So far for me the process is very convoluted:
- I go to https://browse.feddit.de/ and find the community.
- Then I need to copy it’s name.
- Then I need to go to my particular instance (lemm.ee)
- Then I type manually in my browser address bar lemm.ee/c/<communityname>
- Then I go back to https://browse.feddit.de/ and copy the address of the original instance of the community.
- Then I go back and add the original instance address to already typed thing in step 4 like this lemm.ee/c/<communityname>@<originalinstanceofcommunity>
- Then I can finally subscribe!
Oh my God! Please, tell me there’s a better way of doing this!
EDIT: There is a better way! Solution is to … use the search function in your instances home page and select community (if it exists already) and search. This way I don’t need to go to browse.feddit.de anymore. And links will take me straight the the communities “reflection” in my own instance, where I can subscribe.
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I am not sure why? In the app, all communities that are federated to my server are visible when searching. On desktop, and in the app, all you have to do is select “all” instead of “local” or “subscribed” and then just search. Half the communities I am subbed in are not from my own instance, for example.
Thank you! The search icon was so small on lemm.ee that I didn’t notice. It actually works much better! You’re a saviour!
How do I properly close this thread? Do I have to? Can I mark it as solved somehow?
I think you can edit the title. No rules here, but a simple [solved] should do. Also you are welcome, we are all figuring this out!
Please leave it up. I needed to know this and others will too.
I think it’s a bit harder when you’re on a smaller server. If someone from your server hasn’t subscribed yet I don’t think it shows up like that. In this case, I’ve followed the info in the top right of the webui, and entered !community@example.server into the search, which pulls it correctly.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that search only exposes the communities that at least one of the servers members is currently subscribed to. It is not a list of all possible communities. This works okay if your server has a lot of members because it will likely surface the main popular communities, but it’s misleading that it’s all communities and someone had to do it the hard way like OP said the first time around.
Huh, I didn’t know this! I think that this could be solved by smaller servers making a bot account that su subsribes to all avaliable communities?
I suppose you could, but it’s done this way on purpose to reduce load on the server. As soon as a user from that instance starts flowing the community from another instance, that server has to keep track of all updates in that community to be able to deliver it to you.
Essentially, if none of the instances users are following that community, why bother with keeping track of it. If you wrote a bot to subscribe to everything your server load would skyrocket and so would the costs.
I think it’s much more likely that a better community browser will be incorporated so that people don’t have to rely on third party sites.
Aha, fair point!
It’s easier to just type/paste in the address of the community on the search page of your instance in the
!name@instan.ceformat.You can then click the result and just hit subscribe.
Would be nice if Jerboa and the web UI just translated links in that format so that theyd just open from your instance and let you sub instantly.
ATM they just open in the browser and display from the hosting instance, preventing an easy sub.
The link doesn’t even need to be in that format. Simply copying the link from the fediverse button (the rainbow Pentagon) and pasting that in your instances search will bring it up. It should only be a 3 step process. Although I still feel that can be a little clunky.
For discovery I browse the community list of whichever instance I’m viewing and then link it back to my home instance. I just wish I knew of a way to view the list of communities from an instance directly from my home instance. (Other than selecting the All filter from my home instance community list)
I don’t know how a browser would know to open a link in a different webpage. An extension could possibly do it, an app can if you browse in it or paste into it, but at that point pasting into the search on your instance seems the same to me.
It seems a little too bad they didn’t make it like a different protocol so the browser could send it to an program to handle like a mailto link, but otoh, this would mean it’s not clickable just with a browser, which is less than ideal.
I guess after Mastodon I just got in the habit of copying the link to my instance search field.
The web client could totally be made to format the actual hyperlink behind the text into whatever it would need to be to open that instance from the current instance. We already sorta have that with the link button vs fediverse link button.
I think it’s possible with some logic basically if url and/or string meets some basic rules
!community@domain,
ect convert to local instance community url. Update logic for local community urls to look for community if not available locally and display. So first time navigating to a community might take a little bit longer but seems very possible.
Edit: ugh some formatting issues Edit2: to be clear I’ve been looking at the source code to figure it out and make a pull requests to make this happen
- Go to https://browse.feddit.de/ and find the community.
