Using Mastodon's Advanced UI as a Fediverse Dashboard
About a month ago, I was looking for some kind of catch-all fediverse app which would syndicate multiple places into one space.
Bonfire looks like an interesting solution, but at the moment, it's really built for teams rather than individuals. I wanted something that I could use to pull in multiple streams of information, kind of like a hyper-active RSS reader, but using ActivityPub as the protocol rather than just syndicating content in to a reader.
I'm a TweetDeck user form back before Twitter owned (and then kills) it, so I'm very comfortable with the column layout. I already use the Mastodon Advanced UI and I felt like this would be a good first shot at making something work.
Mastodon
I only have my home, local, and notifications timelines open. I follow several hashtags across the Mastodon space to my Home timeline. This is mainly for in-the-moment stuff and I'll scroll up and down periodically, but I don't try to catch everything.
On Twitter, I was really education focused. When I left, I had a chance to start over from scratch and now my Home feed is full of a much more diverse set of people from artists to programmers and everything in between. It's much more balanced and I didn't change a lot from how I used Twitter other than being more picky about what I follow.
The only other tip I would have for Mastodon is to follow hashtags in your Home timeline rather than adding columns. They blend in with other curated stuff and add variety.
Pixelfed
I have a Pixelfed account that I post to maybe once per month. I set it up when pixelfed.social went live and have just kind of sat on it. I'll browse it from time to time, but only on my phone.
If you don't care about posting pictures, you can still follow people posting on any Pixelfed instance by searching their @username@instance in your Mastodon search bar. You can even follow your Pixelfed account from your Mastodon account. So meta.
Once I figured this out, I really started to understand the power of Activity Pub as a connector.
Lemmy
This was the breakthrough moment for me. With the (impending?) death of Reddit as a usable space, I started poking around Lemmy instances. Frankly, I only used reddit for two things: beekeeping and DIY repair forums. I don't really care about the front page, just other people interested in the same niche stuff like thousands of insects who make honey and fixing your own stuff.
With most apps, you followed people. With Lemmy (and kbin), you can follow entire communities just the same way as with individuals. This is a big deal because now, I don't have to decided which Lemmy beekeeping community (lemmy.world/c/beekeeping vs lemmy.ml/c/beekeeping) to create an account in - I can follow, and interact, with both via ActivityPub.
Go back to the Mastodon search bar and instead of searching the Lemmy URL, look for the @-version of the community. So, lemmy.world/c/beekeeping becomes @beekeeping@lemmy.world. All of a sudden, I can now follow that entire forum from my Mastodon account. Lemmy posts come in as boosts and I can favorite to upvote or reply to post a reply to the original thread. You can even start a new thread by @-mentioning the community!
This is where the Advanced UI in Mastodon becomes important. I have to follow individual Lemmy threads, so they'll pop up in my Home timeline. But since I don't scroll too much, I might miss a post. To make sure I see all of the Lemmy content, I add those accounts to lists and then pin the list to my Mastodon dashboard.
Now, all in one place, I have my real time social media, some nice photos sprinkled in from around the world, and columns for discussion forums on topics I refer to frequently.
Other improvements?
If I were to do something different, I think I would want some kind of "workspace" view where I can pin different columns for different things. Maybe a Mastodon + Pixelfed workspace for hashtags I'm interested in, but no people I follow specifically. Or a workspace which combines the beekeeping hashtag from Mastodon, Pixelfed, and Lemmy all in one.
Right now, there's only the one view and it works better than I thought it would. As resources into the federated networks grow, I'm excited to see what kind of power-user tools become available.
Do you have other tips? Find me on Mastodon, @brianb@fosstodon.org, or send me an email.
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