cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12315554
Post is displaying URL image in Thunder but not Voyager
Hi,
I’m comparing Lemmy Android app clients and I’m between Thunder and Voyager.
I noticed something weird with Voyager. There was this post it displays an image in the timeline using Thunder but it doesn’t in Voyager.
Is it some configuration that I need to tweak in Voyager?
Also, is there some config to display short text about the post if has image? Like some description below if available
Thanks
You might have the “scrape missing link previews” setting enabled in Thunder. It’s in general settings.
Instances will provide a preview thumbnail for links, but will sometimes fail to find one for a given link.
Thunder is able to have a second go at finding an image to display with a link, when the instance doesn’t provide one with a given link.
There is a setting for displaying a text preview of the post body, in settings>appearance>posts.
You can also just search the settings to find these.
How does it works? Technically is it connecting directly to the website and retrieving a thumbnail?
Edit: BTW, mine is off. Do you also see the image when you open the link using your Thunder Android app ?
Yes, it goes and grabs a thumbnail directly from the website being linked.
I do not get an image, I keep the setting off. Really odd that you do, then.
Am I the only one with this feature off and seeing the image?
I do not know.
Yeah, but what’s the question? Thunder does additional stuff to Voyager?
How it does it? If there is no image in the instance, the scrap link option is off in my app, how does it retrieve the thumbnail? Is it some security or privacy concern?
Hi there, thanks for the question! I think MentalEdge pretty much answered the question, but I’d like to give some clarifications!
By default, Thunder will only grab thumbnails that come back from the instance. If the instance doesn’t provide a thumbnail, then Thunder will just show the URL link. This is what I’m experiencing as well with the link that you provided.
There is an additional option in the settings which allows Thunder to attempt to get thumbnails when none are provided. This is “Scrape Missing Link Previews”. This option is off by default, so you’ll have to manually enable it to turn it on. In order to get the thumbnail, Thunder has to retrieve the metadata information of the link (which means that it’ll have to “connect” to the site to do so)
I believe this option came from a time where Lemmy had an issue with thumbnail previews not being populated which meant that most posts were not showing up properly.
As for why you’re seeing the thumbnail even when the option is turned off, I’m not too sure. If you’d like, you can submit a new issue on our GitHub page with some more details and I can take a look into this for you!