Hi,

If you've been on beta you've probably already seen some of this as I worked out bugs and other issues. But in general the top line is there's been some major re-architecture of the app which should let it feel even snappier and more performant than before. I've also added Image Gallery support, so now any post with multiple images in the body will auto-collapse into one image gallery. This is configurable in the settings if you prefer to see all of the images as well. I've also taken Horizontal swiping on posts out of 'Experimental' and it should handle pagination and backing-out more gracefully.

Galleries and video playback now work better and load in the right resolutions, images and thumbnails behave consistently, and animations feel smoother. I also made caching and performance improvements which should reduce stutters and stale content.

If you have any feature requests please let me know :)

TL;DR Changes (versions 287–301)

• Media & galleries: added image galleries and video support in galleries; fixed uploaded images not showing, full-resolution image loading, tall-thumbnail aspect-ratio preservation, alt-text display, and various image preload/load timeouts and error-handling improvements.
• Playback & UI: added video autoplay countdown animation, removed small image animation delays, improved community search relevance, adjusted image animation timing, and smoothed swipe-to-close behavior.
• Caching & performance: fixed multiple comment/post caching issues (including edits showing cached content), introduced a setting to control max cache size, improved comment rendering performance, reduced memory leaks, and generally improved scroll feel and pagination.
• Offline, federation & reliability: added offline fallback for community pages, federation detection for comments, enhanced error messages, fixed gray-screen and other stability issues, and reverted/adjusted settings storage to improve reliability.
• Permissions, downloads & validation: improved Android permission handling for downloads, added file validation for downloaded images, and implemented download timeout and retry logic.
• Misc UI & quality-of-life: added a bug report button, adjusted Export button placement, fixed bottom-sheet and external-link behaviors, made reply text selectable, fixed thumbnails not being clickable, and other small layout/typo fixes.

Full Changelog

Added:

• Video support in galleries
• Bug report button in settings overflow
• Setting to control max cache size
• Video autoplay countdown animation
• Support for image galleries (post customization)
• Offline fallback mode for community pages
• Improved image error handling
• Improved Android permission handling for downloads
• Federation detection for comments (warning when not federated)
• Enhanced error messages across the app
• Post refresh now clears related caches (comments, scroll position, sort preferences)
• File validation for downloaded images (format checks, size limits)
• Download timeout & retry handling (improved)
• Improved permission dialogs for denied storage access
• Better logging for download/image debugging
• Image dimension capping refactor (maintain aspect ratio for tall images)

Fixed:

• Uploaded images not showing in Create Post
• Image preloading hanging (added timeout)
• Small delay when animating images
• Images not loading in full resolution
• Subscribed communities sometimes not loading
• Edited posts showing cached content
• Small memory leak when creating a comment
• Text not selectable when replying
• Bottom sheet compass button issue
• Opening links in external browser issue
• Comment caching problems on posts
• Comment caching on certain posts
• Post page being cut off by app bar
• List view media/external browser issue
• Quick changing post type in post page view
• Spoiler font colour not following user text colour
• Regression in spoiler color setting
• Swipe-to-close post smoothness
• Alt text displaying instead of post title
• Android permission safety before downloading images
• Export button placement
• Incorrect DB usage in some flows
• Settings storage revert/clarity ('s' or 'db' indicator)
• Thumbnails in list view not clickable
• App freeze when limiting thumbnail heights
• Images in galleries showing thumbnails instead of fulls
• Comments caching too much
• Editing a post showing wrong community
• Loading icon stuck when replying to comments
• Tall thumbnails blurry (aspect ratio preservation)
• Post refresh briefly showing "no comments" during loading
• Drawer search Enter key not working
• SocketException errors exposed to users in offline mode
• Community header not showing in offline moderated list
• Comment scrolling reliability (jump-to-comment retry)
• Potential gray screen when loading post details

Improvements & Technical

• Improved scroll feel (increased caching)
• Performance improvements for comment rendering and video tracking
• Improved app stability and data storage reliability
• Enhanced test coverage and infrastructure (from adjacent versions)
• Various small layout and typo fixes

Thank you everyone for all of the support and suggestions, please keep them coming and we'll continue to make Connect the best app for browsing Lemmy!

Links:

• Google play
• you can support me here

-kuroneko