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Episode 11 – Four IWCs Later()


In the latest episode of An Indieweb Podcast, Chris Aldrich and I get together to talk about what we’ve been up to since the last episode in September.

 

Syndication Links 4.0.0 Released

Today, from my hotel room in Berlin, Germany, where I am preparing to attend Indiewebcamp Berlin, my first European Indiewebcamp, I released Syndication Links 4.0.0.

The major version number change is because in this version, Syndication Links takes on a new role. As promised previously, I’ve built new syndication code and added supported for Bridgy and Indienews, which both uses Webmentions to trigger a syndication action. This is disabled by default.

As my first live use outside of testing, I’m using the plugin to send this post to Indienews and Twitter(via Bridgy).

The new code adds the concept of a syndication provider, which, when registered, adds the provider as a syndication target for Micropub clients as well as adds it to the WordPress classic editor as a series of checkboxes, er postone for each service.

The Bridgy Publish plugin I announced deprecation on had additional options on a per post and a global level. While the global settings will be coming back in a future version, I likely will not bring back the per-post settings.

Instead, I’d like to add more intelligence behind these decisions, based on other properties of the post. A checkbox is all you should need. The same with auto-syndication. If you decide you want everything to go to Twitter or some site, it shouldn’t check the box…there shouldn’t be a box at all. It should just go, even if there are some more parameters to make that decision…type of post, etc.

So, you are either all in, or in on a per post basis.

I look forward to feedback. This is only the beginning. I hope to do what I did for displaying syndication links, and interface with existing plugins in addition to writing my own integrations.

Simple Location Version 3.4.0 Released

I released a new version of Simple Location this evening. I had to start this project, moving it up my list of things to do because Nominatim started blocking me. I used Nominatim for looking up addresses from coordinates.

Because of that, I completely rewrote the system that registers new location providers so I could more easily create new ones.

  • The Nominatim provider has been switched to now use the Nominatim API provided by MapQuest(Yes, they are still around).
  • You can now use Bing and Google to lookup addresses from coordinates
  • Bing, Google, and Mapquest will now fill in elevation/altitude data on posts if not supplied during lookup, based on their APIs for this.
  • Altitude will display if it is over 500 meters. So, right now, basically if I post on a plane.
  • Location visibility, which is a feature now built into at least one Micropub client, has been enhanced in here. It should work more reliably now.
  • Mapquest and HERE are new static map providers.
  • The conflict with the Jetpack plugin, which added location services in 2017 unknown to me, has been resolved.  If you activate this plugin, it unloads the conflicting Jetpack module.
  • If there is no address to display, it will now display the coordinates.
  • Dark Sky is now an alternate weather provider. I was going to add Weather Underground as well, but they apparently shut down their API.
  • When publishing using Micropub, if coordinates are provided, it automatically generates a display address if none is provided and stores the current weather conditions.
  • The default location visibility checkbox now offers any three of the visibility options… Private, Public, or Protected. Protected is show the display address but not the map or the coordinates.

What’s next for this plugin? Well, better logic around location visibility. Right now, if you do not set it, it goes to a global default.

So, I’d like to include geofencing. That would be a list of zones. Zones would be a location with a radius around it that if you are inside, it would automatically set to protected and/or replace the address with a generic one. For example, if you are within 50 meters of home, it would always use a pre-identified location of ‘Home’ and/or default to a city level description.

The plugin supports Location providers other than the browser. This means that the plugin could query a server to get the current location of the user.

However, there aren’t any I’ve implemented yet really. But this would allow me to query an API to get my location, which has a lot of potential in future, especially if I want to look up my historical location.

For example, I’ve let Google store some of my location history since March of 2013. There is no API I know of to poll the data, but you can export it. I would just have to find a place to import it to. 6 years, 50mb of data. If I had some way to load it up, query it by date and time, I would be able to add location to all posts and photos that didn’t have it, based on the location of my phone at the time the post was made.

I already have a program on my phone that sends my location periodically to my home automation system, but I’d have to try something different to store historical data. There are several options for this. I’m tempted to write something into WordPress, as I have a tendency to build things into my website. Not sure if there is an off the shelf project to suit my needs, though I’ve looked at Aaron Parecki’s Compass. I could build similar functionality into my site to accommodate this, but I think I need something that both my house and my website can query.

Either way, look to see me testing this on my upcoming trip to Indiewebcamp Berlin.

 

 

 

My solution to information providers shutting down access is to have at least two providers for everything if I can. So my website will have 5 ways to get static map images, 3 different ways to look up an address from coordinates, and 2 different ways to get current weather. Too much?

Version 2.0 of the Micropub Plugin Released

At the Indieweb Summit in June, someone said something to me that made me decide to embark on a major rewrite of the Micropub endpoint for WordPress.

For those of you not familiar with it, Micropub is a standard that allows for you to publish to a website.

