gnusocial.rocks/v3/feed.rss

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<channel><title>GNU social V3</title><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/index.html</link>
<description>Development blog where we announce our progress.</description><language>en</language>
<lastBuildDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:41 +0000</lastBuildDate>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:41 +0000</pubDate>
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<item><title>
Milestone: Automatic Accesibility (A11Y) testing
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>We use <code>pa11y-ci</code> to run our accesibility testing on all GNU social
pages. The process of setting this up was a bit of a ride, but the
results are quite useful:</p>

<p><img src="assets/a11y/report.png" alt="Accesibility report generated by Pa11y" title="" /></p>

<p>We also take screenshots of all pages and compare them with the
previous, allowing us to spot (possibly) unintended changes in the UI.</p>

<p>The way we do this is by using a <code>docker</code> image derived from <code>node</code>,
with <code>pa11y-ci</code> installed, which doesn't have an entrypoint. This then
allows us to spin up a webserver, PHP and Redis containers, mimiking a
staging environment. <code>pa11y-ci</code> uses a JSON config file to tell it
what to do, and handles visiting all pages with the given resolution,
logging in and registering any accesibility violations found.</p>

<p><img src="assets/a11y/violations.png" alt="Accesibility violations found by Pa11y" title="" /></p>

<p>Note that most of these errors are actually the same.</p>

<p>The saved screenshots are then used to detect changes, with
ImageMagik's <code>compare</code>, to generate a report on visual changes.</p>

<p><img src="assets/a11y/compare.png" alt="Screenshot comparisons" title="" /></p>

<p>We were already striving for making GNU social accesible, which is
clear from the really low number of violations found, but there's
always room for improvement :)</p>

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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-automatic-accesibility-a11y-testing.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-automatic-accesibility-a11y-testing.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:33 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: ActivityStreams 2.0 and WebFinger
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>The primary use of GNU social is to access the <a href="https://blog.diogo.site/what-is-the-fediverse">free network</a>, be it ActivityWeb (ActivityPub) or Fediverse (OStatus).</p>

<p>Contrary to the original plan, we have merged <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/nightly/modules/TheFreeNetwork">The Free Network Module</a>, <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/nightly/plugins/WebFinger">WebFinger</a> and <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/nightly/plugins/LRDD">LRDD</a> into a single component named <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/components/FreeNetwork">FreeNetwork</a>. Likewise, ActivityPub and ActivityStreams 2.0 was kept the same plugin instead of separated.</p>

<h2>Understanding the organisation chosen</h2>

<p>The FreeNetwork component adds WebFinger (RFC7033) lookup and implements Link-based Resource Descriptor Discovery (LRDD) based on RFC6415, Web Host Metadata. It takes and produces both Extensible Resource Descriptor (XRD) and JSON (JavaSript Object Notation). Furthermore, and different from v2, every federation protocol will use the same distribution queue maintained by this component instead of holding its own.</p>

<p>We originally intended to have data modelling plugins that would extend the GS's "language". We then understood that it added more complexity than we wanted without any considerable advantage because we cannot dissociate data reception handling of the protocol itself.</p>

<h2>Situation Report</h2>

<p><a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/ActivityPub">ActivityPub</a> already translates between activity and entity and allows plugins to extend it (thus serving a similar purpose to data modelling and representation plugins).</p>

<p>GNU social v3 now supports <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/src/Util/Formatting.php#L292">mentions</a>, which is a process that starts in the <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/components/Posting/Posting.php#L197">Posting component</a>. The processing of local mentions naturally finds its entire handling here.</p>

<p>For remote ActivityPub mentions, <a href="(https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/ActivityPub/Entity/ActivitypubActor.php#L179">ActivityPub handles it aided by the FreeNetwork component</a>).</p>

<h2>Next steps</h2>

<p>We still have to port OStatus (and ActivityStreams 1.0) and implement the distribution by FreeNetwork, although the base work is done. Regarding ActivityPub, although some of it already works, expanding the existing plugins to supplement ActivityPub, and full validation isn't ready yet. We will most likely finish the implementation of the whole federation stack in the next week.</p>































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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-activitystreams-20-and-webfinger.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-activitystreams-20-and-webfinger.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: Actor colour theme plugin
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>Actors are now able to set their own colours, through a brand new plugin: "Oomox".
Those accustomed to customising their own desktop should know where the name comes from ;)</p>

<h2>Here's how it works!</h2>

<p>The Oomox plugin main class catches the "PopulateProfileSettingsTabs" event upon visiting user panel.</p>

<pre><code>public function onPopulateProfileSettingsTabs(Request $request, array &amp;$tabs): bool
{
    $tabs[] = [
        'title'      =&gt; 'Light theme colours',
        'desc'       =&gt; 'Change the theme colours.',
        'controller' =&gt; C\Oomox::oomoxSettingsLight($request),
    ];

