Epiktistes | #ktistec

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Todd Sundsted posted Jan 23, 2026

Ktistec Theming Hooks

I'm using Ktistec theming hooks to make it easier to spot posts from actors I enjoy reading, to identify posts that are part of conversations I'm in, to identify posts about topics I'm interested in, and to simply expose more information visually.

The hashtags I follow don't require much emphasis, but I want them to stand out a little, so I theme these posts with a bold left border.

Image of a post with a bold left border and the #3dprinting hashtag.

It's helpful when I can spot posts that are parts of conversations I'm in, so my theme styles my replies, and others' replies to me. In the latter case, it also differentiates between cases where I'm one of the actors mentioned vs. cases where I'm the only actor mentioned.

Image of a brief conversation showing background colors that highlight each role.

There are a handful of people I follow who regularly post about topics I love. I've created custom backgrounds for posts from these authors.

Two posts showing themed background images: cobwebs in the first, equations in the second.

(This is also my #FollowFriday post. 😀 If you're not into my theming, but want to see amazing photos of abandoned places around the world and sometimes sleeping seals, follow @ObsidianUrbex. If you love physics, math, music, and related topics, or want to love physics, math, music, and related topics, follow @johncarlosbaez.)

All of this is powered by extensive post metadata that was recently added and is surfaced in classes and data attributes. You can, for example, customize a theme based on actor or object type, object status (sensitive, has replies, etc.), visibility, relationship state (followed by me, mentions me, etc.), the creator/sharer handle, etc. Details are in the theming documentation.

#ktistec

Todd Sundsted posted Jan 19, 2026

🏆 Yak-shave accomplished!

I tore apart the monolithic editor in #ktistec and replaced it with a configurable framework of editor components—including a component for editing polls.

The Ktistec editor showing buttons for enabling and disabling editor components, including the rich text editor, the Markdown editor, optional fields (such as title, summary, etc.), and polls.

I'm planning to work on an editor component for managing attachments next.

Todd Sundsted posted Jan 17, 2026

sometimes i feel like building software is akin to throwing myself off a cliff and then hoping i can build the thing i envisioned a moment ago before i hit the ground. does anyone else get that?

i decided to tear apart the monolithic editor in #ktistec and to replace it with a configurable system of editing components. how hard could that be, i thought... well, the ground approaches and i only just got a just-about-works proof-of-concept complete!

Todd Sundsted posted Jan 6, 2026

Release v3.2.7 of Ktistec

The two big features in release v3.2.7 of Ktistec are back end support for creating polls (the front end is coming in the next release) and advanced theming support—specifically, a rich vocabulary of CSS class values and data attributes on which to build a theme. The full set is documented in the README. I'll post more on how I'm using these later this week.

Here is the full set of notable changes:

Added

Back-end support for creating polls.
Advanced theming support with new classes, data attributes, and view helpers.
Task status display on admin page showing running and imminently scheduled task counts.

Fixed

Poll vote form now correctly submits Question ID.

Changed

Move location of Ktistec version notice. (fixes #133)
Updated admin page for better accessibility and less clutter.

#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse

Todd Sundsted posted Jan 4, 2026

working with ameba has been a treat. #ktistec is now all properly linted.

out of a few dozen rules, i disabled only five and tweaked the configuration of five more. that's a pretty good set of defaults. i also added a few custom rules covering spec hygiene. i highly recommend it!

#crystallang #ameba

Todd Sundsted posted Dec 31, 2025

Release v3.2.6 of Ktistec

I took a detour and worked on alt text editing in release v3.2.6 rather than continuing with the polls backend. I also continued to fix bugs and to add polish. Here's the full set of changes:

Added

Support for editing alt text in the Trix editor. (fixes #52)

Fixed

Render fallback icon when actor is down.
Remove blank figcaption elements.
Emojify display names in notifications.

Changed

Color notifications label by type of unread notifications.
Render lines instead of points for server starts in metrics.

(I'm editing this post in Markdown—the new feature in the last release!)

#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse

Todd Sundsted posted Dec 30, 2025

Would it be useful to customize the rendering and presentation of posts by actor?

I follow a lot of actors and I get a lot of posts, and I'd like the posts from some actors to stand out, and I'd like the posts from others to be more inconspicuous. Or maybe I want to use color to help visually categorize posts from actors I follow, based on subject matter.

Does this sound like a useful feature?

#ktistec #fediverse

Todd Sundsted posted Dec 29, 2025

Ktistec will get proper alt text editing in the next release.

Figure 1: Image of the alt text modal superimposed on an image in a post.

This is in addition to existing figure/figcaption support. Captions and alt text serve two different but complimentary purposes.

#ktistec #alttext

Todd Sundsted posted Dec 24, 2025

Release v3.2.5 of Ktistec

I rolled out a lot of features over the last several weeks and created a lot of bugs in the process. Release v3.2.5 of Ktistec is mostly about fixing those bugs. I did implement two requested features, however: support for editing posts in Markdown and support for Open Graph metadata. Here's the full list of new features:

Added

Support for editing posts in Markdown. (fixes #25)
Support for Open Graph metadata on actors and objects. (fixes #71)
Support for uploading a site image.
Internal table of contents page.
Poll expiry notifications.

🎄 I'm working on support for poll creation and management now. It's also time for a performance improvement pass or two.

#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse