Introducing DisCorkie – The Multi-Instance Discourse Client

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Hello, Discourse Meta community! :waving_hand:

If you’re active on multiple Discourse forums, you’ve probably wished for an easier way to manage them all. That’s exactly why I created DisCorkie, a dedicated Discourse client that lets you seamlessly switch between different communities, much like Discord handles servers.

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:face_with_monocle: What is DisCorkie?

DisCorkie is an app designed to simplify the experience of managing multiple Discourse instances. Instead of juggling multiple browser tabs or logging in and out, you can access all your communities from one place.

Right now, I’m the sole developer handling both the design and development of this project. The app is still in its early stages, with many more features yet to come, but with time – and with the support of the community – it will only get better! :rocket:

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:fire: Features

DisCorkie already includes some powerful features:
:white_check_mark: Multi-instance support – Connect to and switch between multiple Discourse forums effortlessly.
:white_check_mark: Community discovery – Find new forums based on your interests and preferred language.
:white_check_mark: Modern UI – Clean and intuitive design for easy navigation.
:white_check_mark: Customizable settings – Adjust themes and preferences to suit your needs.
:white_check_mark: Seamless forum switching – Move between communities without hassle.

And many more features are on the way!

:inbox_tray: Where can I download it?

Currently, DisCorkie is available for:

If you’re using Linux or Windows, try it out! Any feedback, bug reports, or suggestions are greatly appreciated. :blush:

:mobile_phone: What about Android?

Yes! DisCorkie is coming to Android, but you can get it earlier.

Due to Google Play regulations, I need at least 12 testers before making it more widely available. If you’re interested in testing the DisCorkie mobile app, please reach out and help shape its development! :mobile_phone_with_arrow:

:green_apple: What if I use Apple devices?

Versions for iPhone and MacOS are in development and are expected to launch before mid-year. Stay tuned for updates! :wink:

:light_bulb: Get Involved & Help DisCorkie Grow!

DisCorkie is a brand-new project, and there’s still a lot to be improved. As a solo developer, I welcome all suggestions and feedback!

If you have ideas, found a bug, or want to help in any way, feel free to leave a comment or get in touch :blue_heart:

What do you think of DisCorkie? Are there any features you’d love to see in the future?

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Does it apply its own theme on all the instances or will custom theming remain after switching to an instance?

What were the use cases that led you to make this? My way of solving the problem was using PWAs (have each one on my desktop – both Mac and iPhone) and so the switching works on the OS level easily.

What is the difference to the discourse-hub?

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Does it apply its own theme on all the instances or will custom theming remain after switching to an instance?

The application theme respects the discourse instance theming. We use the information provided by the API to calculate what would be the best color for the theme that still respects the design system we are adopting. This is the result:

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What were the use cases that led you to make this?

Basically the same use cases that led to the creation of the Discourse Hub. However, I’m extending this concept also for Desktop applications

What is the difference to the discourse-hub?

User experience
DisCorkie UI based on Skia(KMP) That give use several benefits when compared with the regular UI in HTML,CSS and JS: Performance, UI Consistency regardless the operating system or browser version, Smoother animations and transitions

Overal performance
Due to the fact DisCorkie does not use Javascript or HTML we can benefit from this architecture:

  • More robust multithreading support: Used to boost application performance due to parallel processing
  • The application does not need to load any HTML, CSS or JS file from the network. We only need the JSON payload. Less files to download, which makes it better for use in an unstable internet connection environment.
  • These reasons associated with caching make the app very resource-light

Comparison
This is the current Discourse Hub experience on an Android device.


The app opens the forum on the browser. So basically it works like a shortcut

This is how the DisCorkie app looks like on an Android Device


This looks way more like an app for me

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I didn’t get the chance to test (or even understand some technical details of) your solution yet, but just focusing on:

This is the behavior only on Android, and to be honest I feel like we could revisit this decision. Maybe the idea is that if you already have it installed as a PWA, it’ll open that instead, but the experience on iOS is so much better that I wonder if we shouldn’t go the same route on Android. /cc @pmusaraj

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Could you elaborate on how it works on iOS?

On Android, a link will load the PWA if installed. Isn’t that optimal?

(we’re getting off Topic here?)

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I’m not sure. The user would have to “install” two applications. It’s one step more that could be avoided.

And yeah, we are a bit off topic haha. Maybe it would be nice to have a separate discussion for that.

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Do I flag this as offtopic, or will you do it :joy:

One big difference between the Hub and PWA on iOS is I can close easily a forum when needed reloading, for example ^[yes, we have a component for reloading, but it isn’t official and not totally 100% reliable]. PWA must be closed using OS-way. And I get urls much easily (not easily, but it is doable) from the Hub. Getting links from PWA is impossible — well, there was now two differences.

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Looks really slick! Especially that subtle theming :chefs_kiss: . Something like this would be great for power-users who manage multiple communities on desktop (like a TweetDeck), so might be worth putting a focus on centralized moderation/admin capabilities.

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Thank you! That’s a really good suggestion! I will consider that for the next updates