    $tabs[] = [
        'title'      =&gt; 'Dark theme colours',
        'desc'       =&gt; 'Change the theme colours.',
        'controller' =&gt; C\Oomox::oomoxSettingsDark($request),
    ];

    return Event::next;
}
</code></pre>

<p>As made evident by the code, two new tabs are added to profile settings, light and dark theme colours.
Since the page styling follows the system theme, actors may want to style each theme differently, therefore they are treated separately.</p>

<p>The actor's defined colours are then saved in the respective entity and cached.
Finally, the colour preferences are used to render the corresponding CSS file which defines the various colour variables used:</p>

<pre><code>public function oomoxCSS(): Response
{
    $user = Common::ensureLoggedIn();

    $oomox_table = PluginOomox::getEntity($user);
    if (is_null($oomox_table)) {
        throw new ClientException(_m('No custom colours defined', 404));
    }

    $content = Formatting::twigRenderFile('/oomox/root_override.css.twig', ['oomox' =&gt; $oomox_table]);
    return new Response($content, status: 200, headers: ['content-type' =&gt; 'text/css']);
}
</code></pre>

<p>Please note, upon rendering for the first time, page render may be blocked until the resulting file is served. Nonetheless, subsequent page renders
won't experience the issue again. That is, if the file is cached by the browser.</p>

<h2>How it looks</h2>

<p>Tabs added using the "PopulateProfileSettingsTabs" event:
<img src="assets/actor_colour_theme_plugin/settings_change_theme_colours.png" alt="User panel Oomox sections" title="" /></p>

<p>Changing the dark theme colours!
<img src="assets/actor_colour_theme_plugin/settings_change_theme_colours3.png" alt="Dark theme colours selection" title="" /></p>

<p>The result of given changes, please note it's no longer a 'dark' theme. 
Given a valid colour, it's the actor's responsibility whether or not the colours make sense. So, go wild!
<img src="assets/actor_colour_theme_plugin/settings_change_theme_colours4.png" alt="The resulting colours in action!" title="" /></p>

















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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-actor-colour-theme-plugin.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-actor-colour-theme-plugin.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: Albums
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>This is a natural follow up to the <a href="https://www.gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-collections.html">Collections Milestone</a>.</p>

<p>An album is a specialisation of an attachment collection, which is itself a
specialisation of a collection.</p>

<p>Albums were implemented with the <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/AttachmentCollections">Attachment Collections plugin</a>.</p>

<h2>Here's how it looks</h2>

<h3>Adding an attachment (this is in the right sidebar of attachment pages)</h3>

<p><img src="assets/collection/add_to_collection.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h3>List of collections</h3>

<p><img src="assets/collection/meta.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h3>Viewing a collection of attachments</h3>

<p><img src="assets/collection/attachments.png" alt="" title="" /></p>












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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-albums.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-albums.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: Collections
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>We have generalized collections around our search engine. For that introducing
the <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/components/Collection">Collection component</a>.</p>

<p>This structure has the following implication:</p>

<pre><code>Collection -&gt; OrderedCollection
|-&gt; Notes (known as Feed)
|-&gt; Actors (known as Circle)
|-&gt; Other Object (known as Collection of ...)
  |-&gt; Attachments: AttachmentCollection
  |-&gt; Tags: TagCollection
</code></pre>

<p>And it allow us to centralise the scope system in the core, ensuring that no
actor will have access to notes or other objects that shouldn't be able to see.</p>

<p>Finally, with this, a plugin such as <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/NoteTypeFeedFilter">Note Type Feed Filter</a> can be useful in
every note collection (feed).</p>

<p>It also allows plugins such as ActivityPub to <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/ActivityPub/Util/OrderedCollectionController.php">translate every collection
automatically</a>.</p>

<h2>Notes Filter and Sorting Options</h2>

<p><img src="assets/filters/feed.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h2>Actors Filter and Sorting Options</h2>

<p><img src="assets/filters/circle.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h2>The Search Component</h2>

<h3>Results</h3>

<p><img src="assets/search/results.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h3>Note Options</h3>

<p><img src="assets/search/note_options.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h3>Actor Options</h3>

<p><img src="assets/search/actor_options.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h2>ActivityPub Examples</h2>

<p><img src="assets/activitypub/collection/circle.jpg" alt="" title="" />
<img src="assets/activitypub/collection/favourites.jpg" alt="" title="" />
<img src="assets/activitypub/collection/outbox.jpg" alt="" title="" /></p>









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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-collections.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-collections.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: Documentation and Tests Infrastructure
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p><strong><a href="https://agile.gnusocial.rocks/doku.php?id=milestones:initial_test_documentation_infrastructure">>WIKI Milestone entry</a></strong></p>

