EDITS.WS

Tag: activitypub

  • ActivityPub 1.0.0 Released, Introducing Blog-Wide Accounts and New Blocks

    Version 1.0.0 of the ActivityPub plugin was released this week with major updates that make it possible to have a blog-wide account, instead of just individual author accounts, where followers receive updates from all authors. This new feature allows people to follow blogs on decentralized platforms like Mastodon (and many others) with replies automatically published back to the blog as comments.

    In the ActivityPub plugin settings, users can check “Enable blog” to have the blog become an ActivityPub profile. Authors can be enabled at the same time as a blog-wide profile.

    Activities originating from a Blog profile can be further customized through the existing post content and image settings. Users can also set the activity object type to default, article, or WordPress post format which maps the post format to the ActivityPub object type. Supported post types include posts, pages, and media. Note that the blog-wide profile only works with sites that have rewrite rules enabled.

    An experimental hashtags setting is also available, which adds hashtags in the content as native tags and replaces the #tag with the tag link. Users should be aware that it may still produce HTML or CSS errors.

    ActivityPub 1.0.0 introduces two new blocks – one for displaying Fediverse Followers and the other for displaying a “Follow” button to allow people to follow the blog or author on the Fediverse. The Follower system has also gotten a complete rewrite based on Custom Post Types.

    Other notable updates in this release include the following:

    • Signature Verification: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/spec/security/
    • Simple caching
    • Collection endpoints for Featured Tags and Featured Posts
    • Better handling of Hashtags in mobile apps
    • Update: Improved linter (PHPCS)
    • Fixed: Load the plugin later in the WordPress code lifecycle to avoid errors in some requests
    • Fixed: Updating posts
    • Fixed: Hashtag now support CamelCase and UTF-8

    Automattic acquired the plugin in March 2023 from German developer Matthias Pfefferle, who joined the company to continue improving support for federated platforms. Next on the roadmap for the ActivityPub plugin is threaded comments support and replacing shortcodes with blocks for layout.

  • Automattic Acquires ActivityPub Plugin for WordPress

    Automattic has acquired the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress from German developer Matthias Pfefferle, who will be joining the company to continue improving support for federated platforms. Pfefferle, who is also the author of the Webmention plugin, said his new role is to see how Automattic’s products can benefit from open protocols like ActivityPub.

    In 2021, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg indicated that he would be interested in having Tumblr support the ActivityPub protocol for a greater level of interoperability across networks like Mastodon and others using the same protocol. That is still in the works, but WordPress sites already have this capability through the plugin.

    “ActivityPub and a lot of other Open Web Plugins (like the Webmention plugin) were spare time projects, so I was not looking for an acquisition,” Pfefferle said.

    “When Matt announced that Tumblr wants to implement ActivityPub on Twitter, I asked why not WordPress, so I came in contact with Automattic and they offered me the opportunity to work full time on the plugin and other Open Web projects.”

    The ActivityPub plugin makes it possible for readers to follow a WordPress site in the fediverse using the ActivityPub protocol. This includes Mastodon, one of the most popular platforms using the protocol, and other platforms like Pleroma, Friendica, HubZilla, Pixelfed, SocialHome, and Misskey. For those using Mastodon, this plugin will automatically send posts to the network and replies to it will become comments on the post.

    Last March, the ActivityPub plugin had just 700 users. Today it has grown to more than 2,000 active installs. Although it is not yet widely used, it has gotten more exposure since Elon Musk bought Twitter.

    “Thanks to Elon Musk, the number of downloads from my ActivityPub (WordPress) plugin and my followers on Mastodon have increased at least tenfold!” Pfefferle said in a post on his blog in January 2023. “This inspired me to work more actively on the plugin again and some great changes came about.”

    Most recently, Pfefferle added a new onboarding screen with recommended plugins, added the published date to author profiles, and added outgoing mentions, among other features.

    Pfefferle said he thinks the idea of the acquisition is not to have the protocol merged into core, but to “guarantee that it will stay open source and to maybe make it a canonical plugin.”

    As more social networks unite on open protocols, it won’t matter where you choose to create your home on the web. Interoperability between apps allows people to post from whatever network they enjoy, creating a richer, more diverse web. Automattic’s support of the ActivityPub plugin ensures WordPress’ place in the fediverse, where blogs will not isolated islands but rather interconnected as many were in the early days of blogging. Pfefferle’s work embodies these ideals.

    “I think my drive was always to build an alternative to the big walled gardens of Facebook & co,” Pfefferle said.

    “I fell in love with the idea of blogging and the spirit of the Web 2.0 movement and tried to keep the idea alive. I worked on several WordPress plugins and participated in several movements (DiSo, DataPortability and others) starting in 2007.

    “It is so exciting to finally see such a big interest in Open and Federated technologies!”