Xylight

Approximately 70% complete

Photon uses Svelte.js as the main JS framework for the UI. Photon uses Svelte 4 currently, but Svelte 5 was released and has a lot of benefits for the codebase. It's also a lot faster.

However, the paradigm for Svelte 5 is a lot different and almost the entirety of Photon might have to be rewritten.

Luckily, there's a migration tool that can do a lot of the work for me. However, I've still got to fix about 3,000 lines of code and 70 different files to work properly with Svelte 5. There's also gonna be a lot of hidden bugs I'll need to fix.

Because of this, I won't work on any new features for the next month or so, so that I can get this as done as fast as possible.

Generally you won't notice much other than slight behavior changes due to minor code structure changes, or maybe a bug or two.

Once I'm finished, I'll make another announcement and you might notice photon feeling a bit faster!

Once it's been confirmed stable I'll release docker images.

You can see my progress here

I usually don't like orange/brown themes but I think this one's cozy. I decided to make it for the autumn season.

{"slate":{"25":"255 248 240","50":"253 244 232","100":"251 236 221","200":"246 220 198","300":"240 195 165","400":"219 162 122","500":"196 133 89","600":"133 108 89","700":"89 72 59","800":"66 54 44","900":"44 36 29","950":"33 27 22"},"zinc":{"50":"255 243 230","100":"250 228 207","300":"227 186 156","400":"204 144 105","500":"181 102 54","600":"120 96 79","700":"82 66 54","800":"61 49 40","900":"41 33 27","925":"33 26 22","950":"25 20 16"},"primary":{"100":"255 245 235","900":"122 48 0"},"other":{"black":"25 20 16","white":"255 252 248"}}

To import, go to Main menu > Themes > Click the + to make a new theme > Import > Paste and import

I used to ask these a lot during Photon's early development, but I decided to do one now.

Are there any major features you'd like added or issues you'd want fixed?

Saw people on slrpnk.net were looking for a photon theme so I decided to make one. I'm not necessarily expecting this to be used at slrpnk.net, but I like the theme so I'll be using it. It has a nice light theme too.

It's pretty similar to a recent post for a "wintergreen" theme, this one is less saturated.

{"slate":{"25":"245 248 247","50":"235 242 241","100":"225 236 235","200":"205 218 222","300":"185 200 209","400":"155 172 186","500":"125 144 163","600":"95 116 140","700":"75 98 122","800":"55 80 104","900":"35 62 86","950":"25 44 68"},"zinc":{"50":"245 248 248","100":"220 235 233","200":"185 214 210","300":"143 185 182","400":"103 154 151","500":"77 127 125","600":"60 101 100","700":"51 82 82","800":"44 66 67","900":"35 51 51","925":"27 41 41","950":"20 31 32"},"primary":{"100":"180 200 199","900":"30 65 64"},"other":{"black":"20 20 30","white":"245 248 247"}}

this security issue can only be triggered by users fault, but it's up to the UI designer to prevent user mistakes causing potential credential leaks.

The login page

The login page is designed to be as simple as possible. Only 1 page, no extra steps. It'll validate whatever instance url you type in to ensure it's actually a Lemmy instance.

The problem

If the user mistypes the instance url to a typo squatting instance, your credentials were just sent straight to them. Bad. For example, I could setup an instance named lemmu.world, and if someone accidentally mistypes lemmy.world as that, I get their credentials for free.

Potential solutions

I'm not sure which one would be best as they all have problems.

• Require you to type the instance before you can start typing your credentials.
  • This complicates things and adds an extra step. This also wouldn't completely solve the problem.
• Add an auto complete list
  • This will work for popular instances as they'll know that they have the wrong url because it disappeared from the auto complete. However, I'd need to keep this list updated and id prefer photon to have minimal external ties. This also wouldn't work for small instances.
• Add typo checking
  • This has the same problem as above as I'd need to keep common misspellings updated and I want photon to have minimal external ties.

Any ideas? For now, this isn't a problem as long as you double check the instance you're logging in with, and there's no cases of this AFAIK.

TL;DR

Vercel has been a PITA for a few reasons I won't go into, and I eventually reached a usage limit that made the site unusuable. Cloudflare pages has no usage limits, so I have switched to that. Nothing different should be noticable, except that initial loads might be slightly faster.

if you don't like cloudflare

I understand lots of people dislike cloudflare, so if you want to get away from it, here are some publicly hosted instances:

You can also selfhost it if you'd like.

git clone https://github.com/Xyphyn/photon
cd photon
npm install && ADAPTER=node npm run build
node ./build/index.js 

On phtn.app I can give all translators of Photon a badge, here's how it looks on @Blisterexe@lemmy.zip (the French translator!)

If you want this and you translated the app, just add a comment and I'll try to verify your contributions. Then I'll add it to phtn.app. I can add and remove this at any time, and this will only appear on phtn.app.

To get the badge, you must have

• Validly translated at least 30 strings of any language (other than English)
• Proof that you are the contributor on weblate (using the same username on both should be enough)

Amazingly, Photon and Alexandrite started on the same day, June 24.

Top left: Voyager

Bottom right: Photon

Top right: Alexandrite

If you dislike the new default colors, just go to theme settings and select "photon classic"

This new update allows instance admins to set their own themes (via PUBLIC_THEME) and allows you to have multiple theme presets.

It's available on phtn.app right now, coming soon to a release

I like these colors, as it gives a bit more personality than neutral gray.

But what do you think? If I did make this the default dark theme, I would add presets to the theme page including a "classic" preset.

If you'd like to use this theme right now, here:

{"other":{},"primary":{"100":"#f3f4f6"},"zinc":{"100":"#f3f4f6","300":"#d1d5db","400":"#9ca3af","500":"#6b7280","600":"#4b5563","700":"#374151","800":"#1f2937","900":"#111827","925":"#080C19","950":"#030712"},"slate":{}}

One year ago, on June 24, 2023, I saw the migration to Lemmy. I wanted to make something like libreddit, so I decided to mess with Lemmy's API. Lemmy became something I wanted to use daily, so I got to work, and I made the first commit:

I started with something that reused components from another project of mine, Imagi. It looked awful and had no features. But, some people actually started using it, and I was motivated to continue this.

After about a month 0.0.1 was released, with very basic features.

One of the earliest Photon versions