#dev 2019-04-23

2019-04-23 UTC
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GWG What would you suggest?
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GWG It isn't a WordPress problem specifically. But happy to improve the response
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chrisaldrich Part of the key is helping to uncover to the user that it isn't an WordPress or Aperture problem, but a problem with their host.
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chrisaldrich My current issue is appearing on 1&1, but I'll try some quick tests with the two other hosts I've got as I think one of them had an issue as well.
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GWG I think all clients have this challenge, so maybe we can write the error messages together
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aaronpk All the client can do is surface error messages from the IndieAuth server
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aaronpk But it's not reasonable to ask clients to add additional debugging and troubleshooting code
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aaronpk The best thing is to use the `error_description` field to give users enough information to find a path to resolve the issue, and encourage clients to display that to users
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GWG aaronpk, I was thinking of getting help with the error_description field
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GWG I need to lay out the scenarios and what responses/resolutions might be 4
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aaronpk Well since you know you're writing a wordpress plugin, and you know a very common issue is hosts blocking that header, it seems like it'd be helpful to explicitly point that out to users
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aaronpk have you heard of any other situation in which the token endpoint returns a 403 incorrectly?
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GWG Not common ones
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GWG Some odd plugin interactions I think got fixed
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aaronpk Then it seems worth calling this one out in the text
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GWG I think I need to look at all the error messages at the same time
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chrisaldrich or you could have the initial set up check the https://example.com/wp-content/plugins/indieauth/authdiag.php endpoint directly and surface the problem before they even log into the client?
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GWG I may have to write my own on that
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chrisaldrich perhaps this is something the microsub plugin might do? or if it's common enough in the micropub process?
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GWG Zegnat's exists outside of WordPress
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[tantek] good suggestion [chrisaldrich] - the sooner that a plugin can warn a user about a known / existing problem, the sooner the user can take action, the less time they've wasted, the less they're likely to be upset
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GWG I need someone who has the problem to test it, but will think about how to implement it
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aaronpk You can simulate the problem by making an htaccess file with the opposite rule, or just send a request without the header
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GWG I run nginx. But point taken
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GWG I still want someone with the problem to field test it
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chrisaldrich GWG, do you have to be logged in to test the IndieAuth tool? If not, then you might try it yourself: https://www.starshipchangeling.net/wp-content/plugins/indieauth/authdiag.php
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Ruxton late to the party but, couldn't the indieauth plugin just run a test on activation to see if the headers are working appropriately and warn/provide direction from there?
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gRegorLove Should be able to, yeah
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@lobsters Serverless IndieAuth by @piperswe https://lobste.rs/s/0llzc7 #api #javascript #web https://piperswe.me/posts/serverless-indieauth/ (twitter.com/_/status/1120550420810797057)
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aaronpk "The protocol is decently simple" <3
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aaronpk that's what I like to hear
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Ruxton GWG: if yu want to re-create in nginx you can set 'proxy_hide_header Authorization;
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@lobstersbot Serverless IndieAuth https://piperswe.me/posts/serverless-indieauth/ https://lobste.rs/s/0llzc7/serverless_indieauth #javascript #api #web (twitter.com/_/status/1120679258140098560)
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@kevinmarks ↩️ Webmentions? You can allow anonymous comments with http://commentpara.de and use http://webmention.herokuapp.com or https://webmention.io or http://mention.tech to receive them for you and show with minimal js (twitter.com/_/status/1120681657617539072)
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@nhoizey ↩️ @Paul_Kinlan I chose Webmentions 2 years ago, never regretted it: https://nicolas-hoizey.com/2017/07/so-long-disqus-hello-webmentions.html (twitter.com/_/status/1120691042536259584)
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petermolnar interesting find from yesterday: IE11 doesn't understand ch width properly
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petermolnar (I spun up a win7 virtual machine to test a static offline site builder named mobirise, and since it had ie11, I tested my site)
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petermolnar on the same note, max-width: 80ch equals to max-width: 50em
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petermolnar with monotype fonts
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snarfed looks like twitter's unofficial evergreen profile image URLs (eg https://twitter.com/schnarfed/profile_image ) finally died entirely, at least in browsers
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snarfed background: https://indieweb.org/Twitter#Profile_Image_URLs
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snarfed must be user agent sniffing; they're still working for non-browsers
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[schmarty] :table flip emoji:
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snarfed !tell tantek just fyi the twitter profile pictures in your sidebar on https://tantek.com/ are broken in browsers now. twitter finally killed those unofficial URLs. more: https://chat.indieweb.org/dev/2019-04-23#t1556036770545600
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Loqi Ok, I'll tell them that when I see them next
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Loqi Tantek Çelik
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snarfed eh they were unofficial and unsupported
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snarfed heh yay bridgy is unaffected 😎
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sknebel petermolnar: doesn't that depend on the specific font?
