Elytra Blog

The simple RSS Reader. This blog publishes release notes, engineering and design details.

Elytra Summer 2021 Public Beta

You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?

The Summer 2021 update isn’t quite ready yet, but I’m happy to announce the Public Beta details.

You can join the TestFlight Public Beta list here.

You should also consider joining the Slack Group for sharing feedback, screenshots, videos and the list. Head over the #iOS channel there.

If you don’t prefer Slack, the support email is always open.

I won’t be sharing the change log here. It’s available on the TestFlight log for now. You should go through it carefully before installing the new beta.

This brings the app back up to parity with v2.2.3 albeit with two features currently disabled. I will commence work on the new features and widgets later this week. 

I look forward to your feedback. Cheers.

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Elytra Winter 2020 Update

The Winter 2020 update is finally ready in 2021! This is the first release of Elytra which brings local sync, local notifications and a lot of performance and stability improvements to the apps.

Similar to Elytra v2 and v2.1, this is an iOS 14 only release. The latest supported version for iOS 13 is v1.8 and will be deprecated soon.

You can download the update from the App Store. If you feel generous and have a couple of minutes, please leave a review on the App Store. It makes a huge difference for me. Thank you in advance.

Local Sync

Elytra v2.2 running on Macbook Air, iPhone XS and iPad Air This release brings Local Sync to the apps. Local Sync caches all articles across all your feeds (just like other RSS Feed Reader Apps). This is not a “new” technique. Feed Reader apps have been doing this for as long as I can remember. Elytra now uses the same technique by leveraging its APIs to make the entire process a lot faster!

Elytra does not have to check every single feed if it has new updates. It uses a single API to check if updates are present, and if they are, sync them to your devices.

Full Change Log

New

  • Local Sync. All feeds are now synced to your device locally, so you can continue reading even when your device is offline.
  • Added a new “Title View” to individual feeds. Open a feed and tap on its title. This shows the Feed Info and two preferences at the moment: Push/Local Notifications & Safari Reader Mode. These are per feed settings. This is very similar to the design and functionality from NetNewsWire, is directly inspired by it, but with a minor difference: the layout and copy denotes which feeds support Push Notifications, while the others supporting Local Notifications.
  • Push Notifications Request Form. If you already have push notifications enabled, you won’t see this. This is per device.
  • Added support for background push notifications to keep all your devices in sync without needing manual refreshing.
  • Push Notifications for new articles now download and cache the article for immediate use.

Improvements

  • Tapping on a folder now opens the folder’s feed.
  • Tapping on the disclosure icon on a folder now toggles its expanded state.
  • Filtering is now stricter. It’ll match “sponsor” but will not match “sponsored”.
  • Added Feeds to the iOS Search Index. You can now directly open feeds by their names (or custom names if you have one set).

Fixes

  • Fixed the tint colour for the blog name when opening a micro-blog article.
  • Fixed adding feed by URL where the feed presents multiple options.
  • Fixed an issue when searching by title for 3-letter sites like CNN or BBC.
  • Fixed articles not loading for certain feeds.
  • Fixed Today View not updating when opened after an app launch.
  • Fixed an issue with the iPadOS app showing different widths for the columns in different orientations or environments (split view).
  • Fixed an issue with the apps not correctly download bookmarks from the API.
  • Fixed an issue where toggling folders in the sidebar interface would show empty folders.
  • Fixed an issue with certain CJK paragraph blocks rendering incorrectly when certain linebreak characters are used in the paragraph text.
  • Fixed an issue with filters incorrectly hiding articles when matching against CJK based filters.
  • Fixed an issue with line-heights in the articles list for multi-lined article titles with favicons.
  • Fixed an issue where the “no articles” label would appear over the articles.
  • Fixed an issue for adding Streaming Video Channel feeds. They recently changed their format which was causing issues.
  • Fixed a crash when writing the widgets data to disk when the app has just been sent to the background.
  • Fixed Navigation Bar buttons not appearing in some contexts.

