Peter Vágner

Two days ago I have posted an article describing how I started using @WithKnown built-in Bookmarks plugin to handle Likes and Reposts uninstalling Reactions plugin I was using before.
Some people (including andrea and Chris Aldrich) reacted on it that prompted me to look at it again and try to clear a few more points.
I did a mistake in my original article and I had to edit it. The bookmarks plugin handles all three #indieweb classes within a single entity_subtype and I have recommended to create two entity subtypes IdnoPlugins\Like\Like and IdnoPlugins\Like\Repost where i should have only recommended the former.
The Reactions plugin handles the body property of the contents database column differently for Likes and for Reposts so I have added some notes explaining the situation.
And I have completelly missed the look and feel of resulting pages.
As andrea points out, all the Likes and Reposts and Bookmarks now look identical on my site. Unfortunatelly there are only two small differences. The correct #indieweb classes are used and each type has its own icon. I don't care for the visual appearance that much my-self, however the fact correct indieweb classes are there make me happy I have chosen this route. If someone skilled enough can step up to provide additions to the Bookmark plugin template handling these post types differently, I am happy to see it  on the web and on my site.

There are some more serious issues with this and I hope either I or someone else will be able to suggest and / or add improvements. When posting via micropub e.g. from woodwind all is working well. When posting via bookmarklet or from the Known UI, all the entries are stored as bookmarks. This is the most serious issue.
I have chosen some of my posts so you can see these are valid: Like, Repost, Bookmark.
So I think we are slowly approaching what Chris Aldrich suggests i.e. unifying it all working in the core of Known.

Regarding various Known post types there is a story I would say I think so because at least for me it took so long to sort it out on my instance.
After I've installed Known on my domain some time in july 2016 I have realized the Repost and Like post types don't appear to be available right on the main page so I've installed Reactions plugin.
Everything worked smoothly for me at that time I was posting a lot of likes to my site, I have even reposted a few things. So given the fact it was all perfectly pieced together and worked fine I was not following the Known development and I missed all its updates. In particular one significant change was that since version 0.9.2, built in Bookmarks plugin deployed inside the IdnoPlugins/Like folder received an ability to handle likes, reposts and bookmarks. I have only acknowledged this issue about a year later in june 2017.
Looking through both issues there was no easy solution to this seemingly misterious incompatibility and that got me thinking in somewhat different direction.

• Built-in Bookmarks plugin can now handle likes and reposts.
• Do I need seperate Bookmark, Like and Repost buttons on the main page if I am either using corresponding bookmarklet or posting from the phone using an android app?
• Is there something else I might miss in the future Reactions plugins provides?

I was unable to answer the last question however first two points indicate I no longer need Reactions plugin because Bookmarks plugin which lives in the core can do what I need it to do.
Okay so I then went to examine how the data are stored in the database trying to work out if I can turn Likes and Reposts created with Reactions plugin into Likes and Reposts built-in Bookmark plugin can now handle. I'm using MariaDB and first I wanted to see how many entries there are in my database I have created using Reactions plugin.

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM entities WHERE entity_subtype LIKE "IdnoPlugins%Reactions%";

Now how many of them are Likes

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM entities WHERE entity_subtype LIKE "IdnoPlugins%Reactions%Like";

And finally how many of them are Reposts

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM entities WHERE entity_subtype LIKE "IdnoPlugins%Reactions%Repost";

While examining these data I have noticed that the entity_subtype is a dedicated database table column, however the same thing is also stored in the contents column holding all the entity content as a json string. So I have just double checked if these two places agree with each other.

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM entities WHERE contents LIKE "%\"entity_subtype\":\"IdnoPlugins%Reactions%\"%";

And now a different check of the same thing:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM entities WHERE INSTR(contents, "\"entity_subtype\":\"IdnoPlugins\\\\Reactions") > 0;

Now I think I can use these building blocks to conditionally select entities I will be changing. However I don't yet know what changes to do.

