Soren Stoutner @privacybrowser@fosstodon.org

Also note that there are a few things that don't yet work smoothly because they require other planned 3.5 features. Particularly, changing the theme currently doesn't work well without restarting the app.

https://redmine.stoutner.com/projects/privacy-browser/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&set_filter=1&sort=id%3Adesc&f%5B%5D=status_id&op%5Bstatus_id%5D=o&f%5B%5D=priority_id&op%5Bpriority_id%5D=%3D&v%5Bpriority_id%5D%5B%5D=4&f%5B%5D=&c%5B%5D=tracker&c%5B%5D=status&c%5B%5D=priority&c%5B%5D=subject&c%5B%5D=assigned_to&c%5B%5D=updated_on&group_by=&t%5B%5D=

Note that the settings database version 11 format is not finalized for the 3.5 release, so if you are doing testing make sure to save a copy of your settings from the 3.4.1 release to import into the final 3.5 release.

During the development process I did over 200 debug builds and tested across 5 different physical devices and several virtual machines. However, the changes are significant enough that I might have misses something. Feel free to build it yourselves and submit bug reports.

The new style using the Day/Night theme has been pushed to Git. https://git.stoutner.com/?p=PrivacyBrowser.git;a=commitdiff;h=74655c0cd0ba72c80ac6c48df55bc3d2f5280ad2

This is the navigation drawer in night mode.

This is the main interface in night mode. Note that the WebView is not modified in this screenshot. Seeing if I can make that more intelligent is the next project. https://redmine.stoutner.com/issues/366

The second hurdle is removing all the coding I had to handle the custom light/dark theme I built years ago. This screenshot shows the mail interface in day mode.

Reworking the app theme to work with Android’s relatively new Day/Night theme is a bit trickier than it might look. First, I had a lot of interface designs that need to be adjusted, like making the navigation drawer move below the status bar instead of sliding under a translucent scrim like it does in the current release. This has all types of implications for things like notches and full screen browsing mode.

However, the Day/Night theme will provide a better light and dark experience going forward, and is worth the effort.

For example, right now I am working on switching the theming to use Android's relatively new Day/Night theme. This is more complicated than may be readily apparent, as there was a lot of customizations I made to the theme so that it would work well with both the custom light and dark modes I developed.

As the developer of Privacy Browser, I decided it was time I had a Mastodon account I could use to toot about developments with the browser. The web site contains blog posts that talk about major features in each new release, but that format doesn't lend itself well to public comments about the development process as it is happening.