Thank you for reading.

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Elytra is now available for macOS Big Sur

Elytra is now available on the Mac App Store.

It’s finally happened. It took 3 years and I hope it was worth the wait.

Elytra running on a Macbook in Dark Mode

Elytra for macOS brings the same native rendering performance you have come to know and love on iOS and iPad OS.

All of this has been possible because of Apple’s Mac Catalyst system which has been significantly improved on Big Sur, since its debut on macOS Catalina.

Your subscription will carry forward to the macOS App as well, no separate purchase or subscription will be necessary. (You can also take this opportunity to take advantage of the special pricing I have going on for Diwali)

I’ll be sharing a deep-dive into the design decisions for Elytra, but for now, I hope you enjoy the release.

As always, Happy Reading!

PS: A small update for iOS and iPadOS has also been released, so be sure to grab that from the App Store as well. 

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Elytra 2.1.0 is now available

Elytra running on the iPhone 12 - Mutliple Screens

Version 2.1 brings a lot of stability and Quality of Life improvements to Elytra before the final Winter release of this year. This also brings the iOS App up to parity with its macOS app to be released soon.

This build also brings support the the newly released iPhone 12 lineup as well as the iPad Air 4th Gen.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/elytra/id1433266971

New Font: Atkinson Hyperlegible

Atkinson Hyperlegible font displayed on the iPad Pro Gen 4 and iPhone 12

Designed by the Braille Institute of America, and offered for free, Atkinson Hyperlegible is a great new font choice for greater visibility and legibility for low vision readers. Paired with an Accessibility focused app like Elytra, I hope this improves the reading experience for you. 

You can read more about the Atkinson Hyperlegible font here. 

Improvements

  • If you have a URL copied, the app will automatically detect it when attempting to add a new feed.

  •  Tapping an article now dismisses the sidebar on iPads in portrait mode.

  • The sidebar items are now correctly highlighted. They no longer use the tint colour when selected.

  • Search in the sidebar now uses Alpha sorting like the rest of the view.

  • Multiple improvements throughout the app for Voice Control (VC) and Voice Over (VO) a11y options.

    • The app now correctly shows titles for icon only buttons when VC is activated.
    • The app now correctly updates states for icon only buttons when VC is activated.
    • Simplified Article labels for VC to make it easier to select articles. They will now be presented as “Article 1”, “Article 2” and so on… Previously, the article title’s was used which could be difficult to command with long titles.
    • VO will now read the article index followed by its title.

  • Improves formatting for CJK Text. CJK text should no longer appear as one big blob of text. It may still happen if the source provides it that way.

  • Unreads Widget intents now work as expected. You can now toggle between loading favicons and cover images in the widgets.

  • The article viewer will now draw horizontal rules. (<hr /> element equivalent.)

  • During first launch, if your account already has a subscription, the trial interface is no longer shown. You are directly taken to the Feeds Interface.

  • Added support for dragging and dropping articles into the Unread or Bookmark rows in the Sidebar to perform respective actions.

  • Added support for dragging feeds between folders or outside folders.

  • Added support for dragging feeds to external applications. This action will drag with the RSS Feed URL. (iPadOS only)

  • Updated images for GIF loading and playback controls.

  • Tapping a gallery image now opens it in full view.

Fixes

  • Fixed a rare bug that would prevent the bookmarks counter from updating when adding or removing bookmarks.

  • Fixed an issue where unread counters would not update when you have 0 unread articles.

  • Fixed loading of GIF favicons.

  • Removing a bookmark while in the bookmarks feed now removes the article after a small delay.

  • Fixed a rare crashing bug that would occur when initiating a Refresh in the Feeds Interface. (Thank you for Lee.)

  • Fixed an issue with the Today Count always reporting as 1.

  • Fixed rotation behaviour on iPads.

  • Fixed an issue where the unread/today counts would change when reading an article from a feed you’re not subscribed to.

