I Haza Autonomy

My daily writing process

I believe in the #webPlatform (#EngineDiversityAbsolutist)
And the web as *your platform* (#IndieWeb over #BigTech #socialMedia corporate web)

#webDeveloper @ohhelloana @smashingmag:
“Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb” https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/08/autonomy-online-indieweb/
#webPlatform #BigTech #socialMedia #webDeveloper
#indieweb #personal-website

This article at Smashing Magazine is a great introduction to the IndieWeb by Ana Rodrigues. Covers the principles, community, and tech building blocks. Perfectly captures the “why” of owning your own content and blogging.

Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb — Smashing Magazine

A wonderful introduction to the indie web—Ana really conveys her sense of excitement!

#indieweb #independent #publishing #ownership #posse #webmentions #syndication #personal #smashingmag #blogs #blogging

Investigating Solutions for Private/Friends-Only Posts on a Static Website

Discussing the options available for posts that require authentication while using a static site, using my own personal requirements.
#www.jvt.me #indieweb #indieauth #micropub #www-private.jvt.me

Roel asked if there was a post detailing how I set up the posting form. There is now...

Firstly, I've slimmed down the form a bit further by adding placeholder values rather than labels and adjusting the spacing. It now takes up less room at the top of the page. I've also added a toggle to show/hide the form with a quick bit of JavaScript and CSS.

Post Form

So, how does it work?

It's all relatively straightforward.

As mentioned yesterday, the elements are contained within if (current_user_can('edit posts')) checks. The original form page had everything permanently visible but required a "key" to be entered so that only I could post. With this now being at the top of the home page (unless your default is the Today view) I obviously don't want it visible all the time. Hiding it with the current user check also means I can do away with the key.

The form is just regular HTML with its method set to "post" and no action so that it redirects back to the same page on submit. Inspired by micro.blog, the Title field is only shown if I change the post format to 'Post' rather than 'Status'.

Once submitted and after a quick sanity check I pull the required form values from the standard PHP $_POST variable and set up my core details:

$title = stripslashes($_POST['title']);
$body = stripslashes($_POST['body']);
$status = $_POST['status'];
$format = $_POST['format'];
$author_id = '346';
$comment_status = 'open';
$ping_status = 'open';
$post_date = gmdate("Y-m-d H:i");

If I am sending a "Like" webmention I enter the URL and the required text is added to the post as per my "Likes and Replies plugin" so I won't go in to those details here. Suffice it to say that this uses a custom field on posting.

With all the information in place I construct an array of 'post data'

$post_data = array(
  'post_type'      => 'post',
  'post_title'     => $title,
  'post_content'   => $body,
  'post_status'    => $status,
  'tax_input'      => array('post_format' => $format),
  'post_author'    => $author_id,
  'comment_status' => $comment_status,
  'ping_status'    => $ping_status,
  'post_date_gmt'  => $post_date,
);

and then use this at the parameter to insert a new post

$postID = wp_insert_post($post_data);

If the post is a draft I then redirect to the post preview, otherwise I just stay on the Daily page which will then have the shiny new post.

And that's it - there's not much to it and it's simpler this was than with the standalone page.

If I did decide to go the AJAX route things would get considerably more complex but I don't think I really need to. Besides, I've not done anything of that ilk for what seems like an eternity.

Being the strictly plain text/Markdown kinda guy I am I've always resisted the move to the block editor in WordPress (aka Gutenberg) but have been curious about it for a while.

I decided to take a quick look earlier but my theme (a highly customised version of an old, old Automattic offering) isn't compatible with blocks.

I could probably make it compatible but think it wouldn't be worth the effort and I've yet to find a clear and concise guide to building block compatibility into existing themes. I could also move to a newer theme with compatibility built in but would then have to spend far too much time and effort reintroducing all the indieweb elements.

Again, it's just not worth it.

So, as the old saying says, if it ain't broke...

I'm going!

Looking forward to more IndieAuth discussions!

#homebrew-website-club

A very broken desktop client for Mastodon (probably could support Pleroma and Pixelfed) and Microsub (IndieWeb so it can support silos like Twitter).

In the works.

Going to spend this week only on Rust/Qt stuff and take a break from explicit Web development. Mainly going to see if I can get some light support for Microformats2 + IndieAuth + Micropub in ActivityDesk at https://git.jacky.wtf/fediverse/activitydesk. Looks like I got a pull request for it at https://invent.kde.org/jalcine/activitydesk/-/merge_requests/2/diffs

Reminder that it's #HomebrewWebsiteClub Nottingham on Wednesday! I hope to see you there at 1730 for some website stuff! https://events.indieweb.org/2020/08/homebrew-website-club-nottingham-yPtwtlpRRU0p

#homebrew-website-club

Is rel=sponsored known to the Microformats community? Or is this a Google-ism? https://twitter.com/cramforce/status/1295371010124939265

For real though, I’ve been thinking more and more about the stuff I do on the side and the usefulness of it. I half promised a competitor to a platform BY myself in less time (grossly overestimating the effort and care it takes to build these platforms) and now I sometimes feel like I’ve wasted two years of my life on this stuff. It’s not like I don’t believe in the open social Web, I just challenge my thoughts on its viability in the next decade as well as the active moves working to divest from things like it into more proprietary stacks.

One thing that trips me up a lot is how a lot of the stuff in the open social Web is stuck on text (barely anything around multimedia). Text seems easy but photos require a whole different level of care and thought that’s consistently an afterthought. I don’t see much nudging on it in the IndieWeb - some progress on handling them is made in mainline projects like Mastodon but again, it’s marginal. It’s not that people are playing to catch up - I don’t think this is an interest for most at all (and it’s a safe way to prevent any of the harm found in silos from leaking into our space) but I do think we should be aiming to ween people off these platforms. I see more and more asks for alternatives and I can’t even comfortably recommend most that meet feature parity.

I’m sad. And I’m hoping to use this as motivation to keep hammering on things.

#open social web #itch #indieweb #thoughts
Replied to

Good to hear! I think generated flat files are the future. How much electricity is wasted by compiling php every page load? I'm looking at something similar called hugo atm. TBH no-one comments on blogs any more anyway :/ It'd be nice to keep the old ones though..

— Alex McLean (@yaxu) August 13, 2020
Hugo’s a good un but you might personally like Hakyll… jaspervdj.be/hakyll/

One nice way to get comments on a static site is webmentions – indieweb.org/Webmention

Also on:

Twitter

About Feeds | Getting Started guide to web feeds/RSS

Matt made this website to explain RSS to people who are as-ye unfamilar with it.

#rss #feeds #syndication #explanation #explainer #subscribe #subscriptions #newsreaders #feedreaders #indieweb