It’s really surprising to me that the #fediverse hasn’t agreed on a standardized way to open cross-instance #activitypub objects and instead relies on links that open in the browser.
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You’re correct.
FedCM is a bonus, but not required.
And Activity Intents just normalize the mess of “remote follows” and “share intents” that many apps already support. I currently “polyfill” intents for servers (like Mastodon) that don’t publish explicitly.
It should, however, start with a GET to my home server (not a POST) so I can see what I’m about to do. There’s so much variation between servers; we’re asking for bugs if we skip this step.
@benpate @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu i'm not entirely sure why it's POST proxyUrl instead of GET proxyUrl but i think it has to do with leaking metadata iirc
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@benpate @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu should be possible even without necessarily those specific tools -- although fedcm can make it "friendlier" ux-wise
- authenticate your id ("i am this person")
- get the linked claims from the id ("this is my proxy url")
- submit the request ("fetch me this thing")i mean, you could write a web extension right now that does it in a very minimal way, i'm pretty sure? "POST the current URL to this proxyUrl" is not exactly a difficult thing to do...
@trwnh @benpate @evan @julian @rimu of course. There are several nerdy and probably cleaner ways of doing it. But requiring the user to install an extension is the first mistake on the path to wide adoption. I think sometimes a more pragmatic approach can bring the best results, if the goal is to get most people to the fediverse and not have the most elegant solution from the the start or nothing
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@trwnh @benpate @evan @julian @rimu of course. There are several nerdy and probably cleaner ways of doing it. But requiring the user to install an extension is the first mistake on the path to wide adoption. I think sometimes a more pragmatic approach can bring the best results, if the goal is to get most people to the fediverse and not have the most elegant solution from the the start or nothing
@ricferrer @benpate @evan @julian @rimu you don't have to install an extension though -- that's just one way to make things easier.
consider the example of sharing something via a messaging app though. do you trust people to copy the "right" link? or do people have to load an https: then load a fedi: link twice in a row? how is that supposed to work vs just having your existing https resolver handle it for you, *like it already does* to some extent with other content-types?
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@benpate @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu i'm not entirely sure why it's POST proxyUrl instead of GET proxyUrl but i think it has to do with leaking metadata iirc
In the end, we need real “share” and “like” buttons for the Fediverse - with as few clicks as possible - wrapped up as easily installable widgets that go next to Twitter and Facebook on every site online.
(That’s step 1)
Once we do this, step 2 is to lobby sites to JUST use Fediverse buttons, and drop the ones for hateful platforms.
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@ricferrer @benpate @evan @julian @rimu you don't have to install an extension though -- that's just one way to make things easier.
consider the example of sharing something via a messaging app though. do you trust people to copy the "right" link? or do people have to load an https: then load a fedi: link twice in a row? how is that supposed to work vs just having your existing https resolver handle it for you, *like it already does* to some extent with other content-types?
@ricferrer @benpate @evan @julian @rimu in any case the thing all fedi apps can do "right now" (without any ecosystem changes otherwise) is to try to load all https: links locally before kicking users out. this is at least half of the problem solved right away.
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@trwnh @benpate @evan @julian @rimu of course. There are several nerdy and probably cleaner ways of doing it. But requiring the user to install an extension is the first mistake on the path to wide adoption. I think sometimes a more pragmatic approach can bring the best results, if the goal is to get most people to the fediverse and not have the most elegant solution from the the start or nothing
Agreed. Nobody’s going to install an extension. It HAS to work with native web pages and vanilla browsers to be viable.
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@ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu fb twitter instagram etc are also centralized single entities, so there's no contention on who gets to open the link.
@trwnh @evan @julian @rimu it already works well for mailto: the average user doesn’t have 10 mail clients. For the advanced and technical savvy users that want a bunch of fedi clients they can find other solutions on how deal with it.
Btw Android lets you choose your the app.
Before 2015 you would uninstall twitter and install tweetbot which responded to twitter:
Fallbacks to http/html for people without apps was handled through JavaScript
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@ricferrer @benpate @evan @julian @rimu in any case the thing all fedi apps can do "right now" (without any ecosystem changes otherwise) is to try to load all https: links locally before kicking users out. this is at least half of the problem solved right away.
Can you expand on this idea? I know toots are short, but this is interesting and I want to better understand what you’re proposing here.
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@benpate @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu native apps can also expose share targets so you can "share" the current web URL to those apps and it opens in those apps.