- Copy the URL for the community - they actually have a copy button right next to the link to make this easier (i.e. https://lemmy.ml/c/asklemmy)
- Go to your particular instance
- Use your instance’s search and paste in the URL from step 2.
- Click the search result that represents that community. You are now viewing and can subscribe to that community from your own instance.
Thanks, but now I got even more efficient method.
- https://lemm.ee/communities
- Switch from Local to All
- Type in searchbar <community>
- Click one of the results (if the community exists already).
- Subscribe.
This way don’t need to go to browse.feddit.de
Oh yeah this is way better if the community in question is already known by your instance. I’d say that if you’re looking for a community on a topic, your instance’s search is where you should start. Only look to external tools like browse.feddit.de if your instance search brings back nothing relevant.
On the top of lemm.ee website there is a button “Communities”. Select “All” instead of “Local” and you can search for any community.
Check out https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/61827
- If anyone else on your instance has already subbed, you can “just” visit /communities/ on the instance where your account is and click subscribe.
- If you’re the first to discover this sub, it’s an annoying process. The steps I’m used to (and that are described in the post above) are different than what you described. I’m not sure how much easier they are, but they’re what I recommend and have found easiest among approaches I’ve tested.
Ah, yeah. Our issues might have been slightly different. Besides that, I also wasn’t aware how federationing worked before someone here explained.
You can copy the link to the other community in full (something like instance.url/c/community_name) and go back to your community and go into the search menu. Paste the link in and you’ll see the community in the search results. Click that link and you can subscribe
Step 6 will return you a 404 - comunity non existent if your instance is not federating with the instance of the community you’re looking for.
I do:
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Step 1.
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Copy the URL
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In my instance, I use the search fuction. I search for the URL. The community is one result.
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enter the result, the instance has begun federating.
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subscribe.
Wait, you can force your instance to start federation with another instance!? Did I understande you correctly?
Not exactly force. It’s by design. Instances don’t federate with each other unless a user of one wants to communicate with the other (via subscription, or commenting, or whatever).
But instances can block each other and if that happens, there’s no way you can access from your instance.
What usually happens is that big instances (like lemmy.ml), just by the mere fact that they are big, are probably already federating with your instance anyway so you may not have encountered this situation.
Oh, that’s very illuminating. So how is browse.feddit.de different? Or is it different? Can there be communities on some instances that don’t show up even in browse.feddit.de?
I believe browser.feddit.de is not a Lemmy instance per sé (feddit.de is a Lemmy instance) but scrapes basic data from them (communities, subscribers, posts). As I don’t know anything about it’s back-end I cannot tell exactly how it works.
What I know it’s that there is a set of instances it knows (i don’t know how it gets them, probably a list?), and those are the ones it searches for communities. You can even choose for it not to show you communities from some instances by unselecting those instances in the up-left menu.
So my guess is that if an instance is not known by browser.feddit.de their communities will not be shown there. Those are probably private instances that may not be connected to the fediverse anyway.
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You can add a custom search engine in Firefox - I did this with Lemmy.World (keyword ‘LW’) so that I can search it straight from the URL bar.
When I add
!privacy@lemmy.mlinto my search field, it doesn’t show anything - in fact, it ends up telling me that there are no results. I have to then go into the Communities tab again, and hope it shows up there.I can see it doing work as I watch the logs. But this is really a little weird/frustrating. I hope this sees improvement eventually! =)
I actually still don’t understand what exclamation mark does.
EDIT: I guess the goal for you would be to get to this page:
Then you can choose one of those privacy communities, click and go to them and it will take you to them while you’re still in your instance.
Good call! That said, I am still going to have to copy-paste a lot of community handles… Oh well, it works for now, I guess.
Thanks for the idea!
if you search for the actual URL it will show up in the search, as long as the type filter is set to All instead of Communities
Interesting. Will give it a try, thanks for the hint!
if there was kind a data export feature. maybe we could export list of subscription list then we can import to other instance. it could be like mastodon migration.
Do you mean like when creating another account on a different instance?
yes. i know it is not your problem’s real solution. but it could solve someway and cover up another lack of feature. i wanted to draw attention to another problem and make a different aproach for your problem.
feddit.dk lets you subscribe to communities directly from the community browser.
Someone posted a bookmarklet earlier that makes this easier.
Let us know, if you find that again.
