The release of Mastodon version 3.2 has just been announced, which includes 380 confirmations from 27 contributors since May 14, 2020. Among the interesting changes , we can highlight the redesigned audio playback interface, the ability to send content to other platforms using an external player, and more.
For those unfamiliar with Mastodon, it is a free platform for deploying decentralized social networks , allowing users to create services on their own premises that are not controlled by individual providers.
If the user cannot start their own node, they can choose a reliable public service to connect to. Mastodon belongs to the category of federated networks, in which the ActivityPub protocol suite is used to form a single structure of connections.
About Mastodon
In short, it's a decentralized federation of servers running open-source software. This means that users are spread across different autonomous and independent communities called "instances" (servers) whose network is called the FeDiverse (a play on words combining federation and universe), but they are still unified through their ability to interact with each other.
It is free to use, users publish statuses or "toots" of up to 500 characters, or multimedia content, and also includes the use of tags and mentions of other users.
It should be noted that these platforms can be accessed by the general public or in a limited way according to specific criteria . Thus, platforms have been created for particular interests such as artists, political enthusiasts, social events, or specific topics.
Mastodon is available for desktop and mobile web browsers that support HTML5. Graphically, it is inspired by TweetDeck, with separate columns for local and federated state histories. The federated history groups all public states in the fediverse, similar to a social media aggregator.
The project's server-side code is written in Ruby using Ruby on Rails, and the client interface is written in JavaScript using the React.js and Redux libraries.
The source code is distributed under the AGPLv3 license. There is also a static interface for publishing public resources such as profiles and statuses.
Data storage is organized using PostgreSQL and Redis. An open API is provided for developing plugins and connecting external applications (there are clients for Android, iOS and Windows, you can create bots).
What's New in Mastodon 3.2
This new version comes with some pretty good changes, among which the new interface for sound playback stands out, since it has been completely redesigned and it is now possible to automatically extract the covers of downloaded albums or assign your own thumbnail images.
For videos, in addition to assigning a thumbnail based on the content of the first frame, there is now support for taking custom images that are displayed instead of the video before playback begins.
Another important change in this new version is for links to video and audio content hosted on Mastodon on other platforms, as the ability to open this content using an external player from the platform used has been added , for example, using twitter:player.
Furthermore, we can see that additional account protection has been added. If a user does not have two-factor authentication enabled and has not logged into their account for at least two weeks, then a new login attempt from an unknown IP address will require confirmation via the access code sent to their email address.
Also when configured to track, block, or ignore attendees, you have the option to link the user to a comment visible only to the addor. For example, a note can be used to indicate reasons of interest to a particular user.
Finally, if you'd like to learn more about this new version , you can find the details in the original post. Here's the link.