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[kevinmarks] I have seen a chrome bug with the twitter images https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=867300
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snarfed [kevinmarks]: yeah they used to work. i expect this is more recent. i'm on firefox anyway
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KartikPrabhu yeah same on my FF too. Bridgy ones do work
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snarfed (bridgy doesn't use the evergreen URLs)
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KartikPrabhu aah that is why some older ones don't show up anymore :P
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GWG The http authorization thing strikes again
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sknebel That really needs to be promoted automatically somewhere
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sknebel Or even happen automatically when someone tries to use indieauth at first
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jackjamieson Argh, didn't know about that issue at all
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sknebel When it gets missed even by people active here in chat
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sknebel Like, if someone tries to use indieauth for the first time, run that test
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sknebel And only stop once it's been successful
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snarfed KartikPrabhu: yup. better tradeoff though. if bridgy still used the evergreen URLs, *all* twitter profile pictures it had sent would now be dead.
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snarfed long term longevity is arguably the receivers' job
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sebsel "long term longevity" :)
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jackjamieson GWG - Is there a distinction between how micropub and microsub use the authorization headers? I can still post to my site with micropub even though I'm getting an error with Yarns
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GWG With what client?
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jackjamieson Quill
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GWG Quill sends both a header and in the body
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GWG This is why I need to explain the error better
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sknebel I'd suggest putting the check in the login flow
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sknebel If it hasn't succeeded in the past or been opted-out, send the user to a test page before the login form
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sknebel At least for authorization requests
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sknebel (if that's possible to do)
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jackjamieson Ah, interesting. Naive question: Is it feasible for microsub and/or other clients using indieauth to adopt Monocle's approach? The requirement to edit .htaccess seems like a strong barrier for some users
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GWG In the query body over the header?
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GWG I think the access header is standard
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GWG I was thinking about how to check that
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GWG Maybe on one of the redirects
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jackjamieson I don't know the authorization process well. Is my situation of having a problem with the headers common?
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GWG Annoyingly so
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GWG Lots of hosts seem to filter them
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GWG To the point it's in the readmes
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GWG I think it needs to be even more noticeable
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GWG We were just discussing it last night
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sknebel GWG: I'd add it to the authorization request. at that point, you know a) what's requesting access b) that it wants authorization, not just authentication and c) have full control over the users browser
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sknebel before you show the confirmation screen, check if it is confirmed that it works for the user. if not, show a (skippable) prompt to run the check. if it succeeds, you can remember that for the future and skip the step automatically
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GWG Wonder if anyone else does that
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GWG There are only a few other self hosted implementations
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GWG And WordPress is unique
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GWG Should ask about Drupal
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sknebel and the biggest
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jackjamieson As an additional step, I could try adding a notification to Yarns if auth fails. A pretty frustrating error and I don't think I would have figured it out myself, so I'd like to make it high visibility
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GWG Yarns can't notify as it is a server, not a client. It needs to pass it to the client.
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jackjamieson I mean show a warning message in the wordpress dashboard. Additionally, a more descriptive error message would be useful too
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@MCorbettWilson ↩️ Hi Ken! I posted somewhere in ACI that I'd like to learn more about pingbacks and webmentions. I hope we can have that discussion inside the platform. (twitter.com/_/status/1120739717723541504)
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[grantcodes] !tell [cleverdevil] I'm messing around with all my hosting, so will probably need to update the alltogethernow.io dns at some point
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Loqi Ok, I'll tell them that when I see them next
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[cleverdevil] No problem. LMK when you've got details and I'll make it happen!
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[grantcodes] Cool, probably going to do it this week, then I am working on completely rebuilding the backend so that may be another change. But I'll let you know
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[grantcodes] I'm giving graphql a go. Works pretty well with microsub so far.
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sebsel graphql is cool. would be nice to make a sort of micropub/sub to graphql bridge, which should not be hard, just for the blogpost you can write about it ;)
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sebsel more eyes for the Indieweb
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KartikPrabhu hmm what does graphql to micropub bridge mean?
