10 ms·

Ellie – A Mastodon Client for Windows

92 points by ZacnyLos 4y ago

janandonly 4y ago
I don't really understand why people want to switch over from Twitter to Mastodon while it carries similar problems as the blue platform: 1. Instead of being blocked or shadowbanned by Elon Musk, you can now be blocked or shadowbanned by the Mastodon instance admin. 2. Making connections with other Mastodon instances is non-trivial. 3. Exporting your data and connections is not supported on all Mastodon instances. Why aren't more people switch over to Nostr? I know Nostr has seen “meteoric” growth [1] and it's easy to find your old twitter contracts again [2] but somehow Hacker News is very quiet about this open protocol and all the various clients and implementations [3]. [1]. https://stats.nostr.band/ https://stats.nostr.band/ [2]. By using tools like https://www.nostr.directory/ https://www.nostr.directory/ [3]. https://nostr.how/ https://nostr.how/
- suction 4y ago
  [dead]
- fake-name 4y ago
  If a social network has no ability for moderation of any sort, it's gonna be DOA. The issue with being unmoderatable is that it means that you will wind up with a network dominated by the worst people. In general, people don't like to hang out on a website with literal (or euphemistic) nazis. If there isn't a way to prevent people from having to deal with that, they're not going to go to your site/service. Sure, mastodon is moderated on a per-instance basis, but you can always just move instances. If you consistently cannot find an instance that lets you stay, that's likely more of a indictment of you then mastodon.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > but you can always just move instances. It's never "just".
    - DoctorOW 4y ago
      It's relatively easy. My personal instance is my third account overall. The others transferred my followers and setup a redirect.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    That is just a narrative that Mastodon instance operators insists to appease Apple/Google authoritarianism, and also literal German/French authorities, not what actually matters.
- malermeister 4y ago
  I think lots of people want some moderation, which Nostr makes impossible. Sure, I don't like Elon running it, but I'd like somebody keeping the Nazis out. With Mastodon, you can pick a server that fits your moderation preferences. It also doesn't help that the current Nostr audience is a very cryptocurrency-focused crowd, which a lot of people (myself included) find yucky.
- illiarian 4y ago
  What is it with crypto people and contradictory statements: --- start quotes --- truly censorship resistant and decentralized social media platforms Relays are like the backend servers for Nostr. They allow Nostr clients to send them messages, and they may (or may not) store those messages and broadcast those messages if you notice that your Nostr client feels slow, it's most likely due to the relays that you're using. It might be worth adding a few more relays (or removing a few) to your client. most people expect that paid relays will be the norm in the future. --- end quotes ---
  - notafelon234 4y ago
    [flagged]
- colesantiago 4y ago
  [flagged]
- BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
  i just want to follow interesting people on a platform that isn't trying to manipulate my emotions to farm engagement. mastodon wins on the latter but loses on the former. i wouldn't mind if substack notes took off, i'm willing to pay for what i'm looking for.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  There's one really big and important (for me) difference - Elon Musk doesn't run Mastodon. I just don't want to use a product he's associated with. The other one is... all the people I want to follow stopped posting on Twitter and moved to Mastodon. Network effects work.
  - keyle 4y ago
    I wish that was the case for me... I look back at twitter and they're tweeting like "lalalala nothin to see here, just ignore elon klol?" Meanwhile maybe 10% did make the move to mastodon and I followed them instantly. The problem? All they talk about is twitter.
    - robin_reala 4y ago
      Easy enough to set up a filter on Mastodon to hide all mentions of Twitter.
- rvz 4y ago
