@pratik Thanks for testing. 😊 This is what we want, but it does feel a bit hacky. I’m worried it’s not intended behavior. What do you say, @manton: is it safe to set up menu items in this way for pages bundled with plug-ins?
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@ci Well, I’m human, so there could definitely be a bug. 😅 It’s just implausible as plug-ins don’t come with that kind of power. Plug-ins can’t overwrite or delete files from other plug-ins or themes.
They can overload files, however. That is to tell the system, “hey, use my style.css instead of the original one”. That doesn’t touch the original file, though. It’s still there and comes back as soon as you uninstall the plug-in.
My plug-in doesn’t ship a style.css. In fact, it comes with 0 % CSS. 😊 So I think something else caused you loosing that CSS, but I would like to make sure that’s the case.
Where is your CSS file located? Have you created a custom theme?
Do you have any theories, @manton?
@ci I’m sorry to hear that. What do you mean by “reset my entire CSS”? Technically, my plug-in only generates a link, so I have a hard time imagining how it could reset anything. Could you elaborate a bit?
@amit This is awesome, thank you! 🥳
@pratik Hmm. 🤔 I edited the path on my test page just now and got infinite redirection when I removed the last slash. That is, /surprise-me results in infinite redirects, but changing back to /surprise-me/ works as expected.
Can you edit the path for your page again and confirm the same behavior on your blog?
@manton 🎉
@pratik The flickering you see is the redirects in action. A click on the link will take the visitor first to /feeling-lucky/ followed by a redirected to /surprise-me/ and then end up on a random post. So you get a glimpse of the first two pages, making it look like a flicker.
We could mitigate that by linking directly to /surprise-me/ but, on your blog, that caused infinite redirects. I don’t know why, though, as doing it that way works fine for me on my test blog. Do you have any theories, @manton? Shouldn’t the infinite redirects happen there as well?
@pratik Yay, success! 🎉
@numericcitizen Looks like the URL to Glass is not properly URL encoded before being passed to the Micro.blog image resizing service, @manton.
@fgtech @Cheri I let VoiceOver read for me when my eyes are too tired. 😊 I think it’s definitely good enough and has been for a while. At least for non-fiction.
The Swedish audiobook streaming service Storytel does allow synthetic voices in its library. On this page, you can listen to an example in English. I think it sounds pretty decent with a dynamic voice – complete with breathing noises! Imagine what it will sound like in the future.
I think there will always be a market for authentic voiceovers. I, for one, will happily pay a premium to get a non-synthetic voice for my audiobooks today. But tomorrow? I don’t know.
@pratik Yeah, I don’t want to force the page into people’s menus. Not everyone likes it there; some want to rename the page, change the order in the menu, or have the Surprise me!-link in the footer instead.
Just to make sure, when you edit the page you created, does it look like this?
@skatz Hello and welcome! 👋
@amit Yay, thank you! 🙏
@warner Yeah, using an alias is a great idea either way.
@pratik Did it stop working after you added the page to the menu? And if so, what is the content of that newly created page? It should just be the URL like this: https://microblog.pratikmhatre.com/surprise-me/.
That will redirect your visitor to the plug-in, which, in turn, will take them to a random post. Manton has documented page redirects at the Help Center.
@pratik Thanks for trying it out, and sorry for the trouble. 😅 No, that’s not expected; it happens because the theme you’re using lacks full support for plug-ins. I’ve proposed a fix for @amit to consider. Hopefully, he decides to merge that, and the problem will disappear.
The plug-in considers posts with a title to be long posts.
@warner @JohnPhilpin I’ve released version 1.1.0 with support for only long posts (or short). Let me know how it works for you.
@agilelisa You already have! 🎉 Kind of. As long as your feed reader supports JSON Feed. Here is the one for books. I added that feed to NetNewsWire just now, and it worked like a charm.
@pratik @khurtwilliams If I may quote myself. 😊
> So, my guess is less than 10,000 (human) users, most of them inactive. […] My gut tells me it’s somewhere in the hundreds to lower thousands.
@warner After installing the plug-in, you have to add the link where you want it using a custom theme. See the instructions on the plug-in page.
My email addresses have been public on the web since the mid-90s, so I really have no concept of spam volume before and after. 😊 Of course, I get spam, but it’s kept away from my inbox thanks to spam filters.
That said, the web is vacuumed for email addresses all the time. If you use this plug-in, the address will get picked up sooner or later. I might add support for obfuscating the email address in the future. There’s no 100 % protection against scrapers and email harvesters, though.
@jsonbecker I regularly charge the car at my inlaws’ cabin and, of course, I want to compensate them for that. So my favorite shortcut fetches kWh charged last month (from the charging station via web API), calculates the cost in SEK, and initiates a payment to my dad-in-law.
