When the Open Social Web Hybridizes: Raccoon for Friendica is a new app... Mastodon. And it even has a little Lemmy in it! That's why the Free Software + Fediverse duo is such a valuable resource.

@fediverse

Raccoon 1.0 was finally released for Android in recent days, a rather innovative client originally created for #Friendica, but which has now become one of the most innovative apps for the user experience on #Mastodon. The app is available for Android (already on the Play Store and Izzidroid, and will soon be available on F-Droid), but a #Debian package has also been released. An iOS version remains to be seen for its success.

The app introduces some very important innovations to the federated app landscape.

1. Navigate the Fediverse from an app, even without creating an account

Raccoon is the only app that lets you browse the Fediverse even without an account. When you install it, you can select any Friendica or Mastodon instance and "leverage" its local public and federated timelines. This way, users can explore multiple instances before choosing which one to open an account on. Of course, even after adding an account (the app manages multiple accounts), you can browse the timelines of servers other than the one you signed up to.

2. "Browse through" messages: "swipe" navigation

Unlike all other social apps (both those for the Fediverse and those for commercial social networks), #RaccoonForFriendica lets you open a post in your timeline and continue browsing through previous and next posts by simply swiping left and right.
This is a truly interesting ergonomic innovation.

3. Finally a formatting bar in social apps

Since the app was created for Friendica, it features a built-in formatting toolbar reminiscent of Lemmy clients (in fact, the developer @janTeko first experimented with app development with a Lemmy app). The formatting toolbar can also be used for Mastodon instances running the Glitch-soc fork, such as infosec.exchange, tech.lgbt, and my poliversity.it instance, which was the one the developer experimented with.

In addition to being more immediate, writing formatted posts is also made easier by a "preview" function that helps avoid errors in Markdown or BBCode coding.

4. Finally, Mastodon users will be able to enjoy Fediverse groups too.

As you may know, Mastodon doesn't support the display of group posts. Even if you select a group, you'll still see a single timeline where top posts alternate with replies. Searching for a thread on Mastodon is therefore very complicated, but the #Raccoon developer has found a way to enable "topic" viewing across all accounts that are "activitypub groups," be they #Lemmy, #NodeBB, Piefed, Mbin, Peertube, Wordpress, Mobilizon, Flipboard, etc.
This idea also came about thanks to the fact that the developer had previously tried his hand at developing an app for Lemmy and was able to experiment with the formatting bars and display of Lemmy "communities," which are nothing other than "#activitypub groups."

5. Other interesting features

Among other features, you can

• view the HTML code of messages;
• send scheduled posts;
• fully configure the interface;
• support for writing in HTML, useful both for Mastodon Glitch-soc and for writing WordPress posts by integrating the plugin "Activitypub for Wordpress" from @pfefferle and the "Enable Mastodon App" plugin from @alex
• integrate translation libraries

6. What's still missing?

The app features all the features found in most other Mastodon apps, except one: the correct handling of Mastodon posts that quote other posts. These are still displayed in a fairly primitive way. The developer is trying to decide whether to adapt to Mastodon specifications or reinterpret the feature in a more personalized way.
It must be said that, unfortunately, the implementation of quoted messages (already present in Friendica for ages) was implemented by Mastodon very late, only in recent months, and in a very "personal" way that many other software developers did not appreciate.

7. Raccoon is an app that will benefit users who already use Mastodon but also those who have never "tried" the Fediverse

This app has been under development for almost two years, and the beta version is just over a year old. However, version 1.0 has resolved all previously encountered issues.
Based on user feedback, the developer will evaluate whether to create an iOS version and even a Windows version.
Anyone who wishes to allow reporting of application errors can enable anonymous crash reports.

8. Links and Resources

This is the developer's profile:
https://androiddev.social/users/janTeko

This is the app repository: https://github.com/LiveFastEatTrashRaccoon/RaccoonForFriendica/

This is the Play Store link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.livefast.eattrash.raccoonforfriendica

This is the link on IzzyDroid (the app will be released on F-Droid soon, but is currently under review):
https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.livefast.eattrash.raccoonforfriendica

Here is the developer's blog:
https://livefasteattrashraccoon.github.io/blog/

Finally, from here you can download the .apk or .deb package without using the online stores. line:
https://github.com/LiveFastEatTrashRaccoon/RaccoonForFriendica/releases/latest/

One last recommendation

The public's response will be important to enable the further development of this app.
If you want to test it on Mastodon, I recommend using instances running the glitch-soc fork. Among these, I'd recommend the infosec.exchange instance, which is well managed by @jerry. And of course, but only if you communicate in Italian or Esperanto, I'd be happy to host you on my poliversity.it instance.
Regarding Friendica, I recommend two instances: friendica.world, managed by @ruud and featuring a rather lively timeline, and, of course, social.trom.tf, excellently managed by @tio.
If you communicate in Italian, I'd be happy to host you on my poliverso.org instance.