  > Why aren't more people switch over to Nostr? I know Nostr has seen “meteoric” growth [1] and it's easy to find your old twitter contracts again [2] but somehow Hacker News is very quiet about this open protocol and all the various clients and implementations [3]. It seems that lots here need a lesson about how network effects work in order to understand why little to no one is interested in moving to such niche social networks which appeal to only weird techies, furry garbage or crypto zealots and bitcoin maximalists. Both are hopelessly utopian and don't even have a slither of a chance in beginning to challenge Twitter. Nostr might be too early to tell but I already don't like where it's going with its over ecclesiastical preaching of bitcoin. But we have given Mastodon 7 years, and that is enough time to conclude that it has failed to challenge Twitter or even take off.
  - dolmen 4y ago
    From my perspective Mastodon has clearly took off. My bubble already has much daily fresh content.
    - rvz 4y ago
      Well that proves my point. Not only one tiny anecdote isn't evidence or a network effect, it is mostly techies continuing to complain about Twitter that are there, not those who don't care about technology, that is still using Twitter; in the hundreds of millions. Daily. Even attempting to bring up the daily number of users on Mastodon after 7 years would be extremely painful to mention since Twitter still remains unchallenged. This is before even mentioning the friction of 'Choosing an instance', already being the first barrier to entry being a failure for the user.
      - getoffmyyawn 4y ago
        I don't really understand what you mean by 'challenging twitter' in this context. Why does the number of DAU matter? In what way are Mastodon and Twitter competing? Twitter is a business that needs to make money to survive. Mastodon is a federated network of services run by individuals and groups under a variety of arrangements. I've been on Twitter since the first year. I watched it grow and change for the good and bad. I find I use mastodon far more these days. Pretty much daily. Why? The people I want to interact with are on Mastodon discussing the topics I want to discuss. For me there is simply no comparison anymore. Mastodon wins hands down because: 1. signal to noise ratio is 1000x better and 2. the responses to my posts are high quality, faster, and 10x more than I get on Twitter (where I have 10x the followers).
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > Instead of being blocked or shadowbanned by Elon Musk, you can now be blocked or shadowbanned by the Mastodon instance admin. I'm the admin on mine. > Making connections with other Mastodon instances is non-trivial. It's been entirely automatic for me? > Exporting your data and connections is not supported on all Mastodon instances. Pick accordingly?
  - ajdude 4y ago
    My plan is actually to set up a mastodon instance on my own domain exclusively for myself, and I will be the only user. From what I can see, people from other mastodon instances will still be able to interact with me and my posts?. Is that your experience?
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      Yes. That's my setup as well. Only downside is the "local" timeline is... pretty empty. You won't find new people to follow in there, but you can always browse other interesting servers' local timelines if you're searching for more.
- numpad0 4y ago
  Nostr has scalability and some spam problems. I agree with many of your points but it’s a bit too rough for a “general availability” in its current form.
- ZacnyLos 4y ago
  I don't want to be on a platform that doesn't have a mod that I trust and will do most of the dirty work for me. I want to have fun, not extra work.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    You can have a mod on Nostr, basically by only subscribing to servers operated by such mods. In Nostr, users multi-post their tweets to “relay servers”, and relay servers push it to you. Follow actions are a type of tweets as well so all relays can know who you are following. You can also have as many relays as you want. Isn’t it going to waste a lot of bandwidth, you may wonder. It does! Huge benefit of Nostr architecture is that your identity is based on your generated private key and optionally a DNS name you happen to own, so any server operators’ opinions about you won’t affect your identity. This happens a lot with existing platforms, not limited to Twitter. “Yesterday evening I took pictures of gorgeous Egyptian sand hills, and since this morning Google left me saying I violated them, now even the embassy says they can’t verify my nationality status” - can’t happen on Nostr.
- oblio 4y ago
  > Integrated with lightning, Nostr enables new value-for-value business models that have the potential to be more fair. I don't understand this.
  - belltaco 4y ago
    They should've capitalized Lightning, probably referring to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      The "value-for-value business models that have the potential to be more fair" is the bewildering part.
