Requirements:

• Need a better Revolt client that’s cross-platform native
  • Ideally macOS / iPadOS / iOS / Windows / Linux / Android / Web
• Need the UI / UX to be top-notch and feel good in the hands, otherwise people won’t use it
  • On top of this, it should also be fun and cute
• Accessibility should be considered, but I do not have experience in this area, will need to do research
• Currently Revolt has a (now deprecated) web app and a native app that doesn’t support custom endpoints
  • We’re forking from Revolt, so don’t need to worry about breaking changes on their end
  • Sticking with the name ermine cause I like it (stylized ermine all lowercase to be cool)
• Decided to try using Slint + Rust for a more bare-bones low-level approach
• Licensing
  • Slint requires GPLv3 without a paid license - fine with this
  • Revolt is also AGPLv3
  • Code I write will be MIT as I don’t want to hinder people re-using anything for any reason
• Have already spent a number of hours 100% vibe coding a prototype
  • Used Flutter + Dart (was considered for this iteration)
  • It worked okay, had a UX close to what I want as a starting point, so we know what we want is possible, we just need to build it
  • There are just too many bugs and there’s no way to trust the code written underneath
  • Feel awful and ashamed of vibe coding, giving away my agency and creativity to an LLM and to big tech, rotting away my ability to create
• This is a project to push myself outside of my comfort zone towards something I’ve not done before, to grow beyond the limitations I’ve placed upon myself
  • Having seen what other people’ve worked on, over months, and the kind of dedication they have towards software quality, I know this is something that will take time to craft instead of something I can bang out in a few hyperfixated days

Resources:

• Slint
  • https://docs.slint.dev/latest/docs/slint/
• Rust
  • https://docs.rs/http/latest/http/
  • https://docs.rs/sqlite/latest/sqlite/
  • https://docs.rs/json/latest/json/
  • https://docs.rs/websocket/latest/websocket/
  • https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/testing/unit_testing.html
• Revolt
  • https://developers.stoat.chat/developers/endpoints/
  • https://developers.stoat.chat/api-reference
  • https://stoat.chat/api
  • https://revolt.handmadecities.com/api
  • https://github.com/livekit/livekit
• HMC
  • https://git.handmadecities.com/HMC/handmade-revolt

Notes:

• Slint reminds me a lot of when I tried messing with SwiftUI
• Trying to make things look pretty early on is a fools errand
  • Need to remember to make things work, then make them look nice
• Have not used Rust before so this should be interesting
• HMC Revolt seems to be on version 0.8.2 while Stoat is now on 0.11.5
  • Have an OpenAPI spec for the latest stoat, but no historical ones
  • Need to figure out what differences exist, if any, and how to support different server versions cleanly
• Seems like there’s an /api endpoint with information about the server (if it’s a revolt server)
  • App version
  • autumn endpoint (file server)
  • january endpoint (media server)
  • voso ?
  • livekit ?
    • livekit seems to be what’s used for voice / video support
    • Currently not supported by HMC Revolt instance
  • main websocket
• Trying to use progenitor + openAPI spec to generate rust code, not going that well, and Gwen said it may be better to write these by hand
  • progenitor didn’t work due to it operating under the assumption that endpoints only return one type, which this spec violates (https://github.com/oxidecomputer/progenitor/issues/950)
• Read through documentation mostly, taking it slow and making sure I understand how things are working, being patient with myself
• Main repository online at: https://git.handmadecities.com/nobodywasishere/ermine