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# Relatica Beta Testing Program Notes
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These are notes for the Relatica beta testers. Very import sections of this page
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to check are:
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* ["Things that work"](#things-that-work) to see what is working well
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* ["Things that are broken"](#broken-and-hopefully-fixed-in-the-very-near-future-) so
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you know how to avoid problems using the application in its current state,
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don't report duplicate bugs, etc.
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* ["Cumbersome things"](#cumbersome-and-hopefully-improved-in-the-very-near-future-)
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for the same reason as the above "broken" things.
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* [The CHANGELOG](CHANGELOG.md) to see what has changed with each recent version
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* [Install Instructions](install.md) to see how to install the application
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* [Community Communications](README.md#community-and-support) to know how to
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get in touch with other members of the community, developers, etc.
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## Introduction
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At the present time it is possible to use Relatica as your daily driver for
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functions that have already been implemented. I've been using it as my
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primary Friendica interactions for over a month as of writing this in
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January 2023. However, usable doesn't mean feature complete, even for the
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subset of features I want to implement. Usable also doesn't mean bug free
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experience. It can still be useful to people which is why I'm opening up
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access to it right now. Having said that, this is an early beta program.
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Since not everyone that is considering using the software at this point may
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be familiar with that aspect of the software development process I
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wanted to lay out some expectations before getting into the small details
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### Expectations For Early Beta Testers
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* Things that look like they are finished are not
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* A lot of things look very not finished
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* Download regular updates to get the latest and greatest features and fixes and feedback
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* Check in on the CHANGELOG, Issue tracker, etc. for updates
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* Some things that look finished may end up changing to improve overall user experience (the "Who
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moved the gas pedal?" problem)
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* Don't suffer in silence with problems. The beta program is about getting the feedback to what
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works, what doesn't, etc.
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Provide feedback via the Matrix room, for interactive discussions, or the GitLab issue tracker for
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larger bug tracking.
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* Feedback should be productive and specific while being as light a load on the beta tester as
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possible:
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* BAD: "This thing is crap!"
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* BAD: "It crashed!!!!"
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* Good: "When I click on a notification box it didn't seem to do anything until I clicked in a
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very specific area"
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* Good: "The app seemed to freeze up when I kept scrolling down my timeline for a long time (
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like half an hour)"
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* Good: "I'm finding X feature hard to use because Y is confusing"
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* Good: "I am trying to do X with Friendica but I don't see a way to do it. Could that be
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implemented in the app?"
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## Application Status and Roadmap
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### Things that work
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* Logging in with username/password. These are stored using the OS specific key vaults
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* Writing **public** posts
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* Typing @ brings up a list of all known fediverse accounts that the app has ever seen as you
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type (but not all that your server has seen)
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* Typing # brings up a list of all known hashtags that the app has ever seen as you type (but
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not all that your server has seen)
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* Very basic markdown (wrapping in stars for bold/italics)
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* Adding new images to posts
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* Image posting with easy means of adding ALT text
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* Attaching existing images to posts
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* Resharing posts
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* Direct (private) messaging
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* Browsing timelines including from groups you've created. In this app "Home" is the same as the "
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Network" (grid) button in Frio and "Yours" is the equivalent of the Home button in the app.
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* Browsing notifications and marking individual ones read or all read
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* Getting gallery list and browsing galleries
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* Browsing your contacts or searching contacts that are known by your app
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* Adjudicating follow requests
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* Going to individual profiles to see their posts, follow/unfollow, add/remove from groups
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* A "low bandwidth" mode that defers loading of images until you click on them, unless the app
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already has that image cached locally.
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* Light/dark mode selection
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* Opening posts, comments, and profiles in the "external" browser
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* Copying posts, comments, image descriptions, direct messages, urls, etc.
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* Playing videos within the app on iOS and Android.
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* Refresh timelines, galleries, and posts but loading newer or older posts has
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specific buttons (this will probably change in the near future)
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* Refresh notifications and contacts gets updates to that respective data (this may
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change in the near future)
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### Big things I want to have working in the near future:
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* Show list of who liked and reshared posts/comments
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* More timeline types like Comments, "By Activity", etc.
