Jacky Alciné
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Jacky Alciné — activitydesk

Here's a list of 10 posts drafted by Jacky Alciné .

    Jacky Alciné

    Building ActivityDesk

    I really like making software! Specifically stuff that people can directly use to interact with other people. It made sense that I'd aim to revisit the work I had around a social streaming client. I've called it ActivityDesk. The goals for the initial version are as follows:

    • seamless authentication to networks like Mastodon, Pleroma and PixelFed
    • multi-account support
    • full MicroPub and MicroSub support (a desktop reader!)

    It's amazing how a short list of items can still result in a lot of work! I've only managed to close out some logic around getting multi account support. You can view the source code on KDE. The objective is to have this keep a window closed on my desktop. Another long term goal is to make the act of testing a valid ActivityPub Client-to-Server implementation of a client to a server. That feature would reduce the number of specific client implementations one would have to provide.

    I'll post more updates about it but I'm excited to have this in the wheelhouse with other projects.

    2019-05-21T19:39:50.54485-07:00
    • Tags:
    • itches
    • activitydesk
    Jacky Alciné

    Kind of janky but for a native UI built declaratively, it’s pretty simple. Testing posting to my local instance of #koype as well from #activitydesk.

    2019-05-28T10:43:53.58400-07:00
    • Tags:
    • koype
    • activitydesk
    Jacky Alciné

    As I work more on #activitydesk, I’m learning a lot more about the inner plumbings of security and the Web - mainly around user credentials. It’s starting to make a lot more sense how people get their creds snatched. Section 8.12 of OAuth 2.0 for Native Apps strongly discourages developers from using “embedded Web agents” (Web views within your applications) due to a user’s inability to verify and trust that the site that they’ve visited is actually that one and not a phishing attempt.

    As a developer, I find this a bit of a burden especially since I’m working on a cross-platform application since this increases the amount of integration work I have to (adding hooks for special URI schemes versus just dropping a Web view and listening on them). As a user with this information, I’d actively avoid any attempt to collect credentials of mine within their Web views. This implictly means that Electron-based applications that provide a false sense of security within their Chromium runtimes are suspectiable to these attacks if people manage to manipulate one of those application and change the contents (I’d want to do a test of this).

    All of this said, I’ll be looking to make a change to #activitydesk to do the following:

    • Refactor the authentication flow to request this information in the system’s browser instead of the in-built one.
    • Register the URI scheme activitydesk:// on desktops so it can be used to capture the token when called from the browser

    This shouldn’t be too difficult but I won’t focus on making this change just yet.

    2019-05-25T23:02:26.71500-07:00
    • Tags:
    • activitydesk
    • security
    Jacky Alciné

    Making really good progress with #activitydesk. Accounts are stored securely (for Linux systems) and there’s an abstraction so it can switch depending on what environment it’s built for. Next thing is going to be presenting those accounts and setting up the system to listen to said streams from accounts.

    2019-05-24T15:20:00.00000-07:00
    • Tags:
    • activitydesk
    Jacky Alciné

    Okay. I’ll need some wisdom from the #flatpak to help me package #activitydesk for Linux. Installation instructions are cool but flatpak install flathub af.black.activitydesk is way better.

    2019-06-05T15:15:00.00000-07:00
    • Tags:
    • activitydesk
    • flatpak
    Jacky Alciné

    It’s hacky but it’s my desktop client for social networking! I can write posts and get timely updates when new posts come in. Only supporting Mastodon right now; working on the code for Microsub and Micropub shortly so I can get my notifications and handle my whole social experience from my native desktop.

    2019-06-05T00:49:23.81515-07:00
    • Tags:
    • itch
    • activitydesk
    Jacky Alciné

    Some sketches for how #activitydesk might evolve.

    2019-05-28T12:55:00.00000-07:00
    • Tags:
    • activitydesk
    Jacky Alciné

    Looking for live-reload options for QML as I work on #activitydesk and I came across the following:

    • QML Livereload
    • Terrarium

    I like what QML Livereload does so I’m going to opt to use it.

    2019-05-28T19:31:57.66763-07:00
    • Tags:
    • qt
    • qml
    • activitydesk
    Jacky Alciné

    Everytime I make a bit of progress with #ActivityDesk, something finds a way to fuck it up for me, lol.

    2019-05-19T17:31:48.38421-07:00
    • Tags:
    • activitydesk
    Jacky Alciné

    Native menu saves space on the screen!

    2019-05-29T16:13:38.38666-07:00
    • Tags:
    • activitydesk
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