Indigenous for Desktop

Update 27/09/2021: I don't maintain the project anymore, but it's still alive and kicking!

I'm excited to announce that Indigenous for Desktop has a first release! Like the Android client, this application allows you to interact with the IndieWeb using the Micropub and Microsub specifications. Besides the fun of experimenting with a different framework, there are a couple of other reasons why I felt the need to have a different client. The main reason is the reader: long articles are quite tedious to read on my phone because the screen is simply smaller. Looking at images obviously has the same problem. Listening to podcasts works fine, but during working hours, I'm already on my laptop, so why not listen on the laptop?

This (currently) means I'm not going to port over all functionality that exist in the Android client, the main focus is on the most common features used on a daily basis. Please keep that in mind before opening issues. I've already created a bunch in the queue which I will work on next and (most likely) freeze after they are done.

The app is written and packaged using the Electron framework, which gives me the opportunity to use features outside of a browser, like disk storage (for configuration, caching ..), notifications and so on, but without having to worry that everything works on every operating system. Packages for the first release are available on the releases page at GitHub. I've tested it on Linux, MacOS and Windows, so crossing fingers that it works for other people as well!

Features available

• Micropub: note/article with tags, single file upload, syndication targets, and published status.
• Microsub: Read channels and posts per timeline. Inline reply, like, bookmark and repost with or without confirmation, mark all read.
• Settings: The reader connects to https://indigenous.realize.be by default so there's a nice preview to see how it works. You can configure your reader and post endpoint manually - IndieAuth flow is coming in later versions.

What's next? Add more features of course! The idea is also to extract the code at some point to create a PWA version, but that's for another time :) In case you want to contribute to development, feel free to open issues and pull requests at https://github.com/swentel/indigenous-desktop