  - Macha 4y ago
    Value-for-value is a buzzword for crypto based micropayments and tipping.
- rakoo 4y ago
  > 1. Instead of being blocked or shadowbanned by Elon Musk, you can now be blocked or shadowbanned by the Mastodon instance admin Don't pick random instances, get together with friends and family on a community-owned instance. Or run your own. The whole point of getting away from Twitter is to own the means of communication. You can also get blocked or shadowbanned by nostr relays, and the incentives to run a relay are even worse than for Mastodon > 2. Making connections with other Mastodon instances is non-trivial. Lies, there is literally nothing to do to connect to other instances. Subscribe to an account there and you're plugged. > 3. Exporting your data and connections is not supported on all Mastodon instances. Goes back to point 1: don't go to a generic universal instance. Why so much FUD ? Why the hate ? ActivityPub has real issues, but those are not it (in fact, it's a pretty good indication that you haven't used the network to know what you're talking about). Just like nostr has issues, but if we're going to ditch Twitter and centralized communications, why lie ?
  - shortrounddev 4y ago
    > get together with friends and family on a community-owned instance Do you think if I had friends that I would be on social media?
    - bmarquez 4y ago
      My friends and family are more likely to already have Facebook or Discord, and are unlikely to successfully navigate Mastodon onboarding even if it made sense for that use case. I hate Facebook but Discord is already fulfilling the role of a common space.
      - rakoo 4y ago
        > and are unlikely to successfully navigate Mastodon onboarding That's the point: take your community with you on your own instance and recreate your AFK network inside computers. Don't let them go through the hassle of choosing an instance, do it for them if you know how it works.
  - numpad0 4y ago
- Barrin92 4y ago
  > know Nostr has seen “meteoric” growth [1] and it's easy to find your old twitter contracts again I used the tool to find my Twitter followers on Nostr and of the ~300 people I follow a grand total of one, Jack Dorsey, is using Nostr. He's apparently the second most followed account and gets about 90 likes on his posts. Tbh the reason nobody talks about it is probably because barely anyone's using it. The global feed is just one guy spamming JSON dumps
DoctorOW 4y ago
What's the appeal of a closed source, Windows only application if the audience is of open source, federated websites?
- robin_reala 4y ago
  The same as Ivory[1] (a closed-source, iOS only application): there’s a bunch of people who value things like platform-consistency and a high focus on UX over source availability and the ability to run it wherever they want. (Note: no specific comment on Ellie’s UX here, I haven’t used it.) [1] https://tapbots.com/ivory/ https://tapbots.com/ivory/
  - DoctorOW 4y ago
    How does closed source improve UX?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - illiarian 4y ago
      How does open source improve UI? People will pay for convenience. Whether it's closed source or open source is usually priority number 110 000 for them, waaaaaaay after all other priorities
      - aloisdg 4y ago
        How does open source improve UI? well if you dislike something you can see how it works and look to improve it.
        illiarian 4y ago
        > well if you dislike something you can see how it works and look to improve it. Strange that so much of open-source is actually really bad UI-wise then.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rtpg 4y ago
Is this using native widgets? I’m currently using Tokodon on Linux and it’s quite a joy to use a thing that is using my OS’s UI for once
- jtvjan 4y ago
  From the screenshot it looks like an UWP app. So it's not a "proper native" win32 application.
  - kramerger 4y ago
    UWP is the proper look for win8 and unwards
    - qtzfz 4y ago
      Thankfully most developers disagree. I am using 11 and the only UWP app I use is the modern terminal... and it's UWP because Microsoft made it.
      - oblio 4y ago
        Heh, they don't disagree. Everyone has just stopped developing Windows-only apps about the time XAML showed up on the scene. I'm having a really hard time thinking of any greenfield Win32/WinForms apps I use on a daily basis that were created post 2010 or so...
        apolymath 4y ago
        [dead]
  - madeofpalk 4y ago
