docs/manual.txt (view raw)
1
2Instructions for using honk.
3
4This is the user manual. Please refer to admin.txt for administration.
5
6-- posting
7
8Should work as expected.
9
10Limited markdown support:
11 **bold** and *italics*
12 `code` and ```code block```
13 > quote
14
15Large images are rescaled and reduced.
16
17The honk back button will prefill the forms for replies.
18
19-- sensitive honks
20
21A honk that begins with the danger zone indication, DZ:, will be marked
22sensitive, using the first line as a summary (spoiler text).
23
24-- following
25
26In order to follow somebody, you need to enter one of two identifiers.
27
28The easiest is probably their handle, the thing that resembles an email.
29@name@example.com for example.
30
31Alternatively, one may directly enter the actor ID, which is a URL that looks
32like https://example.com/users/name.
33
34Followed honkers may be assigned to combos, listing all their honks together.
35
36Followed honkers will appear on the main feedtube unless silenced. Honkers may
37be silenced by adding them to a combo named "-". (One dash.)
38
39Selecting just peeping won't actually follow them. (Incomplete feature.)
40Can be useful for managing as part of a combo, however.
41
42-- xzone
43
44Individual honks may be manually fetched via the xzone.
45
46Additionally, entering a honker URL will fetch all their recent honks.
47
48A list of recently known honkers will appear as well.
49
50-- zonking
51
52You can zonk anything you like (or dislike), either your own honk or
53those of others that you're tired of seeing. Be advised that deletion
54works poorly in a federated environment. It's more like please disregard.
55
56The zonkzone supports muting unwanted contacts. One may mute an actor
57(zonker), a domain (zomain), thread (zonvoy), or word (zord).
58
59Posts can be collapsed, but not hidden, by specifying a zilence regex.
60
61-- privacy
62
63Posted honks are public. The federated environment lacks robust privacy
64controls.
65
66Received messages are only visible when logged in, regardless of addressing.
67Content from outside is not publicly rehosted, unless bonked.
68
69Received messages that are less than public are tagged with a red border.
70As a special exception to the public honking rule, replies to limited messages
71will be restricted as much as possible. Note that ActivityPub leaks. Do
72not use honk for posting truly private information.
73
74-- emus and memes
75
76A list of available emus and memes appears in the funzone.
77
78Emus such as :example: will be inlined into posts.
79
80Memes such as `meme: example.mp4` will be appended to posts.
81
82-- hoots
83
84Link and inline a hoot and replies from that other bird site.
85hoot: https://twitter.com/tedunangst/status/839169710675611658
86
87-- cleanup
88
89One should occasionally run `honk cleanup` to free up internal space in the
90database. This deletes honks older than 30 days, but not those posted by a
91user.
92
93One may also run `honk reduce [honker]` to delete honks older than 3 days.
94This is useful to reduce the space requirements from following image bots.
95
96(Neither command runs vacuum, so the file size will not immediately shrink.)
97
98-- add user
99
100Running `honk adduser` can add additional users. This is discouraged.
101
102-- proxy
103
104honk requires a TLS terminating reverse proxy be configured. It communicates
105with other servers via https URLs.
106
107If the proxy is configured to support caching, be mindful of the fact that
108ActivityPub requests vary based on the Accept and Content-Type headers.
109
110ActivityPub in practice uses HTTP signatures to verify requests. In order for
111this to work, the backend server must receive certain header fields
112unmodified. In particular, the Host header and the message content cannot be
113altered.
114
115Specifically, for nginx: `proxy_set_header Host $http_host;`