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KartikPrabhu i thought graphql was some data-query format
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sebsel hm, that one might be less obvious than microsub indeed.
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sebsel no it has actions too
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sebsel mutations they call it
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sebsel I believe I saw tantek hinting at an XRay-like GraphQL service?
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sebsel could be a cool project too
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sebsel what is GraphQL?
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Loqi GraphQL is a query language for APIs and a runtime for fulfilling those queries with existing data https://indieweb.org/GraphQL
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sebsel yea it's on there, under brainstorming
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sebsel It was [cleverdevil]'s idea according to wiki-history :D
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aaronpk GWG++ for continuing to troubleshoot on that github thread
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Loqi GWG has 42 karma in this channel over the last year (169 in all channels)
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GWG aaronpk, I need someone to review an Indieauth PR if I write one
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GWG To improve checking
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GWG No merges are allowed without a reviewer
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GWG Wonder if I should add something else at the same time
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GWG I will check my list of issues
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[grantcodes] sebsel: Yeah what I end up with will hopefully be pretty close to a bridge to microsub with graphql, the really nice thing about it so far is the built in polling and pagination. Makes live loading data really easy (at least with the client I am using)
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aaronpk GWG: smaller PRs are easier to review
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GWG aaronpk, I was thinking of the release
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GWG As in, do a few Indieauth things, merge them for a release
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[cleverdevil] That sounds great, [grantcodes].
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[cleverdevil] One of these days we should move Together into a different place so people don't assume that I do all the actual work since you *actually* do it all, haha 🙂
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aaronpk lol
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[grantcodes] Ha well if if this thing actually works the backend and frontend could probably be split into 2 repos as people could theoretically use just the backend as a graphql server
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[cleverdevil] We could just create a new GitHub org for it and related projects.
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[cleverdevil] Anyway, just making it clear that I am totally open to whatever 🙂
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[grantcodes] Eh I don't really care too much. If anyone is *really* worried about who makes something on GitHub they can looks at the contributers tab or some other stat 😛
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[cleverdevil] 🤔
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[cleverdevil] Good point.
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[cleverdevil] Oh, [aaronpk] do you have any thoughts on this? https://github.com/indieweb/microsub/issues/23
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Loqi [sknebel] #23 Have editable feed names
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aaronpk oh yeah i saw that
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[cleverdevil] Also thinking a bit about major "traditional" feed reader apps that will likely want a little more capability around metadata, organization, etc.
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aaronpk makes sense
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[cleverdevil] Ideally, servers would populate as much as they can automatically at subscription time, and clients could edit.
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aaronpk yea
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sknebel most of my issues go in that direction I think
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sknebel (which reminds me I still haven't done more with my Inoreader bridge... sigh)
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@ChangelingMx All I wanted to do was get my microsub endpoint working. Instead, I’m now pondering transferring my domain to a less annoying hosting platform. I’m also giving serious thought to revisiting http://micro.blog for managing my content. I’m completely exhausted. (twitter.com/_/status/1120799564821409793)
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[cleverdevil] That sounds fun.
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[cleverdevil] Happy we have Micro.blog for the next generation of IndieWebbers.
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@manton2 ↩️ Let us know if you have any http://Micro.blog questions! (http://Micro.blog also supports Microsub clients like Monocle and Together for reading the timeline and mentions… I'd love to do more with Microsub in the future.) (twitter.com/_/status/1120803186405720065)
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[manton] I decided to jump in and reply. I haven't heard much feedback about Microsub support since IndieWebCamp Austin... Would be cool to expand it.
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GWG [manton]: I still have that Syndication request
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@fncll Just misread weblamentations instead of webmentions...and I think they’d be even more useful. (twitter.com/_/status/1120807511710285825)
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[manton] @GWG Still no progress on that. It has been hard to prioritize but I hope to make time for it.
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GWG [manton]: I understand. I was supposed to be working on something else, but I switched based on community need
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jacky xray++
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Loqi xray has 2 karma over the last year
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Loqi jacky: [eddie] left you a message 1 day, 1 hour ago: I think tags and mentions can both be seen in the silo world as well. It's the same as hashtags and @-mentions
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[cleverdevil] [manton] one idea for you: send a webmention to folks when they have a post featured in Micro.blog "discover".
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[cleverdevil] It'd be nice to see a little notification pop up in Together when one of my posts shows up there 😉
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[manton] That's a neat idea!
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[cleverdevil] And if your push notification system on iOS / macOS reacts to webmentions, you'll get that as a bonus feature.
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