#indieweb 2025-11-18

2025-11-18 UTC
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to2ds [morganm]++ 😄
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Loqi [morganm] has 10 karma in this channel over the last year (22 in all channels)
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[morganm] I had an interesting little bit of feedback about my own website today. As Ive posted a few times, Ive been learning a lot about accessibility the last few months. Web standards have always been a goal and job duty, but Ive been exploring the topic from a more educational experimental point of view.
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[morganm] https://www.morganwebdev.org/ <- Now has a hidden until `focus-visible` skip link that skips the menu and home icon to the main content
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[morganm] Or rather, until its focus'ed, it doesnt actually use the `focus-visible` property, but I have used that too recently
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[morganm] Anyways, Im gonna blog about skip links 🙂 !
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[morganm] I think done simply and well it really builds rapport with users who are using assistive software, or a keyboard, especially if they are a return visitor. Its also a piece of the WCAG standard, to bypass repeated blocks of content. Morgans tip of the dat
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[morganm] day*
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[morganm] Next blog idea for me is; what I love about having a personal website is that it allows for experimenting with useful front end technologies and select some of my favorite things from many smaller side projects. I just run a lot of static websites, HTML/CSS/JS off some hosting platforms and typically make a point of making standalone websites for individual topic areas. Ive done this a bunch for years. My GH is a mess of tiny repo's and bless
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[morganm] that mess.
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[tantek] ^ sounds more like a #indieweb-dev topic tbh
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[morganm] Fair !
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[tantek] I mean any focus on technologies more than actual user features is more of a dev topic
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[tantek] to be clear - encouraging you to choose your own focus, whatever you prefer! just noting the difference in focus
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[morganm] True. I guess I would say the skip link is definitely an important user feature, I just happened to have also implemented it
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[morganm] Anyways I can nerd out over there at that channel 😄
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[tantek] agreed, skip link is an important user feature. I think when it gets into the "how to code it" then it becomes dev
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[morganm] Ok. I make my websites better for people with disabilities. If you prefer to have no animations, and set this on your device, the clouds do not move on the screen.
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[morganm] If you want to skip the content of the navigation, instead of repetitively re-reading the nav everytime you visit, a skip link is there
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[morganm] The content, the blog posts, are somewhat about accessibility, and generally in different formats for users
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[morganm] Im currently learning about Web Captions, for people with those needs, and how to implement those in #indieweb-dev.
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[tantek] A user perspective on "skip links" would be talking about which turnkey blogging systems have such features built in, vs which do not. It's not reasonable to expect users to code their own "skip links"
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[tantek] Focusing on building such features is fine, however, that's very much a dev point of view
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[morganm] Ok just one more user consideration and then I will usher myself over to the dev room. Skip links are not mandatory, but some common website services and systems have them built in, and thats worth considering. Most likely the website you are making does not have a big navigation
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[tantek] going to push back again on that. "Skip links are not mandatory" is not a user consideration - that's a dev consideration. and "website you are making" is borderline and most users would assume that means a developer unless it's specifically about one of those drag & drop website builders.
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[morganm] Ok. As a user, if I cant use a keyboard, I cant or dont want to use most websites
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[tantek] sure, and most people browsing the web are doing so on mobile devices, without a keyboard
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[tantek] without a physical keyboard at least
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[tantek] so from a personal website perspective, you're thinking about *other* users visiting your website, presumably, and most of them are likely to show up by mobile (touch) device
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aaronpk finger swipe to scroll + tap to stop is far more accessible for sighted users than a "skip links" link
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[tantek] and none of that has to do with "skip links" (which is fine, just that it was a non-sequitor)
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[tantek] also true aaronpk
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[morganm] As a user of a mobile phone, I like it when the navigation is easy to use. I dont have quite as much need for it as a keyboard, which I use for 8 hours a day for repetitive work which induces a lot of potential for stress injury. Sorry for talking about websites in the website club Ive already been ushered
[aciccarello], [schmarty], [Trevor_Morris], [morganm], [Jo], [snarfed], [social], coldfeet, barnaby, GuestZero, DanQ, jetpack, srazkvt, powerLien, [artlung], Xe_, oakridge_, rickbol, Dryusdan, sp1ff, Maxpm, jak2k, Alison_, cotsuka and jonnie joined the channel; tpa0ps left the channel
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[tantek] lol got my first BridgyFed Bluesky spam from "TrueBuddhism", in the reply to https://bsky.app/profile/tantek.com.web.brid.gy/post/3m5czbjwx5q52
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[Al_Abut] Hey gang! I just added a new section to my site for photos, inspired by the recent IWC sessions in Berlin.
