cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15953
Hi all!
So, I’m assuming everyone has seen links like https://beehaw.org/c/news and clicked through to find it doesn’t work right because it’s a different site (I’m assuming a different instance here).
Well, I just stumbled across an interesting feature: if you enter a link in the following format, it works for everyone regardless of instance of origin:
[News](/c/news@beehaw.org)
[My User](/u/barbarian@lemmy.reckless.dev)
You’re welcome!
This is kind of an annoying feature of this website, like I don’t want to create a separate account just to check out another community? It can’t get ported here?
You don’t have to create a separate account to participate.
If you click the “News” and “My User” links above, they open content from beehaw.org and reckless.dev inside whatever Lemmy server you’re curerntly using. Your account is on lemmy.world, so I’m assuming that’s where you’re browsing. Note the first URL becomes
https://lemmy.world/c/news@beehaw.org.Now view this post on beehaw.org and look at News link. It’s
https://beehaw.org/c/news@beehaw.orginstead.This post is about how to format links to communities and accounts so they’re transformed that way.
Yes but I need to search where that community is first and then what the search is correct? For example maybe there is a r/rance community, maybe it’s on the French language website, I don’t know. I have to search on the German search bar first to find the result, then go to where the community is and find that search thing.
If you’re trying to find communities, you’d use the communities page or search function. You can filter both to only local (on this server) or all (any server this one hasn’t blocked).
The settings page lets you select which languages you see. I think posts and communities that are set to a language you haven’t selected aren’t shown, so if you have Undetermined, German, and English selected, a post or community that’s marked as being in French is hidden. That could be a little confusing I suppose - maybe the language filter should be disabled by default.
While I understand the benefits of ferated servers, I think the inherently fragmented nature of the infrastructure is the biggest hurdle to the adoption of (for e.g.) Lemmy and Mastodon as replacements for Reddit and Twitter.
There is an extra layer of complexity, and the less tech-savvy users who want a simple process to follow diverse communities across many instances are going to run into issues. That group likely comprises the vast majority of potential users.
Exactly!
Thanks for this post, links have been confusing me. And actually I’m finding the opposite of what you said - that first link (https… etc) works fine for me in Jerboa. But the others try to open in a browser and fail. Very weird.
If you don’t mind, I’m going to try testing some links here:
/C/football@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/c/football
Very weird - all of them open in a browser, even the one that seems to have the same format as the OP (and that one opens in Jerboa). Hmmm…
I think the universal link only changes the community to your instance, but not much more than that. If the community isn’t already connected to your instance, it won’t work, but once someone connects it, it will work I think, wish there was just one easy way, but football@lemmy.world is probably already connected, so that’s why that one works and not the others. May be a problem, since most of these are new communities, so I’m just going to use both ways for now, until there’s a better way
You can link directly to the local version of a post
Good catch, when I cross-posted, it automatically links to the original instance, not the local version, and I never changed that part
Do you know if there is an equivalent for linking posts and comments? Haven’t found a solution for those yet.
No, I don’t think there is a way currently, the best solution is just to link it on the instance you are on, don’t think there is a way to do it across instances
I keep wondering what’s the official way to link. I’ve seen these you’re showing, but also !news@beehaw.org which, as shown here, can automatically be converted into a web link format.
And then individual posts? If you crosspost, it shows just a web link again.
you just saved me so much frustration!
