Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world whoamibro @lemmy.world 1y ago

Why do all lemmy instances have the same web UI?

Have we collectively agreed to follow the same UI to ensure easier interoperability for users?
Can someone provide the link for the source code of the UI?

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https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui

They literally all run the same program, lemmy.
- Thanks, can an instance technically have a different(or enhanced) user interface?
  
  Yes. Lemmy-ui supports themes and you can even choose an entirely different UI altogether. For example this UI: https://mlmym.org/lemmings.world/
  
  wefwef.app is also another web UI.
They don't all have he same theme. https://lemmy.dbzer0.com has a custom one for example.
Most of them run the default Lemmy UI which comes with the software, although I have seen two which use LemmyBB a front end based on the phpBB bulletin board frontend an example of one such instance would be fedibb.ml
- Oh god, I hate that so much, jesus christ. Good luck to them.
  
  Yeah I'm not really a fan of it either. I guess it's good for people to have options though, if they don't want to use the default lemmy-ui front end.
  
  I just noticed it seems like the lemmy update for 0.18.1 broke lemmybb so it seems like they're probably going to be inaccessible until they can get it fixed.
I have a github repo with two themes based on nord. Check it out if you like and I would love any feedback!
Apparently you can run the wefwef.app front end as well.
- I know. Wefwef doesn't belong to instance tho. The reason I asked this was, I wanted to know if the instances are restricted to use the default UI that lemmy provides
  
  With enough nginx config you can probably get around it. You can send certain requests to certain programs and other requests to other programs.
  
  So even if you had a server, with a particular domain/IP, and if lemmy was built to only run the API server alongside a web server whose client consumes from that API, you could reroute any requests that would have gone to the web server, to a wefwef instance instead.
  
  Sorry if the tech jargon’s beyond you.
  
  As an analogy, even if a McDonalds instance is a package deal combining the kitchen and the eating space, there are ways you could make it so that anyone showing up at that street address sees a Starbucks that can get you a McDonalds burger.

32 comments