Chris Trottier
Today is the day I talk about what #Calckey is and what it does. 🧵
In this thread, I will explore what I believe to be the most important features of Calckey.
SPOILER ALERT: While Calckey focuses on microblogging, that's where its similarities with #Mastodon (and #Twitter) end.
Chris Trottier
Let's first take a look at what Calckey looks like in desktop mode.
As you can see, it's got a very media-rich presentation of a feed.
But there's also more!
On the right pane are some widgets. You can customize which widgets you see there. I opted to see trending hashtags and recent notifications.
On the right pane is the navbar. I'll get into that in a bit.
At the top are different feeds including home, local, social, recommended, global, lists, and antennaes.
Chris Trottier
Here's a look at Calckey in mobile mode.
The top displays different feeds.
The bottom has a navbar with a hamburger menu, home, notifications, chat, and widgets.
This can be installed as a progressive web app to your phone by "adding to Home screeen" when you visit a Calckey site.
Chris Trottier
So far, so good. You see #Calckey's timeline for microblogging.
Let's now look at notifications.
Notifications can be displayed for
* All
* Unread
* Mentions
* Direct mentions
You can also filter your notifications by:
* New followers
* Boosts
* Quotes
* Reactions
* And many more!
Here's a screenshot what the notification nav bar looks like in mobile mode.
Chris Trottier
The next prominent feature of #Calckey is chat.
Now I can't show you this exactly because that's private 😉
However, what's important to know is that this is distinct from Mastodon DMs, it's isolated from the main feed, and there's no mistaking chats for status updates.
This looks like a chat app.
Benjamin
@atomicpoet The "how much of the day you've wasted on here" counter is a bold move that I wasn't expecting. Additionally the year percentage must be wrong since there's no way it's.. oh geezus it's May already.
Benjamin
@atomicpoet (Looks pretty good)
Chris Trottier
Yet another killer aspect of #Calckey is the Explore section. This is for content discovery -- finding people ("Users") to follow and posts that are gaining traction ("Featured").
Let's focused on the Users aspect of Explore. It helps you find users according to:
* Pinned (a.k.a., recommended)
* Popular
* Recently Active
* Newly Joined Users
There's all sorts of people to follow through the Explore section of Calckey
Chris Trottier
The "Featured" portion of Explore shows the most popular posts divided into two options:
* Local: what's popular on your local #Calckey server
* Remote: what's popular across the Fediverse
This is excellent for finding stuff that already has lots of conversation so you can join in.
Chris Trottier
In this post, you may have noticed lots of emoji reactions. Interestingly, some of these emojis are animated too.
To many people, this is the most compelling reason to use Calckey as this is a feature that's unsupported by Mastodon or Twitter.
Chris Trottier
Like Twitter and Mastodon, #Calckey supports bookmarks. These are a private means to save posts to review at a later date.
Bookmarks arre easily accessible through the navbar.
Chris Trottier
If you like Facebook Groups, #Calckey has something similar. They are called "Channels".
Currently, they are localized to each Calckey server, but there are plans to federate them across the Fediverse.
Posts to channels can be broadcast across the Fediverse.
This is one big difference between Calckey and Mastodon.
Here's a "Music Recommendations" channel on https://calckey.social.
Chris Trottier
Let's now talk about search on #Calckey.
To be bluntly honest, Fediverse search needs a lot of work. I don't think one server software nails it yet.
However, unlike Mastodon, Calckey allows you to search across the Fediverse without need of hashtags (or for you to have interacted with the post previously).
This makes search a lot more extensible than on Mastodon.
Click this link to see it in action:
https://calckey.social/search?q=notifications
Also see screenshot.
Chris Trottier
@bruno Yes, you can sign up for Calckey at https://calckey.social
Bruno Felix
Chris Trottier
This is another massive difference between #Calckey and Mastodon.
Calckey has a Drive!
That's right, a cloud storage feature! You can store whatever you want there: photos, music, documents, Zip files, etc.
Who needs Dropbox or Onedrive when you have Calckey?
As you can see in this screenshot, I'm storing diverse media.
Chris Trottier
Pages! That's another big difference between #Calckey and Mastodon.
