New littleFedi build on littleOne

littleFedi 26.08.09 - the changes in this build compared with the previous
deployment.

Followed hashtags in the main navigation

Your followed hashtags are now one click away: a Hashtags entry (with a
hashtag icon) has been added to the desktop navigation bar and the mobile
account menu, pointing at /tags. The label is translated in every supported
language.

Blog posts show a link back to their permalink

Posts that have been published to the blog now carry a small Blog chip in
the status meta line. It links to the post's readable permalink
(/@user/blog/<slug>/) and works on timestamps and boosts, so readers can jump
straight from the timeline to the polished blog version of a long post.

Status meta line reworked

Every marker on a status - visibility, language, blog chip, expiry - is now
rendered as the same uniform chip in a single wrapping flex row, instead of a
mix of right-aligned inline boxes. Posts that carry several markers read as one
neat line rather than a ragged stack. The Ink and Roost themes were adjusted to
match.

Robustness: orphaned-account posts no longer break the page

Previously a post whose author account no longer resolves (a purged account, or
a partially hydrated cache entry) could fail the whole timeline render. Now any
status - including the target of a boost - whose author is missing is silently
skipped. Covered by a new test.

Icon updates

• Catch-up view and its navigation entries now use a VHS icon instead of the
  old sparkle (thank you for the suggestion, @shom@littleone.littlefedi.social ).
• The "redraft" action gets a proper undo icon.
• The Appearance and Blog appearance settings sections get a palette
  icon.
• New hashtag icon for the navigation.

Blog theming fixes

• Proper spacing restored for non-paragraph content in the post body: headings,
  bullet/numbered lists, horizontal rules and code blocks now breathe instead of
  collapsing against each other.
• A post with a single attachment now renders a full-width figure (the old
  grid left a small thumbnail stranded at the left edge).
• The "View or reply in the Fediverse" link is now consistently styled.
• Ledger theme: long code lines scroll inside their block instead of
  breaking out past the reading measure.
• Marginalia theme: the thread link, replies and pager now align to the text
  column on wide screens, and print output was cleaned up.

If you publish a blog, regenerate it so the fixes apply: Settings → Blog
appearance → Rebuild blog now. The blog's style.css is assembled at build
time, so it only picks up these changes when you rebuild.

#littleFedi #littleOne #Fediverse

Hi everyone, I'm Stefano

Also known as the BSD Cafe and illumos Cafe barista - @stefano@bsd.cafe and @stefano@illumos.cafe

This is the first post from littleOne (littleone.littlefedi.social), the first littleFedi instance open to outside users.

littleFedi is a new ActivityPub server, still in active development, written in Go and shipped as a single binary. It speaks standard ActivityPub, so it federates normally with Mastodon, snac, GoToSocial, Akkoma and the rest of the fediverse, and it exposes a Mastodon-compatible API, so most existing apps already work with it.

A few things about it that aren't the usual fediverse defaults:

• Catch-up instead of an algorithm. Timelines stay chronological, full stop. There's a separate /catchup page, visited on demand, that ranks what you missed using only signals this instance already has locally - who you follow boosted it, replies and favourites delivered here, hashtags you follow. No external popularity data comes in, nothing about what you read is tracked. It answers "what did I miss" without turning into a feed that decides for you.

• Static blogging built in. Any post can be marked as a blog post and gets published as a plain static page under /@username/blog/, with its own permalink, Atom feed, and no JavaScript or database hit per view, while still being a normal federated post underneath. A proper home for longer writing that doesn't need to compete with a timeline.

• Self-expiring posts. Any post can be given a timer and auto-delete on its own.

• Bubble timeline. A middle ground between local and federated: a timeline scoped to a set of instances you've chosen to group together, not just your own or everything.

• littleMesh. A way to federate without a public domain, certificate, or open port at all - meant for something like a Raspberry Pi behind NAT. Instances get an address derived from an Ed25519 key pair and reach each other through pinned relays that never see plaintext.

• No trends, no suggestions. These are intentionally left empty. Nothing here is trying to surface "popular" content or keep anyone scrolling longer.

• Security defaults taken seriously. Signed federation (HTTP Signatures), optional Object Integrity Proofs, TOTP MFA, audit logs, and full account export, migration and deletion if you ever want your data to live somewhere else.

This instance is here to test all of that with real accounts, not just a small group ones'. In the next few days I'll be reaching out to everyone who already told me they were interested, to set the first accounts up - an invite is coming. If you'd rather just follow along and see how it goes, that works too.

It's a test instance, so expect the occasional rough edge. If something breaks or feels wrong, tell me - that's exactly what this phase is for.

#littleFedi #littleOne #Fediverse #Introduction