This is how the Like created with the Reactions plugin is stored in the database:

MariaDB [mydatabase]> SELECT * FROM entities WHERE (entity_subtype LIKE "%like" ) ORDER BY created LIMIT 1;
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+----------------+
| uuid                                                                             | _id                              | owner                              | entity_subtype        | created             | contents                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     | search                                    | publish_status |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+----------------+
| https://pvagner.tk/2016/liked-ryan-rixs-catastrophic-data-loss-and-me-0647a70c63 | 58debaa17faedc195f6ca78ca23249f5 | https://pvagner.tk/profile/pvagner | IdnoPlugins\Reactions\Like | 2016-07-10 12:36:42 | {"access":"PUBLIC","owner":"https:\/\/pvagner.tk\/profile\/pvagner","likeof":"http:\/\/notes.whatthefuck.computer\/1467388500.0-note.html","syndicatedto":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/rrrrrrrix\/status\/748993485538111488","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/10153834879468856\/posts\/10154372324658856"],"description":"Ryan Rix's Catastrophic Data Loss and Me","_id":"58debaa17faedc195f6ca78ca23249f5","slug":"liked-ryan-rixs-catastrophic-data-loss-and-me-0647a70c63","created":1468154202,"updated":1468154202,"uuid":"https:\/\/pvagner.tk\/2016\/liked-ryan-rixs-catastrophic-data-loss-and-me-0647a70c63","entity_subtype":"IdnoPlugins\\Reactions\\Like"} | ryan rix's catastrophic data loss and me  | published      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+----------------+

And this is how a different like created with Bookmarks plugin is stored:

MariaDB [mydatabase]> SELECT * FROM entities WHERE (entity_subtype LIKE "%like" ) ORDER BY created DESC LIMIT 1;
+----------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+
| uuid                                                     | _id                              | owner                              | entity_subtype        | created             | contents                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         | search                                                                                    | publish_status |
+----------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+
| https://pvagner.tk/view/9251ea447da9ae82fdc29af9cac2ee56 | 9251ea447da9ae82fdc29af9cac2ee56 | https://pvagner.tk/profile/pvagner | IdnoPlugins\Like\Like | 2018-01-23 12:48:38 | {"access":"PUBLIC","owner":"https:\/\/pvagner.tk\/profile\/pvagner","body":"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/denuvo-has-been-sold-to-global-anti-piracy-outfit-irdeto-180123\/","likeof":"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/denuvo-has-been-sold-to-global-anti-piracy-outfit-irdeto-180123\/","description":null,"tags":null,"pageTitle":"Denuvo Has Been Sold to Global Anti-Piracy Outfit Irdeto - TorrentFreak","slug":"denuvo-has-been-sold-to-global-anti-piracy-outfit-irdeto","created":1516711718,"updated":1516711719,"publish_status":"published","_id":"9251ea447da9ae82fdc29af9cac2ee56","uuid":"https:\/\/pvagner.tk\/view\/9251ea447da9ae82fdc29af9cac2ee56","shorturl":"1hJTnB","posse":{"twitter":[{"url":"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pvagner\/status\/955784340310581248","identifier":"@pvagner","item_id":"955784340310581248","account_id":"pvagner"}],"mastodon":[{"url":"https:\/\/mastodon.sk\/@pvagner\/99399219252030242","identifier":"pvagner@mastodon.sk","item_id":"pvagner@mastodon.sk","account_id":""}]},"entity_subtype":"IdnoPlugins\\Like\\Like"} | https://torrentfreak.com/denuvo-has-been-sold-to-global-anti-piracy-outfit-irdeto-180123/ | published      |
+----------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------+-----------------------+---------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------+

Based off all the stuff I have gathered so far I compiled this short list of steps:

• Create a backup of your running database so you can go back and retry if something is not working the way you are expecting.
• Disable reactions plugin. This will stop displaying the broken Likes and Reposts for a while.
• Tweak the search database table column to contain the same URL  the same thing as body, likeof or repost inside the contents json.
• Tweak the contents column for all these Likes and reposts which were created by the Reactions plugin
  
  1. to have "entity_subtype":"IdnoPlugins\\Like\\Like" or "entity_subtype":"IdnoPlugins\\Like\\Repost" respectively. Basically replacing IdnoPlugins\\Reactions with IdnoPlugins\\Like.
  2. to have the same body than the respective "likeof" or "repost". Note that entries created with Reactions plugin are lacking the body property.
  3. To repurpose description into a pageTitle as Reactions plugin does not allow entering a description and makes no use of pageTitle.
• Change the database table column entity_subtype the same way we have changed entity_subtype within the contents column. This will make all the entries visible again.

