The biggest changes in release v2.4.12 of Ktistec are the UI/UX enhancements. The mobile profile, in particular, felt like an afterthought—which it was. The changes make the mobile experience much more pleasant and ergonomic. All of the credit for this work goes to @jayvii.

This release also now refuses to deserialize and use embedded ActivityPub objects from hosts other than the host of the embedding object. While I haven't encountered any problems with the previous implementation in practice, this fix closes a gap that could be exploited by a bad actor to spoof or change content.

Added

• Add follow request status to the actor panel.
• Compute and cache monthly active accounts.

Changed

• (Internal) Only consider properties with changed values as "changed".
• (Internal) Only deserialize embedded ActivityPub objects if hosts match.

Fixed

• Remove line breaks in Turbo Stream output.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

Ktistec is taking steps toward supporting multiple users. The first (small) step removes the actor panel from the unauthenticated home page and replaces it with a site description. You can see this in action at epiktistes.com. The site description is managed on the settings page using the same rich text editor used to edit posts. See the README for more information.

Other changes in this release:

Added

• Support a "site description" on the unauthenticated home page.
• Support autofocus on onboarding and authentication forms.
• Add trix_editor view helper.

Changed

• Remove accounts from unauthenticated home page.
• Persist timeline filters in session.

Fixed

• Exclude abstract classes from all_types output. (fixes #104)
• Work around bug in at_beginning_of_week. (see crystal-lang/crystal#16112)

Other

• Disable streaming updates on pages other than the first. (fixes #118)
• Pin Crystal version at 1.16.3 in Docker build. (see libxml_ext#1)

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

I'm trying to get through the backlog of bugs and features in my to-do list. Release v2.4.10 of Ktistec packages up several important improvements. The most impactful change is graceful server shutdown—I've never had a problem with shutdown leaving the database in a broken state, but prevention is the best cure.

Added

• Support manually refreshing actor information. (fixes #112)
• Add link to log level settings to the navigation bar.

Fixed

• Enable dragging source links to the address bar. (fixes #109)
• Fix missing reply/mention notifications for non-create activities.
• Ensure the network is up before attempting to refresh a page.

Changed

• Block actor handle and display name when actor or post is blocked.
• Gracefully shut down the server.

I'm considering adding lightweight multi-user support (invitation-only, not open registration). I'm interested in your thoughts on whether this would be useful.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

Release v2.4.9 of Ktistec fixes two significant bugs. From the changelog:

• Don't reset next_attempt_at in tasks when server restarts.
• Fix incorrect syntax for inline tags in Slang templates.

The first bug resulted in server maintenance tasks running immediately, every time the server restarted, and then beginning their cadence of scheduled runs from there. The second bug surfaced after I released a new version of Slang that itself included a bug fix.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

Ktistec v2.4.8 has many small fixes and improvements, but includes one significant fix to ActivityPub garbage collection, which was the major feature introduced in the last release.

⚠️ Important Note: Building with Crystal Language version 1.17.x is not supported due to two breaking changes. See:

• LibXML_Ext Issues #1
• Crystal Language PR #16055

(Maybe it's three changes—compile times are also far slower and executable sizes are much larger.)

Added

• Send "User-Agent" header identifying Ktistec on outbound HTTP requests.
• Add accept/reject action buttons to top panel on actor pages.

Fixed

• Add index on "username" on "actors" table. (Fixes a regression introduced in e659e84a.)
• Rejection now correctly sets follow relationships as confirmed (previously they remained pending).
• Fix garbage collection issues with threads created in earlier versions.

Changed

• Prioritize the author's self-replies in thread view.

Enjoy!

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

After a mental health break, release v2.4.7 of Ktistec is out. The biggest improvement is the addition of a command line switch/option to run garbage collection on startup. Garbage collection, in this context, trims down your database by deleting old ActivityPub objects that are not connected to your user through:

• Attribution: Objects attributed to you or actors you follow
• Activities: Objects referenced by your activities or activities of actors you follow
• Collections: Objects in your timeline, notifications, or outbox
• Content: Objects with hashtags, mentions, or in threads you follow

It reduced the size of my database ~24%. Details on usage, warnings, etc. are in the README.

Other changes:

Fixed

• Use single quotes for string literals in SQLite queries.
• Fix WITH RECURSIVE queries.
• Fix broken CI workflow.

Changed

• Present local internal URLs as external URLs in posts.
• Limit pagination size for unauthenticated users.
• Better convey actor/object deleted/blocked status on index pages.
• Improve presentation of inline code and code blocks.
• Clip alt text on thumbnail images.

Other

• Update cached copy of Lemmy's JSON-LD context.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

Release v2.4.6 of Ktistec is out. As mentioned in an earlier post, this release focuses on database performance improvements. This means caching the results of expensive queries (like counting all posts with a particular hashtag or mention). On my instance at least, pages like the notifications page are now snappier.

There are still slow queries (queries that take more than 50msec). Most of those are requests for pages of old posts where none of the necessary database pages are in the page cache. I have increased the page cache size, and that reduces the frequency, but I don't see an immediate fix.

Fixed

• Add missing database query logging.

Changed

• Improve query performance for hashtags and mentions.
• Make less costly updates to tag statistics.
• Improve anonymous session management.
• Cache the Nodeinfo count of local posts.

Removed

• Remove support for X-Auth-Token.

Other

• Add timeout values for POST socket operations.

I don't have an immediate plan for the next release. There have been a bunch of feature requests that I think have merit. I'll probably get started on some of those.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang