Fandom gets closer to the metal - issue 1: Hubzilla and pixelfed
by Hit_the_Books, originally posted at Post_Tumblr_Fandom on Dreamwidth
This week: the more technically minded members of the distributed_fandom Discord have been working on ways to bring multimedia functionality to Hubzilla, plus several other functions. pixelfed is about to get a lot more interesting, and more.
Hubzilla update
Seeing as how this our first issue and some of you may not know this, here’s a short explainer…
What is Hubzilla? Hubzilla has a very detailed description available on its About. Essentially:
“Hubzilla is a free and open source set of web applications and services running on a special kind of web server, called a 'hub', that can connect to other hubs in a decentralised network we like to call ‘the grid’, providing sophisticated communications, identity, and access control services which work together seamlessly across domains and independent websites.”
The applications that can be run through these hubs include:
social networking discussion threads
cloud file storage
calendar and contacts (with CalDAV and CardDAV support)
webpage hosting with a content management system
wiki
Demitas has been working on various aspects of getting Hubzilla to work in a fandom friendly way, via fanzilla, a fandom friendly fork of Hubzilla. This week’s tasks have included:
Wrestling with a web torrent player addon and enabling it to work with more magnet links.
Updating the NSFW addon so that its settings are easier to find.
Plus working on documentation for fanzilla addons.
Meanwhile, impertinence has been trying to make Hubzilla a tad more user friendly, by bringing together an addon that auto-pins apps to the navigation bar. Plus installing PeerTube and Nextcloud to have a public demo available soon.
pixelfed
While not a full member of the Fediverse (though on the way to being so), @alyndra has spotted that pixelfed will soon have the ability to import Tumblr blogs. Not in the time for the Tumblr purge deadline (now passed), but if your Tumblr isn’t affected by Tumblr’s nonsense and you want out, you’ve got more and more options being made available.
Got something you want mentioned in these updates?
Head to announcements-roundup in channel on the distributed_fandom Discord and post about it before the end of Saturday each week. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue.
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