<p>GNU social now has its documentation available in
<a href="https://docs.gnusocial.rocks/">https://docs.gnusocial.rocks/</a>. It features four
different books. These are automatically generated from the <a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/docs">source</a> using <a href="https://rust-lang.github.io/mdBook/">mdBook</a>.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Only the development book is in an elaborated state, the other books are
holding for more ready code.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And two of them are new:</p>

<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://docs.gnusocial.rocks/developer">Developer</a> is both intended to guide third-party plugin developers and to make it easier of contributing to the code.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://docs.gnusocial.rocks/designer">Designer</a> is the most recent of the four and came from a necessity of keeping some standardization between templates and ensuring the same principles are kept in mind when designing new themes.</li>
</ul>

<p>And two of them are updates from existing documentation:</p>

<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://docs.gnusocial.rocks/user">User</a> one is adapted
from the existing GNU social documentation for users that was provided in v2.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://docs.gnusocial.rocks/administrator">Administrator</a> one is adapted
from the "Unofficial GNU social docs" by Thomask who <a href="https://notabug.org/diogo/gnu-social/issues/246">asked us to make it official</a>.</li>
</ul>

<p>Together with the documentation we've introduced a
<a href="https://agile.gnusocial.rocks/">wiki</a>. Its purpose is to walk-through decisions,
convention, terminology. It's where we document the reasoning the development team went
through before implementing more sophisticated functionalities.</p>

<p>Finally, when the documentation doesn't explain, and to ensure the whole code
is properly tested, we have the
<a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/tests">tests</a>. And the coverage is available <a href="https://coverage.gnusocial.rocks/">here</a>. At the time of writing the coverage has 98.76% code lines tested.</p>











































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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-documentation-and-tests-infrastructure.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-documentation-and-tests-infrastructure.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: Mute notifications from a conversation
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>If a conversation in which you have interacted becomes very active and you wish
to stop receiving notifications derived from that, it is now possible:
<img src="assets/conversation/mute.png" alt="" title="" /></p>











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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-mute-notifications-from-a-conversation.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-mute-notifications-from-a-conversation.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: Notes and Actors with languages
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>Well, it's that, our notes now have a language attribute.</p>

<p>... All right, all right, it's not <em>just</em> it.</p>

<h2>Here's what comes with it:</h2>

<ul>
<li><a href="">Filter the streams with only the languages you know</a></li>
<li><a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/components/Tag/Tag.php#L135-L146">Make Tag Wrangling possible and transversal to languages</a></li>
<li><a href="https://code.undefinedhackers.net/GNUsocial/gnu-social/src/branch/v3/plugins/ActivityPub/Util/Model/Note.php#L123">Federate the language for a more inclusive free network</a></li>
</ul>

<h2>Here's how it looks</h2>

<p>First, the user panel section where the desired preferences are selected:
<img src="assets/notes_and_actors_with_languages/settings_language.png" alt="User panel language settings section" title="" /></p>

<p>Upon sending the previous form, the user is redirected to order their selection:
<img src="assets/notes_and_actors_with_languages/settings_language_order.png" alt="Ordering the selections made in previous page" title="" /></p>

<p>Finally, when posting the language with the highest priority is selected by default.</p>

<p>However, by accessing "Additional options", another language may be selected. The resulting
note will have the html <code>lang</code> attribute according to it.</p>

<p>The posting widget itself:
<img src="assets/notes_and_actors_with_languages/posting_language_options.png" alt="Selecting the language of a note when posting" title="" /></p>

<h2>What does this mean?</h2>

<p>We can now show you the notes you can read, but for groups, this mean that you
can access umbrella groups and filter the feeds to see what's in your language
and even region.</p>

<p>For too long the fediverse struggled with languages, this step makes it easier
for actual internationalization of the free network.</p>

<h2>A marvellous feed filtered by note language</h2>

<p><img src="assets/notes_and_actors_with_languages/feed-note-lang-pt.png" alt="" title="" /></p>
















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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-notes-and-actors-with-languages.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-notes-and-actors-with-languages.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: Notes with LaTeX
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>LaTeX content types is now supported.</p>

<p><img src="assets/notes/content_type.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h2>latex</h2>

<p><img src="assets/notes/latex_content.png" alt="" title="" />
<img src="assets/notes/latex_rendered.png" alt="" title="" /></p>






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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-notes-with-latex.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-notes-with-latex.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
<item><title>
Milestone: Notes with Markdown
</title><description><![CDATA[

<p>Markdown content types is now supported.</p>

<p><img src="assets/notes/content_type.png" alt="" title="" /></p>

<h2>Markdown</h2>

<p><img src="assets/notes/markdown_content.png" alt="" title="" />
<img src="assets/notes/markdown_rendered.png" alt="" title="" /></p>







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]]></description><link>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/milestone-notes-with-markdown.html</link>
<guid>https://gnusocial.rocks/v3/./milestone-notes-with-markdown.html</guid>
<dc:creator>GNU social development team</dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2022 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate></item>
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