    For what it's worth, 'UWP' is a very specific set of frameworks. The 'new' Windows App SDK (WinUI 3) is not UWP, yet it produces similar looking apps (Using Fluent https://www.microsoft.com/design/fluent https://www.microsoft.com/design/fluent). WinUI 3 can be used in a 'proper native' win32 application. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/winui/#comparison-of-winui-3-and-winui-2 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/winui/#compar... Yes, it's all very confusing and Microsoft has done a terrible job of making this easy for anyone.
madeofpalk 4y ago
It's a decent start for a native-ish client app, but it's clearly still in early development with a fair bit to go. - In the feed nothing in a post is clickable except the post itself. You can't click links, handles, images. Trying to click takes you to the single post view, where then they're clickable. - Viewing images is especially rough (which to be fair, it's always hard to show arbitary aspect ratio images in a timeline app like this). Shows in one cropped fixed aspect ration in timeline, and another cropped aspect ratio in post view. Takes two click to view the full image, where it opens in your browser. - Vertical rhythm/spacing is off, making timeline hard to read. Difficult to see where one post ends and the next starts. - Clicking a reply in a thread takes you to the top of the thread rather than the post you clicked. - Can only post text. Can't even attach images. I'm excited for a neat native Windows mastodon app, so I'll check back in on this every now and then to see how it's getting along.
basseed 4y ago
lol there's no way to move the window before logging in?
mittermayr 4y ago
After the recent (ongoing) chaos at Twitter, I got super excited for Mastodon and built an account analytics tool (for businesses, but also individuals) in hopes of finding similar success to the analytics suite I built for Twitter ten years ago. Turns out, it's still way too quiet over there. At least my bubble seems to have quieted down massively again. A few selected groups seem to have made a home and built out their circles, but from what I can hear, it's mostly crickets in the night. And, the API itself and some of the tech design around it reminds me of the same trouble Twitter went through at the very beginning. One major instance had to kill all their keys a while back (if I remember correctly), so over night, all my users were deauthenticated. The rate limits are quite tough and all designed for one specific use case, and unusable for another, etc. etc. And every single instance could be sticking to the recommended configuration and performance considerations, or not — it really depends on the person who runs it.
- re5i5tor 4y ago
  Not for me. Better engagement already than I had on Twitter.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    Bear in mind if the OP is primarily focused on business accounts, plenty of servers block them pretty aggressively. There are servers that allow businesses and some businesses with a reasonably decent following, but since there's no advertising business there with an incentive to force people to see business accounts, many people choose not to.
    - mittermayr 4y ago
      It's interesting you mention that. I've seen a few businesses sort of try and get a holding there, but then abandon their efforts. I think I saw an official MS Azure account that had 14 followers or something. Businesses aren't really clear either on whether or not they're expected to be there, or even allowed. Good point.
Brendinooo 4y ago
Tangential nitpick - I thought my browser froze when I couldn't scroll down on the linked page! Didn't realize it wasn't supposed to until I poked in Inspector a bit. (maybe this is more of a "me" thing though)
- naavis 4y ago
  Same experience here! It definitely looks like there would be more content further down.
- red_trumpet 4y ago
  Me too. I just wanted to see the full screenshot. So here it is: https://ellie.software/assets/app-frame.svg https://ellie.software/assets/app-frame.svg
  - marionauta 4y ago
    Isn't it weird that it is a .svg file rather than an actual screenshot? Maybe it's exported directly from Figma, or some other design software.
    - Brendinooo 4y ago
      Nah, it's all vector so it's a fine format choice.
- pindab0ter 4y ago
  Not just you. That was very annoying. If something is partially visible, you should be able to scroll down to see all of it. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's one of the best ways to telegraph to someone that there's more to discover.
seyz 4y ago
Where is Joel?
ellieh 4y ago
haha, I used to own that domain! nice to see it being used for something cool.
EricHolden12 4y ago
Mastodon would be far more popular if it wasn’t called Mastodon.
- stfutechbros 4y ago
  [dead]