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Can you expand on this idea? I know toots are short, but this is interesting and I want to better understand what you’re proposing here.
@benpate what mastodon and piefed and browser.pub do, basically.
open a link like https://browser.pub/https://mastodon.social/@benpate/116025296487246556 and then click any of the other links. you should remain in browser.pub.
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@benpate what mastodon and piefed and browser.pub do, basically.
open a link like https://browser.pub/https://mastodon.social/@benpate/116025296487246556 and then click any of the other links. you should remain in browser.pub.
@trwnh Thank you. I understand what you’re saying. They’re rewriting links in the post to keep you on that site. I’ll need to keep this idea in my toolbox.. it will be useful.
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In the end, we need real “share” and “like” buttons for the Fediverse - with as few clicks as possible - wrapped up as easily installable widgets that go next to Twitter and Facebook on every site online.
(That’s step 1)
Once we do this, step 2 is to lobby sites to JUST use Fediverse buttons, and drop the ones for hateful platforms.
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@ricferrer to repeat: you don't need the extensions. they are just one option to making things simpler. i described at least 2 other options that are all complementary:
- rewrite links to keep you in-app
- content-type handlers to get you in the right app
- extensions to also get you in the right app
- share targets to get you in the right app (on mobile)you can use one, some, all, or none of these. the first one is the most important; the others should also be easy to do right now.
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This is AMAZING, Dan, and it would be a huge win. #ThankYouThankYouThankYou!!!
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@trwnh @benpate @evan @julian @rimu
I am focused on what can we do pragmatically and realistically as a community to fix the broken experience to help get more people into the fediverse.A mix of
1) JavaScript for websites that want to link to the fediverse that trigger ap: and offer http fallback (just like fb: before 2015)
2) adding support for ap: on fedi clients
It’s something we can do now. It works and we don’t have to wait for big tech
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@ricferrer to repeat: you don't need the extensions. they are just one option to making things simpler. i described at least 2 other options that are all complementary:
- rewrite links to keep you in-app
- content-type handlers to get you in the right app
- extensions to also get you in the right app
- share targets to get you in the right app (on mobile)you can use one, some, all, or none of these. the first one is the most important; the others should also be easy to do right now.
@ricferrer browser support would be the icing on the cake, but i think that extensions are actually not as unrealistic as you are saying. many people end up with extensions installed almost by accident. at the end of the day, if you open an app like mastodon, you have to be prompted to do certain things like enabling notifications and registering stuff like that.
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@trwnh @benpate @evan @julian @rimu
I am focused on what can we do pragmatically and realistically as a community to fix the broken experience to help get more people into the fediverse.A mix of
1) JavaScript for websites that want to link to the fediverse that trigger ap: and offer http fallback (just like fb: before 2015)
2) adding support for ap: on fedi clients
It’s something we can do now. It works and we don’t have to wait for big tech
@ricferrer @benpate @evan @julian @rimu doing ap: will fail for anyone who doesn't understand ap: which by default is everyone
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@ricferrer to repeat: you don't need the extensions. they are just one option to making things simpler. i described at least 2 other options that are all complementary:
- rewrite links to keep you in-app
- content-type handlers to get you in the right app
- extensions to also get you in the right app
- share targets to get you in the right app (on mobile)you can use one, some, all, or none of these. the first one is the most important; the others should also be easy to do right now.
@trwnh staying in app is the simplest solution. But the challenge is getting me from the browser to the app without me having to install anything or use the share intent workaround, which doesn’t work because it opens a “new post” as expected by the user when they select “share”
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@trwnh staying in app is the simplest solution. But the challenge is getting me from the browser to the app without me having to install anything or use the share intent workaround, which doesn’t work because it opens a “new post” as expected by the user when they select “share”
@ricferrer you have to at minimum register a handler, no? how is that any different than "installing"?
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@trwnh @benpate @evan @julian @rimu
I am focused on what can we do pragmatically and realistically as a community to fix the broken experience to help get more people into the fediverse.A mix of
1) JavaScript for websites that want to link to the fediverse that trigger ap: and offer http fallback (just like fb: before 2015)
2) adding support for ap: on fedi clients
It’s something we can do now. It works and we don’t have to wait for big tech
Yes. I agree with just moving forward with the tech we have.
What would the JavaScript do, exactly?
What parts of this would require a new ap:// protocol, or could we accomplish this with regular https:// links?
Also: thanks for starting this conversation. I think it’s very helpful and timely!