All I have to do is confirm with Face ID, and the money is on its way. 💸 Shortcuts are fantastic!
@manton I notice you’re taking advantage of the new field type. 😊 Smart!
@pratik Thanks for the feature request. 🥰 There’s an issue on GitHub now with my thoughts jotted down.
@mroutley I have high hopes for it. I really enjoyed To Be Taught, If Fortunate.
@odd Finding a decent, secure, and privacy-focused consumer router is challenging. Want it to look good as well? Then it’s a more or less impossible task. 😊
If you’re not afraid of tinkering, an Asus router running Asuswrt-Merlin (custom, open-source firmware) strikes a good balance between performance and security. I’m happy with this model at home.
A more pro/high-end alternative is DrayTek. It’s almost a decade since I last had a router by them, but I’m sure their current offerings are as well-built as the Vigor 2820 I used back then.
@manton You’re making all the right choices; what an improvement!
@timapple Try adding an empty line after each heading.
> *Example*
>
> * Try it
> * this way.
@jeffperry I like it! Feels snappy, and I love the look and feel. Reminds me of the blogs hosted on HEY World. I find it tough to give feedback, as it’s pretty close to perfect already in my book. 😊
If you like to focus on the nitty-gritty, you might want to:
- Fix the errors and warning to make the site 100 % standards compatible.
- Run automated tests like Lighthouse and Wave and then fix the things that resonate with you.
- Add more whitespace (padding), especially for the newsletter sign-up.
@warner Good idea, I’ve added that as a future enhancement. Thanks!
@eli Same here; it’s fun just dabbling around. My client work consists primarily of web development, so playing with hardware and low-level programming is a nice contrast.
For some reason, my projects often revolve around the Game Boy. Its CPU core is a mix between Z80 and the Intel 8080. I guess nostalgia plays a role, but I do love that system.
I’ve followed Rekka’s and Devine’s adventures for a long time, so Uxn has been on my radar. I’ve yet to play with it, though. But I’ve actually read the paper you linked to. I stumbled upon it when looking for small CPUs to implement on an FPGA (I have a TinyFPGA BX).
RetroForth is new to me, so thanks for the tip. A new rabbit hole for me to explore. 😊
@eli lisp, forth, pbm file format, and now assembly language. I imagine you must have fallen into the same rabbit hole I was deep down a while back. 😂 Or one close by, at least. Do you have a specific project in mind for the NES?
- where are you? On the couch, Jönköping, Sweden
- date? 27 January 2022
- sunrise? 08:16
- sunset? 16:17
- day length? 8 hours 1 minute
@JohnPhilpin I followed the exact same flow just now. 😊 It makes me so happy to see the plug-in being useful in the wild.
@odd Oh, I’m glad you’re having fun with it. 😊 Let me know if that weird behavior comes back.
@amit Great work; I love this update. 🎉
@odd Hei! Thanks for checking out my plug-in. 🥰 I used my browser (and curl from the terminal) and successfully fetched both /surprise-me and /surprise-me/ on your domain. I tried my best to recreate this on my test blog without success.
Could there have been a temporary glitch?
@vincent 😮 Are peeled/scraped keys a thing now? The left command key on my previous MacBook Air looked exactly like yours. I’ve never had that problem before.
@val Hey, thanks, what an honor to be compared with Jonna. I wish I had half her talent when it comes to ice photography. 😊
I’m more of a summer person, but I envy the kind of winters she gets up there. Living way more in the southern parts of Sweden, I have to settle for the small amount of snow and frozen lakes we get.
@manton Looking good! 🎉
@pratik Yeah, support for old posts is already in the plug-in. As long as you link to an older post that actually has an entry on the Micro.blog timeline, the link should show up and take the visitor to the timeline when clicked.
@pratik No, it’s just a design decision I made during development, for two reasons. First, it was quicker to implement. 😊 Quicker is always better for me when working for free. Less time spent on free labor means I can spend more time doing paid labor, more food on the table, etc.
Second, I want to discourage people from putting the link on archive pages as that will unnecessarily load the Micro.blog servers. Every link needs a request to find out the conversation URL. A list page with 10 posts will make 10 requests to the servers.
I have an idea how to implement this in another way, to get support for having links to conversations on list pages. I might get around to that in the future.
@pratik Yes, Reply by email will work, but unfortunately not Conversation on Micro.blog. Those links will just take the visitor to your profile on Micro.blog (not the actual conversation).
@pratik I’m neither a user nor the designer of the theme you’re using, so I’m afraid I don’t know all the differences. But a quick glance at your blog hints at posts having a prominent date at the top, compared to ordinary pages like About.
In your case, index.html is the template for the homepage. There’s a particular lookup order when it comes to templates in Hugo. So, if you should happen to remove index.html, _default/list.html would take its place and be used for the homepage instead.