92 points by ZacnyLos 4y ago

I don't really understand why people want to switch over from Twitter to Mastodon while it carries similar problems as the blue platform: 1. Instead of being blocked or shadowbanned by Elon Musk, you can now be blocked or shadowbanned by the Mastodon instance admin. 2. Making connections with other Mastodon instances is non-trivial. 3. Exporting your data and connections is not supported on all Mastodon instances. Why aren't more people switch over to Nostr? I know Nostr has seen “meteoric” growth [1] and it's easy to find your old twitter contracts again [2] but somehow Hacker News is very quiet about this open protocol and all the various clients and implementations [3]. [1]. https://stats.nostr.band/ https://stats.nostr.band/ [2]. By using tools like https://www.nostr.directory/ https://www.nostr.directory/ [3]. https://nostr.how/ https://nostr.how/

suction 4y ago
[dead]
fake-name 4y ago
If a social network has no ability for moderation of any sort, it's gonna be DOA. The issue with being unmoderatable is that it means that you will wind up with a network dominated by the worst people. In general, people don't like to hang out on a website with literal (or euphemistic) nazis. If there isn't a way to prevent people from having to deal with that, they're not going to go to your site/service. Sure, mastodon is moderated on a per-instance basis, but you can always just move instances. If you consistently cannot find an instance that lets you stay, that's likely more of a indictment of you then mastodon.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > but you can always just move instances. It's never "just".
  - DoctorOW 4y ago
    It's relatively easy. My personal instance is my third account overall. The others transferred my followers and setup a redirect.
- numpad0 4y ago
  That is just a narrative that Mastodon instance operators insists to appease Apple/Google authoritarianism, and also literal German/French authorities, not what actually matters.
malermeister 4y ago
I think lots of people want some moderation, which Nostr makes impossible. Sure, I don't like Elon running it, but I'd like somebody keeping the Nazis out. With Mastodon, you can pick a server that fits your moderation preferences. It also doesn't help that the current Nostr audience is a very cryptocurrency-focused crowd, which a lot of people (myself included) find yucky.
illiarian 4y ago
What is it with crypto people and contradictory statements: --- start quotes --- truly censorship resistant and decentralized social media platforms Relays are like the backend servers for Nostr. They allow Nostr clients to send them messages, and they may (or may not) store those messages and broadcast those messages if you notice that your Nostr client feels slow, it's most likely due to the relays that you're using. It might be worth adding a few more relays (or removing a few) to your client. most people expect that paid relays will be the norm in the future. --- end quotes ---
- notafelon234 4y ago
  [flagged]
colesantiago 4y ago
[flagged]
BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
i just want to follow interesting people on a platform that isn't trying to manipulate my emotions to farm engagement. mastodon wins on the latter but loses on the former. i wouldn't mind if substack notes took off, i'm willing to pay for what i'm looking for.
madeofpalk 4y ago
There's one really big and important (for me) difference - Elon Musk doesn't run Mastodon. I just don't want to use a product he's associated with. The other one is... all the people I want to follow stopped posting on Twitter and moved to Mastodon. Network effects work.
- keyle 4y ago
  I wish that was the case for me... I look back at twitter and they're tweeting like "lalalala nothin to see here, just ignore elon klol?" Meanwhile maybe 10% did make the move to mastodon and I followed them instantly. The problem? All they talk about is twitter.
  - robin_reala 4y ago
    Easy enough to set up a filter on Mastodon to hide all mentions of Twitter.
rvz 4y ago
> Why aren't more people switch over to Nostr? I know Nostr has seen “meteoric” growth [1] and it's easy to find your old twitter contracts again [2] but somehow Hacker News is very quiet about this open protocol and all the various clients and implementations [3]. It seems that lots here need a lesson about how network effects work in order to understand why little to no one is interested in moving to such niche social networks which appeal to only weird techies, furry garbage or crypto zealots and bitcoin maximalists. Both are hopelessly utopian and don't even have a slither of a chance in beginning to challenge Twitter. Nostr might be too early to tell but I already don't like where it's going with its over ecclesiastical preaching of bitcoin. But we have given Mastodon 7 years, and that is enough time to conclude that it has failed to challenge Twitter or even take off.
- dolmen 4y ago
  From my perspective Mastodon has clearly took off. My bubble already has much daily fresh content.
  - rvz 4y ago
    Well that proves my point. Not only one tiny anecdote isn't evidence or a network effect, it is mostly techies continuing to complain about Twitter that are there, not those who don't care about technology, that is still using Twitter; in the hundreds of millions. Daily. Even attempting to bring up the daily number of users on Mastodon after 7 years would be extremely painful to mention since Twitter still remains unchallenged. This is before even mentioning the friction of 'Choosing an instance', already being the first barrier to entry being a failure for the user.
    - getoffmyyawn 4y ago
