I’ve been working on a Threadiverse frontend for almost a year called Blorp. Originally it was Lemmy only, but now it also includes PieFed. (source code) (try web version)

I just Dockerized the frontend and started publishing the Docker image, and I would love your feedback!

  • REACT_APP_DEFAULT_INSTANCE (e.g. https: //lemmy.zip no trailing slash)
    • Changes the default instance
  • REACT_APP_LOCK_TO_DEFAULT_INSTANCE set this to “true” or “false”
    • When true, this prevents the frontend from logging into other instances. Perfect if you host your own Lemmy instance and want this frontend to exclusively be used with your instance. You can still log into multiple accounts on the locked instance
    • When false, you can log into as many accounts across as many instances as you want. You can even mix and mach Lemmy and PieFed
# pull the latest Blorp image
docker pull christianjuth/blorp:latest

# run it on port 8080 (host → container), passing any runtime env‑vars you need
docker run -d \
  --name blorp \
  -p 8080:80 \
  -e REACT_APP_DEFAULT_INSTANCE="https://lemmy.zip/" \ # BUT without the trailing slash!
  -e REACT_APP_NAME="Blorp" \
  -e REACT_APP_LOCK_TO_DEFAULT_INSTANCE="false" \
  christianjuth/blorp:latest

Edit: I cannot get the trailing slash in https://lemmy.zip/ to go away, but make sure you exclude it. Idk what sorcery is going on with Lemmy, but it seems impossible to link a domain without a trailing slash. I’ll make the docker image more forgiving in the next update.

  • 3dcadminAEnglish
    2·
    11 hours ago

    Now this I like, just because I have plenty of people who really aren’t techy enough and dislike a lot about the fediverse… I know it’s not for everyone but having a simple front end works for loads! Good work here - I like it, I like it a lot

    • moseschrute@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      That you! Idk how to explain the fediverse to my mainstream social media friends, but I think a good step 1 is giving them an intuitive front end.

      I would love to eventually onboard people to Lemmy and PieFed through Blorp, but that’s a whole other challenge. Idk how to explain the fediverse to people. In a perfect world, I think people who stumbled across Blorp would figure it out with no prior Fediverse knowledge. Idk how to get there.