  • Fixed an issue where the selected feed would remain selected after opening recommendations.

  • Fixed an issue with the Unreads widget not updating in a timely manner.

  • Fixed a background crash that would occur when syncing and downloading new data.

  • The app now saves restoration data properly so launching the app from a saved state is now faster.

  • Fixed an issue where images in the article viewer would fail to load (network issues, invalid URL or for whatever other reason) and would show a large placeholder image.

  • Twitter apps selection now works again when tapping tweets.

  • Matched the keyboard navigation to the macOS App.

  • Images in Widgets should now load reliably. I’ve discarded the older method of loading images in favour of a more standard approach as recommended by Apple Engineering.

  • Fixed the app using a semi-bold font for headings on iOS 14.0.1 and higher.

  • Image Loading options now correctly apply to favicons inside the Articles List Interface.

  • Title Font preference now correctly applies to headings inside the article as well.

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Elytra 2.0.3 is now available

Hot off the tracks of v2.0.2 comes v2.0.3 with a couple of more fixes. All known issues in Elytra’s v2 are now fixed and patched. If any additional issues are reported, those will be addressed in v2.1.0 unless they prevent the app from functioning.

Improvements

Improved Swift and SwiftUI Syntax Highlighting
Improved Swift and SwiftUI Syntax Highlighting

Improved Swift & SwiftUI syntax highlighting in code blocks.

Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where selecting the “Only load on Wi-Fi” image bandwidth setting did not persist correctly.

  • Fixed an issue where selecting the “Low Res” image resolution setting did not persist correctly.

  • Fixed a bug where toggling dark mode (or already present) did not correctly set the colours for the filters’ input.

  • Fixed an issue where the Image Viewer would not display the image at full resolution once it is loaded.

  • Fixed an issue where the OPML Interface would launch with the base tint on the button backgrounds and then update to your preferred tint.

  • Fixed an issue where semantic colours would not load correctly on iOS 14.0.1 for your selected tint colour.

  • Fixed a crash that would occur when bootstrapping the local cache database.

  • Fixed a crash that would occur when saving restoration data.

  • Fixed an issue where images in articles would be scaled incorrectly when using the image proxy.

  • Fixed a bug where tapping on the Attributions item in the Settings interface would crash the app.

  • Fixed a crash that would occur when decoding certain HTML encodings. (16-bit decoding is hard, y’all!)

Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/elytra/id1433266971

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New Elytra Landing Page

Elytra’s first website was made in the fall of 2017. It was extremely basic, gave the requiste information to the reader and a link to sign up for the TestFlight beta ( TestFlight Links were not a thing back then).

With the release of v1.0, I updated to an improved layout, more details and screenshots. I kept updating the screenshots up to the release of v1.4 and then completely forgot about it (this did lead to some confusion).

New Website

With the release of v2.0, it was time to update it, however, with the rushed release of iOS 14, I didn’t get enough time to complete it.

Today, I just launched the updated website. Check it out here.

Elytra's New Landing Page - Hero
Elytra's New Landing Page - Design

I have simplified the website by much, reduced as many interaction points as possible to ensure the reader can quickly get an idea of the app, and proceed to viewing further details on the App Store.

For the main navigation in the header, I used a simple <details> block with <nav> as its detail block. Accessible, simple, and known interaction.

Almost all images are optimised for retina screens as well as for various breakpoints at varying sizes.

One critical section I thought I must add was about Privacy.

Elytra's New Landing Page - Privacy

With Apple’s strong focus on Privacy, and a wonderful marketing page to go with it, I thought it would only compliment their message and my committment towards ensuring the same as a 3rd party developer on their platform.

Additional Enhancements

Some additional enhancements I’d like to make sooner than later:

  • I would like to make some tweaks to the font sizes of headers based on the device width metric, but I found it not to be a blocker, and release it as is.

  • Add sRGB and P3 specific images to the sources. When viewing the website on my Macbook Pro, the colours are evidently faded. Since I do have source images in the P3 format, I should be able easily do this.

