PostFreely Update (2023-10-01) - FlameWar
This is a PostFreely update for Sunday October 1st, 2023. (Or maybe Monday
October 2nd, 2023 — depending on where you are in the world.) (I’d like to do
these updates somewhat regularly, just to keep everyone who is interested up to
date.) — ## What Is PostFreely PostFreely is a clean, minimalistic publishing
platform — geared towards blogging and long-form writing. PostFreely supports
Markdown. And in particular CommonMark, thanks to Mathew (
@[email protected] [https://universeodon.com/@mathew] ). And on top of
that — PostFreely is Fediverse software — meaning it can connect with Mastodon,
Akkoma, Castopod, Firefish, Friendica, Kbin, Lemmy, Misskey, Pixelfed, Pleroma,
Plume, and any other software that supports ActivityPub, WebFinger, and the
other technologies that the Fediverse is built on top of. PostFreely is also a
publishing platform for the smallnet / smallweb — currently supporting the
gopher-protocol, and in the near future also supporting the gemini-protocol /
gemtext, the nex-protocol, the mercury-protocol, the finger-protocol, as well as
restricted sub-sets of XHTML & HTML. — ## History PostFreely is a fork of
WriteFreely. Thank you Matt Baer for creating WriteFreely and making it
open-source software. After a discussion on the Fediverse between 3 people, Ynte
( @[email protected] [https://aus.social/@whylamb] ) encouraged myself (
@[email protected] [https://mastodon.social/@reiver] ) and Mathew (
@[email protected] [https://universeodon.com/@mathew] ) to fork
WriteFreely. That fork became PostFreely. The name “PostFreely” is an homage to
Matt Baer’s WriteFreely. To note its history, and try to give credit where
credit it due. — ## Archetypes We had some discussion on who PostFreely is being
built for. That discussion happened over here: “PostFreely Archetypes”
https://flamewar.social/post/2073 [https://flamewar.social/post/2073] Although
this type of quantitative research is ongoing — we now have some clarity over
who PostFreely is being built for. (A more comprehensive archetype map document
still needs to be created.) — ## Roadmap Backlog Knowing who PostFreely is being
built for leads into the next thing — what are we planning to build. What we are
planning on building is directly affected by who we are creating PostFreely for.
What do those people want? What are their problems? PostFreely should try to
solve their problems and address their wants. The PostFreely roadmap is not
finalized yet. But we have several items in the backlog. Here they are: *
password-resets (from the web-based PostFreely application), * image uploads
(with Markdown code for the uploaded image automagically put into the Markdown
editor): * image upload via drag-and-drop, * image upload svia copy-and-paste, *
image upload via a button (when and if the toolbar is shown), * accessibility
improvements, * CommonMark Mardown by default * but can change to other formats,
too, in addition to CommonMark Markdown: * the gemini-protocol’s gemtext, * the
nex-protocol’s (unnamed) directory document format, * (a subset of) XHTML, * (a
subset of) HTML, * etc, * post previewing, * better Fediverse integration: *
ability to see Fediverse notifications — favorites, boosts, replies, mentions,
etc, * edits of posts get propagated on the Fediverse * plus many other things,
too * more smallnet / smallweb support: * gemini-protocol & gemtext *
mercury-protocol * nex-protocol * finger-protocol * (the gopher-protocol is
already supported) * perhaps others, too * commenting, * being able to have
conversations with people who comment to your post, * readers being able to see
comments to a post, * comment moderation tools, * ability to turn commenting off
(and on), * ability to hide specific comments, * ability to block specific users
from commenting, * ability to block anyone from who server instances from
commenting, * importing content from other platforms into PostFreely * import
from WordPress, * import from WriteFreely, * import from Plume, * improved
customization abilities (from terminal and via the web-based PostFreely
application), * change favicon, * change fonts, * change skin / theme, * teams *
Mastodon client-server API support * the Mastodon client-server API is becoming
the defacto client-server API for the Fediverse. PostFreely implementing even
part of it instantly makes all sorts of tooling (such as mobile apps) work for
PostFreely, too. * being able to subscribe by e-mail, * being able to paywall
some content (if desired), * optional micro-blogging to be able to chat with
subscribers, * new methods for authentication * in addition to password: *
one-time authorization code (OTAC), * magic-link, * passkey, * multi-factor
authentication (MFA), * admins * multiple admins * step-down as admin *
multi-tenant support, * serving a different domain, * similar to how DNS MX
records except uses host-meta, * etc. (This list is not prioritized. Being near
to the top or bottom of the list is not meaningful.) Again, these are currently
in the PostFreely backlog. We are still discussing them. The roadmap is not
finalized yet. But hopefully this gives you some sense of where PostFreely is
likely going. If you would like to affect the PostFreely roadmap, please post in
the PostFreely forum: https://flamewar.social/c/postfreely
[https://flamewar.social/c/postfreely] — ## Development Work Mathew (
@[email protected] [https://universeodon.com/@mathew] ) and I (
@[email protected] [https://mastodon.social/@reiver] ) have been doing
clean-up work of the PostFreely source-code. This type of work is necessary to
prepare for adding features. Mathew and I had a conversation about how much we
want PostFreely to diverge from the WriteFreely code-base. There are trade-offs
both ways. There are advantages to keeping it similar — such as being able to
pull-in upstream changes from WriteFreely. BUT — it does put constraints on us —
and limits how much we can improve things. We are still undecided about this.
Mathew has been focusing on CommonMark and Markdown component of PostFreely. He
has a plan for how to add post previewing for CommonMark Markdown, and for how
to make CommonMark the default format. I have been focusing on password-resets
and implementing (parts of) the Mastodon client-server API for PostFreely. — ##
Feedback We would love to hear from you. You can talk with us and the PostFreely
community: * by replying to this post, * by posting in this community:
https://flamewar.social/c/postfreely [https://flamewar.social/c/postfreely] * by
posting on the Fediverse using the #PostFreely hash-tag, * or by directly
reaching out to us: @[email protected] [https://mastodon.social/@reiver]
@[email protected] [https://universeodon.com/@mathew] — ⸺ Charles Iliya
Krempeaux ( @[email protected] [https://mastodon.social/@reiver] )
matt
m0bi
gemma lynn ⇒ ello@void
@reiver ⊼ (Charles) 
Michael
Anders Borch
Chris Trottier
J L Gatewood (StarrWulfe)