Flare UI

[dontobi]

I recently heard about Flare. So I briefly installed the app on my Pixel 8.

Compared to OpenVibe, the app is significantly faster and seemed stable to me.

However, I'm not convinced by the UI. In my opinion, it's very similar to iOS. Since I don't like this design, I uninstalled the app from my device.

Perhaps it will be possible to choose the UI design at some point in the future. The Sync app for Reddit/Lemmy is a good example of this for me. There, you can customize the UI.

[Tlaster]

Since I don't have a UI/UX designer to work with, so all I can do is copy others UI/UX.
To be clear: Flare Android is not an "iOS design", it uses Material 3 Expressive and design for Android, If you open the Settings from Android 16 you will see the answer:

Settings	Flare(High contrast mode off)

Even the Google's own Jetpack Compose does not contain this color scheme nor the container's shapes, I have to adjust it manually.
But in the old days, Flare does uses the "old" Material 3 design:

But no-one uses Flare ATM 😥.
Maybe in the future you can choose which design to use(the "old" Material 3 or the "new" card style Material 3 Expressive), but currently I don't have the bandwidth to do this right now.

[dontobi]

I see the MD3E approach and also many places where MD3E elements are used.

However, in my opinion, the design of the timeline is more of a rejection of the new iOS 26 design.

In Google Apps, the buttons are all on the right, and if there are several, they are arranged above or below each other.

I would implement the design of the timeline more in the style of the Gmail app. Instead of the search bar, you could then place the timeline switch. The hamburger menu can then be used to access the social network functions.

The bottom menu bar could then be used to switch between timeline, notifications, and discover. The write button could then float above it on the right-hand side.

But at this point, I would like to say thank you for the app. I'll keep an eye on it and maybe I'll come to terms with the timeline design at some point. Until then, I'll continue to use Moshidon and the official Bluesky.

[dontobi]

At this point, I would first like to thank you for the option to select the bar style.

I have some further suggestions that I would like to put up for discussion at this point.

1. I would suggest an option to display posts differently. Specifically, I would propose a new card-style view as an additional option.

2. The space between the profile picture/profile details and the post text is very small. I would suggest a separator or a small gap between them.

3. Next, I would suggest that the service or instance logo be displayed in a round shape. This would fit the pill design better.

4. I have the classic menu enabled, and it remains permanently displayed, neither minimized nor hidden. I would like a similar option for selecting the service.

In addition to these suggestions, I would also like to report two minor translation errors. I am using the German language setting, and the menu displays "RS" instead of "RSS" (see screenshot). Furthermore, I am unsure whether the translation "Willkommen bei Leuchtturm" is correct when adding a new service.

I'll take a look in the next few days to see if I can help with the translation into German.

[Tlaster]

Thanks again for all the feedback!

For translations: Flare’s localization is hosted on Crowdin, and anyone is welcome to join in and improve the translation quality there. I really appreciate any help on that front.

As for further UI adjustments: many of the ideas you mentioned are possible, but I can’t make any concrete promises right now. As you can see from the issue tracker, there are already quite a few things waiting to be addressed, and the iOS version still needs a lot of work as well, plus I’m developing Flare alone at the moment, so there is no guarantee when or if I’ll be able to implement these UI adjustments.

[dontobi]

I just finished adjusting some translations. Unfortunately, I only managed to do 9 of 34 pages. Maybe I'll be able to go through the rest of the pages in the next few days.

I would love to help you develop the app, because I really like your work. Unfortunately, I don't have the necessary knowledge and am currently focusing more on Python. However, I will keep an eye on the GitHub repository and maybe there will be an opportunity to submit a PR at some point.