Get a free blog in moera.blog
domain! Just go to web.moera.org, choose a Moera name and follow the instructions.
Get a free blog in moera.blog
domain! Just go to web.moera.org, choose a Moera name and follow the instructions.
You can leave feature requests and proposals in the comments to this post or on GitHub.
Images in posts and comments. Now you can attach images to posts and comments and even insert them into the text. Number of images per post/comment is not limited. For an inserted image, you can choose its size and alignment, including text wrapping. It is possible to add three types of captions to images: (1) a caption under the image when it is inserted into text; (2) a tooltip shown when the image is hovered by the cursor; (3) a description, that is shown when viewing the enlarged image (see below).
Images may be uploaded from computer/mobile device ("Upload images" button) or copied from the Internet ("Copy image" button).
"Today's total collapse of Facebook and Instagram, among other apps, illustrates the problem with centralization,” said Unstoppable Domains founder and CEO Matthew Gould, via email. “On the decentralized web, or Web 3.0, it would make it easier for users to port their data and contacts over to other services, as they wouldn't be dependent on Facebook or a Facebook login to contact their friends and family or use their favorite apps."
Avatars. Users now have avatars. The built-in editor allows to create an avatar from any image, to crop and rotate it, if needed. You can choose an avatar shape - round or square. You can create several avatars and change them when writing a post or a comment. You can also reorder avatars in the list. And if you do not like that avatars may be of different shapes, they may be forced in client settings to be all round or all square. Clicking on an avatar opens the user's profile.
Comment drafts. Like when creating or editing a post, drafts are now saved automatically when creating or editing a comment. You can leave an unfinished comment behind and it will appear again in the comment editor, when you open the same thread.
Completely rewritten application for Android still uses Moera web client as core, but adds more features that didn't work or worked poorly in "pure TWA". These are the major usability improvements:
Simplified name system. Names (nicknames) are now registered permanently and do not need to be prolonged.
Displaying full names and extended profile. If full name is set in the profile, it is now displayed instead of nickname (in new posts and comments). Unlike the nickname, the full name can be easily changed, it does not have to be unique, it may contain spaces. You can choose one of three options in client settings: display nickname only, display full name only or both. Thanks everyone for their constructive feedback.
When the mouse is moved over the name, a popup panel is displayed with blog details and subscription button.
New fields in the profile: blog title and "bio" - arbitrary text with formatting. The profile was redesigned.
getCurrentForLatest()
and getPastForLatest()
calls are deprecated.getSimilar()
that looks for a name that is similar to the name passed. The current implementation performs case-insensitive search.getAll()
that returns the list of all registered names.<video>
and <audio>
and embeds from Rumble and Spotify are now allowed.Standalone client. Now it is possible to use Moera without installing the browser add-on. Just visit web.moera.org. While I still recommend to install the add-on, in some situations it is impossible. Besides that, the standalone client simplifies the sign-on process for newbies. If you install the add-on later, the standalone client will detect and utilize it.
If someone views your blog without a client, there is now a button "View in Web Client" on every page that activates viewing through web.moera.org.
Moera browser extension for Chrome 0.3.0 is now available in Chrome Web Store. Download and install at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/moera/endpkknmpgamhhlojbgifimfcleeeghb.
New in this release:X-Moera
header, replace Content-Type
by "text/plain"
- to avoid execution of any JavaScript.X-Moera redirect=
HTTP header is present - used to redirect from a standalone client to a regular client.Moera browser extension for Firefox 0.3.0 is now available in Firefox Add-ons. Download and install at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/moera/.
New in this release:X-Moera
header, replace Content-Type
by "text/plain"
- to avoid execution of any JavaScript.X-Moera redirect=
HTTP header is present - used to redirect from a standalone client to a regular client.Comments. It is now possible to add comments to posts in Moera. All tags and Markdown formatting allowed in posts is allowed in comments too. Long comments are collapsed - click the comment to expand it or to collapse it again. Comment authors may edit or delete their comments, post authors may delete comments to their posts. Reactions may be added to comments just like they are added to posts.
User may reply to someone else's comment by clicking "Reply" button under it. In this case the name of the author and several words from the beginning of the replied comment will appear before the new comment. Hover these words with your mouse and wait for a second - full text of the replied comment will be shown in a popup.