  • Additional hints for a11y.

Noticeably Missing

Dark/Light mode. The previous website support this, however, for this time around I decided to go with a static colour scheme to suite the various bands I am using on the page as decorative backgrounds for the device images.

This darker colour scheme also strongly compliments the beautiful imagery one experiences when using Elytra with various Photography and Art & Design blogs.

If you have any suggestions for improvements or noticed a bug, do let me know.

As always, happy reading.

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Elytra 2.0.2 is now available

Elytra 2.0.2 (38) is now available on the App Store. This build includes some critical fixes and an update is recommended.

Fixes

  • Fixes a rotation bug on iPads.

  • Fixes an article scaling bug on iPads when toggling the sidebar.

  • Changing the selected tint colour now applies correctly throughout the app.

  • Fixed the app not loading the selected tint colour on launch.

  • Fixed an issue when searching for a feed by title or keywords would dismiss the modal.

  • Fixed an issue with pagination when searching for feeds in the Add New Feed interface.

  • Fixed an issue where the App would show a “No Subscription Found” error after resetting or deactivating your account.

  • Fixed an issue where an interrupted on-boarding would prevent you from using the app without purchasing a subscription. This now ensures you are always able to start your free trial if your onboarding was interrupted.

  • If you’re currently enrolled in the Free Trial, the subscriptions interface will now correctly indicate that.

  • Some blog engines convert emojis to an image with the emoji as the alt text on the image. Elytra will now skip rendering the image and appropriately render the emoji used by the author in the same context as the original blog post. This prevents the paragraph breaking on to the next line to accommodate the custom emoji image the blog engine inserts.

  • Fixes an issue with sorting of Feeds. Feeds which are not inside any folder are now correctly sorted in ascending alphabetical order. Thank you Jason, for pointing this out.

  • iPads in Portrait mode now correctly hide the sidebar upon tapping an article.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/elytra/id1433266971

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2.0.1 is now available. Update Recommended.

Version 2.0.1 (31) should now be processing for the App Store and should become available shortly. I run into a small hiccup with the Review Process causing a small delay with the release.

This release mostly contains fixes for a few crashing bugs and it’s highly recommended, if you’re running iOS 14 now, that you update to this release.

Fixes

  • Various fixes for adding new feeds.

  • Fixed applying selected tint colours globally.

  • Deleting a feed (which is inside a folder) no longer collapses the folder.

  • Fixes a crash on opening the Notifications Interface if you have 0 subscriptions.

  • Fixes a crash on adding a feed from the Share Extension

There are some minor issues I am aware of. I’ll post another release next week to address those.

In the mean time, happy reading.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/elytra/id1433266971

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Elytra Fall 2020 Update

Elytra’s Fall 2020 update is finally here alongside the release of iOS 14. This is v2.0 and will be the first build to only support iOS 14. If you’re still on iOS 13 and for whatever reason you won’t be updating to iOS 14 soon, rest assured, v1.8 will continue to function as long as you use it.

You can download the update from the App Store. 

Upcoming Devices

Elytra running on 4th Generation iPad Air

Apple will be releasing new hardware later in October starting with the recently announced new iPad Air 4th Generation devices. Elytra will be ready on day-1 when these devices reach you with no new updates required.

iOS 14 UI

Elytra running on the iPad Pro and on the iPhone 11 Pro showing new User Interface elements from iOS 14

Throughout the app, I’ve made changes to the app’s interface to closely follow new updates Apple has released this year, including menus from buttons (for the sorting option), new Sidebar Layout style on the iPad, Triple Column Layout on the iPad and new List styles.

New Code Theme

The new code theme in Elytra 2.0

Also in this release, I’ve included a new Code theme which uses the semantic colours from iOS, auto-updates for dark mode without reloading the entire stack and, may I say so myself, looks beautiful. You can read more about in this blog post I wrote earlier.

