Custom usernames

We've been shipping hard in the last week, and we've got more ActivityPub updates to share for those of you who are trying out the beta!

Last week, we recapped the top feedback we've received so far around what's working well about ActivityPub; and what isn't. This week, we're addressing the request that has been sitting firmly in the number one spot.

What's new with ActivityPub?

Up until now, all users of ActivityPub in Ghost had a simple, fixed username of @index@domain.com. And, if your domain included www then the username would be @index@www.domain.com.

Now, the www prefix has been automatically removed from all usernames, and you can customize the @index part to anything you like!

This a first step to give you more control how people see and interact with your profile in the Fediverse, and you can expect more settings like this to be added as we go.

What about multiple usernames?

One of the other common questions we've had lately is whether Ghost will allow multiple staff users within a website to have separate usernames. The answer to that is: Yes, that's that plan. But we're not there yet.

Eventually, we're hoping to make it so that you can have a publication-level profile like @index@404media.co that contains all posts, from anyone on the site — as well as staff user profiles like @jason@404media.co and @sam@404media.co that represent posts and interactions from those individual authors.

This part, though, is still a way off.

Making it possible to support multiple users within a single Ghost install is a significant piece of work, and there are many other things we're hoping to get working first. Like, for instance, support for @mentions and being able to add images to replies! (Foreshadowing)