Federated microblogging with ActivityPub API (NC12)?

šŸ± Features & apps App ideas
#1

Since Nextcloud 12 has implemented the new ActivityPub ( https://activitypub.rocks/ ) standard for federated activity streams: Are there plans to implement a Mastodon (https://joinmastodon.org/ ) compatible public facing microblogging app?

It could probably be derived from the activity app, but with settings what kind of activities to display publicly (and federate them) and for adding personal twitter like messages.

This is interesting because many federated microblogging services (not only Mastodon) are also implementing support for ActivityPub and thus Nextcloud could join this new chapter of the fediverse.

See also:

HumHub integration?
ActivityPub: the new standard for decentralized networks
#2

wanna take a look here (https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/cms_pico) and see what and if that gets you further with your problem/idea?

#3

No, that is something completely different (but also nice, I have been using it for a few days now).

#4

wellā€¦ was worth a tryā€¦ bringing it to your attention. :wink:

#5

Maybe I need to explain better:
Nextcloud could have an app allowing it users to have functionality similar to twitter and share calendar events, files, photos etc. easily on their time-line.
Nextcloud 12 it already includes the ActivityPub standard for activity stream federation, so it seems like this would be just a question of making a GUI and a public facing activity stream for it. Edit: I think the ActivityPub standard allows private and public posts, so maybe this is already part of the Nextcloud implementation somehow?

For the public interface, something could be based on Qvitter easily I imagine, see:
https://git.gnu.io/h2p/Qvitter / https://quitter.se/

Then any nextcloud user could easily interact with the Mastodon users (follow etc. like twitter).

#6

You should have a look to Circles and mood

1 Like
#7

Ahh, of course. But do they federate outside of Nextcloud via the activity pub standard?

Edit: the ā€œAllow Federated Links: Turns the circle as Federated and enable sharing between Federated Circlesā€ in the circles app is greyed out for me. Is it just there as a placeholder for future development? Or do I need to configure something in addition?

#8

No, the ā€˜federateā€™ communication is only between circles (local or remote nextcloud).

You will need to enable the option in the Admin Settings Page.

#9

Ok, so it seems (as it federates) this all already builds on top of the ActivityPub API, just that it doesnā€™t allow reaching out to other Activity Pub services? (maybe possible, just not documented?)
What about mobile apps? Can I post moods via an Android activitypub client (=Mastodon client app)?

So all that would be needed is a public twitter like activity feed and public profile for each Nextcloud user, and some more obvious way to link to other federated systems?

#10

Found a JS/php webclient for Mastodon:


Not sure if it has made the switch from OStatus yet, but maybe it is somehow possible to to use the ActivityPub implementation of Nextcloud instead in the future?

#11

Thereā€™s a lot of misunderstanding here :

What about mobile apps? Can I post moods via an Android activitypub client (=Mastodon client app)?

The Mastodon client apps donā€™t use ActivityPub but the Mastodon API. Mastodon does not and doesnā€™t intend to implement the Client To Server part of Activity Pub.

Not sure if it has made the switch from OStatus yet, but maybe it is somehow possible to to use the ActivityPub implementation of Nextcloud instead in the future?

This client only communicates with Mastodon, it has no oStatus or ActivityPub implementation.

As far as I know Nextcloud itself has no desire to communicate through ActivityPub about other stuff than Filesharing actions & such. Through the Mood app this may be implemented though.

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#12

The Mood app just use the Circlesā€™ API

#13

Hmm, ok, thanks for the clarifying replies.

Seems like a bit more work is involved, but can anyone confirm that circles is using the ActivityPub protocol for federation?

#14

As the author of Circles, I can confirm that Circles is using its own communicating protocol :slight_smile:

As a side note: it was decided like this after some discussions about using or not ActivityPub.

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#15

So the only possibility up to now would be that a Nextcloud server communicates to e.g. a Mastodon server via ActivityPub about Filesharing actions & such.

One could chose to tweet (tootā€¦) automatically about Filesharing actions, did i get it right?

Maybe it could be interesting for some user cases, also considering that you can manage your Mastodon server (or any other software that uses or will use ActivityPub )

#16

Thereā€™s a lot to implement for the two to be compatibleā€¦ for instance thereā€™s no mecanism of Ā« following people Ā» in Nextcloud yet. Only the basic bricks are here, I donā€™t see the use for this two completely different systems to interact other that through a gateway such as Hubzilla.

#17

I did not manage to make my point.

Take as an example Nextcloud Releases, the twitter account that provide automatic posting of new releases from: - Nextcloud server - Android app - iOS app - Nextcloud apps from the app store.

Basically to provide such a service you do not need to follow anyone, you just want a ā€œbotā€ to tweet automatically in case of new releases.

People can follow that account, yet that account will not follow anyone.

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#19

Implementing ActivityPub support in GNU Social is not trivial, but an attempt will be made under this yearā€™s GSoC:

Qvitter is just a frontend to GNU Social.

#20

Partial ActivityPub support, basically a glorified RSS feed, is definitely worthwhile considering.

1 Like
#21

Perfect definition of what I was thinking about! :grin:

@clacke Do you know if that glorified RSS feed could also include files? I think so but I am not 100% sure. That would add to the possibilities of the toolā€¦