      I don't really understand what you mean by 'challenging twitter' in this context. Why does the number of DAU matter? In what way are Mastodon and Twitter competing? Twitter is a business that needs to make money to survive. Mastodon is a federated network of services run by individuals and groups under a variety of arrangements. I've been on Twitter since the first year. I watched it grow and change for the good and bad. I find I use mastodon far more these days. Pretty much daily. Why? The people I want to interact with are on Mastodon discussing the topics I want to discuss. For me there is simply no comparison anymore. Mastodon wins hands down because: 1. signal to noise ratio is 1000x better and 2. the responses to my posts are high quality, faster, and 10x more than I get on Twitter (where I have 10x the followers).
ceejayoz 4y ago
> Instead of being blocked or shadowbanned by Elon Musk, you can now be blocked or shadowbanned by the Mastodon instance admin. I'm the admin on mine. > Making connections with other Mastodon instances is non-trivial. It's been entirely automatic for me? > Exporting your data and connections is not supported on all Mastodon instances. Pick accordingly?
- ajdude 4y ago
  My plan is actually to set up a mastodon instance on my own domain exclusively for myself, and I will be the only user. From what I can see, people from other mastodon instances will still be able to interact with me and my posts?. Is that your experience?
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Yes. That's my setup as well. Only downside is the "local" timeline is... pretty empty. You won't find new people to follow in there, but you can always browse other interesting servers' local timelines if you're searching for more.
numpad0 4y ago
Nostr has scalability and some spam problems. I agree with many of your points but it’s a bit too rough for a “general availability” in its current form.
ZacnyLos 4y ago
I don't want to be on a platform that doesn't have a mod that I trust and will do most of the dirty work for me. I want to have fun, not extra work.
- numpad0 4y ago
  You can have a mod on Nostr, basically by only subscribing to servers operated by such mods. In Nostr, users multi-post their tweets to “relay servers”, and relay servers push it to you. Follow actions are a type of tweets as well so all relays can know who you are following. You can also have as many relays as you want. Isn’t it going to waste a lot of bandwidth, you may wonder. It does! Huge benefit of Nostr architecture is that your identity is based on your generated private key and optionally a DNS name you happen to own, so any server operators’ opinions about you won’t affect your identity. This happens a lot with existing platforms, not limited to Twitter. “Yesterday evening I took pictures of gorgeous Egyptian sand hills, and since this morning Google left me saying I violated them, now even the embassy says they can’t verify my nationality status” - can’t happen on Nostr.
oblio 4y ago
> Integrated with lightning, Nostr enables new value-for-value business models that have the potential to be more fair. I don't understand this.
- belltaco 4y ago
  They should've capitalized Lightning, probably referring to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    The "value-for-value business models that have the potential to be more fair" is the bewildering part.
- Macha 4y ago
  Value-for-value is a buzzword for crypto based micropayments and tipping.
rakoo 4y ago
> 1. Instead of being blocked or shadowbanned by Elon Musk, you can now be blocked or shadowbanned by the Mastodon instance admin Don't pick random instances, get together with friends and family on a community-owned instance. Or run your own. The whole point of getting away from Twitter is to own the means of communication. You can also get blocked or shadowbanned by nostr relays, and the incentives to run a relay are even worse than for Mastodon > 2. Making connections with other Mastodon instances is non-trivial. Lies, there is literally nothing to do to connect to other instances. Subscribe to an account there and you're plugged. > 3. Exporting your data and connections is not supported on all Mastodon instances. Goes back to point 1: don't go to a generic universal instance. Why so much FUD ? Why the hate ? ActivityPub has real issues, but those are not it (in fact, it's a pretty good indication that you haven't used the network to know what you're talking about). Just like nostr has issues, but if we're going to ditch Twitter and centralized communications, why lie ?
- shortrounddev 4y ago
  > get together with friends and family on a community-owned instance Do you think if I had friends that I would be on social media?
  - bmarquez 4y ago
    My friends and family are more likely to already have Facebook or Discord, and are unlikely to successfully navigate Mastodon onboarding even if it made sense for that use case. I hate Facebook but Discord is already fulfilling the role of a common space.
    - rakoo 4y ago
      > and are unlikely to successfully navigate Mastodon onboarding That's the point: take your community with you on your own instance and recreate your AFK network inside computers. Don't let them go through the hassle of choosing an instance, do it for them if you know how it works.
- numpad0 4y ago
Barrin92 4y ago
> know Nostr has seen “meteoric” growth [1] and it's easy to find your old twitter contracts again I used the tool to find my Twitter followers on Nostr and of the ~300 people I follow a grand total of one, Jack Dorsey, is using Nostr. He's apparently the second most followed account and gets about 90 likes on his posts. Tbh the reason nobody talks about it is probably because barely anyone's using it. The global feed is just one guy spamming JSON dumps

