A patch release of Hometown (v1.0.6+3.5.2) is coming later today. It will include:
- A CSS patch to our Macaron (Pastel Light) theme that fixes a bug that made the reporting interface unusuable
- a Polish translation of Hometown strings (thanks @mkljczk)
- ...maybe some other little fixes and changes from our PR queue, we'll see what I get done today
Okay, new Hometown release is out. It's v1.0.6+3.5.2 and contains mostly bugfixes and three new features. I will explain the features (and maybe some bug fixes) in this thread.
Full release notes and upgrade instructions here:
https://github.com/hometown-fork/hometown/releases/tag/v1.0.6%2B3.5.2
New feature 1: Polish translation for Hometown specific text. Again, thanks @mkljczk!
New feature 2: The server-wide "About" pages now show in limited federation mode.
Limited federation is a Mastodon feature that hides things like profile pages and directories etc from other servers, plus lets you make an allow-list for federation. This is good, but it also hid your server's "About" page. That's where important information like your Code of Conduct goes, and it makes sense to show that to everyone.
New feature 3: The "compose" box no longer has keyboard focus when you load the web client.
Auto-focusing this assumes that you are likely to make a post as soon as you load the page. This often isn't true, and it means that keyboard shortcut users have to tab out before beginning to navigate. Thanks to @raboof for the PR and @weirdwriter for a quick screen reader consultation.
Bugs fixed include:
- lots of CSS tweaks and fixes
- exclusive lists no longer revert to normal lists on rename
- `local_only` emoji now works in CW text
- ....and many more, including some stuff that was making it confusing to upgrade Hometown for admins.
My next planned Hometown release is going to be v1.1.0. I am trying to do actual project management on this one, so I have tagged all the features I plan on introducing. You can see them here:
If you want to comment on any of the planned v1.1.0 features, please comment on the Github issue directly (preferred) or @ me here.
@darius I do have a question, about parity with Masto-main.
When they release questionable features will you still implement them all into hometown, or how do you handle it?
Also feel free to link me somewhere where you've already answered that.
@maloki Depends on how questionable, and how difficult it is to extract. Generally speaking it is easier to maintain *added* features rather than *removed* ones. Basically you can assume that I will keep all upstream features unless it's like REALLY catastrophically bad. It's how I can ensure that maintaining this fork isn't too much work.
@maloki But for example: some people are very mad about edited posts. I plan to keep those in Hometown (partly because I think they are implementing them correctly as append-only -- if they change it to replace stuff in-place, I would try hard to extract it or more likely move it back to append-only).
@darius yeah that makes sense.
@darius the fedibird merge is in there! wild
@garbados I want to see what stuff is in there and like... idk maybe there's something I want to pull in!
@garbados [just cherry-picks "argh-X"]
@darius yeah! i know we talked already about how to approach integrating specific features. i started on the work of isolating some but my unfamiliarity with the respective codebases makes it slow going. from a PM perspective, i could write up individual issues for the features we discussed, if that would be helpful
@darius Neat! I see 'add icon for missing alt text' in there, is the dashed border not going to be kept?
@Lore Yeah, dashed border is friend-camp-only. It was a proof of concept that proved to me it's a good feature
@darius import/export of block lists sounds dreamy!!
@darius yay for alt text in profile pictures / avatars 
@darius oh my gosh circles would be *so nice*, the one and only feature from G+ that was worth anything
@balrogboogie @darius I wanted it in Kibou but no spoons
cc @support