Micro.blog

As part of Ivory 1.3 I added in support for universal links. They should now be enabled for mastodon.social links (assuming Apple has finished caching the association file). Pretty cool, just wish there was a more generic way to do it instead of instance by instance.

@paul I noticed last week this worked with mas.to links too, is the plan to cover big domains one by one or perhaps some opt-in process?

@paul both you in the app and instance owner needs to do configuration to enable this, right? If you provide a document and an application form for instance owners, maybe supported instance count can be increased quickly.

@paul we should have enabled it for mastodon.online as well

@renchap yeah but I need a new build for that to work, it's queued up for the next release.

@mergesort not sure, it's got to be done on the server and client, which is a bit of a hassle specially for hundreds of servers.

@paul hang on, are you able to add multiple apps to the server’s association file? (I assume Ivory didn’t get exclusive rights to .social) What happens if you have multiple apps installed that are associated to the same domain?

The process of adding support to an instance is pretty simple, just need a json file at /.well-known/apple-app-site-association with an "applinks" hash. Then it needs to get added to the app as well. Willing to add more in for some of the bigger instances just not sure if there's some kind of limit on Apple's side.
https://tapbots.social/.well-known/apple-app-site-association

@paul Is there a way to automate that for instances or distribute it through the github repo of instance servers?

@paul Did you consider a Safari extension like Apollo has to open Reddit links?

Not the sexiest solution tho.

@paul how about mathstodon.xyz — we’re not massive, but we’re geeky!

@paul are we then limited to just one app using this method?

@lucas it's problematic for similar reasons, no list of instance domains.

@vmstan nope, can have multiple ones, look at the mastodon.social one.

@paul @kylewritescode

@paul am I understanding this correctly? I can do some magic on my instance to make additional magic happen in Ivory? What is this magic, can I simply use this same apple-app-site-association on my instance as well?

@vmstan @paul Nope!

curl'd .social because I was curious and it looks like you just need to add new apps to an Array

@dustinrue needs to get added to app as well.

@paul makes sense.
There is no way of knowing by pinging a certain path or looking up a meta tag?

@lio @vmstan @paul Do you know what happens if we have both apps? Does the array order also points to the preference?

@paul yea I just found the apple docs about this and now I see it…bummer but if it can be part of larger instances it is a bonus

@murat @vmstan @paul No Idea! Sorry

@paul Yeah, I figured. But I also wonder if getting it on the top N servers will not only get you to 80% of links covered, but set an example for smaller servers who may do it on your behalf going forward. Obviously speculating here, but personally I'd see if it's possible to reach out to some of the bigger servers for this.

@paul would be nice something like an auto-add of know instances.

Like ivory discovers a new instance on the user timeline and automatically add it to the list, so would be a nice way to create a list

@paul a quick Nginx update and I'm ready 😁
https://vmst.io/.well-known/apple-app-site-association

@paul I feel like it should be a mastodon feature for the admin to pick its preferred client

@paul I get why Apple would require two-way association, but it is sorta sad that it means small and single-user instances can't really benefit from this :(

@paul people kept asking for it for Tusky but we all agreed that it's a bad idea. Need to decide which instances go in. Favoring big instances as well.

I wish apps could register this stuff somehow dynamically.

@paul I’m voting for infosec.exchange. @jerry could you add this?

@pixel should be an end user option to pick the app associated with a domain.

@paul Many admins using the default Nginx conf from the Mastodon repo, maybe you can add it here: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/dist/nginx.conf

@charlag why is it a bad idea though? I would prefer it get done at least a few different ways but better to support some than none, IMO.

@paul agreed, I’m just talking about which one shows up if you browse to the website, which I think can only be one?

@pixel multiple apps can be registered for universal links, adding Ivory doesn't block other clients.

@paul is there a way to “dynamically” add these associations? Thinking an API that could add the instances

@hunter nope, has to be added to a flat file on each client.

@paul Forgive my stupidity here, but what will I see from the links? Or maybe I won’t, if you haven’t added the instance im on - mstdn.social.

@paul oh cool I thought there could only be one

@pixel wrong movie.

@paul LOLOLOLOL

@paul Do the files have to be in the app when you ship an update or can they be created in app?

@paul @lucas weird suggestion but could you build your own list of domains based on Ivory logins?

I suppose one decent way to do this is if the Mastodon project would add that file in to the project (it's not highlander rules, multiple apps can be associated). Then assuming Apple doesn't have a limit on associations per app (anyone know?) I could stick in the top 500ish instances easily enough.

