Pygoscelis Papua

2025-03-25 22:04:28

Postbox Add-Ons for Friendica

Bookface 1.6 introduces a new feature called "Postboxes" that allows you to create a post with a colorful background like a similar feature on Facebook. It's built into the Bookface scheme, but I also created TWO add-ons for Friendica if a server administrator wants to roll it out for all of their users regardless of what theme they prefer.

Postbox: simply adds a minified stylesheet to the head with the Postbox styling. It doesn’t add any interface for creating a Postbox, but users can still create them manually with BBcode.

Zen Postbox: adds the minified stylesheet to the head, but also adds a tool to the post composer to insert a Postbox or wrap selected text in one.

To manually create a Postbox just wrap your text in the Postbox class BBcode like this:

[class=postbox-redblue]Text that will be wrapped[/class]

Make sure to PREVIEW it before you post it! While Friendica's Postboxes do allow more content than just plain text, certain formatting blocks can't be placed inside them.

If everything looks good, go ahead an POST it. Anyone using Bookface or any server using either the "Postbox" or "Zen Postbox" add-ons will see it like this:

If the "Zen Postbox" add-on is enabled it adds a button for wrapping/inserting a Postbox to the post editor:

Full Documentation of the "Zen Postbox" add-on is available as a GitLab Wiki.

Keep in mind that other servers that don't implement Postbox styling, other platforms (like Mastodon), and third-party apps will not show these colored backgrounds. This feature only works in the Friendica webapp/website.

This is what that post would look like in the stock "Frio" theme without the add-ons:

#bookface #friendica @Friendica Admins @Friendica Developers