Developing a Lemmy client to have a Facebook-like experience? (Personal profile, groups, pages, etc)
from matcha_addict@lemy.lol to fediverse@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 21:32
https://lemy.lol/post/35629309

starting out with an unpopular opinion: of all the centralized social media platforms, Facebook was always my favorite.

Why? it is the most full featured. Has threads, reactions, groups, “Pages”, polls, and it even has granular privacy controls (for hiding content from other users, not to be confused with Facebook’s privacy violations and commercial data use).

This makes me wonder, could we have a Facebook-like experience using Lemmy as a backend? similar to how lemmy has a phpBB experience using lemmyBB.

Lemmy already has threads, and communities can represent groups. Pages and user pages can be simulated with communities.

We would be missing polls and reactions, which I can live with. I am not at all mad that we would be missing content algorithms either.

Although we can’t make it identical to Facebook, I think it will get reasonably close and exemplify most of the good parts.

I am thinking to take this project on, but wondering if people have thoughts, if this already exists, or if people would even want to use this.

#fediverse

threaded - newest

Steve@communick.news on 12 Dec 22:14 next collapse

What you’re looking for is Friendica.
Don’t try to screw things together with a hammer.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 22:35 next collapse

Hammer don’t hurt em!!!

matcha_addict@lemy.lol on 12 Dec 23:09 collapse

My issue with Friendica is it consumes more resources, making it much more expensive to host, especially at scale.

misk@sopuli.xyz on 12 Dec 22:17 next collapse

Friendica?

matcha_addict@lemy.lol on 12 Dec 23:09 next collapse

My issue with Friendica is it consumes more resources, making it much more expensive to host, especially at scale.

haverholm@kbin.earth on 13 Dec 05:05 collapse

It also has way more features, which might exain the extra resources. I'm sceptic but would love to proven wrong that Lemmy would fare any better with a bunch of FB-like features tacked on?

realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club on 13 Dec 13:51 collapse

Does Friendica work as a Lemmy frontend?

misk@sopuli.xyz on 13 Dec 16:16 collapse

With ActivityPub every AP client works as AP-based platform frontend if you try hard enough. No idea how Friendica would do but I use a separate Mastodon account to stay up to date on some low traffic Lemmy communities because it’s more convenient.

Fitik@fedia.io on 12 Dec 22:29 next collapse

I think the Friendica might be close to what you're looking for, it's not the Lemmy UI, but you can both follow Lemmy communities and different people from there, it's feature-rich like Facebook, and the feel is pretty similar as well

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 22:37 collapse

Ok…now make a FOSS myspace. I hearn of SpaceHey, but apperently that’s not open source, and there’s no guarentee that it’s not one massive spying operation.

bluelion@sh.itjust.works on 12 Dec 22:50 collapse

Maybe Hubzilla?

Fitik@fedia.io on 12 Dec 23:29 collapse

It's cool too, but it's more like it's own thing

pseudo@jlai.lu on 12 Dec 22:40 next collapse

It may be interesting to see what lemmy could look on a radically different UI. Everything I has saw is just changing forms of element, size of text and background colors.
Such a project could be interesting if it allow to see threads we don’t have in typical UI. For example, I would love to be able to add local thread from distance instances. I have a jlai.lu account and a slrpnk.net account. It would be nice to see both instances thread on a same UI and it is “only” a matter of pulling existing content from a list of instances.

pseudo@jlai.lu on 12 Dec 22:49 collapse

Maybe, it could do even more with Piefed that allow topic-oriented threads rather than the sub-local-all triple of Lemmy.

snoopy@peculiar.florist on 13 Dec 11:07 collapse

@pseudo
True. We could do more with two tab :
- a live chat for mastodon where we can follow people
- a forum for lemmy

That would be my ideal software. :)

pseudo@jlai.lu on 13 Dec 11:59 collapse

But in this case, I don’t think it is only about making UI. Or it would be making UI for a twittovers software rather than threadiverse software.
Don’t you think?

snoopy@peculiar.florist on 13 Dec 12:05 collapse

@pseudo it would be making a software that contain both software separated with a tab. And the ui will improve its navigation.

Have you ever tried a forum with a live chat ? What if we remplace this live chat with matodon post ? ​:blob_coffee:​

pseudo@jlai.lu on 13 Dec 13:47 collapse

I see. It will need to manage two accounts but it is doable.

MyOpinion@lemm.ee on 12 Dec 22:53 next collapse

No.

mesamunefire@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 23:23 next collapse

Love to see a prototype. I know a lot of projects are like that (Semaphore for an alternative mastodon client). One of the best things about lemmy is that the API is open, so go ahead and make your dream client.

Kichae@lemmy.ca on 13 Dec 00:21 collapse

It really wouldn’t be a Lemmy client with a Facebook-like personal profile, pages, and more. You’d need your own backend, and then you’ve got something all its own.

I know you’re worried about Friendica’s ability to scale, but how big are you expecting to scale your site?