#2020 - Big syndication expansion and unification (idea staging issue)
| Identifier | #2020 |
|---|---|
| Issue type | Feature request or suggestion |
| Title | Big syndication expansion and unification (idea staging issue) |
| Status | Completed |
| Tags |
ocProducts client-work (likely) (custom) Type: External dependency (custom) Type: External social media integration (custom) |
| Handling member | Chris Graham |
| Addon | General / Uncategorised |
| Description | Replace the current video_syndication system.
Instead we'll have a big new system for syndicating any kind of content. Services are covered on this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_yaJeGzDIsxq33I7Wg9I-lTBDk3YS22WPBwJ971v5tI Push: Dailymotion Facebook (videos) Minds Patreon Vimeo Facebook (posts) #1730 And remove/rewrite what is currently under these addons: image_syndication gallery_syndication Pull: Apple iPhone reviews Android reviews Dailymotion Facebook (posts) #1730 Google+ Minds SoundCloud Vimeo Notes: Perhaps this can largely be done using RSS, or at least sharing code with "Listing block" Push and pull may be used in conjunction, which effectively works as a free CDN and transcoding service. ~~~~ Relations to other systems... upload_syndication (which currently conceptually overlaps with what is discussed here) will be replaced with #3147. Upload syndication is more to do with making content available across multiple sites, rather than just storing files. We'll no longer support upload syndication on a user-level, only a site-level, hence drawing a much stronger line between the two systems. For anything we push and/or pull, syndicating comments (2-way) would be a great feature. See #1730. We want activity syndication to be able to go to both a central channel, and the channel of the user doing the activity. This would not be implemented via the main system being discussed here (activities are separate to syndication), but needs to be considered when doing the overhaul. Activities will only go out to a small subset of the services we can push to. |
| Steps to reproduce | |
| Related to | #1730 - Facebook-sync forums with a Facebook page (for example - other services too) |
| Funded? | No |
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Comments
Similarly, any scheduled actions (calendar and news) don't trigger any syndication. This issue is documented in tut_facebook, so people will know to workaround it - so that note needs removing.
The above affects:
- Syndication (the main issue here)
- Upload syndication (or whatever the new cloud filesystem implementation is called)
- Activities
Diaspora 1/500th of Twitter
minds.com 1/150th of Twitter
"install the [tt]gallery_syndication[/tt] addon, to automatically use YouTube as a transcoder."
This is because we're trying not to preference Google too much on the platform, listing alternatives where available.
https://thenextweb.com/apple/2019/06/03/apple-introduces-privacy-focused-sign-in-with-apple-button-for-sites-and-apps/
Why have Composr integration with X services, and maintain all that, when it can just integrate with a single syndication standard?
https://hybridauth.github.io/developer-ref-user-activity.html
https://hybridauth.github.io/developer-ref-user-status.html
Hybridauth is getting a new API, "Atom API" - which allows atom-feed like data to be pulled and pushed from Hybridauth providers that implement it.
I have it implemented for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (Instagram is read-only though due to FB restrictions on non-business accounts).
[Assuming they accept my pull request, which I am confident they will]
Composr's Hybridauth addon then integrates with the Atom API.
And Composr's activities API has been improved and renamed to syndication. The syndication API allows syndication of both content and of activities by any addons that choose to implement it.
Hybridauth, and the activity_feed addon, both implement the syndication API.
The activity_feed addon now uses Hybridauth for syndication activity content, rather than having its own Twitter and Facebook implementations. Meaning it can syndicate to anywhere Hybridauth can.
To clarify, the flow for this is:
Composr -> Syndication API -> activity_feed -> Hybridauth Atom API -> Hybridauth -> Social media networks..
I also intend to fold the old gallery_syndication API so that we truly just have one Composr syndication API, rather than a mess of different implementations that we had before.
Various issues we've had with the old activity_feed implementation are improved. For example, scheduled content can now be syndicated, as well as gallery content imported from Zip files.
The nice thing about building around Hybridauth is that we avoid having to take responsibility for adding all kinds of third party integrations directly into Composr. The Hybridauth project can do that, and we can contribute to that project ALONGSIDE OTHERS WHO ALREADY DO. We're expanding the scope of Hybridauth beyond mostly a system for login buttons into a major PHP social network integration library that hasn't existed yet.
To that end, I don't have any plans to implement into Hybridauth the long tail of different social networks identified in this issue and our tracking spreadsheet. Instead I will bring these suggestions to the Hybridauth project, and if people want to contribute/sponsor that via Hybridauth, great. It doesn't all need to be directly under our own umbrella. And this absolves us from the need to be a gatekeeper on what social networks are valid/reputable.
I have removed/deconsidered any functionality revolving around users syndicating content to their personal feeds. This isn't a recommended thing nowadays, which is good (it's spammy and bloated).
I have dropped the idea of trying to cross-post forum posts and comments across mediums as it wouldn't work well and would be messy.
I plan for us later to also build a new PHP filesystem wrapper around the Hybridauth Atom API too - for integration with things like Dropbox, Amazon S3, and so on. This is issue #3147. However, at this point I want to completely separate any discussion of that and put it in its own corner, for version 12, which should include many Cloud improvements to Composr.
All-in-all, things are now streamlined and pointing in the right way, a lot of progress is made.