DoctorOW 4y ago

What's the appeal of a closed source, Windows only application if the audience is of open source, federated websites?

robin_reala 4y ago
The same as Ivory[1] (a closed-source, iOS only application): there’s a bunch of people who value things like platform-consistency and a high focus on UX over source availability and the ability to run it wherever they want. (Note: no specific comment on Ellie’s UX here, I haven’t used it.) [1] https://tapbots.com/ivory/ https://tapbots.com/ivory/
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  How does closed source improve UX?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - illiarian 4y ago
    How does open source improve UI? People will pay for convenience. Whether it's closed source or open source is usually priority number 110 000 for them, waaaaaaay after all other priorities
    - aloisdg 4y ago
      How does open source improve UI? well if you dislike something you can see how it works and look to improve it.
      - illiarian 4y ago
        > well if you dislike something you can see how it works and look to improve it. Strange that so much of open-source is actually really bad UI-wise then.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rtpg 4y ago

Is this using native widgets? I’m currently using Tokodon on Linux and it’s quite a joy to use a thing that is using my OS’s UI for once

jtvjan 4y ago
From the screenshot it looks like an UWP app. So it's not a "proper native" win32 application.
- kramerger 4y ago
  UWP is the proper look for win8 and unwards
  - qtzfz 4y ago
    Thankfully most developers disagree. I am using 11 and the only UWP app I use is the modern terminal... and it's UWP because Microsoft made it.
    - oblio 4y ago
      Heh, they don't disagree. Everyone has just stopped developing Windows-only apps about the time XAML showed up on the scene. I'm having a really hard time thinking of any greenfield Win32/WinForms apps I use on a daily basis that were created post 2010 or so...
      - apolymath 4y ago
        [dead]
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  For what it's worth, 'UWP' is a very specific set of frameworks. The 'new' Windows App SDK (WinUI 3) is not UWP, yet it produces similar looking apps (Using Fluent https://www.microsoft.com/design/fluent https://www.microsoft.com/design/fluent). WinUI 3 can be used in a 'proper native' win32 application. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/winui/#comparison-of-winui-3-and-winui-2 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/winui/#compar... Yes, it's all very confusing and Microsoft has done a terrible job of making this easy for anyone.

madeofpalk 4y ago

It's a decent start for a native-ish client app, but it's clearly still in early development with a fair bit to go. - In the feed nothing in a post is clickable except the post itself. You can't click links, handles, images. Trying to click takes you to the single post view, where then they're clickable. - Viewing images is especially rough (which to be fair, it's always hard to show arbitary aspect ratio images in a timeline app like this). Shows in one cropped fixed aspect ration in timeline, and another cropped aspect ratio in post view. Takes two click to view the full image, where it opens in your browser. - Vertical rhythm/spacing is off, making timeline hard to read. Difficult to see where one post ends and the next starts. - Clicking a reply in a thread takes you to the top of the thread rather than the post you clicked. - Can only post text. Can't even attach images. I'm excited for a neat native Windows mastodon app, so I'll check back in on this every now and then to see how it's getting along.

basseed 4y ago

lol there's no way to move the window before logging in?

mittermayr 4y ago

After the recent (ongoing) chaos at Twitter, I got super excited for Mastodon and built an account analytics tool (for businesses, but also individuals) in hopes of finding similar success to the analytics suite I built for Twitter ten years ago. Turns out, it's still way too quiet over there. At least my bubble seems to have quieted down massively again. A few selected groups seem to have made a home and built out their circles, but from what I can hear, it's mostly crickets in the night. And, the API itself and some of the tech design around it reminds me of the same trouble Twitter went through at the very beginning. One major instance had to kill all their keys a while back (if I remember correctly), so over night, all my users were deauthenticated. The rate limits are quite tough and all designed for one specific use case, and unusable for another, etc. etc. And every single instance could be sticking to the recommended configuration and performance considerations, or not — it really depends on the person who runs it.

re5i5tor 4y ago
Not for me. Better engagement already than I had on Twitter.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Bear in mind if the OP is primarily focused on business accounts, plenty of servers block them pretty aggressively. There are servers that allow businesses and some businesses with a reasonably decent following, but since there's no advertising business there with an incentive to force people to see business accounts, many people choose not to.
  - mittermayr 4y ago
    It's interesting you mention that. I've seen a few businesses sort of try and get a holding there, but then abandon their efforts. I think I saw an official MS Azure account that had 14 followers or something. Businesses aren't really clear either on whether or not they're expected to be there, or even allowed. Good point.

Brendinooo 4y ago

Tangential nitpick - I thought my browser froze when I couldn't scroll down on the linked page! Didn't realize it wasn't supposed to until I poked in Inspector a bit. (maybe this is more of a "me" thing though)

naavis 4y ago
Same experience here! It definitely looks like there would be more content further down.
red_trumpet 4y ago
Me too. I just wanted to see the full screenshot. So here it is: https://ellie.software/assets/app-frame.svg https://ellie.software/assets/app-frame.svg
- marionauta 4y ago
  Isn't it weird that it is a .svg file rather than an actual screenshot? Maybe it's exported directly from Figma, or some other design software.
  - Brendinooo 4y ago
    Nah, it's all vector so it's a fine format choice.
pindab0ter 4y ago
Not just you. That was very annoying. If something is partially visible, you should be able to scroll down to see all of it. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's one of the best ways to telegraph to someone that there's more to discover.

seyz 4y ago

Where is Joel?

ellieh 4y ago

haha, I used to own that domain! nice to see it being used for something cool.

EricHolden12 4y ago

Mastodon would be far more popular if it wasn’t called Mastodon.

stfutechbros 4y ago
[dead]