Hubzilla has an interesting opportunity right now.

caos

@jupiter_rowland @billstatler How do you think most Facebook users use it? Do most of them use it exclusively via the app in the mouse cinema

or (also) in the browser or on desktop/ laptop?

Scott M. Stolz

@caos Back when I was on Facebook, I used both a lot. The fact that I could switch back and forth was an attractive feature. It meant that Facebook was always there.

We do have a Progressive Web App (PWA). It's just not listed on Google or Apple or Amazon.

Scott M. Stolz

@caos Back when I was on Facebook, I used both a lot. The fact that I could switch back and forth was an attractive feature. It meant that Facebook was always there.

We do have a Progressive Web App (PWA). It's just not listed on Google or Apple or Amazon.

Bill Statler

Novel idea.

I asked.

Bill Statler

Scott M. Stolz wrote:

We do have a Progressive Web App (PWA). It's just not listed on Google or Apple or Amazon.

Okay, here's a thought. Can PWA installation be made more obvious? It shows up somewhere in the browser menu, but it's different for different browsers and different operating systems. The description isn't obvious (for example, I'm looking at Firefox on Android, and it just says "Add to Home screen").

Is it possible to create a single icon for a Hubzilla (or streams) homepage that just says "Install as an app", and always works on every browser and OS?

hosh

I use the PWA quite successfully. Does it cost a lot, or is it difficult, to produce an electron app? - I have no idea. If I remember rightly (which is questionable after so many years ), part of the success of the FB is that it is able to check your address book to find other contacts that are on FB, and, in the case of Hubzilla this would be zero.

Scott M. Stolz

Supposedly you can get a PWA listed in Google Play and the Apple Store. But it requires jumping through a lot of hoops.

Bill Statler

And I think it would have to be a PWA for a single instance, not for Hubzilla in general.

Marshall Sutherland

If you tried to make a Hubzilla app that rummaged around in your contacts, you might have an insurrection on your hands among the old guard since privacy is considered a key feature.

hosh

Indeed. Someone just created a mock permission request form for IOS

hosh

Hubzilla needs a bit more than a fancy app in order to be " user-friendly" and succeed (though that's one thing that could help). And the "success" of large companies like facebook is partly owing to repugnant behaviour like betraying the needs of its users. We can't beat them at their own game. We can only try to emulate things that aren't harmful, like making the on-boarding process simple, the user experience as pleasant as possible, the discovery process good (in a forum post The sad state of the Hubzilla general Directory was mentioned). And also to give people an easy path to taking advantage to those areas that are unique to hubzilla, like cloud storage, wiki creation, long-form blogging, web sites, etc.

hosh

@Scott M. Stolz

An open source Facebook alternative can success without doing shady stuff.

I'm rooting for you, believe me (even if email is the communications app that everyone loves to hate)

Jupiter Rowland

@hosh Well, if we do want a native mobile app in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, something that phone users can install without ever launching a browser, we may have to cut something from it. I don't think the app necessarily has to cover everything. Most settings, yes. Hubzilla's own apps, yes.

But how many people who are always only on a phone and never on a desktop computer, and who depend hard on a native phone app and would never touch a browser, would want to build a webpage on Hubzilla? Or maintain a wiki? How many bloggers are there who only ever use a phone, and who use native apps for everything, including blogging?

A native Hubzilla app wouldn't have to support webpages, it wouldn't have to support wikis, and it probably wouldn't have to support articles and cards either.

Something else a native Hubzilla app could leave out are visual settings, including the PDL editor. They wouldn't have any influence on the app, and you couldn't see and check what they do anyway.

? Offline

Absolutely agree with [email protected] . I'm old enough to remember the acronym KISS . Good advice for any code writer or programmer. Keep It Simple Stupid.....I've a whole list of these from 'back in the day'!

hosh

I personally would use such an app only for checking / writing to network stream - I use the other features only from the desktop. Even the existing PWA doesn't have access to everything (such as admin options).

Jupiter Rowland

@hosh Cutting the app down to absolute bare-bone isn't a solution either.

Just because most Hubzilla users mainly use Hubzilla on a desktop or laptop computer through a standard Web browser, doesn't mean everyone uses everything this way.

Many people use Facebook exclusively through a phone app without ever touching the Web interface. Many people use Mastodon exclusively through a phone app without ever touching the Web interface. Many of them don't even own a computer.

I keep having to recommend Friendica as a Facebook alternative because it absolutely, absolutely, absolutely must be a native phone app, full stop.

In other words, the app must be a full replacement for the Web interface for the average Facebook escapee user. It doesn't need Webpages, it doesn't need Wikis, it may not need Articles and Cards, and it definitely doesn't need appearance settings and the PDL editor.

But it still does have to be fully independent from the Web interface for everything else. Not only channel, stream and HQ. Also channel settings, profile settings, privacy settings, custom channel role configuration, apps, connections, contact roles, privacy groups, Files app, Photo app, Superblock, NSFW, calendar (at least Hubzilla's own event calendar, not necessarily also covering CalDAV calendars) etc.

Features not covered by the app are non-existent for people who will only ever use Hubzilla through the app. And there will be people who only ever use Hubzilla through the app. Just like there are people who use Facebook or Mastodon only through an app.

dynamic_hubzilla

@Jupiter Rowland

"Well, if we do want a native mobile app in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, something that phone users can install without ever launching a browser, we may have to cut something from it."

This feels to me like the result would be a different product. Wondering if a fork and rebranding would make sense rather than trying to make the main branch of Hubzilla phone-friendly. Rebranding might also make sense given that with Hubzilla's long history a lot of people might have preconceived notions of what the experience is like.

In any case, I think it's hard for dabblers to design good user interfaces. If there's *any* way to recruit a trained UX person for the project, I think that's a good idea. Other than marketing (blah), UX seems to be the biggest barrier to success for a lot of open source projects.

𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼

The assumption or suggestion that HZ is an alternative to FB is wrong in the first place.

Parts of HZ are similar to FB but at a whole the project is quid different and most people from FB are not ready for all the given options of HZ.

So any try to sell a complex system as a simple can must fail.

The Power of HZ has more to do with extensible systems like WordPress and Nextcloud in compilation with strong sozial networking features know from Google+ .

Even a big player like Google could not implement the function "circles" that way that people could adopt to it easily.

I personalty learned over the past years not to advertise HZ for something which it can fulfill.

You will not please people with GIMP if they are used to something like normacs.

Jupiter Rowland

@dynamic_hubzilla

This feels to me like the result would be a different product. Wondering if a fork and rebranding would make sense rather than trying to make the main branch of Hubzilla phone-friendly.

I've never been talking about cutting Hubzilla itself down.

I've been talking about a phone that mirrors certain features of Hubzilla while not including others.

If I wanted a slimmed-down Hubzilla, I'd propose (streams).

Jupiter Rowland

@𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼 The Red Matrix would have been more of a Facebook alternative. Zap would have been more of a Facebook alternative. (streams) is more of a Facebook alternative, not to mention that it's geared towards the Fediverse as it really is in the 2020s rather than a vision from 2012 of the mid-2010s Fediverse.

But at least parts of the Hubzilla community want to profit from the imminent Facebook exodus, both past Friendica and before the (streams) community reacts.

I myself am recommending (streams) along with Hubzilla. And if a phone app is an absolute mandatory requirement, I recommend Friendica. At least it isn't Mastodon.