X-Forwarded-For
HTTP header to determine the actual IP address of the client.Newsfeed. "NEWS" item in the main menu opens a new feed that collects posts from all feeds your node is subscribed to. To subscribe, click "Subscribe" button at the top of somebody's Timeline. At that moment, the latest 20 posts from this Timeline are automatically added to your Newsfeed. After that, all new posts published there are downloaded by your node and displayed in your Newsfeed. If the author updates a post, the changes will appear in the Newsfeed as well. Reactions you make to the post at the Newsfeed are sent to the original post, and all reactions made by others are visible in your Newsfeed.
For now, all newsfeeds are public, so you can read anybody's newsfeed. But this will be made optional in the future.
Max Böck in his article highlights some trends in the modern Web that return us to the good old-fashioned Web of 90s. And some of them correlate with the key ideas of Moera. Two quotes:
It might just be my IndieWeb filter bubble talking, but I think there is a renewed interest in personal websites. A lot of big social media giants are falling out of favor, and it becomes cool again to own a space on the web rather then being one of a billion usernames.
Our digitial identities are becoming increasingly more important, and people become aware that they’re not in control of their data. Personal sites were very popular in the era before Myspace and Facebook, and it’s now easier than ever to build one.
[...]
Blogging is gaining popularity again as well, used as a tool for self-marketing or simply to express opinions.
Notifications. Click the "bell" icon on the top-right corner of the page to see the list of notifications. Currently notifications are sent, when somebody reacts to your post or mentions you in his/her post. Number of new notifications is shown in the window title and on red background near the bell icon. It disappear when you open the list. But, if you want, you may change the setting and show the number of unread notifications instead.
Unread notifications are highlighted in the list. A notification is read when it is clicked, or marked as read using the small "envelope" button or by clicking "Mark All as Read".
I've finally moved all my notes from a desktop wiki to a new issue tracker on GitHub. Since most of Moera features and bugs involve several Moera components, I've decided to create one place, where all Moera-related issues are tracked.
Go to https://github.com/MoeraOrg/moera-issues/issues and post your ideas, feature requests, bug reports or take a task for development. Moera is waiting for your contribution!
The best experience of Moera on mobile would be with a native application. It may be written in React Native using the existing Moera client code base or from scratch with any other language and framework. In any case, it will take a lot of working hours, and I currently prefer to invest them into adding new big features that are still missing in Moera. But if anybody is ready to take this task, this would make all Moera users happy 😄
In the meantime, you may use a mobile browser with the Moera extension. The regular Moera client is usable on mobile, although not always looking good. I'll try to adapt the client for mobile where possible.
Moera browser extension for Chrome 0.2.0 is now available in Chrome Web Store. Download and install at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/moera/endpkknmpgamhhlojbgifimfcleeeghb.
New in this release:Moera browser extension for Firefox 0.2.0 is now available in Firefox Add-ons. Download and install at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/moera/.
New in this release:Special thanks to @tigra and @Ancap for valuable ideas and recommendations that helped to make Moera much better.
Replies. Pressing the "Reply" button under a post creates a new post that is reply to it. The composer page is opened with a new post that contains a link to the original post, the post author's name and a quote from the text of the post. If some text was selected on the page when "Reply" button was pressed, this text will be quoted, with all the formatting. Otherwise, the whole original post will be quoted. If the original post has a title, the new post will have the same title, prefixed with Re:
. To customize the replies, visit the "Post" page of the client Settings.
Reactions. The first and great social feature released! Everything Facebook users dreamed about is in Moera already 😄 Two groups of reactions: positive ("likes") and negative ("dislikes"). Ten different types of reactions in the base set and additional ones that you can add to your "toolbox". Configurable reactions for every post - the author can recommend or disable any type of reactions. Click on the number of reactions under a post to view the list of people who reacted. Every reaction is cryptographically signed and you can check the signature by clicking the "human" icon. Ability to hide number of reactions for any post (or for all posts by default) and the list of people who reacted. In this case a visitor will be able to view only a chart: what percent of the total number of reactions are of particular type.
Events. The client now uses WebSockets/STOMP to get live updates from both the home node and the node the user views currently. New posts, edits, profile and setting changes are now visible immediately. If the connection was lost, the client reconnects automatically and receives all the events that were lost while being offline. Also, if a post or profile is edited from several places in the same time, users receive a warning about the possible conflict.
Signature verification. You can now verify posting signature from the client (this feature requires connection to your home node). Click "author" icon that appears after the name of the author. Your home node will download the posting and verify the signature. The icon becomes green or red - depending on the result of the verification.