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* Better timeline UX to allow for "in-fill"
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* More detailed profile information for users and logged in user
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* Better data display on larger format displays by doing things like:
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* Allowing images/thumbnails to be larger
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* Limiting maximum width of timeline columns
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* Nicer aesthetics
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* Fix below identified issues
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* Notifications broken into:
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* Messages (from message system)
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* Friend requests
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* Real notifications
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* More greedy loading of notifications when not in low bandwidth mode
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* More intuitive timeline controls
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* Real paging across the board
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* Notifications
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* Comments
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* Offline caching of older content
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* Dynamic search of locally known posts and hashtags.
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* Make forum posts
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* Internationalization
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* Better screen reader interactions
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### Further out things I want to have working:
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* Private posts
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* Post editing
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* Profile editor
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* Opening accounts, tags, etc within posts within the app itself through user's home server
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* Equivalent of account/post link paste and processing from website version
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* Group creation, deletion, renaming
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* Being able to load accounts and/or posts from links from other users within app
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* Open fediverse accounts/files within app
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* Nitter replacement of Twitter links
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* User configurable Server blocking
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* Server-side searching tied into profiles, posts, hashtags
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* OAuth logins
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* Being able to ignore/unignore users
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* Deleting images and entire galleries
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* Events
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### Things I don't envision implementing in the foreseeable future:
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* Account creation through the application
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* Creating new forums through the application
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* Site administration
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* Two-factor authentication
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* Adding videos or files to posts
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* Multi-account logins
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## General behaviors/problems to be aware of:
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### Broken and hopefully fixed in the very near future:
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* Resharing of Diaspora federated posts is currently broken server side. All other posts should be
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reshareable. (Already fixed in Friendica but not in the stable release yet)
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* Content Warnings/Spoiler Text on *posts* aren't federating over to Mastodon well so only use it on
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Comments for now
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* ALT text on images should not have any quotation marks as it breaks when federating over to
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Diaspora for the time being
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* Portrait videos overflow their boxes in the timeline
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* Blocked/ignored user's content is still returned by the API
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* Paging for some of the endpoints either isn't wired in yet or is not working as needed server
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side. That includes things like:
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* Friend requests
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* Gallery Contents
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* Comments on posts
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* Tags
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* Notifications
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* Blocked user list
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### Cumbersome and hopefully improved in the very near future:
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* The only post type that is supported right now are public posts therefore all posts you write
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through the app will have this privacy level.
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* Notifications need to be manually refreshed.
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* Responsiveness can be laggy. Sometimes hitting buttons doesn't seem to do something but it is
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doing a network request. I know I need to improve that
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* In galleries you need to double click on the picture to open the preview. It is remnants of an
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experiment I was doing on more consistent UX which feels broken so I'm changing.
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* Sometimes timelines get confused so swapping between the different groups/timelines creates a
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muddled display. Restarting the app fixes this.
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* Some images within posts, usually graphical emojis, are rendered drastically larger than they
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should be.
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* On Linux you will need to re-enter your credentials each time you use the app for the first time
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after logging in.
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* Groups are listed by the order they were created not alphabetically in the drop down menu
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* Liking a nested comment can appear to lock up (it stays grayed out). Navigating back and forth
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fixes that.
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* The "in fill" problem: Timelines fill only at the ends with at most 20 posts per call. So let's
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say you logged in at 09:00 and the initial pulls went from 07:00 to 09:00:
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```
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07:00=====9:00
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```
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While browsing you asked for older posts that pulled posts back to 06:00 and up to the time you
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asked for more, say 09:30 so the timeline looks like:
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```
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06:00=========09:30
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```
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Now at lunch time you come back and ask for newer posts. It will pull the last 20 posts from 12:00
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which say took you back to 11:00.
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The timeline looks contiguous but it really is:
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```
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06:00=========09:30 11:00=====12:00
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```
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There may be posts in the 09:30 to 11:00 gap or may not. Right now there is no way to fill
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