Write.as Development @writeas_dev@abunchtell.com

Morning!

Stayed up too late trying to get #writefreely running on a test instance, couldn't figure out why basic routes weren't working.

Today immediately found what was causing the problem. (That's why you don't stay up when you're stuck on something)

Phew. Intense day of getting the basic #writefreely app to a runnable state and pushed up to GitHub. Right now everything looks good in multi-user, federated mode. All the uncertain areas are around different configuration combinations -- and single-user mode.

Once single-user mode is solid, I'll call it v0.1 and make the big announcement

https://github.com/writeas/writefreely

I also updated the landing page a bit for new users, and put the Write.as logo back in the corner of the editor when you're logged in.

The "view blogs" icon that was up there before was fine, but too generic. The official logo there is just sexy.

Moving around some sites tonight.

Decided I'll host a demo instance of #writefreely on my writefree.ly domain -- currently occupied by a little marketing site I put up a while ago. It doesn't get a ton of traffic, so that'll just move to an unaffiliated subdomain (https://howto.writefree.ly)

I want to keep our GitHub issues low and, really, not use GH for project management. So we'll probably just accept pull requests and bug reports there, and then continue using our Phabricator instance for all planning and working with long-term contributors.

You can see some of what's planned already: https://phabricator.write.as/tag/write_freely/

#writefreely

One minor difference you'll see in #writefreely: "Anonymous" posts are called "Drafts".

This is a great use for them already on @write_as, so they'll retain their function, but now the name will match.

Finished the basic #WriteFreely project site yesterday: https://writefreely.org

Added more restrictive spam filters on posts, which keep flooding in even as sign ups have slowed down significantly.

Deviating from new feature plans to fix some user issues today. Right now: pagination on tagged post pages.

I think once I've forgotten all the keyboard shortcuts in Android Studio that's a good sign I've been away long enough.

I was also focused on adding more features to the web app (the place where people could buy a subscription) so that more people would find it valuable enough to buy a subscription. Focusing on that took a few months before we saw our first customer that stayed.

I really wish I hadn't waited this long to take care of it -- I know plenty of people are waiting on the update. But the platform is at a good place, and I think I'm finally over the mobile development hangover. I'm ready to knock it out

I *really* never meant for it to be delayed for as long as it has. Mostly, they were personal reasons -- for one, I was doing both Android and iOS development at a day job for most of the time after we launched blogs/accounts in 2016. And having my days packed with nothing but that really made me not want to do more of it when I got home. Relatively speaking, native mobile development feels like going back to the days of programming with punch cards to me.

A few goals for the week: https://lobste.rs/s/2g4s1p/what_are_you_working_on_this_week#c_hmykdk

First up: our eternally-delayed Android app.

It lives!

Backend is set; now on to the last phase for #WriteFreely: cleaning up the frontend. Includes supporting your various configurations, removing Write.as branding and paywall code still tangled up in there, and maybe shrinking down the stylesheet (not pictured here, of course).

So far so good on this -- seems like a much higher ratio of real users vs. spammers, and from what I can tell, no automated accounts getting through.

Begrudgingly, I've added reCAPTCHA to the sign up form. This is just for now, and only for free accounts, to try and reduce the number of spam accounts being created. It's just too much work for me to keep them out manually, so I think this will help

Interactive setup / configuration process is in there now.

https://github.com/writeas/writefreely/commit/cc224db6e6e7ebe444fa8ced975af6cbe90474cb

This also includes validation -- something we can reuse when starting up the server, so we can be sure no invalid values are getting through and wreaking havoc on an instance.

Next:

- Update templated pages with the instance's configured name instead of "Write.as" and its metadata
- Removing template exceptions for an "official blog" (i.e. https://write.as/blog/)
- Adding a setup process

Was thinking about leaving a nice setup process out of v1.0, but it'll be easy to add and make onboarding / installation much nicer.

On Write Freely again, removing code for handling sites across custom domains, subdomains, and paths. On a technical level, our blog lookup calls are now dependent on whether the blog is configured to be single- or multi-user.