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.
It’s easier to just type/paste in the address of the community on the search page of your instance in the
!name@instan.ce
format.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
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