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. #urischeme

I found this proposal and what’s thinking… https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/07d7/fep-07d7.md Which one would be your favorite?

(If anyone has updates on the progress, feel free to point me in the right direction)

web+ap:
21.4%
ap:
35.7%
activitypub:
28.6%
fedi:
14.3%
Poll ended at .
fep/fep/07d7/fep-07d7.md at main

fep - Fediverse Enhancement Proposals

Codeberg.org

@[email protected] the only implementor I know of who has recently played around with this is @[email protected] of Piefed. They use web intents I think, but the UX leaves much to be desired (many clicks and popups just to register the web intent)

I don't recall whether there was a SWICG task force about this topic... perhaps the HTML Discovery Task Force might be related?

cc @[email protected]

ActivityPub Discovery

@julian @rimu @evan isn’t an URI scheme the way that would offer fastest compatibility? after all it’s been around forever, most browsers just let the OS handle it and even apps like zoom and iTunes have successfully implemented it for their service 🤔
@ricferrer @julian @rimu We already have an URI scheme for ActivityPub objects; it's https: .

@evan @julian @rimu it’s horrible UX. It opens a browser where I am not logged in instead of opening my default app, like it happens with mailto:

https: is for webpages

@ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu

https: is not for web pages. it's for http resources, which can be any content type. the content should be dispatched to the appropriate content handler; for example:

- html opens in an html viewer
- pdf opens in a pdf viewer
- png opens in a png viewer
- mp4 opens in an mp4 viewer

activity+json could be opened in an activity viewer. see firefox for example in pic 1:

@trwnh @evan @julian @rimu while this is true now, it was an evolution. As you probably know, the ht in html and http stands for HyperText, the fundamental concept that enabled websites in the early 90s

The question is what is more realistic for wide adoption… that all browsers start recognizing activities and decide if rendering in a viewer inside the browser or redirecting outside to an app makes sense.

@trwnh @evan @julian @rimu

I think the biggest difference with pdfs, mp4 in your example and an activity is that I most likely want to interact with an activitypub object: either follow, repost/announce, etc for this to work I need to be logged in. So is the solution to include an activitypub client in the browser? Use an external viewer that intercepts through browser extensions?

Now even the experience inside mastodon sometimes opens a webview 🤷🏻‍♂️

@ricferrer @evan @julian @rimu

acceptable solutions imo:

- a browser extension that lets you POST to your outbox (to publish activities) or proxyUrl (to view activity streams 2.0 resources)
- in-app rewriting like https://browser.pub/ that keeps all links as "internal links" with the ability to open an "external link" that takes you out of the app
- a system app that handles activity streams 2.0 resources which your default browser can dispatch to (and this may be a PWA!)

https://loops.video/v/eQYqneK5va · BrowserPub · A browser for exploring ActivityPub and the fediverse

Explore the open social web through the lens of ActivityPub and the fediverse.