Hey everyone!

After a bout of downtime, Hexbear 0.8 is officially released. As you might expect, this big new version number means a big new feature. Our frontend is finally running on its own, dedicated server! This lets us do some cool stuff, as well as make the site generally faster to load static files.

To anyone running a Hexbear instance... this update changes a lot with how things are configured on the sever, from depending on a whole new Docker image to having to proxy to a new server in nginx. See the example nginx configs to get an idea of what needs to change on that front. As always, pop into the Hexbear Dev matrix room if you run into any troubles.

Here is the full changelog!

Selfhosted frontend

The frontend is being served by its very own express server now! Prior to this update, the backend server handled everything, from requests to the API to static files. Being hosted on a separate server means a couple things:

  • Faster loadtimes. This is the immediately obvious one - having one server that does everything isn't conducive to a snappy experience. Expect an easier time during the initial load as well as getting things like emotes.
  • More contextual embeds. Before this update, linking anything from Hexbear anywhere gave a canned "preview" that read more like a elevator pitch than a look into whatever content is linked. Posting Hexbear links on other sites should have some contextual elements now, such as the title of a post or the stats of a user.
  • More room for expansion. Further down the line, separating different functions into different servers means we have a better opportunity to better balance load.

Iframely is updated and works again

Iframely has been in a slight state of disrepair for a fair while on the site. Spurred on by the frustrating lack of Youtube embeds / "Before you continue...", this change updates Iframely and better leverages the plethora of information it gives. (Interestingly, before this update went live, the Youtube embed issue mysteriously solved itself. The need for an update still applied though.)

Updated backend dependencies

This one's pretty simple - the dependencies of the backend are now fully up to date. We're still working on doing the same for the frontend, but by the nature of how JS dependencies work, and also a tad bit of overscoping, it didn't have the testing needed to make the final cut for this update. Expect to see this further down the line!

Relaxed slur filter

A couple users have been running into issues with innocuous words being censored by the 1984-esque backend. With its heavy hand, it crushed meaningful discussion and silenced users. Unfortunately, the dev team hadn't read George Orwells 1984 before. After @layla stepped in and let us know how shockingly Orwellian our beautiful Rust backend was, we immediately relaxed the filter - another win for democracy. You are now free to refutate(?) the dude who keeps posting about Vaush once again.

New Taglines

I remembered I had a post ages ago asking for new taglines. Remember Mr. Painbow? He is now eternally memorialized in the site tagline, as well as a couple other things that I came up with because I was jealous @WhyEssEff got to do all of the tagline stuff

What's Next?

For upcoming updates, we're planning on...

  • Consolidating the number of themes we currently have and being able to once again officially support the different themes we have.
  • Updating the frontend dependencies.
  • Introducing code coverage checks and increasing the amount of testing we do on both codebases.
  • Better mod tooling
  • Watermarking system

A quick footnote

Recently, the developers of Lemmy have come under fire for their political views and ideals. In a space dominated by late stage capitalism and reactionaries, Dessalines and nutomic give a shining example to other communists in the open source space. The dev team gives their full support to the Lemmy project and its achievements.

As always, if you're running into issues, make a post on !feedback@hexbear.net or create an issue on the Gitea.

Until next time...