Write.as Development @writeas_dev@abunchtell.com

#ActivityPub implementation really is bare-bones, but more right now is unnecessary. There are many unanswered questions, especially around privacy.

For example, what happens when a user changes their blog from Public to Private or Password-protected? The existence of an account in the fediverse gives away information we don't otherwise divulge on Write.as.

Okay, going to try to kick this federation out the door tomorrow.

The robustness I wanted isn't worth setting things back as much as it's going to. Essentially, it'll mean some statuses won't be retried if an instance isn't available to receive them. But all data will be there, messages will be verified, etc.

Also in progress: automatic password resetting (finally)

Considering adding a simple dig tool in the web app to verify DNS settings for custom domains... Have noticed a couple domains set up with multiple A records, causing SSL activation to fail and other weird issues.

#notetoself

Working at a coffee shop in Munich today where the wifi apparently only supports IPv6. So much of the web is broken, including a few of our less frequently-used sites that I just noticed.

Fixed all sites except analytics, which won't affect anyone.

Maybe it's as simple as forwarding the object on to the actors mentioned in the event.

Hmm, apparently I need to do something on my end to handle boosting / "Announce"-ing. I just boosted a post that came in from @matt and several following instances pinged it, but it's not showing up anywhere else -- including on this profile.

@iamduck Sweet 👍 always good to have more people using it.

@iamduck 😀

Do you know if other projects are using that standard besides Diaspora? So far it looks like GangGo and Pleroma also are.

Noticed https://fediverse.network crawling for stats, so I made a #golang library for adding NodeInfo to any federated site, and then added it in.

https://github.com/writeas/go-nodeinfo

Made a small script for generating simple avatars: https://code.as/writeas/text-graphic/src/branch/master/avatar.sh

Okay, knocking out ActivityPub support this week. First, generating avatars for everyone.

Working on some updates to albums/galleries on @snap_as today, including a new interface to manage them all.

As part of these changes we'll start tracking pageviews on albums, just like we do on @write_as blogs.

Adding some caching on the backend to better handle bursts of traffic.

Today Write.as serves over 1.2 million page views a month, plus another 2 million+ API calls -- all very manageable on their own, but hundreds of requests at the same second (e.g. from a new link shared on Mastodon) slows things down a bit.

Just sent out a small fix to the iOS app -- thought this was fixed before, but now it definitely is. Should be available to everyone in the next few days.

Also, added a new "Bugs" category on the forum for future reports.

https://discuss.write.as/t/write-as-ios-app/39

Getting there... Now just need a good #golang #activitystreams library

Experimenting with webfinger and activitypub this afternoon. Let's see how this goes.

I also plan on experimenting with new editor features via browser extensions.

So instead of adding a Markdown preview in the editor, you can install an extension that'll show you a preview when you click it. Instead of adding a @snap_as uploader, there'd be an extension that lets you upload files and get the Markdown back, or see your existing photos and click one to insert the Markdown into your post.

Just ideas now, but the goal is adding functionality without cluttering up the interface.