Most apps I find are only mastodon-like (including pleroma etc.), or only lemmy-like, or only peertube-like. One of the main benefits of the fediverse is that I could theoretically access all of those from one platform. But the clients I saw don't seem to support it too well.

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[–] matcha_addict@lemy.lol 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I would be glad if a unified web client exists. Mobile app is not necessary.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not actually super familiar with the unified web clients, but you could be right that one is out there, or perhaps we're just asking too soon in the general Fediverse development cycle. In a year or two, someone might have designed something like that, perhaps with a post like this as inspiration.

[–] JupiterRowland@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

But where would a unified Web client run in the first place? It would have to be installed on a Web server and, from there, access the Web servers of the various different server apps which would still be entirely different and independent installations.

For a Web client with no actual server backend, the same would go as for a mobile app: It would have to cover pretty much all features of everything. If uniting Lemmy and Mastodon in one UI seems tricky already, try adding Hubzilla and (streams) to the mix.

If you're actually looking for a unified Web server and client, i.e. one Fediverse project that literally covers everything the Fediverse can do with one login on one server and one identity: This won't happen.

This would be way too much for one Fediverse project to tackle. You'd basically have to start with (streams), add back all functionality that has been removed since the first fork from Hubzilla (and that's a whole lot), make all kinds of non-nomadic protocols compatible with nomadic identity via Nomad and ActivityPub, and then gradually add all kinds of features from all over the place, from PeerTube to Funkwhale, from PieFed to Owncast, from Mobilizon to BookWyrm. And you'd have to soft-fork everything and keep them in-sync with their respective upstreams.

The outcome would be too complex for most. People would have to deal with their account/their login not being their identity because their identity is containerised in a channel. They would have to wrap their minds around nomadic identity. They would have to deal with fine-grained permissions settings. They would have a post editor that's every bit as powerful as those on big blogging platforms when all they want to do is tweet and retweet and occasionally watch a video. And they would have tons of features on top.

The whole thing would be an utter nightmare for its developers as well, seeing as they'd constantly have to track over 100 Fediverse projects and implement any upgrades which they've rolled out.

[–] Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But where would a unified Web client run in the first place? It would have to be installed on a Web server and, from there, access the Web servers of the various different server apps which would still be entirely different and independent installations.

There are already web clients for the fediverse, like Photon for Lemmy

[–] JupiterRowland@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For one specific Fediverse project each, yes.

But what the OP is looking for is a Web client that lets you log into Mastodon and Lemmy and PeerTube all the same. Probably one that unifies your Mastodon, Lemmy and PeerTube timelines into one, rather than listing your Mastodon timeline next to your Lemmy timeline next to your PeerTube timeline in three separate columns, TweetDeck-style.

Or maybe what the OP is looking for is a Web server and client that unites all features of Mastodon and Lemmy and PeerTube in one Fediverse project so that only one single login is needed for everything.

Neither of these exists.

[–] Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I know, I was just replying to the part I was quoting. Point is, hosting that web client wouldn't be an issue.

[–] JupiterRowland@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It would just either have to be on a server that also offers all server applications covered by the Web client so that everything has the same domain.

Or you would have to tell people to register accounts on foo.social, bar.social and/or baz.social, but the Web UI is on qux.social. Bit confusing for newbies who only knew centralised silos five minutes ago.

[–] Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But wasn't the point of the post that it should, in theory, be possible to use a single account for all the different services by having a client that supports them all, since these different services federate with each other? I don't know if that's currently possible without making changes on the backend but if you need different accounts for each service, even if it's handled on the back-end, that kinda goes against the whole point of the post, no?

[–] JupiterRowland@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

That would basically require all Fediverse servers of all types to grant full-blown user access to Fediverse users with their login credentials stored anywhere in the Fediverse.

I'm not sure if OAuth could do that. Hubzilla supports both OAuth and OAuth2, both as a server and as a client. But for this to work, everything in the Fediverse would require both server-side and client-side OAuth support.

Also, for convenience, OAuth support would basically have to be combined with OpenWebAuth-style magic single sign-on. With bare-bone OAuth, a user would first have to authenticate with a remote server or client or whatever. This is inconvenient. It would have to happen magically on the fly without the user even noticing anything, much less having to act in any way.

If Lemmy had client-side OpenWebAuth support, and you visit a Hubzilla hub, that Hubzilla hub would automagically grant you certain guest privileges because it recognises you.

If it was a combination of OAuth credential transfer and OpenWebAuth magic single sign-on, and you visit a Hubzilla hub, you could create a new, full-blown Hubzilla channel residing on that hub, just as if you had a local account, and you could do everything with that channel that you could do with a channel on a local account.

In general, this would create the issue of things being stored in the local server database, like posts or even local settings, but not associated to any one local account in the same database. It's bad enough with content, e.g. posts. It's even worse with technical stuff like settings. I mean, if you drive-by magic-log-in to Mastodon with a Lemmy account, you want all the Mastodon settings, to customise your Mastodon experience, now, don't you?

Now imagine you want to delete your Lemmy account. All of a sudden, discuss.tchncs.de would have to go around to 239 instances of a dozen different projects, because that's how many you've used to do stuff, and wipe stuff from databases on remote servers. Alternative: It stays there, but the user account on discuss.tchncs.de that it's associated with doesn't exist anymore.

Or imagine you'd done that not on discuss.tchncs.de, but on kbin.social which infamously is dead. You'd have stuff in the databases of 239 Fediverse instances that's associated with login credentials on a dead server. No feckin' chance to ever get rid of that stuff unless all Fediverse projects implement some CPU-heavy sanitiser that regularly checks whether the servers and login accounts behind all remote stuff in the databases are still there.

It'd be even worse with server applications that support nomadic identity. Hubzilla and (streams). There, your identity is not your account. They're separate already. Your account is only your login, your access to your identity. Your identity is containerised in something called a "channel" that can be cloned to other servers.

You can't just drive-by magic-log-in to a Hubzilla hub and start posting away and, what, create a wiki or something. Your posts and wikis and whatnot aren't stored in your account. They have to be stored in a channel. So you'll first need a channel. You'll have to create it. By the logic, you'll have a Hubzilla channel and thus a nomadic Hubzilla identity named Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de based on your login credentials. If in this case Hubzilla supports naming channels after login credentials rather than the hub, the server instance they're created on, that is.

Technically speaking, however, since the domain in the ID of the channel differs from the server domain, it's a clone. It is not a main instance. The main instance of a Hubzilla channel always has the same domain in its ID as the hub it resides on. But discuss.tchncs.de is not Hubzilla, nor does it support Hubzilla channels, so Hubzilla channels can't reside on discuss.tchncs.de.

Other connections from Hubzilla and (streams) that understand nomadic identity will relentlessly try to connect to a channel on a Hubzilla hub on discuss.tchncs.de. But there is no Hubzilla hub on discuss.tchncs.de because it's a Lemmy server and not a Hubzilla hub. So your precious Hubzilla channel will be broken from the beginning because the Hubzilla hub that defines its identity does not exist.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

But where would a unified Web client run in the first place?

Man, I already run like 10 different microservices that all have their own web portal and they're all locally hosted.

What's one more?

I literally connect to every IRC instance through The Lounge, a locally hosted web interface for multiple concurrent IRC connections.

You could definitely do the same for a web UI for the fediverse.