different on different operating systems. Search how to set environment variable for whatever operating system you use

[-] botorfj@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

still getting the same error.

[-] rbits@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I can dm you the apk if you want

[-] botorfj@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

sure

[-] wegettosss@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I would love an apk too if i may ask 😶‍🌫️

[-] shashi154263@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks. I'll look into it.

[-] bappity@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Firefox for mobile is so broken compared to Chrome it's frustrating... sometimes I find myself having to switch to Chrome from it for stupid reasons like a single date picker vital to a part of a site is broken or a site runs monumentally slow for no reason, but on the chrome mobile app it just works. feels dirty having to use chrome every now and then >_>

[-] DelightfullyDivisive@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago

Really? I haven't used chrome on a phone in... I'm not sure how long. Since pre-pandemic, anyway.

That said, I spend a lot of time on a laptop, so maybe I just don't use as many sites through the mobile browser. I DO sometimes use Edge or Brave on my laptop because sites don't work. It isn't so much the browser is broken as the sites, though.

[-] bappity@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Firefox on PC is great! It's their mobile version that is broken.

[-] rbits@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah definitely can relate. I'm kinda stuck using it cause I need my bookmarks to sync with my computer, but it is pretty buggy.

[-] monobot@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

As a ex-web developer: it is not Firefox that is broken, but those sites. They optimize for Chome and don't check firefox. I don't blame them, considering percentage of users, but it is not FF fault.

Google's apps are especially slower than in chrome