The major feature in v3.2.0 of Ktistec is thread analysis. The previous release, v3.1.2, added support for viewing threads from Lemmy communities. I follow the Open Source community, which leads to many large threads. The thread on FFMpeg and Google has 112 posts and is still growing.

Thread analysis helps me navigate these extensive conversations. It includes: top contributors, a timeline histogram, and notable branches.

The analysis applies several heuristics to identify interesting branches of the main thread. “Interesting” is subjective, but the algorithm currently looks for sudden bursts of activity and highlights those areas. Ktistec uses this to create a table of contents that links directly to those branches. Clicking on one of these links takes you to a branch-only view that focuses on the selected part of the thread.

It's fast—I anticipated needing to cache analyses, but analyzing a thread with over 400 posts takes only about 50 milliseconds on my production server.

This release also addresses an object visibility regression that was introduced in a previous version.

Full Changelog

Added

• Thread analysis that displays key participants, a timeline histogram, and notable branches
• New MCP tools: analyze_thread and get_thread
• Focal point rendering support for image attachments

Fixed

• Regression in object visibility affecting replies to threads

Changed

• Enhanced MCP tool details for likes, dislikes, and announces
• Improved cookie security.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

I ended up with a solution that exaggerates the focal point offset from center to try to get more of the image around the focal point inside the container:

def normalized_focal_point
  return nil unless has_focal_point?
  x, y = focal_point.not_nil!
  norm_x = x / 2 + 0.5      # normalized x = x / 2 + 0.5
  norm_y = -y / 2 + 0.5     # normalized y = -y / 2 + 0.5 (y inverted)
  # push the focal point toward the edges so that more of the focused image is in view
  {
    exaggerate(norm_x),
    exaggerate(norm_y)
  }
end

private def exaggerate(value, strength = 0.75)
  centered = value - 0.5
  exaggerated = centered.sign * (centered.abs ** strength)
  (exaggerated + 0.5).clamp(0.0, 1.0)
end

Reading up on object-position and its use for focal point support in Mastodon and looking at examples in practice it doesn’t seem like the existing implemented approach works well (link). I'm open to better ways to do this, and I welcome course correction if I'm heading in the wrong direction.

#ktistec #activitypub

There are two big features in release v3.1.3 of Ktistec: auto-approve followers and a new image viewer.

Auto-approve followers is conceptually simple ("the server automatically sends an Accept activity when it receives a Follow activity") but it required extensive changes to some of the oldest code in the codebase: the inboxes and outboxes controllers. I refactored inbox and outbox side-effect processing into independent services, which made it possible to support side-effects like auto-approve follow (and also auto-follow back), without having to go through the controllers.

A more significant change for me personally was replacing the lightGallery image gallery (an external dependency) with my own implementation. It's not as slick, and not as full of features—I wrote it in two days—but it is fully free software, and that's important to me.

Added

• Add admin page for managing OAuth access tokens.
• Add support for auto-approve followers. (fixes #26)
• Add support for auto-follow back.

Fixed

• Prevent triggering actor refresh when user is anonymous.

Changed

• Replace "lightgallery" dependency with custom image viewer.
• Set OAuth access token expiry to 30 days (previously expired after 24 hours).
• Refactor inbox and outbox processing into dedicated processor services.

The OAuth changes set the groundwork for better support of the Mastodon API and the Fediverse clients that depend on it. Stay tuned!

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

I'm working on federation issues.

👻 Release v3.1.2 of Ktistec improves support for Lemmy and community servers like it that distribute content by wrapping it in Announce activities (FEP-1b12: Group federation support). Ktistec also supports the audience property, although support for that was removed from Lemmy earlier this year.

🎃 This release also adds support for delivering to shared inboxes, which are widely supported by other ActivityPub servers. Despite being federated, the Fediverse is not highly distributed, and this optimization can reduce outbound delivery traffic by 10-20x.

Added

• Support for the Dislike activity.
• Support for the audience property on activities and objects.
• Support for delivery to shared inboxes.
• Support for full-width hash signs in hashtags (e.g. ＃日本語) commonly used in Japanese and other Asian languages.

Fixed

• Strip HTML from object summaries rather than escaping it.
• Properly unwrap Lemmy-style Announce activities.

Changed

• Destroy discarded drafts instead of deleting them.

Enjoy!

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

Annoyingly, it seems like the ActivityPub Fuzzer wants to run over HTTPS, and there's no obvious way to persuade it to run on, for example, localhost, port 3000 with plain old HTTP. The supported use case seems to be fuzzer on public URL ↔︎ server on public URL, which is more trouble than it's worth, right now.

#activitypub

I’m setting up the ActivityPub Fuzzer. What’s not clear to me is whether or not this thing can run over localhost on two different ports or whether a proxy is required.

#activitypub

Vacations are wonderful. It is a privilege to be able to travel without worry. It's also wonderful to be home, and to have the time to work on projects I care about. With those thoughts in mind, I present release v3.1.1 of Ktistec, an ActivityPub server written in the Crystal programming language!

This release is a mixed bag of small features and improvements:

Added

• Auto-link URLs in posts. (fixes #24)
• Support searching by actor username. (fixes #102)
• Support hourly granularity in metrics charts.

Fixed

• Mark actor as down if refresh fails.
• Remove draft posts from the everything collection.
• Ignore charts with no points in the date range.
• Ensure HTTP::Client instances are closed.

I added support for multiple users at the beginning of the month. I'm very interested in feedback on how that's working out for anyone using it.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

This release of Ktistec merges the main_3.x branch into the main branch.

Managing two branches, and two releases, was a lot of work. And sometimes changes were lost in the shuffle, like:

Added

• Add a small banner to highlight "offline" status.
• Support YAML MCP prompts and hot-reloading.

I have about a dozen more features and fixes that are ready for the next release, but to keep things simple, I'm doing the merge first, in its own commit.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

I'm trying to decide how much of "quote posts" I want to support in Ktistec. On one hand, it's not trivial functionality, and I really do question how much extra value someone's comments on someone else's post will add to the Fediverse. On the other hand, I dunno... assuming Mastodon limits abuse by enforcing quoting rules, Ktistec could probably just follow along and display quoted posts. Is there any value in just that?

#ktistec #activitypub #fediverse

Release v2.4.16 of Ktistec... because I forgot to include some critical code in v2.4.15... namely, the menu.

Changed

• Reorganize the admin menu.

If you're not planning on adding additional users, you don't need to update!

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang