New beta version available with app improvements and performance updates: feedback needed!

Help Needed
AstroBin Beta Testers •7 replies•155 views
Salvatore Iovene avatar
Salvatore Iovene avatar

Hi everyone,

I have a new beta ready with improvements across the app and I’d like your feedback.

What’s new

App improvements

  • Visual tap feedback on images and navigation

  • Better touch responsiveness

  • More native-like page transitions and slideshow animations

  • Improved scroll container architecture for PWA navigation

Image viewer

  • Skeleton loading to prevent layout shifts and make loading feel faster

  • Crossfade animations when images load

Skeleton loaders

  • User galleries, forum home, and marketplace pages now use skeletons

  • Designed to reduce layout shifts and make loading feel faster

Performance

  • Many fade transitions reduced from 250ms to 200 ms

  • Various layout and rendering optimizations

How to test

  • Desktop: https://beta-app.astrobin.com

  • Mobile web: same URL on phone or tablet

  • App: install from the mobile browser using Add to Home Screen (for better instructions, find Install in the main mobile menu)

What to check

  • Smooth skeleton loaders before content appears

  • Fast, natural page transitions

  • Responsive taps with visual feedback on mobile and PWA

  • No layout shifts or jerky animations

  • Smooth slideshow behavior in the image viewer

  • Loading indicators being correctly positioned

  • The image on the main image page (the one with the technical card) being correctly sized, especially in case of small images, GIFs, and videos

Please report any issues or unexpected behavior you find. I really appreciate your help with this: it would take me forever to try and test the entire website on multiple devices, and I risk getting tunnel vision :-)

Thank you so much!

Salvatore

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Brian Diaz avatar
Brian Diaz avatar

HI,Salvatore

Everything checked and working.

Great job

CS

Brian

gmadkat avatar
gmadkat avatar

Hi Salvatore,

I took a look on my Mac and everything works great! Will try mobile and iPad too.

CS!

Gowri

Arny avatar
Arny avatar

The mobile App works in general like acharm - really great extension, as I am 90% on mobile devices when consuming images of the community.

A few Bugs/drawbacks:

  • Missing „Back“ button: when folowing links, ie. From top fotographer list into individuals, or from image into equipment there is no way back and you have to start over agin via the homepage.

  • Only exception are image links, where the beautiful X at the top left allows to close that new layer … so either that or a back button would be great.

  • Writing this post on an iPad kills me, as the moment I activate editing, the last word I type clings to the top of the page and return there no matter how often I scroll down again. Also the copyright bottom line moves into the center of the screen. (See screenshot below)

  • After taking a screenshot it works fine though when editing the text - but starting to write new text kills it again

Arny

📷 image.pngimage.png

Salvatore Iovene avatar
Salvatore Iovene avatar

Arny · Jan 26, 2026, 09:32 AM

  • Missing „Back“ button: when folowing links, ie. From top fotographer list into individuals, or from image into equipment there is no way back and you have to start over agin via the homepage.

I was internally debating this a lot, and I wonder if I should do it after all. The problem is that while most apps have a hierarchical structure, AstroBin has more of a graph-like structure, as you can go anywhere from anywhere. So we'd have to have a back button basically on all pages… needing a header to be always on, and giving up on the fullscreen experience. Unless it auto-hides too. I could do it but then I don't know what to do with the main hamburger menu button. It would be replaced by the back button unless we are on one of the “top” pages like Home, Search, Forum, Profile, Messages?

PS: on touch device, you can always drag from the left edge to go “back”.

Arny · Jan 26, 2026, 09:32 AM

Writing this post on an iPad kills me, as the moment I activate editing, the last word I type clings to the top of the page and return there no matter how often I scroll down again. Also the copyright bottom line moves into the center of the screen. (See screenshot below)

Thanks, I will look into this. I assume the empty area at the bottom (in your screenshot) is where your virtual keyboard is, but it didn't get included in the screenshot. One workaround btw is to rotate to portrait mode :)

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Salvatore Iovene avatar
Salvatore Iovene avatar

Arny · Jan 26, 2026, 09:32 AM

Missing „Back“ button: when folowing links, ie. From top fotographer list into individuals, or from image into equipment there is no way back and you have to start over agin via the homepage.

I gave this a try and it seems to work pretty nicely! Feel free to test it on the app installed from the beta site! Thank you!

Arny avatar
Arny avatar

perfectly solved, really a great improvement, Salvatore.

But I get you point that it take a horizontal line away - yet still worth it, especially as you used that line for other great extras as well!

If you’d need the space, you could make it appear only when hovering over top or bottom end of page.

Arny

Edit: just noted that you did it hovering. Perfect :-)

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Bastiaan Feenstra avatar
Bastiaan Feenstra avatar

Tested this on a Galaxy S23 running the Brave browser.

All seems to work as intended and the loading timings feel “correct”.

The entire mobile experience is so much better than it was a few months ago. Great stuff!

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