@help After years on Micro.blog, I still don't know the easiest way to share a link with some text commentary, and because I don't know what to call it, searching the help docs has been fruitless. Can you point me in the right direction? Is it a bookmarklet? Shortcut? App?

@cygnoir Nothing native. There are some iOS Shortcuts made for that purpose that you can use. The Share sheet for the official iOS app is buggy and doesn't work reliably.

@pratik @cygnoir @help The bookmarklet is on the Help forums.

@pratik @help this is my biggest frustration. I can’t remember the last time a highlight and sharesheet share created a markdown link or markdown quote correctly.

@cygnoir I'm using one of @jarrod's awesome Shortcuts for that. It's called Publish Quote, and mostly does what you want, plus a quote.

When you're visiting the link you'd like to share, select the text you'd like to quote (or none), and call the shortcut. It will ask you if you'd like to add your commentary, and show you the final result before posting. It's brilliant.

@cygnoir I create 'em manually because automated tools never do it quite right for me. I almost always do it from my MacBook nowadays; I have a Chrome extension that copies a link in Markdown, and I'm off to the races. Let me know if you'd like me to send you a link to the Chrome extension—it's not great but it's good enough that I'm not motivated to look for something better.

@pratik @cygnoir I agree. I’ve been using drafts to do this. I select the text and then click the share button to get the text. A plus to this option is that I have some more control over what I would like to add to the link and text.

@cygnoir I had totally forgotten that this was a problem. Years ago it was such a mess that I re routed my workflow through Drafts - and that is they way it has been forever. As with so many other things - Drafts is my triage app for pretty much anything I do in the text world.

@SimonWoods @pratik @help I have not had luck with that bookmarklet in Arc. It runs the quote and the source together, and I don't know enough about JavaScript to fix it.

@maique Thanks for the recommendation. I've gotten that working on my iPhone, but haven't figured out how to get it working on my iMac.

@MitchW I appreciate the offer. Would a Chrome extension work in Arc? That's the browser I'm using these days.

@mandaris @pratik Ah, Drafts! I could figure something out through that. I'm a little perplexed as to why there isn't an easier solution, though.

@JohnPhilpin Care to share the action you're using in Drafts?

@toddgrotenhuis @pratik @help This is what I'm getting at. I understand that there are workarounds with other apps and scripts, but I would love for Micro.blog itself to be easier to use for those of us who aren't developers.

@cygnoir You can apparently import Chrome extensions, though I've never tried it myself (haven't even tried Arc!). There is an extension that I used to use all of the time, especially for sharing links with quoted text: Omnibear; it stopped working on Firefox but I think Manton tested it successfully on Chrome not too long ago.

And yep, I agree; too much of what the popular social media platforms already made much easier remains the realm of technically-inclined people here on MB. I even spoke about this problem with a similar issue as yours, and I know other folks have had such problems. The broadest wish I have for MB is that as much of the platform as possible gains much kinder on-ramps so that as many people, without sacrificing the integrity of the foundations.

@cygnoir Ha! Not tech-inclusive either? BTW I assume you’re trying on a desktop and not iOS. On the latter, the Share sheet works but is not reliable (it doesn’t show up sometimes).

@SimonWoods I'm glad you mentioned Omnibear, something I installed ages ago but have not yet been able to get to work successfully. I can login to Omnibear, but attempting to repost gives me an error with no other information. And it hasn't been touched in 4.5 years.

@pratik Yes, optimally I would be able to share directly from NetNewsWire, my feed reader of choice. Right now, if I use the Share sheet in NetNewsWire and select Micro.blog, it opens a new post with the title of the post and the link, which is great, but it doesn't send selected text to quote. It feels deeply anti-indieweb to not be able to easily share other people's writing with attribution.

@cygnoir Yup. Hence the unreliability and inconsistency.

@bixfrankonis Yes, that part of what I'd like to do is a feature request for NNW. The rest — having a native, simple, consistently-functional way to quote text from a post and share it on Micro.blog — is a feature request for Micro.blog.

@ddanielson @pratik I understand, Dave. I am really struggling, myself. In the past, I would happily spend hours, days, weeks tinkering with my website. After 26 years of writing online, I don't want to spend my time doing that anymore. I want a place to share my stuff that makes it easy and gets out of my way.

@cygnoir I’m pretty sure it would work in Arc. I’m using Vivaldi nowadays. It’s also a chrome variant and runs chrome extensions fine. I’ll get you a link when I am next at my MacBook.

@ddanielson You’re using social.lol now? Do you recommend it? Micro.blog has limitations but so does everything.

@cygnoir My laptop is very old, it will not run Shortcuts. On the Mac I’ll just do it manually, like with all the other posts, using the same old app: Drafts. Also easy.