@raygan @lucas no, we don't have any analytics in the app on purpose.

@paul would it make sense to additionally provide a generic domain for smaller instances? For instance htttps://ivoryapp.com/mastodon.online/dummy would open in the app, with a browser fallback that redirects to htttps://mastodon.online/dummy
This might raise security issues ; in which case adding an allowlist on ivoryapp.com would still be easier than deploying a new app for supporting new instances.

@paul I have no clue, but this feels like the kind of thing where there might be some undocumented limit that just starts causing weird and hard-to-debug failures once you've exceeded it…

@paul What is the process for generating the hash? (or are there any parameters for what the hash needs to be?)

@jerry hash as in dictionary/JSON object, not as in crypto hash.

@paul

Nice! Set mine up.

https://trblcorp.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association

@paul according to this medium article “Apple doc says to limit this list to no more than about 20 to 30 domains.”
https://abhimuralidharan.medium.com/universal-links-in-ios-79c4ee038272

@bricks @paul boo.

@paul couldn’t this be done with a protocol handler?

@paul or if there was an API from joinmastodon.org you could poll that would give you a list to include.

My preferred approach would be to have a community run redirect server that would take URLs of the format abc.org/domain/acct/post_id and redirect or pass to universal links if any of the apps that support that format are installed.

Feels like the cleanest approach and let's apps do some cool things when they see those URLs on the timeline, but “centralization”/“privacy", etc…

@paul acceptance is the better path. if Mastodon/ActivityPub gets huge, then you’ll be handling material as hazardous as “mailto:" links. It's possible to configure GMail in Chrome to open these, but it's a bit of a battle.

@vmstan @paul

I wonder if FediDB's API would work?

https://fedidb.org/api

@vmstan I already have a list of the top instances by user counts.

@paul but it would also be good to support a lot of clients, and this starts to be massy 😀

@paul what if there was a url protocol thing, like how theres irc:// to open an irc server for example

@paul awe ☺️

@paul feels like it would be a super simple edge function

@renchap It's really only a list of app IDs, not super hard to keep track of. I'd be surprised if there's ever over 100 widely used iOS clients.

@paul hmm. I understand why Apple made that decision. But also, that sucks

@paul if Apple would make this configurable on iPhone per domain, the user could choose an app per domain. Don’t see that happening though.

@paul you mean like https://mstdn.link/?to=https://tapbots.social/@paul/110040753102411073

@paul @vmstan mastodon.art go on the list? @Curator 🧐

@paul would you believe that Mastodon used to have a URL protocol (and a protocol handler in the web app) but they got rid of it because being asked to register the handler when you first signed up was too intimidating

instead of, say, making you have to click a button in Settings to register it... they just got rid of it...

@demize I kind of get it, URL protocols are a bit PITA to deal with all around, the world has kind of settled on https.

@april @paul i think URL protocols like irc: or mailto: would be the ideal long-term solution yeah, then the browser or app could open it in whatever default client you have set without any clumsiness or middle-man services

@Mattmaber @paul @vmstan If it requires database access or something changed to the default masto install then we can't - we're hosted, and MastoHost uses the default installation, so it'd have to be something that gets included in the main branch of masto (as Paul said above, if the Masto project added that file).

@paul Got it. Thank you. We have a modestly sized instance. Does this work? https://infosec.exchange/.well-known/apple-app-site-association

@Curator @paul @vmstan 👍 fair enough.

@paul I can help build a serverless API that does this, assuming there's interest and support from @Gargron + the Mastodon Project for this sort of public service

@jerry apparently I'm limited to about 20-30, but since you are #17 on my list I can pop it in.

@paul hey @supernovae I think you will like this.

@paul it's too bad though, it's practically ideal for a case like this... but yeah, seems like the world has locked onto URL recognition more than protocol handling now

@paul could you make a Safari extension like Apollo?

@paul Waiting patiently for those custom instance emoji in the body of posts.

It sure is fun to be on the giving and not receiving end of requests like this!! 😂

@paul I’ve been thinking inter-server following would also be nicer with something like the community redirect instance. On web at least they seem to have come up with some workarounds.

I wonder if there’s a way to encrypt the redirect source so the community instance doesn’t know. A dynamic well-known file, or a Safari extension to redirect to subdomains like ivory.mastodon.social, … I suppose it all depends on what you want to keep private.

