Question for everyone: what do you use as your Gemini homepage / daily starting point?
For me it was usually Antenna but now I've switched to Cosmos, after adding the "Show posts newer than this" feature.
Also, would you be interested in a more dynamic home "dashboard" feature in Lagrange that combines and caches information from multiple pages into one home view? It would be a special type of subscription in practice. This might be nice if you regularly check up on multiple capsules, e.g., Astrobotany, Antenna, etc.
I'm not fully convinced such a feature is worth implementing, though, given the added complexity vs. value gained.
2 years ago · 👍 martin, krixano, eph, cobradile94, know, twotwos, astroseneca, bossaroni
With Firefox's 'dashboard' there is an implied feeling of tracking and being managed, making my spidey-sense tingle. I remember when they first introduced it, I was kind of upset and tried to turn it off. I think it may feel better to have a special folder in the bookmarks or history that keeps a sorted most-visited-sites list (when enabled)... That would serve the same purpose without the 'top page' intrusion every time you open a window. Just a thought. · 2 years ago
Antenna, although I spend way too much time at gemini://dioskouroi.xyz/top, the hacker news mirror · 2 years ago
My first page is either Station or Antenna. However, since some recent update of the portable version (windows7), when the program starts, the first tab of the session is always reset to the source code page.
The dashboard for Lagrange would not be superfluous. · 2 years ago
I use Amfora so every new page I open is links to my subscriptions and boommarks, then I go from there wherever I feel. · 2 years ago
A dynamic dashboard might be cool (though I'm not sure if I'd stick with it myself). Currently my new tab just loads a .txt to-do list that I have, so that I might be reminded to do something productive while I'm here · 2 years ago
@acidus A mockup:
gemini://skyjake.fi/media/dash.png
It would be a bit like "web clips" where you can select a portion of a page and have it show up as a little widget in a larger arrangement. Many browsers have a customizable start page with favorites; here all content is actual pages, though.
The "problem" being solved is seeing a lot of information quickly at once, from capsules you regularly visit, without having to individually open and check each one in a sequence.
As I said, you can do similar things on serverside, but a client can do it much better and one wouldn't need the technical knowhow to fetch, parse, and compose the dynamic page. · 2 years ago
gemini://skyjake.fi/media/dash.png
@skyjake that sounds a lot like Active Desktop from Windows 98!
seriously though I don’t think this makes sense to be in a client. if someone wants that awesome, implement a dynamic home page on your capsule. personally multiple resizable widgets that refresh or use cached content doesn’t sound appealing. of course I’m certainly note the judge of what’s “Gemini-like” or not. can you draw a mock-up or something so we can better understand? I’m having trouble seeing what problem this is solving · 2 years ago
My routine usually goes that I check on Station and Geddit, then tend to my plant in Astrobotany, then explore the links in Exploration Surprise, ad if I’m bored explore orbits or go on Remini · 2 years ago
I think it's so easy to create your own little hub page that there wouldn't be much benefit of the browser creating one for you. But maybe others would like it. · 2 years ago
@acidus Yeah a similar idea could be implemented serverside, and it would work with any client. However, a clientside dashboard has big advantages: one can do fancy grid-based layouts for the content, drag-and-drop reordering, configurable reload frequencies, etc. Significantly better UX. · 2 years ago
I was going to write about this. I built a simple
portal:
Gemini://gemi.dev/portal.gmi
I thought about adding widgets where the content on the page is dynamic but that seemed excessive. instead it’s just a collection of links to the things I typically use. · 2 years ago
Mine is Station, but I'm biased.
I really like this idea. Gemini is relatively small, and having a view of a few places and how content has changed since my last visit would help paint a better picture of the whole network, perhaps making it feel a bit bigger – especially to newcomers. · 2 years ago
Instead of a dashboard view, another (simpler) approach could be to open a folder of bookmarks as tabs in a single action, so all the important pages can be quickly accessed. · 2 years ago