Widgets

How could an iOS 14 release build be complete without new Widgets! I’ve personally been looking forward to using Widgets and making them was fun too! Elytra 2.0 ships with 2 different widgets:

  • Counters Widget: Shows the latest counts of articles from Unread, Today and Bookmarks sections of the app. This widget is only available in the small size.

  • Unread: Shows the latest articles from the unread section. The medium size widget shows 2 articles and the large size widget will show 4 articles. This widget will prioritize articles with cover images.

Full Change Log

What’s New

  • All new triple column support using Apple’s own UI Framework.

  • An all new Sidebar Interface. This uses Apple’s latest UI Framework for displaying your folders and feeds.

  • iOS 14 Widgets support. Contains a Counters (Small) Widget and an Unread Articles (medium and large) widget.

  • Implements Trailing Swipe actions on Article List Items.

  • Directional marking as read. Long press on an article in Unread, Today or a Feed to see these options.

  • New Code Theme for pre-formatted code blocks.

  • The Add Feed interface now shows Recommendations for its default state to help improve finding and adding new feeds.

Improvements

  • Unread counts update more reliably as you read through your content.

  • Improved underlying code for managing the initial state of the app.

  • Force touch and tapping on urls now works reliably.

  • Updated Feed Sorting options to use a menu interface instead of an options controller.

  • Improved styling for inline code blocks.

  • New Folder/Edit Folder interface now uses a basic interface which is faster to use IMO.

Fixes

  • Prevents an issue causing the app to sync data twice upon successfully launching.

  • Fixes an issue where marking currently loaded articles as read in the Unread view would prevent new articles from loading.

  • If you have setup a custom title for a Feed, the custom title will now show up correctly for the empty state.

  • Fixed a crash caused when trying to share a Feed’s URL or its website’s URL.

  • Fixed an issue where reading an article from today would not decrement the “Unread Today” counter.

  • Fixes showing cover images inside the Article Reader.

  • Fixed I/O View not appearing when importing / exporting OPML files.

  • Fixed some pre-formatted quotes appearing as single-line code blocks.

  • Fixed code blocks appearing out of order. A year old bug finally fixed!

This update also includes miscellaneous improvements and fixes under the hood to improve the general stability of the app.

As recently put by one of Elytra’s admirers on twitter:

Read more, distract less. #letsgo

– Hardik Parmar

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June 2020 Web Service Update

I’m starting a new series of posts detailing changes I release to the Web Service. The Web Service is responsible for syncing your account across your devices and browsers. It also caches new articles so you only fetch information from sources that have changed since the last sync. 

  • I keep getting error reports from the Web Service in a unified private channel on Elytra’s Slack group. I use these reports to patch bugs as soon and as quickly as I can. 
  • Yesterday, I received some errors regarding adding feeds using the ftr.freshangle.net service. This is the first I had heard about so I quickly investigated and found some issues in Elytra’s code that prevented these feeds from being processed. The ftr.freshangle.net service now has first class support in Elytra for both the XML and JSON feed endpoints. 
  • There was a major sync bug in Elytra’s code both on the Web Service and iOS App. I released v1.7.4 on iOS to patch this issue and patched the Web Service as well. By morning of 4th June, these errors dropped down to just 12% compared to the day before it. As soon as all users update to the latest version of the iOS App, this should drop down to 0%. If you still haven’t updated, check the App Store for updates. 
  • On 2nd June, we faced an interruptions and eventually an outage from our service provider which caused Elytra’s first ever downtime this year. Things eventually began recovering by 03:30AM IST on the 3rd of June. Everything is now stable. This outage resulted in some angry customers and I completely understand that. If you ever face any issues with the App or Service, always feel free to contact me at support@elytra.app

On a separate note, a White Hat Hacker recently got in touch with me regarding a critical issue with the API Service. I have since patched the issue. No data was affected as the core issue had to do with DNS setup for emails sent from Elytra’s domain. 

That’s it for this update. Happy Reading! 

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