#mastodonapps

@Strypey Hubzilla does federate with Mastodon. In case you haven't noticed, but I'm writing to you from Hubzilla. It just requires ActivityPub to be activated both on a hub level (it is by default) and on a channel level (it is not by default). So what I meant was that Hubzilla does not have the Mastodon client API implemented, and so you can't use Hubzilla with a Mastodon phone app.

But seriously, for one, Hubzilla is structurally so far away from Mastodon that this couldn't work anyway, I guess. I don't think the Mastodon client API could be bent in such a way that it works with an architecture that has multiple channels, multiple identities on the same login, not to mention that the Mastodon client API probably couldn't handle nomadic identity with its side-effects. Even if the Mastodon client API could, Mastodon apps couldn't because almost all of them are geared towards Mastodon and only Mastodon.

Which leads me to the second point: Even if you could connect Hubzilla to a Mastodon phone app, you couldn't even use 5% of Hubzilla's features because almost all Mastodon phone apps only cover Mastodon's features, and I guess that some of those apps which already existed in 2022 still only cover Mastodon 3's features.

This is far from "better than nothing". Apart from people who have only just switched from Mastodon to Hubzilla still with Twitter on the brain, nobody on Hubzilla would refer to such massive limitations as "better than nothing". Besides, not being able to use an app is not "nothing". Hubzilla is one of the few Fediverse server applications that can be installed as a Progressive Web App. And if that doesn't work, you can use it in a browser. In other words, there's always the Web UI.

Just about all Hubzilla veterans would vastly prefer the Web UI over not being able to use text formatting (not possible on Mastodon), not being able to embed images in a post (not possible on Mastodon), not being able to add alt-text to images (works vastly different on Mastodon), not being able to add titles to posts (not possible on Mastodon) and not even being able to select a channel on their account that isn't the default (Mastodon doesn't have channels either). And that's only the tip of the iceberg.

One of the reasons why there isn't a Hubzilla phone app with a fully native mobile UI is because this UI would have to be absolutely massive. The app would end up more complex than FairEmail. A good app should offer all the same features as the Web UI. But Hubzilla itself is fully geared towards the desktop, feature-wise, handling-wise and in its philosophy. Don't forget that Hubzilla was not made as a Twitter replacement.

Lastly, neither @Mario Vavti nor @Harald Eilertsen is willing to add more proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-exclusive technology to Hubzilla than absolutely necessary, if at all. And a client API that's made for something completely and utterly different from Hubzilla and that won't even work properly with Hubzilla is far from "absolutely necessary". Hubzilla rather indulges in independence from Mastodon.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #MastodonAPI #MastodonApps #Hubzilla

@damon I don't think (streams) or Forte will introduce the Mastodon API. (streams) definitely doesn't support it, and I'd be very surprised if the Mastodon API was the first thing Mike has added to Forte in the three weeks after the fork.

For one, Mike wants to keep his current developments devoid of any non-standard, Mastodon-only technology. He wants to be wholly independent from Gargron's decisions.

Besides, it'd be utterly useless. All apps out there that support the Mastodon API also only support the Mastodon 3 feature set. If you're very lucky, they've added a thing or two from Mastodon 4.

But what Mastodon can do, and what these apps can control, is only a tiny fraction of what even Friendica is capable of, much to the dismay of those who try to use Friendica with Fedilab.

You can't format your text because you can't format text on Mastodon. Or if you're semi-lucky, you can add text-formatting BBcode (or Markdown) manually, and the app will not go haywire, but you can neither preview your post because Mastodon has no preview feature, nor can you see the formatting after sending the post because the app still doesn't support the text formatting introduced with Mastodon 4 last year already.

You can't add a title because Mastodon doesn't support the creation of titles.

You can't add a CW. Friendica has no dedicated CW field, it has removed the abstract field that used to be the same thing, and probably no Mastodon app translates the content of its CW field into [abstract=apub]<Here goes the CW>[/abstract] BBcode.

You can't add alt-text. Friendica doesn't support the Mastodon way of alt-text (adding it to an image that's attached as a file), and Mastodon doesn't support the Friendica way of alt-text (grafted into the in-line image-embedding BBcode) because Mastodon already refuses to display in-line images.

I guess some apps even have a hard limit of 500 characters, Mastodon-style counting including the CW field and counting links as 23 characters each. They won't even let you type more. Friendica is unlimited in character count.

And all this is just basics on Friendica.

Now remember that (streams) is a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of a fork (Hubzilla) (of a fork?) of Friendica. And Forte is a fork of (streams).

(streams) is a whole lot more powerful and complex than Friendica, not to mention Mastodon. It has even more features which a typical Mastodon app doesn't support, but which are absolutely essential in using (streams).

A Mastodon app supposes that identities work like Mastodon everywhere: Your account is your identity. You have exactly one identity on your account. You have that identity on exactly one account and exactly one instance. Your identity is firmly tied to your home instance.

Thus, a Mastodon app would even fail to log into anything that was ever forked from Friendica or any one of its direct or indirect forks, save maybe for the first Osada. From Red of 2012, directly forked from Friendica, to Hubzilla from 2015, to now-defunct, Zap from 2018, to (streams) from 2021, to Forte from 2024, plus all experimental forks in-between, they all support nomadic identity (except the first Osada) and multiple channels per login.

This means: Your account is not your identity. It's just the access to one or multiple identities of yours on the same instance. Your channel is your identity, and you can create any number of channels on the same account. Also, and this is the nomadic part, you can have the same channel, the same identity, simultaneously on multiple instances with one account each.

A Mastodon app couldn't even deal with one login, but multiple IDs. If you had multiple channels, and you were lucky enough to connect one, namely your main channel, you'd be unable to connect any of your other channels. Even by logging out and back in.

And even if you could connect (streams) to a Mastodon app, essential features such as per-post permission control couldn't be used because the app doesn't have them implemented, because Mastodon doesn't have these features.

Mastodon supports:

Public (default)
Unlisted
Only to your followers
Only to mentioned accounts

Every last Mastodon app is hard-coded to these four and only these four options.

(streams) supports:

Public
Only to your connections (usually the default)
<Insert all your lists here, one by one, because (streams) can post to these individually>
Only to yourself
An individual choice of connections and lists which you can check and uncheck

Some apps may also be able to control some configuration. However, they only have Mastodon options implemented. Almost all these buttons would be functionless with a (streams) channel connected. At the same time, 99% of all (streams) configuration would be inaccessible in a Mastodon app, simply because Mastodon doesn't have these features and options.

So even if you manage to send some simple, tweet-like posts through a Mastodon app, you will need the Web interface for absolutely everything else. And that will be a lot.

(streams) works perfectly as a Progressive Web App (PWA), it's designed for that, and that's actually the officially recommended way to use it on a phone. Same will most likely go for Forte.

If you really want a dedicated, non-PWA app for iOS and Android, that app would be a monster. An absolute unit. Similar to K-9 Mail in complexity, if not even worse. Worlds beyond any Mastodon app. That's because the app would have to be able to control the whole thing, not just the essentials. Besides, who gets to decide for everyone what's essential?

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #MastodonApp #MastodonApps #MastodonAPI #Streams #(streams) #Forte