I think we should slightly rethink how login works on most Fediverse apps (Mastodon, Lemmy, but not only)

A while ago I posted a thread back on the
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spez
::: website, with a personal opinion on why the Fediverse seems a bit complicated. It basically goes like this: Mastodon (and pretty much every Fediverse project out there) is based on the idea of using multiple websites.

This is not really a problem on the desktop, as you're using the browser to log in to the Fediverse. You go to mastodon.social or lemmy.world, maybe bookmark these, and you log in as normal (if you do not check the remember me option at login). Same goes with Facebook, with Xitter, with the
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spez
::: website etc.

Alright, but the newer generations (not everyone, but many folks part of them) rather use apps instead. And what do these apps do? Present a login screen with fields only for the username and the password (at most).

What are the Fediverse apps doing? They are also asking for the website where they would log you in. So you go open e.g. the Mastodon app, then type the website that you need to access (which in many cases it might not contain the word Mastodon in it), and only then you can enter the credentials.

What am I asking now (especially app developers): Wouldn't it be better (if doable) to take some cues on how actually email (and XMPP for that matter) works, and ask the user for the username and the password instead in one go?

Like, everyone knows how to use email, everyone is familiar with that. And as I mentioned, XMPP is also doing it as well:

Gajim account login screen

Wouldn't it be doable?

hitmyspot,

To do so, there would need to be a centralized or federated list of all accounts. If it was centralized it would be against federation principles. If it was federated, then anyone who sets up a server would potentially have access to all email addresses. Perhaps,more in the style of email, like @user but that would likely lead to more confusion as people would put their email and it is essentially the same information.

I do agree that log in as the opening page is not a great experience. Helping people to find an instance should be easier to filter. Rather than a list by popularity, let them know choosing by interest or location can help find relevant content and have easy to use clickable filters to do so.

ginerel,
@ginerel@kbin.social avatar

To do so, there would need to be a centralized or federated list of all accounts

Why would there be? The app would just search for the domain name first (let's say "aussie.zone") and then your username (in your case "hitmyspot"). That's kinda how email works as well. What centralized database would you need to interrogate a server on login? It's no different than the current implementation, only that you do not need to remember the website first, just enter the whole username in one go.

hitmyspot,

The domain for my email is gmail.com not Aussie zone. I also cannot log in to gmail on the hotmail (outlook? )site. Perhaps you are interpreting their request to not use username and site name and instead use email, to instead use a long form Lemmy username?

That could work, but I don’t know that it adds any extra layer of simplicity, but maybe that’s what they meant. My interpretation is that they are saying to link your account to your email address, as that’s what most other services do. Without knowing which instance you register with, there would need to be a registry. Perhaps this could be hashed in some way, but it would still be effectively public facing as any instance would need access.

ginerel,
@ginerel@kbin.social avatar

Perhaps you are interpreting their request to not use username and site name and instead use email, to instead use a long form Lemmy username?

No, I was saying to use their Fediverse username and their Fediverse password. Sorry if I got misunderstood. Nothing to do with the actual email address used at signup.

Die4Ever,

tl;dr: apps should login with the username die4ever@programming.dev similar to email, instead of choosing instance programming.dev and then typing in die4ever for username separately

yea that probably would be simpler, I’m sure some apps already do this

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