Any frontend UI developers here?

[tphakala]

I am considering rewriting BirdNET-Go frontend code in Svelte or some else more commonly used framework other than HTMX and alpine.js. Do we have any frontend developers in this small community who could consider helping out by contributing time and expertise on frontend improvements?

[farski]

I have quite a bit of front end experience, but lose interest very quickly once frameworks come into play, especially for side projects. I've had to learn too many frameworks at this point, only for them to fade into obscurity after a few years (or months). For an app like birdnet-go, I would need to see something very convincing about why the framework is necessay to get too involved in development if there's a FE framework involved. And if that framework is one that I'd have to learn that's probably a bridge too far, for me.

On the other hand, if it were just vanilla HTML/CSS/JS, I know I can get started right away. I also don't see a lot with an app like this that benefits very much from what frameworks like Svelte or HTMX have to offer. There may be a 10-20% upfront penalty on development time without some of the conveniences those frameworks have to offer, but I suspect it opens up the project to so many more potential contributors that the net gain for the project is huge.

I find that projects like this have a lot of momentum from a few core contributors, who would benefit a lot from a framework, but also can see big gains from drive-by contributors who find the project and think, "it'd be great if it could do this one very specific thing." If those developers can spend 5 or 10 easy hours to quickly get in, get that thing built, and get out, even if they never make another contribution, over time that results in loads of new features/fixes/improvements/etc. For me, when I see a project like that and I have something I want to contribute, and then I see that I'd have to learn some new framework of the month (or the framework of the month from 3 years ago when that project happened to pick it), 99% of the time I just move on.

I know there are loads of people who don't mind or really enjoy frameworks, though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[rawcomposition]

I'm a Typescript developer working primarily with React and Node (and plenty of Tailwind), so not an exact match but might still be helpful. I'm potentially interested in contributing once I get back from traveling in a couple weeks.

Something you may be interested in is my hand-selected, cropped, and flipped (so all birds face the same direction) selection of creative commons bird thumbnails I've compiled (avicommons.org). I was annoyed by the poor quality and variability of using bird thumbnails from Wikipedia, so I compiled my own for an app I built (BirdPlan.app). It covers about 9,000 species and uses the 2024 eBird taxonomy. I plan to update it after each taxonomy update. Here's a sample:

Perhaps I can put together a PR to incorporate them if it seems of interest. I'm putting together a landing page that explains the project a bit more, I'll share it here when it's done.

[rawcomposition]

Looks like "Auto" actually chooses one at random. If I refresh the page, I get a different combination each time. If I select Avicommons as the source it works as expected. I wonder if it would be better to just default to one provider when Auto is selected, instead of choosing randomly?

[colfin22]

Love these images although I have one that shows in the wrong direction, Eurasian Jackdaw

[rawcomposition]

@colfin22 that's actually not an Avicommins image, it's a Wikipedia one. To consistently get images from the same provider you need to go to your BirdNET-Go settings and change the Image Provider to Avicommons (not Auto)

[colfin22]

Then it's a bug as that's the way it's set and does not change even in a different browser in private tab. Yes, just confirmed ctrl+shift+delete clear all data still brings in the same image

[nobbyneb]

This looks terrific. Welcome the further alignment with the eBird resource.