Small tech
Two posts resonated with me recently, about the power of small software. Small software is simple technology, nothing shiny, build to meet the need of a specific group of people. Kris Nóva, admin of the Hachyderm.io instance posted:
And Matt Baer, creator of WriteFreely, recently wrote a blog post pondering about how he finds the concept of writing software that is supposed to be temporary incredible freeing.
It is one of the aspects I love about the fediverse, it allows for easy experimentation and creation. Sometimes in the form of projects where a large group of people get together to build something (like Elk), and sometimes in the form of a single developer making a small tool that fits their personal specific needs.
In that light, here are some of those projects that might be worth checking out:
Comments on a static blog
One of the downsides of static site, such as a blog, is that they natively do not support comments. There are ways around this, but they either involve 3rd party software, or running your own software. Developer Carl Schwan created a way to use Mastodon and the fediverse for comments instead.
The way it works is pretty straightforward: you add a simple piece of code to your page. You can read the comments on the page, and if you want to add a comment, it will send you to a post on Mastodon where you can place your comment. This is then visible also on the website:
You can find the blog and code here.
Mastodon Threaded reply view
Do you lose track when there are a lot of comments on a post you’ve made? And are you a big fan of how Reddit’s comment section looks? Julia Evans (@b0rk) might have a solution for you, with the Mastodon Threaded Reply view website.
You simply log in, and you see all the posts you’ve made. Click on a post, and the comments unfold in a threaded view. You can easily collapse all the different threads as well.
This is one of those tools that you might not use much, but in the moments that you’ve made a post which got lots of comments, it can be a lifesaver in keeping track. Do note that it only works on posts that you have made.
You can use it at: https://mastodon-thread-view.jvns.ca/
Emojos.in: finding custom emoji’s
Mastodon servers have the option to add custom emoji’s (jokingly called emojo). These custom emoji’s are only visible to the other people on the exact same instance as you. You add a custom emoji by adding :customemojiname: to a post. This will render it into a small picture on only your server. For people on other servers that do not have the exact same custom emoji installed, they will see the plain text instead.
Because these differ per server, you can find what each server supports via this website.
Use Emojos.in via: https://emojos.in/mastodon.social
That is all for now, thank you for reading. Have you made or found some cool tech things that you want to share? Let me know on Mastodon!