@maique Oh, that Shortcut is just what I’ve been after! Thank you.

@adders You’re welcome. If it’s a Shortcut you need, @jarrod has you covered. If not already available, I’m pretty sure he’ll be able to make it happen.

@cygnoir Do you get any sort of error on the Mac? I’m happy to help troubleshoot!

@cygnoir @pratik @maique @adders I’m working on an update to my Publish Quote shortcut that should make this easier and work in any app. My solution is to first copy the text I want to quote (so it works in NNW, Safari, anywhere) and then share the link to the shortcut for it to take care of the rest. Hopefully having it work in more places than just Safari is worth the extra step of copying the quote first. Should be done soon.

@cygnoir

Sorry - don’t know how to give guidance other than this way.

I searched the Actions directory for 'micro' and got this back

I have 3 installed at the moment - but I should have 4 - the one missing is the one by @donnydavis which I am trouble shooting - the trouble is my end - Donny's work is GREAT.

The other three

Post to Microblog - by @Agiletortoise

Post to Microblog with categories - by 'unknown' - though I should uninstall that one - since donny's does that - and a lot more

Finally Post with Pause - which again I hardly use

So having 'made' me look at this properly 😂

I will reinstall Donny's for complicated posts and use Post to Microblog for my quick post and delete the others.

Thankyou for making me sort this out.

Later

Done - down to two :-)

@jarrod Yay! Even better, having it work everywhere will be very welcome.

@jarrod Your shortcut is the closest it comes. I don't do much linklogging these days but I bet that's what @cygnoir is looking for (if it also works on the desktop). I tried going the first-bookmark-then-blog-from-the-highlighted-part, but it takes awfully long for the URL to be archived for this route to work quickly @maique @adders

@JohnPhilpin @cygnoir I exclusively use @donnydavis's Action for Drafts --> Micro.blog stuff. I can even schedule posts! Plus, with Mimi Uploader's support for AI-generated alt-text, Drafts is even more integrated into my workflow.

@pratik @JohnPhilpin I've been a Drafts user for ages, but haven't tried to post to Micro.blog with it. I suppose it's past time. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

@jarrod I have not been brave enough to try the Shortcut. 😬 Because my posts cross-post elsewhere, I dislike doing test posts that I then have to chase down and delete in multiple places. But I will be brave soon!

@cygnoir @JohnPhilpin Here’s my Blogging Actions in Drafts. Of course I don’t use all of it and some more than others.

@ddanielson I'll check out social.lol. I'm a little overwhelmed at the prospect of moving this blog YET AGAIN. OTOH, maybe I can figure out some way to make it less painful. Thanks!

You clearly do a lot more than I do!

@pratik exclusively? even a sentence long post?

@JohnPhilpin Well, I try to, but I'm not making many of those lately. Using Mimi just for generating alt text has pushed me to use Drafts because I've to paste the markdown somewhere, and I found myself gravitating toward Drafts more than the Micro.blog app. I have found myself posting the live-sports updates on status.lol, which I post only via Drafts. I can put Drafts widgets more front and center to use it 100% of the time for all Micro.blog posts.

@pratik When I was out to day I took some pictures and tried out Mimi again. It had never settled with me in the past.

🖇️ It worked

I had no idea that the 'post' function actually created a markdown link that would share to drafts.

I can see more of this in my future.

Thankyou for rattling me.

@JohnPhilpin I kinda guessed when I saw that post. Yup, Mimi has come a long way and you mean the Export function, right? The Copy Markdown with a line break between two photos is so perfect

@pratik exactly that.

@cygnoir This is the Copy as Markdown extension I have been using. It works fine, but this one seems better so I am going to give it a try.

You can install a Chrome extension on Arc by navigating to the respective pages and clicking the install button, just as you would do in Chrome.

If you use Drafts on the Mac, iPhone and/or iPad, there is an action for that app that might prove useful. I can send you think to that if you are interested.

@cygnoir @bixfrankonis Following up on this… I don't think we have control over sharing from NNW directly, but you can open the blog post in Safari iOS, select text, click the share toolbar button, and it starts a new post in Micro.blog with the link, title, and block quote. (Not sure what bugginess @pratik was referring to… Sometimes iOS will kill the app. If it doesn't open, tap again and it'll work.)

@manton The bugginess is a very strange one. Sometimes Micro.blog will not appear in the Share sheet and I am like, I swear I saw it an hour ago when I was doing it for another site.

@pratik That's strange. The only reason I could see that happening is if the type of content being shared is not something we support (not a link, text, or photo), or if for a certain app Micro.blog was configured to be hidden in the sheet.

@manton Let me try it in all the apps I use and see where it fails. I haven't configured any exceptions. Don't even know how to.