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[Al_Abut] https://alabut.com/photos/
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[Al_Abut] Honestly my mind is still spinning with ideas from that weekend and I have a roadmap of more things to do by the end of the year, but this marks the first “feature complete” milestone.
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[Al_Abut] I’m going to demo it at HWC tomorrow and walk through some of the stuff around responsive images, css-vs-js for modals, etc
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[tantek] So good!
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[Al_Abut] Thank you! Any new tinkering with photos on your end? I’m curious about your Flickr reappreciation journey.
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[Al_Abut] Flickr’s still in the running as a long term home base for my photos online, at least as a headless CMS and data store. I like playing with Pixelfed because it’s open source but not paying anything for hosting media makes me a little nervous these days.
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[tantek] I think my plan is to incrementally repair / update my past photo posts to use Flickr instead of other silo CDNs, and use that experience to figure out how a Flickr-hosted photos solution could work as smoothly as possible
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[tantek] Goals are (1) reliable (longevity) photo posts that "just work" (as close to zero admin as possible), and (2) making it easier & easier to quickly post & update photos on my site
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to2ds [Al_Abut]++ Very cool!
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Loqi [Al_Abut] has 1 karma in this channel over the last year (20 in all channels)
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[Al_Abut] Thanks Todd!
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[Al_Abut] Yeah, I like your gallery setup and overall plan [tantek]. I like how clicking on a trail photo expands into a multi-photo blog post:
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[Al_Abut] https://tantek.com/2022/289/t1/hot-skyline50k-ultra-finish
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[tantek] I need to put icons or some other affordance on multiphoto thumbnails!
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[Al_Abut] I honestly hadn’t seen those before Berlin because I guess I hadn’t seen the desktop version of your site in a long while
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[tantek] I’m also sticking with square thumbnails. No idea what IG is thinking with their awkward new rectangles in the grid
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[Al_Abut] That’s when I noticed the photos grid, as opposed to mobile
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[tantek] Interesting maybe I need a smaller photo grid at the top of my site for mobile!
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[Al_Abut] Or a link to a photos section?
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[tantek] People easily miss those IMO
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[Al_Abut] I’m so indecisive about what kind of nav to put on my site that I’ve skipped it entirely 😆
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[Al_Abut] Just a few subtle links in the footer
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[tantek] Footer links are fine
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[Al_Abut] Naz has a nice clean nav that’s not hidden in a hamburger button or anything. I think it’s the generous spacing that makes it work on mobile: https://nazhamid.com/
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[tantek] I think I want to use summaries / previews of content as "nav" rather than any kind of list of links or such
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[Al_Abut] Smart
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[tantek] Like aaronpk has at the top of his home page his spark lines by post type and then thumbnails of most recent sleep, checkin, photo
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[Al_Abut] Like a little strip of three photos in a row at the top of your home on mobile?
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[tantek] Yeah! I hate that feeling of I don't know what's behind this link so don't know if it worth my time to find out
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[Al_Abut] Then a “view more” to view the rest of the photos.
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[tantek] Or a ...
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[Al_Abut] It’s very meta. Let the thing you click on be a version in the small of the rest of it.
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[tantek] progressive disclosure!
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[morgan] Al I might ask you some questions sometime about your experience with pixelfed. I've been interested in Jellyfin for example, just as a user (before I get dev banished) because I want to share albums with my extended family and also control it as much as possible in a way that still makes it usable for them
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[morgan] Photos seems to continue to be a real wrinkle for almost everyone
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aaronpk i thought pixelfed is more of an instagram clone, not really for sharing albums or collections in any meaningful way
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[tantek] same
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[morgan] (remembers not to utter any keywords that might indicate dev content). Basically my mother in law loves my Instagram content, it's really silly but it's actually been amazing and it's a reason I still use that service because it's the easiest way to update her on our life at her level and how often older people use apps. Every few days or week or two I post a photo of my spouse and I and she loves it and feels a connection to our lives that
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[morgan] quite frankly has resulted in probably more material support in practical terms. So as a user, either if it's with Pixelfed, or a self hosted service like Jellyfin, I want to enable the ability to easily share photos and control it.
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