Now I need to be able to retrieve the likeof url from the contents discarding all the rest. I know there is a json specific extension for current development version of MariaDB, however I am still running version 10.1, so I'll have to resort to string manipulation and regular expressions. If you are running other database flavour or an older version you will have to tweak this I guess.
I will be only showing queries tweaking Likes, if you are interested you can easily run them again for Reposts as well.

SELECT REPLACE(SUBSTR(REGEXP_SUBSTR(contents, '"likeof":"https?:[^"]*'), 11), '\\/', '/') FROM entities WHERE (entity_subtype LIKE "%Like" AND INSTR(contents, "\"body\":") <= 0) ORDER BY created DESC LIMIT 10;

At this point we are finally ready to run some UPDATE statements doing what I have just suggested.

Changing the search database table column for all the Likes created by the Reactions plugin (needs adjusting in order to work with Reposts):

UPDATE entities SET search = REPLACE(SUBSTR(REGEXP_SUBSTR(contents, '"likeof":"https?:[^"]*'), 11), '\\/', '/') WHERE (entity_subtype LIKE "IdnoPlugins%Reactions%Like");

Tweaking the entity_subtype within the contents column (handles both Likes and Reposts at the same time):

UPDATE entities SET contents = REPLACE(contents, "\"entity_subtype\":\"IdnoPlugins\\\\Reactions", "\"entity_subtype\":\"IdnoPlugins\\\\Like") WHERE INSTR(contents, "\"entity_subtype\":\"IdnoPlugins\\\\Reactions") > 0;

Creating a missing body property inside the contents column (you need to adjust it to work with Reposts):

UPDATE entities SET contents = REPLACE(contents, REGEXP_SUBSTR(contents, '"likeof":"https?:[^"]*'), CONCAT("\"body\":\"", SUBSTR(REGEXP_SUBSTR(contents, '"likeof":"https?:[^"]*'), 11), "\",", REGEXP_SUBSTR(contents, '"likeof":"https?:[^"]*'))) WHERE (entity_subtype LIKE "%Like" AND INSTR(contents, "\"body\":") <= 0);

Repurposing descriptions to pageTitles within the contents column for all Likes where there is no pageTitle (you need to also adjust this to work on Reposts):

UPDATE entities SET contents = REPLACE(contents, "\"description\"", "\"pageTitle\"") WHERE (entity_subtype LIKE "%Like" AND INSTR(contents, "\"pageTitle\":") <= 0);

And a final step changing entity_subtype column to be handled by the built-in Bookmarks plugin:

UPDATE entities SET entity_subtype="IdnoPlugins\\Like\\Like" WHERE entity_subtype LIKE "IdnoPlugins%Reactions%Like";
UPDATE entities SET entity_subtype="IdnoPlugins\\Like\\Repost" WHERE entity_subtype LIKE "IdnoPlugins%Reactions%Repost";

Definatelly there might be a more straightforward way on how to accomplish this. Tweaking the data may even not be the right solution, however I think it worked fine for me.

Edit: It turned out I was wrong on some points. So I have edited this article correcting incorrect stuf and I have also posted a follow up article explaining what I have done wrong here.

Emacs is a powerfull software. There are a few access solutions that enable blind or visually disabled people to make some good use of it.
Unfortunatelly getting used to it requires a bit more than launching, testing and using it.

I don't think I can write better documentation than Emacs tour, Emacs documentation either available online or built into emacs it-self. However I'll try to post a few so called #EmacsA11yTips getting my-self and hopefully someone else ready to make the most of it.

Why emacs?

Because it's more than a text editor. It can run on almost anything, it's keyboard driven since its start, it's still being maintained, there is a huge community of emacs users.

What access solution?

