Links:

• Firefox
• Chrome
• Edge - v1.2.3 is still being approved, you can grab the release from Github if you are eager
• Opera: Still under review, please download from Chrome webstore or Github release.

For questions / support: https://lemmy.ca/c/instance_assistant (alternate: lemmy.ca/c/instance_assistant)

What’s new?

(read on the wiki)

• You can now customize the instance list to match which instances you actually use. This should be helpful for those that have accounts on different instances.
• Added a settings page so that you can turn off features that you don’t want active
• Added buttons for helpful tools that let you explore Lemmy/Kbin communities (with lemmyverse.net), and search across Lemmy sites (with search-lemmy.com).
• Added a sidebar for those that prefer it (works on Firefox, Chrome & Opera; Edge doesn’t have sidebars yet but the code is there)
• Fix for issues with the search trigger on the community not found page (thank-you to whqwert!)
• Various bugfixes, small theme changes, and improved wording

What’s coming up?

(read on the wiki)

• Working with the amazing /u/[email protected] to bring over features from the LemmyTools Userscript^1^
• Integrating lemmyverse.net and search-lemmy.com so you can do everything right on your community page^2^
• Adding icons and simplifying the design, as the UI is getting wordy
• Adding support for alternative home instances (ex. Alexandrite - Issue 14)
• Ability to have multiple ‘home instances’, so you can open it in any without having to change your home instance each time.
• Finishing the setup so that people can contribute translations / other languages to the extension.
• Getting the extension on Opera (no immediate plans, but this would be good to have)

More details:

1. /u/[email protected] has created a really useful userscript that you can find here: https://kbin.social/[email protected] (alternate: thesimplecorner.org/c/lemmytools). We’re going to be working together to bring those features into Instance Assistant, so that you can have all the features in one place.
2. Right now there are buttons to explore Lemmy/Kbin communities (with lemmyverse.net), and search across Lemmy sites (with search-lemmy.com). Both of these take you to the respective webpages. Instead, it might be nicer to have a lightweight version right on the Lemmy/Kbin community page (or in the extension popup/sidebar). This should be possible using their APIs/data access, and I have a little working proof of concept already (see GitHub)

I’m new, what is this?

Instance Assistant is a browser extension that started out as a way to quickly jump from one community to the version on your home instance, so that you could subscribe/participate immediately. Since then, a few other features have been implemented:

Features

• Redirect to your home instance:

  • Buttons will be added to the sidebar of any Lemmy or Kbin community you visit, which will let you open the same community on your home instance.

• Open links in home instance:

  • Right click context menu will allow you to open any links in your home instance

• Improved Error Pages:

  • ‘Community not found’ pages now have better information, a button to trigger a fetch, a button to open a community in the source instance, and more.

• Customizable popup & sidebar menus:

  • Customizable list of instances to let you quickly switch home instances. This is great for if you have multiple accounts on different instances.
  • There are also buttons for helpful tools that let you search for communities (with lemmyverse.net), and search across Lemmy sites (with search-lemmy.com).

• Settings:

  • You can change the default behaviour of the extension, customize the popup & sidebar menus, and turn off features you don’t want to use.

I can't believe how fast this addon was developed into something that is super useful.

A month ago I made a list of all the available addons to address this need. There were I think 4-5 of them and I actually didn't end up using any of them because they were too simple and didn't add much for my usecase.

In the intervening days (days!) this project has really fleshed out. I am impressed that you've managed to make an interface that makes sense. I wasn't sure if that would be possible because it is kind of an inherently complex situation.

And on top of that, it works. There are issues with federation which are network wide and not much you can do about that. But as much as the threadiverse is willing to cooperate, this addon smooths the experience.

Thanks, I really appreciate this.

I am not sure what is correct to put in kbin-core/issues without cluttering it up with somewhat speculative requests. I have no idea how to implement this or whether it is possible. So I will post here?

This is a response to issue
#635 - Editor support for autocompletion when a user types /m/, /c/, /u/, or @

@garrettw said:

After all of this I'm left with the distinct impression that a standardized link format is needed across the fediverse for any fediverse content.

I keep wishing for UUIDs or hashes or an internal link shortener or permalink something.

These are the same post on different instances:

• https://fedia.io/m/firefox/t/132144 <- this is the instance where the community lives
• https://lebowski.social/post/12337 <- this is the poster's home instance
• https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/237162
• https://beehaw.org/post/6759290

It would be nice if it would have a unique ID like e3d14d6c-28d7-11ee-be56-0242ac120002 across the *verse. I can't be the first person to think of this right? Why is ity either not a good idea, or not a viable idea?

I imagine 2 variations. I am not attached to any of the particulars... Just spitballing. What do you think?

1. /local/uuid

/local/e3d14d6c-28d7-11ee-be56-0242ac120002 - this link would bring the user to the post on the instance where you are viewing it.

So if someone writes in a comment:

check out [this post](/local/e3d14d6c-28d7-11ee-be56-0242ac120002)!

and you are viewing it on beehaw, it renders like this:

<p>check out <a href="https://beehaw.org/post/6759290">this post</a>!</p>

if you are viewing it on kbin.social, it renders like this:

<p>check out <a href="https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/237162">this post</a>!</p>

2. /orig/uuid

On the other hand we need a way to link to the particular item as it appears "originally". To do this, you could write:

check out [this post](/orig/e3d14d6c-28d7-11ee-be56-0242ac120002)!

