You might use Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse through your server's website or through an app, but there is also a third option that many people prefer: web apps.
Web apps are special kinds of websites that can also be installed like apps. They appear as app icons, keep you signed in, work separately from your browser and provide notifications just like any app does.
Web apps are extremely easy to install, there's a complete beginner's guide at:
➡️ fedi.tips/how-to-install-web-a…
How to install Web Apps for Mastodon and the Fediverse | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
Stefan
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • • •Georgiana Brummell
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • •like this
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Fedi.Tips 🎄
in reply to Georgiana Brummell • • •There's a section about this in the guide, the part marked "Isn’t this just a bookmark? What’s the point of this?":
fedi.tips/how-to-install-web-a…
tl:dr - They let you use the website without the browser interface getting in the way, you don't have to open or close the browser as it runs separately, and web apps provide notifications like app store apps do.
EDIT: I've rewritten it a bit to make clearer what the differences are between bookmarks and web apps.
How to install Web Apps for Mastodon and the Fediverse | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
fedi.tipsGeorgiana Brummell likes this.
JWSGeek
in reply to Georgiana Brummell • • •@dandylover1 it gets rid of the browser 'chroming' (the tabs, the headers, all the extension toolbar stuff) so you JUST have your app, acting like an app. It can be separately sized (without impacting what a new browser window will open as), separately iconified.
Take a music player - it isn't a web page. It is an app. It just happens to use web-tech. By installing it as a PWA, I can control where it goes, give it its own icon, and more, and THINK of it as an app, not a web page.
Here are two views of my own music player (a client for #Subsonic). One is a self-contained app interface. The other is...an annoying tab in my browser. Buried when I am in another tab, distracted by all the 'stuff' around it. Just...meh. If you want to keep to the tab, fine. But I find having an app be separate is more aesthetically pleasing.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Fedi.Tips 🎄
in reply to JWSGeek • • •@jwsgeek
The player looks really nice by the way, very calm 👍
Georgiana Brummell
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Fedi.Tips 🎄
in reply to Georgiana Brummell • • •@dandylover1 @jwsgeek
I'm sorry, I didn't realise. Screen reader users would indeed have a totally different perspective on this, thank you for sharing it!
Georgiana Brummell
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • •like this
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JWSGeek
in reply to Georgiana Brummell • • •@dandylover1 those of us who code web-apps ABSOLUTELY take the stance that they are apps and not "pages". regardless of the attention to accessibility (a curse on apps in general, and web-apps don't make any difference here: accessibility is EXPENSIVE, and those of us who code for free, for ourselves primarily, just don't have that kind of time).
so i respect that it doesn't make a difference to you as such...but you kind of moved the goalposts a bit in bringing it up now, because you PRESENTED it as a general "i don't get it" thing, where-as your personal circumstances are different so our counter-arguments are clearly irrelevant IN THIS CASE.
Georgiana Brummell
in reply to JWSGeek • •Fedi.Tips 🎄 likes this.
JWSGeek
in reply to Georgiana Brummell • • •@dandylover1 not solely visual...but if you're used to a single app (the browser) controlling the web experience, then yeah.
but for those who want to treat every "app" as its own thing, the web-app technology allows us (devs) and them (users) to treat apps as apps, allowing for aesthetic and conceptual isolation.
again, to us in development, an app is an app, and is not a "page". we see them differently as we build them.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Fedi.Tips 🎄
in reply to Georgiana Brummell • • •@dandylover1
As a Fediverse tech support account, it's really useful to hear the screen reader perspective, because I should be keeping that in mind when offering support.
One of the best things about joining the Fediverse has been discovering more about accessing the internet via audio tools like screen readers. It's a totally different approach.
Georgiana Brummell likes this.
Georgiana Brummell
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • •like this
Fedi.Tips 🎄 and Dave Heinemann 🇦🇺 like this.
Melroy van den Berg
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • • •which is something Apple (iOS) is trying to kill! Dammit Apple.
Don't buy iOS.
sam ✅🇬🇪
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • • •"However, some websites are specially written to function pretty much like apps"
that's funny, because I've always thought a lot of apps behave pretty much like a website and the app is unnecessary.
Fedi.Tips 🎄
in reply to sam ✅🇬🇪 • • •@sam
A lot of app store apps are actually just web apps packaged to be downloadable from app stores!
But web apps don't give Apple or Google any money or control, so they tend to get downplayed. It's also harder to access a user's data from a web app than an app store app, so companies who want to spy on their users do it through app store apps.
Cathy Casilda🌼
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • • •🏳️ Ben Soule :coffefied:
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • • •JWSGeek
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • • •Emily Hegarty
in reply to Fedi.Tips 🎄 • • •Fedi.Tips 🎄
in reply to Emily Hegarty • • •@emilyhegarty
Yay, great to hear! 🥳 Have fun with BookWyrm!