This was better placed in c/lemmyapps@lemmy.world and I can delete this post if it’s expected:

https://mander.xyz/post/39865414

Maybe it’s just the iPhone clients, but they seem to have issues with use cases for other instances, for example:

  • If I’m interested in news from a certain country, and there is an instance focused on that country, I basically need to get on the web to search if there is a useful channel on that instance. If you use on of the iPhone clients to search for a channel and only use the instance name then nothing seems to match show up. You can find users from those channels, channels that happen to use that set of characters, or when people write a channel from that instance, but the search doesn’t seem to match channels on that instance.
  • Clients don’t seem to offer a way to navigate to an instance and see all its channels. This is basically the same use case as above, but with more exploration and less targeted. Again, I seem to need to use the web.
  • I can’t find a way to show the sidebar for an instance, besides the one I’ve registered for. For a lot of instance+channel combinations this really doesn’t matter. But when it matters, it tends to matter a lot. I had a few situations in asklemmy@lemmy.ml where people basically resorted to saying the instance was lemmy.ml and I had to go look up why that would matter by switching to a browser. (Yeah… a newbie problem, and now I wonder how I could have missed it.)

So, incase this comes across as just statements, here are some questions:

Is this just how communities and users grew to use the echo system? Am I missing an obvious client / some buttons to click? Are the iPhone clients all just from the same codebase? Is there some technical issue with the exposed search APIs?

Sorry if this is in the wrong community… hesitant tone it’s an exploration issue? /hesitant tone

  • porcoesphino@mander.xyzOP
    51·
    20 hours ago

    Yeah, I started on Voyager. Seeing channels and sidebar for the instance my account is registered to works and easy to find / navigate to.

    For other instances, you say that you have to “go” to the other instance. I find it easy to go to a known community on the other instance. And I find it easy to find the sidebar for a known community on another instance. How do I go to the other instance and not the community though?

    For example on load, it loads Post > Home (I think this is configurable in settings so not everyone but it’s not so important for these steps). Then you can click Communities in the menu. Then if you are subscribed to a community that is on a different instance you can click it and open it. When you open the sidebar, the sidebar is for that community, not the instance. I see no way to:

    • Click on the instance
    • Open the sidebar for the instance (not the community)
    • See a list of channels on that instance

    I clicked around a little, but sorry if I’m missing something obvious.

    As an example of the difference in the sidebar for different instances you load these two URLs and compare:

    And the channels that would be nice to scroll separately are:

    Interestingly though, the sidebar for lemmy.ml doesn’t say much and wouldn’t have helped me with the behaviour that caused me to drop “asklemmy@lemmy.ml”. Someone explicitly said that the ml stood for Marxist Leninists and plenty of users tends to write as if that’s true and also be a bit more militant / ideological than I prefer in my interactions… but it’s completely missing from any mention in the sidebar.

    • Takapapatapaka@tarte.nuage-libre.frEnglish
      1·
      8 hours ago

      Oh, so i misunderstood part of your question, thanks for explaining !

      Indeed, i can’t find a way to see the Instance Sidebar on Voyager. I’ll try to dig deeper, but i think there is no option for this. If this interests you, here is the codebase for Voyager, where it is possible to suggest enhancements (though there is no guarantee they will be implemented).

      Finding communities on a specific instance also does not work easily aside from your local instance, at least on Voyager.

      For the part of your original post where you point out that the search option does not give any results of the instance about a specific country, there may be another explanation : for your instance A to show results of another instance B, they need to be federated. This works when one user of instance A subscribes to something on instance B : then instance A adds instance B to its list, and start referencing its content (though i’m not sure if it references everything, or only the content of the communities that users of instance A subscribed to). So if you see nothing, maybe it’s because no one connected to instance B on your instance A, so they’re not aware of each other. (though it seems that mander.xyz is federated to a looooot of instances, so it’s probably not this problem)

      But honestly, it’s also because the search engine seems quite bad. I tried searching for instances names i’m sure my instance is federated to, and it did show some of their communities but far from everything, and not even all the ones i’m subscribed to.

      Some info to sum up :

      • yes, searching for new communities, especially on other instances, and especially on apps, is quite hard, at least for now. Once you’re set up, it’s quite smooth, but the beginning may be strange.
      • lemmy.ml is indeed quite a folkloric part of Lemmy, but i think you’ll find alternatives for most of the communities hosted there. They’re the “test” instance for Lemmy, managed by the dev, and also quite a big instance, so that’s why they haven’t been defederated from most instances yet, but they are an exception.
      • If you want to see which instances your home instance is linked to, and which it blocked, you can find this on browser at the bottom of the main page, there is a “Instances” button.
    • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      20 hours ago

      With Voyager you can click the Posts button at the bottom and then view content from the whole fediverse. I dont think there’s a way to sort by specific instances since the apps are basing that functionality off your “home” instance. I use the NewCommunities community to find new stuff along with a web browser on one of the sites that tracks all the different communities and instances.