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.

@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...

@benpate @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu there's a shortcoming where mobile browsers don't let you install web extensions as easily but that can also be overcome i think.

@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...

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.

@trwnh @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu

@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

@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

@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?

@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 @evan @julian @rimu fb twitter instagram etc are also centralized single entities, so there's no contention on who gets to open the link.

@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.

@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.

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.

@trwnh @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu

@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.

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.

@trwnh @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu

@trwnh @benpate @evan @julian @rimu share targets opens a new post, which is expected behavior

I think waiting for all browsers to allow extensions and then waiting for extensions to exist and then expecting the user to know which to use is not very realistic or short term.

@benpate @trwnh @ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu I’m actually working on implementing your Activity Intents FEP in Loops right now, using autocomplete from FediDB it’s quite powerful!

@trwnh @benpate @evan @julian @rimu share targets opens a new post, which is expected behavior

I think waiting for all browsers to allow extensions and then waiting for extensions to exist and then expecting the user to know which to use is not very realistic or short term.

@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 @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