@paul it means using a lot of time for maintaining the list and still shipping half-working (this confusing) feature that encourages centralization

@gedeonm they are there now, except the default is off and there's no setting to turn them on.

@paul I'm developing a web extension that adds a button to the page that opens the Mastodon post/profile in a native app.

So far it's working great for my needs and it supports any Mastodon instance. In theory any federated content could work too. It just relies on URL schemes for each of the supported apps.

@paul is it possible to write a Safari Web Extension which inspects the page for any `link[rel="application/activity+json"], a[rel="application/activity+json"] ` tags and offer launching Ivory on any page that has an activitystreams alternate link?

@paul Hey @medium, get on this.

@paul the actual mastodon instance owner is the one that has to add the site association though, right? If so, That’s a lot of coordination.

@paul I’m not really in the loop for that technology, but I remember the LastMinute app had a problem a few years ago because they added the domains for every hotel in their database and it crashed devices until you deleted the app. Maybe look up that incident and what the resolution was? One hopes Apple may have now put something in place to stop that happening again!

@paul @heyjaywilson We should do this for iOS dev space!

@seb Can sfba.social please add an Apple App Association file to the server and coordinate with @paul such that Ivory can support universal links from our instance?

@paul FWIW Matrix has precisely this with matrix.to. Something like tomastodon.app?

@paul I looked into this as well. There was a limit but that may have changed since they started caching the app files themselves. I'll have to refresh myself on it since I'm on vacation but I'll try to go find what they said on Monday. My vague recollection is that app launch time slowed incredibly, but maybe that's a bug that was fixed.

@paul @gedeonm
swidt

@paul A layman here - does this mean that if I click on a Mastodon account in, say, Safari, that it will open in Ivory?

@paul @gedeonm
So close yet…

@paul you could do a safari plugin like @christianselig did with Apollo. It’s not a perfect solution but it’s not bad.

@paul @quintessence can I add this to the community repo issues?

@paul works 😍

@paul I don’t know if there is a limit but at our company we some years ago already decided to not put any more domains inside the app, and rather dealing with * for all subdomains. Has some disadvantages, but will also not work for mastodon unfortunately

@paul i thought the file had to be on the domain itself (mastodon.social) for it to work.

@paul The main issue is that the comparison can take significant time every time someone taps a link if an app has many associated domains.

I wouldn’t put it past Apple to ding an app (read; cut off the Universal Link support or reject app updates) if opening a Universal Link takes too long to pass an app’s check.

That and if more readers do this, it becomes a toss-up which app is opened.

@alexito4 @paul yeah, that got me thinking too. My understanding is you have to own the domain and put the aasa file in each one.

@paul Could the approach that @christianselig took for Apollo work here? Since he’s a third part reddit client, he of course doesn’t have access to the well-known. He wrote a small Safari plugin that detects if you have landed on a reddit page and then forwards the page to the app.

@jesusfdiaz @paul OH WAIT, Paul meant that mastodon.social has Ivory in their own file. That makes sense :) and of course what a pain 😆 I love to see the community getting together to help each other get things right. so nice!

@alexito4 @paul that makes more sense, yeah.

@paul please add social.lol 😉

@paul I'm a big Ivory fan, but I have to be honest, this felt a little yucky, that one of the mastodon clients got to put its app button into my browser when I'm looking at the web view of a post. I did not like this.

@paul Apollo has a Safari extension that automatically opens the app when it detects a Reddit page, without universal links. That could probably work, no? Detect that you’re on a Mastodon page, open the link in Ivory.

(Technically it redirects Reddit pages to to openinapollo.com)

I can probably resurrect the Safari Extension but this looks kind of silly.

@paul this is a really interesting problem! I guess blanket access and trying to detect if a page is running mastodon is out of the question.

@paul a safari extension may be cleaner, and allow for unlimited servers. @christianselig uses that method for Apollo and it works flawlessly.

@paul Happy to see social.lol on the list already

@paul Paul, it may look ridiculous but it will allow folks to get what they’re after.

@paul The “open in ivory” button in the share sheet has been perfectly sufficient for me honestly

@paul I am curious if it will pass Apple review… Safari extensions are subject to review too, are they?

Yea! If you watch Paul’s video to the very end, worldkey.io is included in good list! @matt

@rrgeorge @paul @christianselig it doesn’t work with everything Reddit. Unsure why he’s avoided fixing this for so long. https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-bugs/issues/1665

@paul it’s a federated network I think there’s no *right* way to solve this

@paul Hi, we've add that file to glauca.space!

