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User's guide

[TOC]

ActivityPub

Using microblog.pub efficiently requires knowing a bit about how ActivityPub works.

Skimming over the Overview section of the ActivityPub specification should be enough.

Also, you should know that the Fediverse is a common name used to describe all the interconnected/federated instances of servers supporting ActivityPub (like Mastodon, Pleroma, PeerTube, PixelFed...).

Configuration

Profile

You initial profile configuration is generated via the setup wizard.

You can manually edit the configuration file stored in data/profile.toml (TOML), note that the following config items cannot be updated (without breaking federation):

  • domain
  • username

As these two config items define your ActivityPub handle @handle@domain.

You can tweak your profile by tweaking these items:

  • name
  • summary (using Markdown)
  • icon_url

Whenever one of these config items is updated, an Update activity will be sent to all know server to update your remote profile.

The server will need to be restarted for taking changes into account.

Profile metadata

You can add metadata to your profile with the metadata config item.

Markdown is supported in the value field.

Be aware that most other softwares like Mastodon will limit the number of key/value to 4.

metadata = [
  {key = "Documentation", value = "[https://docs.microblog.pub](https://docs.microblog.pub)"},
  {key = "Source code", value = "[https://sr.ht/~tsileo/microblog.pub/](https://sr.ht/~tsileo/microblog.pub/)"},
]

Manually approving followers

If you wish to manually approve followers, add this config item to profile.toml:

manually_approves_followers = true

The default value is false.

Privacy replace

You can define domain to be rewrited to more "privacy friendly" alternatives, like Invidious or Nitter.

To do so, just add as these extra config items, this is a sample config that rewrite URLs for Twitter, Youtube, Reddit and Medium:

privacy_replace = [
    {domain = "youtube.com", replace_by  = "yewtu.be"},
    {domain = "youtu.be", replace_by  = "yewtu.be"},
    {domain = "twitter.com", replace_by = "nitter.fdn.fr"},
    {domain = "medium.com", replace_by = "scribe.rip"},
    {domain = "reddit.com", replace_by = "teddit.net"},
]

Customization

Default emoji

If you don't like cats, or need more emoji, you can add your favorite emoji in profile.toml and it will replace the default ones:

emoji = "🙂🐹📌"

You can copy/paste them from getemoji.com.

Custom emoji

You can add custom emoji in the data/custom_emoji directory and they will be picked automatically.

Custom CSS

The CSS is written with SCSS.

You can override colors by editing data/_theme.scss:

$primary-color: #e14eea;                                                                            
$secondary-color: #32cd32;

See app/scss/main.scss to see what variables can be overidden.

Code highlighting theme

You can switch to one of the styles supported by Pygments by adding a line in profile.toml:

code_highlighting_theme = "solarized-dark"

Blocking servers

In addition to blocking "single actors" via the admin interface, you can also prevent any communications with whole servers.

Add a blocked_servers config item into profile.toml.

The reason field is just there to help you document/remember why a server was blocked.

You should unfollow any account from a server before blocking it.

blocked_servers = [
    {hostname = "bad.tld", reason = "Bot spam"},
]

Public website

Public notes will be visible on the homepage.

Only the last 20 followers/follows you be showing on the public website.

And only the last 20 interactions (likes/shares/webmentions) will be displayed, to keep things simple/clean.

Admin section

You can login to the admin section by clicking on the Admin link in the footer or by visiting https://yourdomain.tld/admin. The password is the one set during the initial configuration.

Lookup

The Lookup section allows you to interact with any remote remote objects/content on the Fediverse.

The lookup supports:

  • profile page, like https://testing.microblog.pub
  • content page, like https://testing.microblog.pub/o/4bccd2e31fad43a7896b5a33f0b8ded9
  • username handle like @testing@testing.microblog.pub
  • ActivityPub ID, like https://testing.microblog.pub/o/4bccd2e31fad43a7896b5a33f0b8ded9

Authoring notes

Notes are authored in Markdown. There is no imposed characters limit.

If you fill the content warning, the note will be automatically marked as sensitive.

You can add attachments/upload files. When attaching pictures, EXIF metadata (like GPS location) will be removed automatically before being stored.

Consider marking attachments as sensitive using the checkbox if needed.

Webmentions

Public notes that link to "Webmention-compatible" website will trigger an outgoing webmention. Most websites that support Webmention will display your profile on the mentioned page.

Fenced code blocks

You can include code blocks in notes, using the triple backtick syntax.

The code will be highlighted using Pygments.

Example:

Hello

```python
print("I will be highlighted")
```

Interactions

microblog.pub supports the most common interactions supported by the Fediverse.

Shares

Sharing (or announcing) an object will relay it to your followers and notify the author. It will also be displayed on the homepage.

Most receiving servers will increment the number of shares.

Receiving a share will trigger a notification, increment the shares counter on the object and the actor avatar will be displayed on the object permalink.

Likes

Liking an object will notify the author.

Unlike sharing, liked object are not displayed on the homepage.

Most receiving servers will increment the number of likes.

Receiving a like will trigger a notification, increment the likes counter on the object and the actor avatar will be displayed on the object permalink.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks allow you to like objects without notifying the author.

It is basically a "private like", and allow you to easily access them later.

It will also prevent objects to be pruned.

Webmentions

Sending webmention to ping mentioned websites is done automatically once a public note is authored.

Receiving a webmention will trigger a notification, increment the webmentions counter on the object and the source page will be displayed on the object permalink.

Backup and restore

All the data generated by the server is located in the data/ directory:

  • Configuration files
  • Server secrets
  • SQLite3 database
  • Theme modifications
  • Custom emoji
  • Uploaded media

Restoring is as easy as adding your backed up data/ directory into a fresh deployment.

Tasks

Pruning old data

You should prune old data from time to time to free disk space.

The default retention for the inbox data is 15 days.

It's configurable via the inbox_retention_days config item in profile.toml:

inbox_retention_days = 30

Data owned by the server will never be deleted (at least for now), along with:

  • bookmarked objects
  • liked objects
  • shared objects
  • inbox objects mentioning the local actor
  • objects related to local conversations (i.e. direct messages, replies)

For now, it's recommended to make a backup before running the task in case it deletes unwanted data.

You should shutdown the server before running the task.

Python edition

# shutdown supervisord
cp -r data/microblogpub.db data/microblogpub.db.bak
poetry run inv prune-old-data
# relaunch supervisord and ensure it works as expected
rm data/microblogpub.db.bak

Docker edition

docker compose stop
cp -r data/microblogpub.db data/microblogpub.db.bak
make prune-old-data
docker compose up -d
rm data/microblogpub.db.bak