That's right, anyone can make a webpage using Calckey. This page does formats text, embeds images, and allows you to express yourself as you choose.
Here's an example of a Calckey page made by @youronlyone:
https://calckey.social/@youronlyone/pages/calckey-faq
Also see screenshot.
LabSpokane
What is the compelling reason to have *both* Calkey and Mastodon?
Chris Trottier
@LabSpokane Mastodon seems like it's for very serious discussion, and Calckey seems more fun.
Chris Trottier
Galleries is another key #Calckey feature.
Calckey allows you to add, curate, and write a description of user-made collection of images.
Here's an example of one person's gallery:
https://calckey.social/gallery/9e32jx7lu9
See screenshot of this gallery.
Chris Trottier
There's lots of other features that #Calckey has:
* Antennas
* Clips
* Comment trees
* Misskey Flavoured Markdown (MFM)
* Local-only posting
* Deck layout
Really, there's too much to list -- and if I tried, I'd be here all day.
But really, the only way to understand #Calckey is to give it a shot.
If Calckey intrigues you, go ahead and try it yourself.
Jer Warren
@atomicpoet I would love to hear what Antennas and Clips are. I made a calckey.social account a week or so ago and was surprised to see stuff that didn't tell you what it does. Felt a bit like logging into the AWS dashboard and seeing stuff like "Route 53" instead of "DNS."
LabSpokane
Honestly, this kind of strange distinction is what will push me over the edge to simply delete social media from my life. It’s bad enough already. We have …
Facebook: for fighting with relatives
Nextdoor: when I want to report a person of color in the neighborhood
Twitter: for when I want to fascist
LinkedIn: for vacuous corporate shitposting
Instagram: vacation posts only
TikTok: hot political takes only
Mastodon: serious tooting
Calkey: tooting with fun gifs
I can’t keep up.
Chris Trottier
@LabSpokane You might want to look at the rest of the thread to see what #Calckey does. I talk about the many features that make it distinct from Mastodon.
Chris Trottier
@nyquildotorg No question, there's a lot of documentation that still needs to happen with Calckey.
Shoq
@atomicpoet @nyquildotorg Any experienced writers who would like to volunteer for the Calckey documentation team, that project is about to get better organized. We could use use. Please DM Chris or me.
Chris Trottier
@LabSpokane @ai6yr Actually, #Calckey is a fork of #Misskey, which predates Mastodon by two years.
The *key apps, as they are known, are the 2nd largest platform on the Fediverse.
And no, there isn't "one good thing" on the Fediverse -- there are many. That's the point of the Fediverse. Mastodon is but one portion of this.
If Mastodon works for you, great. But some people would prefer a different UI, or to have different features, or to interact with a different culture.
LabSpokane
I know this sounds lazy, but all I (and most) people want to do is easily find and communicate with likeminded folks and share stuff. Every time something new comes along in the fediverse, it feels like a long, drawn-out research project to figure what the hell it is, if it has traction, how and if one would want to migrate, etc etc etc. Most people find this exhausting and lose interest. It really feels like nothing is going to stabilize and mature, but bifurcate more.
LabSpokane
Chris,
I really did. And it’s a laudable effort, but I wish all this effort went into making one, good thing work instead of the continual bifurcation into different platforms.
AI6YR Ben
@LabSpokane @atomicpoet Isn't Calckey ActivityPub too? Doesn't really matter as long as it supports ActivityPub.
Chris Trottier
@jupiter_rowland @nyquildotorg You're right about that. When I've come to #Calckey, I realize that there's so much that need explaining.
#Misskey Hub has some documentation, and that helps. But now that #Calckey has diverged, it needs to do the same.
Jupiter Rowland
Chris Trottier
@LWFlouisa It's the flagship instance. There's a server list here:
LWFlouisa
@atomicpoet For now is that the main instance?
LWFlouisa
@atomicpoet You have my attention with webpage and cloud storage.
It's always been weird to me not having a cloud storage option, although NextCloud is decent.
I've recently had issues with websites that are fans of the twitter ceo guy, kicking me as I endorse the fediverse.
Though it hasn't happened on NextCloud.
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