@paul This would be solving a different problem, but Tapbots could maybe also run such a service, and links shared from Ivory could be (optionally) something like https://<tapbots-service-domain>/<reference-to-post>

Then, opening that link could have a page w/ options like “open post in Ivory”, “open in X”, “open original url”, “open in <enter your instance>” (and a “do the same next time” checkbox)

Would make it easier to share post links so the recipient can open them however they want to…

@SimbaOne oh, cool, thanks @paul I appreciate that!

@paul and it doesn‘t even include overkill.social with a whopping 3 users!

@paul you can remove bitcoinhackers(.)org, it's been shut down a few weeks ago 😉

@paul does apple allow the user to add change the list if the app made that option available? You could keep it way slimmer, then.

@paul this is too crazy

@paul Made a "linkto.community" with Cloudflare with the apple-app-site-association setup mirroring the mastodon.social. Not sure if people will use this.
https://linkto.community/tapbots.social/@paul/110040753102411073

@bugdave @rrgeorge @paul Not everything is malicious avoidance 😛 Will fix in next build

@paul this may be a good place to copy what 1Password does and include “other websites”

@khaost yeah pretty much that minus the @ and widely supported somehow.

@paul I imagine it’s probably better keep the url as is, since that will be easier to parse by existing implementations? Like they can strip out the “linkto.community/“ and get a working URL that fits existing universal link parsing logic?

Widely supported part is going to be the challenging one 😆

@paul It is messy, but it is better than asking for all sites. You could use the activeTab permission, then the user decides what is a mastodon instance and no permission prompt required. Just need good error handling when it is used on a random site.

@paul wouldn’t mind if you added myf.one 😋

@paul I get the sense that we’re probably going to see some changes to make interacting with decentralized services easier at WWDC

@paul not long enough. Make it longer.

@StevenBarnhart @paul I was wondering about this too. Have a single global switch to open everything the Ivory app lists as a mastodon site, but then the user could add backlist sites to NOT open in Ivory?

@christianselig @rrgeorge @paul 😂 woot! Thank you 😊

@khaost iMessages screws up URLs with @ in them, its really annoying to deal with.

@paul How does iMessage screw up those URLs? It looked okay for me?

@khaost try in that chat a URL with @ tian, or something like that. I know it happens all the time when @ mark.

@paul ah I see what you mean, their new @ person thing. It looks like that only kicks in if the user manually types @something in there, if you paste a URL in there, iMessage won’t do anything to it?

@khaost seems to for pasting too which is why its always bugging me.

@paul maybe a bug in iOS? I don’t see 16.4 do that

@khaost does it on the latest public Mac.

@paul If you do it this way. Don't forget swiss.social 🙈

@paul I didn’t see my personal instance. 😢

@paul that’s annoying 😧

@paul really hope someone at Apple reaches out to you about this soon, even if it isn’t in time for WWDC

@paul nah I agree. BUT! I would welcome this with open arms :) !

@paul makes you think there should be a system side protocol like mailto: for mastodon

I put in 500+ app associations (universal links) and it seemed to build, process, work with no warnings. So now thinking the 20-30 limit is maybe obsolete, but still not sure if I trust it not to blow something up.

@paul
app store review:

@paul

Just...a little push...

@paul somebody's iPhone 6S is going to explode spectacularly from this

@paul what is the number of subscribers at the bottom of the list?
(Asking from an instance of ~ 5k users.

@paul Does the universal link registration have to happen at compile time or can it be changed by configuration in the app? Just asking as one of those guys with a self hosted instance.

@paul I remember this iOS 9 crashing bug related to universal link… https://www.macstories.net/news/a-mysterious-bug-is-causing-links-to-fail-on-ios/

@paul I just hope Apple won’t kick you out, I love Ivory!

@paul We really need a mime-type equivalent for websites. Universal Links don’t really work for decentralized services.

@paul Are you likely to add an option to disable this in the future? I know quite a few of us are using a couple of apps (at the moment anyway) and don’t always want the links opening in Ivory, not sure if a settings toggle or similar is possible?

@paul Wouldn't the privacy thing be fixable by using k-anonimity?

@christianselig Thank you for serving us 👑

@paul This is a neat capability, but is there a way to disable it? I have multiple mastodon clients installed and don’t want Ivory grabbing everything.