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2025-01-18 10:37:10

ajsadauskas@social.vivaldi.net

I'm looking to set up a single-user instance sometime this year. And I want this account to be the single point from which I interact with all the Fedi, including Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Lemmy, etc., as well as BlueSky (over Bridgy).

What I'm looking for is a platform that has:

* Good native groups support, including good interoperability with Lemmy
* Good support for multiple (4+) photos and galleries, including good interoperability with Pixelfed
* Ideally good local video support, particularly PeerTube and Loops when it becomes available
* And naturally good Mastodon support (plus BSky over Bridgy).

I'm thinking about using something like @phanpy as a webUI, plus an Android app like Tusky and Tokodon on my main Linux PC.

I've looked at Friendica, but are there any other options I should consider that are good "all-rounder" platforms for interacting with the Fediverse?

#Fedi #Fediverse #FediHelp #Mastodon

2025-01-20 11:01:56

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@AJ Sadauskas Here's something that you may want to take a look at, something that's being developed in Australia right now, something that next to nobody in the Fediverse has heard of: (streams) (code repository).

It has very good native groups support. This includes four preset levels of public vs private as well as the possibility of appointing other Hubzilla and (streams) users as co-admins via the permissions system.

(streams) recognises all kinds of Fediverse group actors as such and lists them in its directory as such: Lemmy communities, /kbin and Mbin magazines, PieFed communities, Friendica groups, Hubzilla forums, Guppe groups etc. However, while I've managed to (probably) join a Lemmy community with one of my (streams) channels, I've yet to see new posts from that community. It could be a settings issue on my side, it could be because my community membership has never been approved by the community mods, I don't know.

(streams) does not have Hubzilla's full-blown Gallery app, but it does have the Photo app which also allows outsiders to take a look into your various photo albums. Also, it allows you to embed any number of images anywhere in a post with virtually no limits.

Killer feature: You can add alt-text to images upon uploading or after uploading in the Photo app. This means that you can post an image a gajillion times, always automatically with the same alt-text.

As for videos, you can embed remote videos from various sources in (streams) posts. You can also upload video files to the file space built into your channel and probably embed them into your posts, but (streams) can't do peer-to-peer load balancing like PeerTube. I don't make videos, and even if I did, the effort of probably describing them would be beyond my capabilities, so I can't test the latter.

Mastodon support is as good as it ever comes. The "obstacles" are the same as on Friendica. Both generate potentially weird hashtags and even weirder mentions from a Mastodon POV. Mastodon CWs are done with [abstract][/abstract] or [abstract=apub][/abstract] on Friendica and [summary][/summary] or <details><summary></summary></details> on (streams).

That said, you can't use (streams) with a dedicated native app. Like, at all. There's no (streams) app, and it doesn't work with Mastodon apps, in part because the dev doesn't want to have Mastodon code in his work, in part because it wouldn't even make sense. The closest you can get is by installing (streams) as a progressive Web app.

But if you stick with Friendica, don't use it with a Mastodon app. Tusky is built for Mastodon and only supports Mastodon features. If Friendica has a feature, but Mastodon doesn't have it, you can't use that feature through a Mastodon app. No text formatting, no groups, no titles, no conversations, no embedded images etc.

For an Android phone, look at RaccoonForFriendica. On the desktop, there's no replacement for the Web interface in a browser in both cases.

Still, if (streams) looks interesting, and you want to try it before installing it, don't go looking for public instances. You won't find them. Ask me instead. And when you set up your own instance, you can use nomadic identity to move or even clone your channel over to your own instance.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Streams #(streams)

2025-01-20 22:03:27

AJ Sadauskas

ajsadauskas@social.vivaldi.net

@jupiter_rowland Thanks for sharing that, it genuinely sounds like a very interesting project 😊