This is a test post, to see if Mastodon picks it up.

Edit: it did work :)

— Kicou

Just testing the WriteFreely platform, so here is my obligatory “Hello World” post.

So far so good. Here is what I know about is so far:

Clutter-free

Over the years, I have blogged using PHP-Nuke, MovableType, WordPress, SPIP, Dotclear, Octopress and Grav to name a few.

The longest I have blogged with was SPIP, and it was very nice for the few years I used it as blog platform. Back in the days I actually wrote one of the first weblog templates for SPIP. It is awesome but it is also way overkill for the sole purpose of writing a simple personal blog.

What I want today is a low-maintenance platform that gets out of your way, because I will probably not write much nor will I write frequently. I just want something that is there when I need it and that I can use in an instant, without having to remember how to navigate through it.

WriteFreely is clean and simple: this is what drew me to it. The installation took less than 10 minutes. I opted for an SQLite installation because it is a low-volume single-user instance and I did not want to install MySQL/MariaDB just for it; all the services I host use PostgreSQL if they require a DB back end.

The interface is clean, very clean, and I like that. No complex administration interface, just the basics: install and start using.

WriteFreely disappears from your view and puts you straight into the task of writing.

Time will tell if turns out to be too simple for me, but I think that in this case less is more: it forces you to focus on what you want to write, without the distraction of flashy surroundings.

Federated

It is a publishing platform that is federated by ActivityPub and is therefore capable of interacting with the Fediverse. This means that it should be able to communicate with Mastodon/Pleroma (microblogging), Pixelfed (image sharing), Peertube (video sharing), Plume (publishing), Funkwhale (music sharing) and other compatible distributed services — to what extent I have no idea yet.

I still have to figure this out. Honestly, I don't even know if I want to federate. But I know I can.

Markdown

Markdown formatting is simple and fast. No ugly form that tries to emulate a word processor: don't take your hands off the keyboard, don't disrupt your flow, don't spend too much time trying to make things pixel-perfect. Just write, dammit!

Free and Open Source

Free as in Free Speech, free as in Free Beer, WriteFreely is under the AGPL licence.

— Kicou