If you spend any time in the IndieWeb community, you've probably heard of feed readers; tools that let you follow blogs and websites without being beholden to any single platform. PADD (Personal Aggregation Display Dashboard) is one such reader, built by me with the IndieWeb philosophy at its core. I've been using it daily and wanted to walk through everything it offers.
What Is PADD?
PADD is a Microsub-compatible feed reader and social reader. The name says it all: it's a personal aggregati...
I've been busy! There's a big batch of improvements landing in PADD today. It touches pretty much every part of the app so I'm writing this post to walk y'all through it.
First though, I want to give a disclaimer: I'm building this stuff primarily for myself (not you, sorry). I want a good way to quickly post to my own site and read the blogs I care about. PADD is my attempt at that. If it turns out to be useful to other people, that's great. If not? Well, then at least I have a reader I like...
Things coming to #PADD (my #IndieWeb reader) soon:
Photo editing
Harvest to Gardn button
Better input for tags on post editor
Control over syndication targets via micropub
Import/Export OPML files to and from your Microsub server
A "Discover" page so you can see what other users are interacting with (not their interactions, just counts) to help you find more blogs to follow.
I can't wait for this to be done cooking!
Diane, 11:30am, February 24th. I'm entering the town of Twin Peaks.
Today is Twin Peaks day. The show originally aired in 1990, but is meant to have taken place in 1989. February 24th 1989 is the day Special Agent Dale Cooper arrives in Twin Peaks.
In real life, February 24th 1989 is the day I was born. Today is my birthday! Weird cooincidence? Or does it explain a lot?
These are the questions I'll be pondering today, along with many others. How did I get to be 37 years old? There's anothe...
Check out my Gardn page!
It's a fun new website that let's you log in with your website! Very IndieWeb, lol. Each plant is unique based on your domain. I'm hoping to figure out how to give the plants more variety (and let users re-generate if they already signed up!), but who knows when lol.
If you sign up (I can see a couple of you already!) please send me links to your Gardn page on your own websites!
Updates have been coming fast lately with PADD but that's just a function of the fact that everyone on the #IndieWeb seems to be obsessed with documentation. The wiki itself is a testament to that. I can almost always read a spec and translate that directly into features.
That's what led to today's update, in fact!
Updates
Manage Channels
Next to channels and at the bottom of the sidebar you'll spot some new buttons. These allow you to manage existing channels or add new channels.
Manage Feed...
I'm going to Homebrew Website Club Pacific in about 30 minutes. By the time you're reading this it will already be over though. I wanted to sit down before and write about how I think or hope it will go. Then I can write about how it actually went before I post.
But Aaaron, how will we know you didn't just write this all after the fact to make yourself look good?
Honestly, if this post ends up being anything but slighly cringe I'll be shocked. Nevertheless, here I sit to write.
How will it...
I've been working on PADD publicly for about a week now. Before that I was hacking on the individual parts (indieauth, micropub, etc.) but I was finally able to put them together in a fun UI and reading from a Microsub server. It was something I threw together while waiting for the results of medical tests on my partner. Something I did to take my mind off the stress. It's quickly become one of my favorite projects!
New Features
Post Drafting
You will now see a "New post" button in the side b...
Today I had a few hours to kill with my partner in the ER. She's okay, I promise!
It wasn't the way we wanted to spend our Friday, but it gave me time to hack on something I've been toying with for a while. I give you: PADD.
Yesterday I shared a screenshot of something else I'm making but the test UI was Star Trek themed. That was kinda based on this lol. Kinda.
Padd is a Microsub Reader. The biggest thing this one does over others I've used is save my replies in-line. So I don't forget if I...
Yesterday evening I wondered how long this blog had been around. So I decided to look it up on the wayback machine. I was not ready to realize that yesterday was my blogs BIRTHDAY π
Wow. It's been 12 years! Crazy how fast time has flown and how much of my life has changed since then. I'm now no longer:
Working at Boostability.
Married.
Mormon.
However, a lot is the same!
I'm still a dad. I'm still a software engineer (and I've grown in my career a lot!).
And a lot is actually better....