For example, this comment links to another community on another instance, but when clicked on, you’re not actually able to interact with anything on that community, because you’re suddenly not logged in.

It’s doesn’t function like linking to a subreddit, and I understand that that’s because of federation, but is there a better way of doing this? It seems… very stupid that linking to a page would suddenly “log you out” for all intents and purposes, while searching that same community wouldn’t.

Does this make sense?

  • terribleplan@lemmy.nrd.liEnglish
    23·
    2 years ago

    For communities or users many clients (including the default web ui) understand relative links, like [!asklemmy@lemmy.ml](/c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml) or [@tymon@lemm.ee](/u/tymon@lemm.ee). The problem with these is that if instance the person reading your messages is on doesn’t know that user/community (because no one is locally subscribed to it or there have been no actions seen by that user) you will get an ugly 404 page with the only remedy being to perform a search for that unknown user/community/whatever manually. I think this issue is being worked on to make things more seamless, but IDK when this experience will be improved.

    There is also technically no guarantee that any instance will keep track of non-local objects perpetually, so the “canonical” location of a thing is generally on the server that the user is based on. Posts and comments are referenced by a sequential ID that is different on every instance, so… yeah.

    Technically there is a unique ID for every object sent through ActivityPub, so those may be linkable in the future with a similar scheme such as /post/288327@lemm.ee or something uglier like /post/https%3A%2F%2Flemm.ee%2Fpost%2F288327 depending on compatibility needs (as the IDs in ActivityPub are all full URLs to the source object)

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
      9·
      2 years ago

      I don’t think so. I’m on 0.18 and links to posts and comments still go to the linked instance.

      However COMMUNITY linking is working great! Clicking on a link to a community on a different instance keeps you on your own instance :)

        • TWeaK@lemm.ee
          5·
          2 years ago

          You made your link to a fixed instance. Your source: [!lemmy@lemmy.ml](https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy)

          This is a functional instance agnostic link for older versions: [!lemmy@lemmy.ml](/c/lemmy@lemmy.ml) - like this: !lemmy@lemmy.ml

          The new version should just let you type !lemmy@lemmy.ml and automagically make it instance agnostic. However the actual links need to either be /c/ or /u/.

          • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
            1·
            2 years ago

            What is in my post is what the UI’s autocomplete provided. If it’s problematic or wrong, you should probably report a bug to the UI repo (I don’t know the details about these links).

            • TWeaK@lemm.ee
              2·
              2 years ago

              I just checked on sh.itjust.works, the only other instance I’m on that is on 0.18 yet, and your link works there. Edit: However the source of your link, made on 0.18, is different to my link on 0.17.4.

              Yours: Sounds like a big or missing feature. You might want to write it up on GitHub if you can or the [!lemmy@lemmy.ml](https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy) community.

              Mine: The new version should just let you type !lemmy@lemmy.ml and automagically make it instance agnostic.

              It looks like 0.18 creates an actual link in your comment when you make it, as a fall back for older versions, however that link is not agnostic. However if you view an old comment in 0.18 it will make an agnostic link for you, in spite of the old source. 0.18 apparently ignores the source in the comment where the link is not agnostic and just makes its own agnostic link out of the displayed text.

              So maybe it would be better if 0.18 made a link like [!lemmy@lemmy.ml](/c/lemmy@lemmy.ml) to ensure full compatibility.

              • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
                2·
                2 years ago

                Coupled with the new rendering of links, into what I believe are instance agnostic formats for 0.18, the system seems it will to work well.

                • TWeaK@lemm.ee
                  2·
                  2 years ago

                  I dug deeper and made a few edits lol it’s not quite perfect. More than anything I don’t get why it creates a non-agnostic link in the source.

            • TWeaK@lemm.ee
              2·
              2 years ago

              I think maybe because my instance is still on 0.17.4 the !comm@instance type of link doesn’t work. /c/ and /u/ did work on the old versions though, you just had to make them manually.

              So there’d be no point reporting the bug. Not unless we check on another 0.18 instance to see if your lemmy.ml link is agnostic there.

  • Dee@beehaw.org
    8·
    2 years ago

    Is there a seamless way of linking to other instances?

    Not really that I know of, not yet. Lemmy is still pretty janky, but it’s our janky.

  • Ben@lemmy.mlEnglish
    7·
    2 years ago

    Aha, yes - this is the first (internal) issue. The wider issue is - how can these comments be included in search engine results?

    The ultimate power of Reddit is that it shows up everywhere in search. Lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, BeeHaw etc… they just don’t.

  • lml@remy.city
    5·
    2 years ago

    There are ways to write links in such a way that they should keep you on your instance, but I’m not too familiar with them. I wonder if it would be possible to “precheck” links that load on a page, and if any point to content that can be federated, kick off the process of pulling that content in. Then when the user clicks that link, it would take them to the content on their home instance, where they can interact. That way users wouldn’t need to deal with formatting links a certain way, it would just happen automatically (if your home instance software supports it).

    • Kernel@beehaw.org
      1·
      2 years ago

      Intuitively, that’s how I assumed it already worked, and it’s probably what most new users will also expect. But a single global identity also runs counter to the idea of decentralization, and could invite other further complications.

      The current experience can still be pretty jarring.