And irrespective of where you are looking at it, it will render like this:

<p>check out <a href="https://fedia.io/m/firefox/t/132144">this post</a>!</p>

I am not 100% sure if the correct behaviour for this is to link to the community home instance or the poster's home instance? I went with community home but maybe there is argument for the other way, or for both.

Im sure theyre going to find the perfect mods

I would like to suggest that developers consider as much flexibility when trying to interact with links/handles from off-instance and off-kbin (e.g. lemmy) as possible. I would like for it to work on lemmy in a similar fashion.

I think that the various "incorrect" ways of doing things should work as redirects assuming this would not cause a technical problem. It could even explain the correct way of doing things if you'd like to discourage it.

Non exhaustive examples:

communities

as an example: https://lemmy.ca/c/wowthislemmyexists

search kbin.social for https://lemmy.ca/c/wowthislemmyexists - finds occasions where people have mentioned the URL in comment/post

Most lemmy instances suggest searching for a group in a way that doesn't work:

search kbin.social for
for [[email protected]](/c/[email protected]) - finds occasions where people have mentioned the handle in comment/post

you need to replace ! with @ to find it:

search kbin.social for
for @[email protected] - works as expected

So the kbin.social URL is https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]

But what about variations a person could try based on principals of how things work e
lsewhere:

https://kbin.social/m/@[email protected]

[https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]](https://kbin.social/m/[[email protected]](/c/[email protected]))

even allowing use of the /c/ instead of the /m/?

profiles

profiles have similar inconsistencies.

I can view this off-instance profile on kbin.social: https://kbin.social/u/@[email protected]

but if I try to drop my own username into the same structure, it doesn't work: https://kbin.social/u/@[email protected]

The only way to see my profile is (I think) https://kbin.social/u/density

Hope this all is intelligible.

/r/Firefox and /r/FirefoxCSS have both moved to fedia.io kbin instance.

from kbin.social I can access Firefox. But I can't access FirefoxCSS. I waited about 90 mins since first trying. Should I just wait longer or is there some other issue?

@[email protected]
fedia link: https://fedia.io/m/Firefox
from kbin.social: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]
search on kbin.social: https://kbin.social/search?q=Firefox%40fedia.io

@[email protected]
fedia link: https://fedia.io/m/FirefoxCSS
kbin.social: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected] "404 Not found"
search on kbin.social: https://kbin.social/search?q=FirefoxCSS%40fedia.io "Empty"

I was thinking about how there are similar communities on different instances. In some cases that is desirable/ok but maybe it would be cool to have another option.

Say there are 3 separate communities on different instances for amateur cobbling (DIY shoes). None are big enough to really get going. Interested users trickle in here and there but there isn't enough to engage them. People try cross posting but that just breaks up discussion and leads to a "spam" feeling for those subbed to all of them. Everyone likes one another and they basically want one unified forum.

Would it be possible to automatically duplicate content posted to each instance to the other 2 instances? Including comments, mentions, etc.

Not like a multi reddit because would also share sidebar, mods, posting rules, other aspects. More like a mirror? or a repost bot?

But I don't know if it would mean

• 1 of the communities is the "main"
• the other 2 are copies under a different name
• they function as symlinks when mentioned or when traffic requested at them

it all goes to "main"

or

• they are all equal to one another
• any post you make to one instance, a post is automatically made on your behalf on the other instances
• likewise any comments or other interactions

or

• a post you make to one instance "lives" on that instance, but the 2 other instances will show it in their feed.
• when viewed on another instance's community, you will see that it is on the original one.

of course this raises questions such as

• what happens if the groups decide to split up after some time?
  -instance have different codes of conduct?
• what if host instances de-federated from each other?
• could it be used to undermine instance autonomy? evade spam bans etc?

Anybody thought of this kind of thing? I doubt it would be on the agenda for next week but interesting to think about.

If you ever have the problem of forgetting you were writing something and closing a window, or accidentally navigating away from the page on which you are composing, this is the browser extension to save your ass: Form History Control.

• Documentation: Form History Control (II)

• Git repo: stephanmahieu/formhistorycontrol-2

• [Firefox Addon]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/form-history-control/)

• Chrome Web Store

In kbin I especially have this problem as I get logged out constantly for some reason, for example while I am composing even a fairly short comment, and if I submit while logged out the text vanishes. But everything is stored in the extension. It is local to your machine where it will be secure.

I am using it for a year or two now and it has been flawless. It doesn't cause any slowdown in browser performance. It is unnoticeable until that moment you need it.

If you ever have the problem of forgetting you were writing something and closing a window, or accidentally navigating away from the page on which you are composing, this is the browser extension to save your ass: Form History Control.

• Documentation: Form History Control (II)

• Git repo: stephanmahieu/formhistorycontrol-2

• Firefox Addon

• Chrome Web Store

In kbin I especially have this problem as I get logged out constantly for some reason, for example while I am composing even a fairly short comment, and if I submit while logged out the text vanishes. But everything is stored in the extension. It is local to your machine where it will be secure.

I am using it for a year or two now and it has been flawless. It doesn't cause any slowdown in browser performance. It is unnoticeable until that moment you need it.