Greetings to all and let me know if you need further information, if you have tried the app and how you found it.
Francesco
You can also interact with me through the Mastodon account @informapirata and the Friendica account @notizie

@ruud @jerry @pfefferle @tio @notizie @informapirata @janTeko @macfranc @alex Today I'm downloading the app and trying it out.

That's quite a wall of text...

@jerry @pfefferle @informapirata @tio @notizie @macfranc @alex @janTeko @ruud I don't understand what advantage you get in viewing groups

@pfefferle @jerry @informapirata @notizie @macfranc @alex @janTeko @ruud Fantastic! Awesome job. And I for sure will give it more of a try. I've already made a few friends use it and so far so good. And thank you for mentioning our instance!

@FrederikNJS I'm sorry, but there was a lot to say.
But after all, you're a forumverse/threadverse user! You shouldn't be afraid of long posts!

@anriz I understand your concerns, because you're a Friendica user, and the Friendica web interface already provides an excellent way to view activitypub groups and group them by topic.
But the Mastodon user doesn't have the same user experience as you: for him, groups are just normal users who share both initial posts and replies in the same timeline. It's a real mess!

Raccoon on the other hand keeps things tidy and presents a neat display

@fediverse

@tio Your instance is one of those shortlisted by Raccoon both because it's very well moderated and because it has a local timeline accessible even without logging in.
I'm glad you'll recommend this app to your contacts. In that regard, although none of us are in love with Google (🤬), we must admit that the presence of the 1.0 release on the Play Store is essential to overcome the psychological barrier of all those users who do not want to go to alternative stores or download the .apk package.

@pfefferle @jerry @informapirata @notizie @alex @fediverse @janTeko @ruud

@macfranc Now I understand. In fact, I no longer use my Mastodon account because I didn't like it and it was too similar to Twitter: confusing and unorganized.

Why are people upvoting this?

If OP used AI to "make" this post, obviously the app is gonna be slop too

@givesomefucks I'm sorry, but you're making serious and false claims that do not honor either your reputation or your ability to recognize the synthetic origin of a text or code.

I wrote the post in Italian and first translated it into English (a language I don't know) using a machine translation system. I then did a back translation to make sure everything was at least comprehensible.

Regarding the app, if you had the necessary knowledge, you could take a look at the code to understand that the development wasn't done with vibe coding, but was done over the course of almost two years, integrating observations and addressing issues.

I mean, the 1h old account, who’s first comment was this post, chiming in about downloading the app wasn’t a giveaway?

using a machine translation system.

So...

AI "wrote" this post, like I said...

the development wasn’t done with vibe coding, but was done over the course of almost two years, integrating observations and addressing issues.

And AI coded it to?

You're just saying you put more effort in instead of just vibes?

Even your comment sounds like AI, it disagrees but then immediately acknowledged everything I said was correct.

Even your fucking chat or knows I'm right, you just told it to say I'm wrong.

Why would anyone download this fucking slop?

@givesomefucks The post was not even published by the developer of the app (me btw), how can you assume the way its code was written by just reading an article by someone else? If you want to help with development you're welcome! @macfranc

Well...

The fact that so many zombie account are suddenly all active and super supportive of this ai slop?

Like, this is some of the worst astroturfing Ive ever seen.

Have you seen the new show? It's on Tubu. It's literally on Heebee. It's on Poodee with ads. It's literally on Dippy. You can probably find it on Weeno. Dude it's on Gumpy. It's a Pheebo original. It's on Poob. You can watch it on Poob. You can go to Poob and watch it. Log onto Poob right now. Go to Poob. Dive into Poob. You can Poob it. It's on Poob. Poob
has it for you. Poob has it for you.

Posts about Fediverse interoperability are always a mess of different flavors of internet nerds who post in radically different formats clashing. It’s a glorious mess.

Personally I think micro blogging is an atrocious anti-discourse format but I also think anyone who writes the word “discourse” is automatically not worth listening to. So what do I know.

Insert 23 redundant hashtags about open source software here and tag eight accounts run by three people across six instances

(Mastodon friends I appreciate you but your posts are painful to look at through the Lemmy interface good god)

I share your concerns about AI slop but you're being a bit of a jerk.

Not everyone speaks English.

My favorite part of AI hallucinations is "finally" being halfway thru their arbitrary numbered list...

It wasn't "finally" as in "this is the last item in the list" it was "finally" as in "mastodon users can finally do this"