I've chosen Speechd-el for now because it concentrates on what it has been designed for and is known for overriding as little emacs built-in stuff as possible. Hopefully I'll be able to borrow from other general and community provided tips later on as I discover them. Here's a discussion thread that inspired me. And the F123E initiative made me to start writing this series of posts.

Where and how to install it?

I've chosen Arch linux as my operating system of choice a few years ago because of its philosophy, its rolling release cycle so there is no need for a reinstall every so often and awesome but easily embraced packaging system that encourages creating own packages almost every time while installing something new avoiding dependency issues or other conflicts and any other kind of possible mess in general.

Installing is just a breeze. Emacs it-self can be installed from the Arch community repository by typing
sudo pacman -S emacs
Originally I've opted for nox package variant so I can run it on the text only console and I can be assured I won't turn into issues with graphics. I am now reconsidering that because it appears it would be nice to able to copy and paste between emacs and Firefox for example in the future.

Speechd-el has some hard dependencies. It's developed to speak by using speech-dispatcher. Except of speech-dispatcher, I need to install speech-dispatcher supported TTS engine. I'm using eSpeak with other screen reading apps so I'll just make sure both speech-dispatcher and eSpeak are installed at this point.
sudo pacman -S speech-dispatcher espeak
If you are already running orca on linux you should skip installation of these two as it's sure you do already have them working.
You can test if speech-dispatcher is working by typing in
spd-say hello

Speechd-el can be installed from the AUR.
cd /tmp
wget https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/emacs-speechd-el-git.tar.gz
tar xvzf emacs-speechd-el-git.tar.gz
cd emacs-speechd-el-git
makepkg -s
sudo pacman -U emacs-speechd-el-git-*-any.pkg.tar.zst
All the above commands should be typed one at a time exactly as written except of the last one. In that last one you will have to find out the proper filename of the package you've just built.

How to activate it?

There is a file called .emacs you can put into your home directory to instruct emacs to do something while it's starting.
For now I won't be looking at if this is the proper emacs way of doing things because I am just at the beginning. My immediate goal is getting my current tools of choice working. So here are a few lines I have saved into my ~/.emacs file:
(setq speechd-out-active-drivers '(ssip ))
(autoload 'speechd-speak
"speechd-speak" nil t)
(speechd-speak)

What to do on the first run?

Now you can run
emacs
and it should start talking.

Emacs will display some introductory text in the default buffer. Buffer is kind of technical term however in the Emacs terminology it means a document open in the editor or otherwise generated content forming a document we can interact with.

To describe some commands we can use at this point we have to know that Emacs has implemented a lot of keyboard shortcuts and keyboard shortcuts configuration is layered. There are single key shortcuts multiple keys shortcuts or even shortcuts that consist of multiple keypresses one after the other.

When describing keyboard shortcuts a lot of keypresses are ordinary keys such as letters combined with either control / ctrl refferred to as C or meta / alt often reffered to as M . Other Emacs keynames include previous and next for page up / page down respectivelly, spc for space and esc for escape. Ofcourse there may be more.

Here are some command keys you can use to navigate over the text at this point:

• C-f - next character
• C-b - previous character
• M-f - next word or next item
• M-b - previous word or previous item
• C-p - previous line (in read only buffers it's often enough to press p alone)
• C-n - next line (in read only buffers it's often enough to press n alone)
• C-a - start of a line
• C-e C-e - end of a line - yes this is overridden from a standard emacs install by Speechd-el. Emacspeak does the same thing as far as I know.
• M-a - previous sentence
• M-e - next sentence
• M-less than symbol - begining of a buffer
• M-greater than symbol - end of a buffer
• F10 - menu bar
• M-` (meta and back tick) - another way of showing the menu bar
• C-H t - Emacs tutorial
• C-x k - kill / close a buffer
• C-e d l lang - change speech-dispatcher language within speechd-el. lang is abbreviation of your language code such as en, sk, cs, ru, de, fr, pt and similar.
• C-x C-c - exit emacs

Summary

If you haven't managed to get Emacs with Speechd-el running go through this post, try out the commands and follow the Emacs tutorial.

What if I am using Emacspeak?

Please see this excelent guide by Alex Midence as an addition to this.