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I've had the idea for a weird kind of Twitter client for years. With Mastodon being all open, I've decided to do the experiment: What if your Timeline looked like iMessage. A normal timeline confuses me to no end because everything is out of context. My experiment, Ebou, is a Mastodon client that looks like iMessage. Conversations are grouped by friends and sorted by recent postings. It is super basic right now, but this already feels much more natural to me 😀 @patrickgpowers Thanks! Half the features are still missing, but I will share development updates on here.  @terhechte "A normal timeline confuses me to no end because everything is out of context. " @maxmundus Half the features are still missing, but I will share development updates on here. @terhechte @stroughtonsmith This to me feels more like a true microblogging platform. A list of microblogs in the sidebar, posts in the right. Which makes it look more like RSS, which is never a bad idea.  @terhechte Could you conceivably, possibly be able to switch back and forth to another view, but sorted by Topic or by group of hashtags? @vruz I kinda see this as an experiment and all kinds of things are possible. What I want to add is the same kind of view for Lists of people. However the concept would also work for hashtags or other "groups". I'll bookmark this and come back to it once I have more functionality implemented :) Thanks!   @terhechte What I personally find confusing in ActivityPub is that many posts are replies, and you often need to go hunt for the context. Unless you draw in those earlier messages, replies are still going to start with a @somebody, no? And therefore it will not eliminate the confusion. In Hubzilla (a mature fediverse client), the earlier messages are drawn in and precede the reply, so the timeline always makes sense. I think that's the way to go. It's still possible to click on a contact to view their timeline.
@terhechte I just made the same layout for one of my non federated community websites. A main timeline and a timeline per user. Neat! @terhechte I have absolutely no interest in this whatsoever ... but I am massively encouraged that this is a thing ... as Mastodon not only allows this but encourages it .. and Twitter does not ..   @terhechte Looks like a great solution to the ephemeral nature of this non-algo feed. This would really help me not miss so many posts from people I follow but who don't post often or when I'm right here looking at my feed. Do it!!!  That shifts the focus from the content to the author, however. That goes against the whole point of Twitter-like designs. You may as well sign up and follow Mastodon on Friendica or Diaspora. @terhechte @Gargron that’s super cool and could solve the „broken thread in time line“ issue @terhechte I love this concept. The great thing is that there can be simultaneously different ways to interact with the fediverse that each have value depending on context. To be able to switch to a different paradigm is so powerful. @terhechte brilliant ✌🏽 such a splendid and creative idea - can’t wait to try it out 👏👏✨ @michaelsantos Thanks! I'll share development updates here. It is still a super early rough version with bugs and missing features..  @jamesjm @terhechte Looking forward to trying it. Loving the way Mastodon is giving people the freedom to try new stuff. It feels like the old internet again. @terhechte @Gargron Oh that is an interesting idea. Looks cool. Would like to test drive this one. @tschlander Thanks! It's still a super rough buggy app with missing features. But I'll post development updates on here.   @mruiandre Thanks! It's still missing a ton of features and has a lot of bugs. But I'll be sharing progress on here. @terhechte Oh, that's a really neat idea. I can imagine using something like that – at least as an additional view of the whole thing. @terhechte - love it! Especially for super chatty folks/friend groups. Would be interesting to try out for sure! I LOVE THIS IDEA !! Of all accounts I follow, there’s a handful in a list « InnerCircle » and I would love an iMessage style timeline for those « special one ». @lukechairwalker Thanks! I'll be sharing the development progress to a downloadable alpha version on here. @terhechte other thing that I’ve been struggling with is reading long posts. Yoou are continually scrolling up for start of new postup then down as you read it then back up again… @terhechte right I hadn’t really thought about it too deeply. Just wondered if it was possible to simply reverse order of posts for each group?  @terhechte I'm really glad for an open platform so things like this can exist. It doesn't make sense to me because the context of the community/world is more important, meaning a single timeline, but I'm sure this would help a lot of people.   @terhechte very intriguing. Not being a user of iMessage could I ask to elaborate a little please - so do you have users on the left and then you open up a timeline of their posts. And presumably most recent user postings shift to the top on the left column? @terhechte I love it. I've wanted something like this for a while too, coming more from a Slack/Discord perspective than iMessage. One of my big pain points with timelines is that it's really easy to miss high signal / low volume posters because they're drowned out by everyone else. This really helps! @terhechte Preemptive feature request -- ability to pin certain accounts to the top of the left sidebar  @terhechte liked, boosted, bookmarked... and followed. So yeah, this is a great idea. Good luck! When you get to the stage where you're looking for collaboration, I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to help. @terhechte @rickmans I like this but the friends could maybe be a tag search or custom group 🤔 @Techronic9876 Absolutely. This is a first shot. More "grouping options" are certainly possible. @terhechte I love the concept, it’s a really interesting novel yet oddly natural feeling way to think about timelines @terhechte This is incredible! Im so glad Mastodon is this accessible for developers to experiment with to this extent. @gurupanguji Thanks! It's still missing a ton of features and has a lot of bugs. But I'll be sharing progress on here. @terhechte omg thank you I love this! this is how I have always wanted to navigate timelines (aka microblogs) @terhechte It kind of goes to show that all social networks are really just different interfaces on top of a generic stream of messages |
Gregory's Server
@terhechte Oh that’s interesting. Can you group people together like “group chats”? Also, would love to test it if you have a TestFlight!