The major work on this actually finished in August, but due to some bug issues, most of them in the accompanying IndieAuth plugin, that affected some of the testers, I held off on releasing the plugin till today. If there is anyone still experiencing issues, please open an issue on the Micropub plugin Github repository.

The core functionality of the plugin remains the same, as does much of the original code. So, what changed?

  • The plugin is no longer a single file. The code that handles the endpoint, the code that handles authorization, and the code that handles rendering are now separated.
  • The code no longer works outside of WordPress.
  • The original design didn’t log the user into WordPress. It determined which user was supposed to be represented and posted as them. If it couldn’t figure out what user was represented, it posted it anyway, which is no longer permitted.  The new version is much better integrated into the WordPress stack, which admittedly revealed some new login issues.
  • The Micropub endpoint is now implemented using the WordPress REST API functionality. Again, this means that it is implemented inside functionality built into WordPress for creating custom endpoints as opposed to the previous system, where a query variable bypassed the WordPress load and substituted a separate one. It also has the positive advantage of a pretty permalink for the endpoint(wp-json/micropub/1.0/endpoint).
  • Dozens of little bugfixes and checks to remove nagging error notices
  • Improved error handling
  • Fixes to better comply with the Micropub spec, which was finalized after the initial creation of this plugin
  • A nag for those who use the plugin on a site without encryption(http as opposed to https). It can be disabled if you want to live dangerously.

And only one major new feature. A media endpoint. A media endpoint handles uploading of media files and hands back a URL to the Micropub endpoint. This one uploads to the WordPress Media Library.

The Post Kinds update last week already ensured that Post Kinds will work well with the changes.

 

This is a test episode of An Indieweb Podcast(working title). In it, Chris Aldrich and I talk about a variety of Indieweb topics, with the theme of Considering the User, inspired by an article we were reading.

Part of this is an opportunity to improve audio post presentation on my website, so you will see audio posts improve over time.

Episode 1 – Leaving Facebook for What?

This second episode was originally recorded in March, abruptly ended, and then was not completed until April due scheduling. In it, Chris and I discuss the hot topic of Facebook scandals and where you might go if you decide to leave Facebook.

Show Notes

The originating articles that kicked off the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica issue:

 

Other related articles:

Recent Documented Facebook Quitters:

Jonathan LaCour: https://cleverdevil.io/2018/ive-officially-deleted-my-facebook-account-and

Eddie Hinkle: https://eddiehinkle.com/2018/03/22/5/article/

Natalie Wolchover: https://twitter.com/nattyover/status/975711260221362177

New York Times Profile of multiple quitters: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/technology/users-abandon-facebook.html

IndieWeb Wiki related pages of interest here:

Potential simple places to move to when leaving Facebook

 

Sebastian Greger’s Privacy policy: https://sebastiangreger.net/privacy-policy/

Mastodon not supporting Webmention specification: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/6074#issuecomment-378452136

Episode 2 – Explaining IndieAuth and other Developments

In this third episode of An IndieWeb Podcast, I invited Chris to discuss my project of the last few months, the IndieAuth endpoints for WordPress, and some related Micropub work I’ve been doing, and some other ideas, and try to teach him about IndieAuth, so far as I understand it.

 

WordPress Plugin for IndieAuth

Related IndieWeb Wiki Pages

Micropub Apps Mentioned in the episode

 

PESOS – Post Elsewhere, Syndicate to your Own Site

POSSE – Post on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere

Closing discussion of IndieWeb Readers and MicroSub Pieces

Episode 3: Syndication

This podcast is partly being used to develop Indieweb podcasting tools for WordPress. As a result, it will get better each time I post. At the time of this post, there was no direct download option being generated, so if there is one here now, I’ve upgraded. Also, duration is missing. But unlike previous episodes, the system will now autogenerate the enclosure for RSS feeds, so you can subscribe. 

The current podcast feed on this site can be found in a variety of ways.

  •  Audio Posts on this Site – This is a feed of all my audio posts.
  • An Indieweb Podcast  – I have something called Series on my site, so this is the feed for this as a series. I probably should have a feed called Podcast.

Co-Host: Chris Aldrich of Boffosocko.com

Show Notes

Facebook has announced ending publishing by API…and David is thinking about what it means for the community and his current project.

History:

ThinkUP from Anil Dash and Gina Trapani ultimately died trying to fight the API wars with various social silos. They spent all their time trying to keep up with no guarantee that the silos would cooperate. All their engineering resources were spent trying to keep up instead of innovating on a stable platform.

Related IndieWeb wiki pages

WordPress Plugins:

Episode 4: Webmentions and Privacy

This week, Chris Aldrich and I got together a bit late…so I was a bit more quiet than normal.

With the GDPR regulations coming into effect in Europe May 25th, privacy seems to be on everyone’s mind. This week, we tackle what webmentions are, using them for backfeed, and the privacy implications.

Related IndieWeb wiki pages