Is there a way to make instance-agnostic links?
Is there a way to make a link to a community of a foreign instance that opens on the instance of the user that clicks on it?
For example, I would like to make a link to ![email protected] that, when a user of bar.com clicks on it, opens https://bar.com/c/[email protected] instead of https://foo.com/c/some_community.
If it's not possible, don't you think it would be convenient?
Yes, you can do this using a relative URL!
Here's an example.
Here's how I wrote it:
[Here's an example.](/c/[email protected])Because this URL doesn't have a protocol or a domain, your browser fills those in from the URL of the page you're on when you see it. Since that's on your local Lemmy instance, you'll see a link to ![email protected] on that instance.
Also: When you're looking at a Lemmy comment, if you don't know how the author wrote the markup for it, you can use the "view source" button underneath the "..." menu.
Note: These links will NOT work between Lemmy and Kbin, because Kbin uses
/m/instead of/c/.Whoa, that's so cool!
And, man, that's a bummer.
Trickery using URL features, like this, will work from clients that act like a web browser. Other clients may have problems with it. There should probably be a standard syntax for "a link to community X hosted on instance Y" that all clients can learn to support.
Just FYI, this link...
...causes the Jerboa app to crash. I think it's a known issue and hopefully one that gets sorted, but just wanted to warn others.
Wow, good thing to point out.
Relative URLs should work straightforwardly for a UI that runs in a browser, but yeah, I can imagine a custom app doesn't know what domain or even protocol to associate with them.
Edit Sorry I misunderstood. I believe you can link the community as a whole, but posts I don't believe you can.
There isn't a way at the moment. Solutions to this are being discussed on Github
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1048
Edit 2
Maybe you can't link a community either, I could have sworn I have seen it done but that could have just happened to be for my instance.
Edit 3
My testing please ignore :)
Test1
That's what this does:
Tap the 'more' skinny hamburger menu just
abovebelow this message to 'view source' of the below:blah blah blah links to [email protected]
Actually..better, here is one for an instance that is neither yours or the one you posted into:
blay harg vlar
Resolves to
https://lemmy.world/post/[email protected]andhttps://lemmy.world/post/[email protected]which are bad links.That's perfect! Thank you :)
I'd like to know too. I was hoping it would be something simple like
[email protected]which would resolve for everyone. Didn't work when I tried it, though I might not have done it correctly.EDIT: I guess I could try again here [email protected]
EDIT2: Nope: That link goes to
https://lemmy.world/post/[email protected]for me, which is not valid.That link crashes jerboa lol
Tested it with Memmy and it states
TypeError: Cannot convert null value to object. Nice.Fear my wrath!
Once your Lemmy web frontend upgrades to version 0.18, the following should all auto-link with no extra syntax:
These should then all link to the instance you're currently on.
Note: because this is implemented in the frontend and does not change the underlying data, other Fediverse clients will not show these the same unless they also implement this themselves.
Nice, thanks for the info!
Yes it would be very convenient, right now if I’m recommending a community I simply write out the URL manually to make sure it routes via the respective user’s instance first.
I thought it worked if you just linked /c/[email protected]
With the only caveat being that users on kbin will need /m/asklemmy.mlWith the only caveat being that users on kbin will need /m/[email protected]
I would normally test the crap out of these before posting since I really don't know what I'm doing, but I'm on my phone and mostly busy at the moment. Sorry if it doesn't work.
Kbin needs /m/[email protected] (domain is important) or a bit simpler is with an @ symbol in front: @asklemmy (note: the domain is here but kbin currently renders it without the domain -- that needs to be changed as it has potential to confuse and mislead)
Downside to the /m/[email protected] format is that it doesn't currently auto linkify. Gotta do
[/m/[email protected]](/m/[email protected])(/m/[email protected])Hopefully kbin soon fixes the [email protected] syntax. It's currently broken. Once fixed, that should work for everyone.
Weirdly enough on kbin.social for me /m/asklemmy.ml link in the post worked for me
I'm the problem. As feared I fudged it up as I was rushing to type it up on my phone. As @CoderKat mentioned, the problem with typing it out as /m instead of using @, is that you have to manually enter the visible text in [ ] and the hyperlink in ( ). I got the hyperlink correct and beefed it on the visible text.