Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Oct 13
Testing Automatically Creating a Twitter Thread from a WordPress post
By way of a mention on Techmeme today, I learned that WordPress now allows you to tweet out a blog post as a linked thread of tweets. You can do this either using the hosted WordPress.com solution – or using self-hosted WordPress with the Jetpack plugin.
The Jetpack plugin included this feature as part of the 9.0 release on October 6, 2020.
All you need to do to use it is to:
- Connect a Twitter account via Jetpack.
- Press the Jetpack icon in the upper right.
- Write your blog post
You can see the setting you need to choose in this screenshot:
In theory, I’m supposed to be seeing little marks in the WordPress editor showing me where each tweet would end. I see a Twitter symbol, but it seems to move with me, and I know I have already written way more than can be in a single tweet.
(I see now that when I go back and click through the text, the Twitter symbols do show me where each Tweet will begin and end.)
My initial thought was sort of … why would I want to use this? Typically the writing I do for a blog post is very different – and often much longer – than I want for social media.
I like to write longer posts on my blogs, and then link to them from Twitter. It just seems like apples and oranges – two very different types of content.
However, as I’ve thought more about it, there is one use case I could see for this. Sometimes I know in advance that I want to create a thread on Twitter.
If I just go and create the thread on Twitter, there are a couple of issues:
- I usually want to create the thread in another editor first, so that I have my thread all figured out. (Not always… sometimes a thread just happens very organically, but sometimes I do want to write it all before tweeting.)
- The text is locked inside of Twitter’s “walled garden” of content. Yes, I can refer people to it… but it’s locked inside of Twitter. If they decide to remove my tweets, or remove my access to my account, I could lose the content.
Writing a post inside of WordPress allows me to solve both of these issues. I can easily write out text in advance, and, regardless of whatever Twitter may or may not do with my content, I have a copy on my own website.
What do you think? Will you use this new WordPress feature to create Twitter threads? (Or is this just something that will clog up Twitter timelines?)
UPDATE #1: As advertised, Jetpack very nicely created a thread on Twitter. It also added a final tweet that points over to this blog post where you can read the whole thread:
This obviously removes the need to use one of the various services that gather all the tweets in a thread so that you can read them on a single page (and share the link to that single page). Very nicely done.
Sep 24
Using the details element via a Gutenberg block
As I wrote about last year, the HTML5 “details” element is a very useful and lightweight way to create a collapsed list of questions or other content. Investigating possible options, these kind of parts of a web page seem to be often called an “accordion”. There are a number of accordion plugins, but almost all the ones I could find use some kind of additional JavaScript scripts to make the accordion.
Why do I want to use the <details> element vs JavaScript?
Because the native HTML element is already known to browsers. The extra JavaScript is not needed.
Should this be faster?
I would expect so, because there is no need to load additional JavaScript
What WordPress plugin provides this capability?
I found the “Lightweight Accordion” plugin found in the WordPress plugin directory.
Now, obviously I would need to style it a bit more to have it fit in here well, but it’s very easy to add in Gutenberg. It also has the ability to be added in the Classic Editor, too.
Sep 06
TDYR 398 – COVID-19, online learning, and… the END OF SNOW DAYS??
What??? With schools moving to online learning, are we really seeing the end of *snow days*? In this episode, I talk about the long tradition of "snow days" in the northern US, and how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way we learn... and removing the need to have a day off for snowstorms! If you are in areas with snow, are you hearing something similar? (no snow days) What do you think about all of this?
Sep 04
TDYR 397 – COVID-19: Have we depleted our brain’s surge capacity?
In this pandemic with its ongoing and never-ending uncertainty, is part of our challenge that we have depleted our brain's "surge capacity"? Following on to the last episode 396 where I talked about the "Pandemic Productivity Plunge," in this episode I discuss an article I found very helpful in thinking about how to *think about* our response to the pandemic. The article is "Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful" by science journalist Tara Haelle. I would encourage everyone to read it at:
https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is-depleted-it-s-why-you-feel-awful-de285d542f4c
(If you cannot view it there, I have also found it at https://outline.com/GwHDSf )
What do you think about this article and the ideas? Are they helpful to you? What are YOU doing to renew your capacity to respond? Please do leave comments either here on SoundCloud or wherever this is posted on social media.
FYI, you can follow the article author on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tarahaelle
Aug 25
Call for Participation – ICANN 69 DNSSEC and Security Workshop, October 2020 (Featured Blog)
If you are interested in presenting at the ICANN 69 DNSSEC and Security Workshop during the week of 17-22 October 2020, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-hamburg@isoc.org by 27 August 2020. We are open to a wide range of topics related to DNS, DNSSEC, DANE, routing security, and more. There are some ideas in the Call for Participation below, but other ideas are definitely welcome, too! More...
Aug 25
Call for Participation – ICANN 69 DNSSEC and Security Workshop, October 2020 (Featured Blog)
If you are interested in presenting at the ICANN 69 DNSSEC and Security Workshop during the week of 17-22 October 2020, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-hamburg@isoc.org by 27 August 2020. We are open to a wide range of topics related to DNS, DNSSEC, DANE, routing security, and more. There are some ideas in the Call for Participation below, but other ideas are definitely welcome, too! More...
Aug 19
Experimenting with block patterns in WordPress 5.5
Here I am just inserting a “block pattern” in WordPress 5.5 that has two buttons side by side:
The point of a “block pattern” is it lets you insert a pre-defined and pre-configured set of blocks. You then can edit those blocks and set them up with their unique properties.
This is VERY different from “re-usable blocks”, which can also be inserted easily in different parts of your site… but they all share the same value. So you could have, say, your contact info or number of members in a re-usable block. Insert that block all across your site. Update it in one location, and it is updated everywhere.
Instead a “block pattern” is more of a “template”… “here are some blocks to get you going on this page and now you can do with them what you will.“
I can see a HUGE use case for this in the pages we create at my employer. We often create new landing pages or event pages where we use some standard patterns. Obviously we can just “duplicate” an existing page if it is a close match, but often we are building new pages where we also want to bring in elements used on another page. Now, we have built our own blocks for some of our common elements. But a “block pattern” allows us to have a group of blocks that we can easily add to the page.
The challenge is that adding block patterns in WordPress 5.5 primarily involves adding code to your theme or creating a custom plugin.
However, I see there is now a “Block Pattern Builder” plugin that needs some investigation…
Aug 04
IPv6 Buzz Podcast Dives into Open Standards Everywhere
What are the challenges with applications supporting IPv6? What do people, particularly those working in enterprises, need to know about how servers and applications work with IPv6? What is the Internet Society’s Open Standards Everywhere project doing to help? How can people get more involved?
To answer all these questions and more, I recently joined Scott Hogg and Tom Coffeen on their IPv6 Buzz Podcast episode 53. You can listen here:
It was a very enjoyable conversation! Thanks to Scott and Tom for having me on their show. I also want to thank Ed Horley, who first contacted me about joining the show but with schedule conflicts was not able to join the recording. I would also encourage you to listen to other IPv6 Buzz episodes to learn more about IPv6.
If you would like to help in the work to get open standards deployed everywhere, please:
- Read our project page to understand our 2020 goals.
- Test your website with Internet.nl
- Read / share / comment on the documentation we are creating on GitHub.
- Join our Open Standards Everywhere community in Connect.
The post IPv6 Buzz Podcast Dives into Open Standards Everywhere appeared first on Internet Society.
