Display names are displayed incorrectly

[asudox]

Bug Description

When the "Show Community/User Display Names" setting is enabled, display names of users and communities are shown in the !/@@<instance.tld> format. This is incorrect and causes confusion.

Expected Behaviour

Display names need to be displayed as is without any other addition (@ or the instance domain). That is how it's done in other clients and frontends, including the default lemmy UI.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enable the "Show Community/User Display Namey" setting
2. Check the name displayed in posts/comments

Additional Context

No response

App Version

6.0.0

Device

Pixel 9 Pro

OS

Android 14

[micahmo]

Hi @asudox, thanks for the bug report. In Thunder, all of the pieces are customizable, so I believe we can accomplish what you want by tweaking a couple other settings.

First change Appearance > Theming > User Format to a format that doesn't include a leading symbol.

Then turn off Appearance > Posts > Show User Instance so that the instance is not displayed.

With these two changes, I see only the user's display name, no other symbols or the instance name.

And then you can do the same for communities.

[asudox]

@micahmo Sure. But that is a workaround and not a fix.

[micahmo]

Hey, thanks for the response! I promise I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. If you are able to configure Thunder to look the way you want, then nothing is broken. It's not a workaround, it's working as designed.

Thunder is specifically designed to be very customizable. In this case, there are three different options which all work independently of each other.

• The format of the name
• Whether the display name or the username is shown
• Whether the instance name is shown

Just because other platforms don't have this amount of flexibility in their display options doesn't mean Thunder is doing anything wrong. While you are able to set it up exactly how you want (with just the display name), other people can configure it differently (for example, I might want display name plus instance name).

If you have any further insight that might help me understand what you're saying, please let me know! Our goal is to make Thunder customizable to everyone's particular tastes as much as possible! 😊

[asudox]

This issue isn't about customizability or flexibility; it's about the clarity of user and community identification. Display names are not intended to serve as identifiers, and using them in Lemmy's native user/community tagging format will lead to confusion.

For example, consider the new 196 community on the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance. While its display name is "196," its actual name is "onehundredninetysix". Thunder currently uses the display name ("196") to represent the community tag as ![email protected], when it should be ![email protected].

As you might or might not know, there is also an "abandoned" 196 community with the same display name, "196" and actual name "196". Therefore its tag is also ![email protected]. This overlap means that when Thunder displays the tag for the new community, it appears identical to that of the abandoned community. As a result, users may inadvertently copy the incorrect tag, believing they are tagging the new community when, in reality, they are tagging the abandoned one.

[micahmo]

(Sorry for locking and unlocking this thread, that was a mis-click on my part!)

I totally get where you're coming from with regards to the 196 community! That makes sense. I just did a little bit of research and I wanted to chime in here one more time, then I'll leave it alone for others to offer their opinions.

Display names need to be displayed as is without any other addition (@ or the instance domain). That is how it's done in other clients and frontends, including the default lemmy UI.

Unless I have something misconfigured (please correct me if I'm wrong), this is not true at all. When I search for 196 on the lemmy.world web UI or in the Jerboa app, the search results show the display name plus the instance name. So here we have exactly the same "problem" you described except, unlike Thunder, this is the default behavior, and not configurable (at least on the web, I'm not sure about Jerboa).

Personally, I don't like using display names at all, for exactly the reasons you've outlined. I think they really only make sense in a context where you can see both the display name as a title, as well as the full identifier (like in community headers or search results in Thunder), but that's just my preference.

At the end of the day, I would argue that Thunder still offers more flexibility and customizability while providing a better out-of-the box experience than the default UIs, at least in this regard.

[asudox]

Okay, yes, that was my bad. The instance domain is also shown, it seems. But my problem is with the ! because that is how communities are tagged in Lemmy.