We had a good run, and it was a great way to figure some atproto things out. But I don't see a way forward that makes sense for Anchor as a viable product. Taking Anchor to the next level would require non-trivial investment which the usage does not support. So I'm closing it down end of this month.

dropanchor.app now also uses the infamous typeahead component for auto completing your bsky handle in the oauth screen. I've extracted it from kipclip.com and made it into a little js module so it was easier to re-use, feel free to use for your own atproto projects tangled.org/tijs.org/act...

like @kipclip.com before it dropanchor.app has grown up a bit more and moved off valtown to @deno.land Deploy which should help it perform a bit better.

finally got around to publishing our checkin lexicon (and the like and comment one) lexicon.garden/lexicon/did:... it's been a while since I actually changed anything in it so seems ok to officially release this v1 of sorts.

app.dropanchor.checkin

ATProtocol lexicon schema by dropanchor.app

lexicon.garden

Two cool projects I learned about this week, both building Foursquare-esque location based experiences on ATProto: @beaconbits.app and @dropanchor.app

Love that people are working on geo-based apps built on atproto. Plenty of cool possibilities here, and a reminder of why all sorts of new apps should be building on atproto to have instant identity and social layers.

Boris@bmann.ca · 7mo ago

That is sort of @beaconbits.app @dropanchor.app which you can use now. Lots of work on geo this year. We have a lexicon for geo data and have in progress work to have a lookup for Foursquare open data info. Private data really needed for a bunch of larger usage of this.

So cool! You don’t only own your data but you can bring it along to create new use cases in other apps.

Smoke Signal@smokesignal.events · 7mo ago

Now you can use past events and checkins from @beaconbits.app and @dropanchor.app when creating and editing events! Read more about this feature in the forum announcement.

We're not asking for 'all the permissions' anymore when you login.

Tijs Teulings 🦑@tijs.org · 8mo ago

I've updated the OAuth permission scopes for @dropanchor.app to only ask for permissions to write blobs and Anchor specific lexicon, plus we need permission to read/delete community address lexicon for a while until all checkins are migrated to the new checkin lexicon (migration happens on login)

I caved and got rid of the admittedly quite jarring pink background and redesigned the overall look to be more 'standard feed social'. Feels a bit more calm now at least if a bit less original 😉

If you happen to have a Foursquare/Swarm checkout lying around somewhere you can now take those checkins and publish them on #atproto as Anchor checkin records. I made a little Golang cli app that should make it super easy (and takes rate limits into account) tangled.org/tijs.org/fsq...

tijs.org/fsq2anchor

Imports from your Foursquare data export into Anchor atproto records.

tangled.org

In one of those 'you can just build it' moments @dropanchor.app now support @beaconbits.app checkins on your feed. All your beacons will be shown in your anchor feed (marked with the bb logo) and link back to the original checkin on beacon bits. Enjoy!

Noice! More mad folk making checkin apps on atproto 🫶

Pieter Montoulieu@montoulieu.dev · 8mo ago

Time to put your posts on the map using ATProto. Excited to announce that my web app @beaconbits.app is opening up for beta this week. Beacon Bits lets you drop public beacons on a map that can be filtered by friends, global view, or location radius.

Still seeing issues with check-ins failing once your session is expired. If you get a 500 error when checking in please logout and back in again for now. Sorry for the inconvenience. Will look into this after our holiday ☺️ bsky.app/profile/tijs...

Tijs Teulings 🦑@tijs.org · 10mo ago

Off to Rhodes island! (The Greek one) 🇬🇷 dropanchor.app/checkin/did:...

New atproto app just dropped 🐔

Tijs Teulings 🦑@tijs.org · 10mo ago

Introducing kipclip.com, the friendliest way to save bookmarks on atproto 🐔 This first version works on the web and features a simple bookmarklet (for desktop) or iOS shortcut or Android sharesheet option, once you save it to your homescreen (for mobile). Uses the community lexicon for bookmarks!

Build 25 adds the like count to the timeline and detail views in the app. A checkin you share can be liked by other logged in users on the checkins page on the web.

Build 24 is now out! This fixes the share url to use the new checkin detail page url format.

Anchor might be for personal logging but that doesn't mean we can't be social on the checkins you share beyond your personal timeline. We now support likes ❤️ on the checkins! (comments coming soon) dropanchor.app/checkins/tij...

Testing image uploads with the perfect location checkin image.

Tijs Teulings 🦑 at Park 't Loo, Voorburg, Zuid-Holland, NL

dropanchor.app

Build 22: Makes the settings screen options functional, but also introduces an option to choose your own location provider. Starting simple for now but eventually will likely do a bring your own api key setup. I believe the target audience for this is nerdy enough that I can get away with this 😛

Build 21 is now available in TestFlight! It brings beautiful photo checkins to the app making it useful for both travel logging as well as food logging, and probably many more use cases. Also the timeline and detail views have been cleaned up and we brought the delete button to the iOS app as well

The dropanchor.app web client now supports image uploads! 🌁 this should make your checkins much more interesting. iOS coming soon! "remember this image from 9 years ago" feature maybe coming someday? dropanchor.app/checkins/tij...

Tijs Teulings 🦑 dropped anchor at Park 't Loo

Testing image uploads with the perfect location checkin image.

dropanchor.app

The new mission for Anchor, focusing on personal location log instead of Swarm clone, has now also been implemented in the iOS app. The latest TestFlight build should now work again with the updated backend. But please logout and back in to get a new session. Bonus: nearby places is faster too.

Since 5 mins ago @dropanchor.app also support checking in from the website directly. This allows you to use drop anchor on any platform. Also it should keep you busy while I overhaul the iOS app to be more in line with the new personal location logger mission. Enjoy! dropanchor.app/checkin/did:...

I’m reworking Anchor to be a personal location logger more than a swarm clone. This allows me to rework the appview as a very thin layer on the PDS where it only needs to do some API endpoints and auth checking. While I’m working on this the site/app will likely be more down than up.

Whenever I'm looking at feature set and scope for Anchor I come back to personal location logger more so than Swarm clone. This would allow the app to rely purely on the locations in your pwn PDS for storage. No need for fancy follower graph logic (nor a need to store/cache that). Features follow..

Build 19 is now on TestFlight (and plenty spots still open). This one fixes some UI issues but mostly adds the timeline and following feed to the app. testflight.apple.com/join/gmSQv4Gh

Join the Anchor - Social Check-ins beta

Available on iOS

testflight.apple.com

I'm adding the following feed to the mobile app together with your personal timeline feed. I probably want to get rid of the global feed completely since that's not really something you'd want to have in the long term. So also likely taking that out in the web frontend. What do you think?

Build 18 is now out on Testflight! This release adds a new search feature in the checkin flow, for when the nearby places do not include your location. This search tab will allow you to search Nominatim directly for matching places. + Also includes your actual checkin text when sharing

Dropanchor's backend is now using @bad-example.com's Slingshot! Simplify all the things. github.com/dropanchorap...

use slingshot where possible · dropanchorapp/location-feed-generator@6114bc8

github.com

Build 13 is out. This one moves all the categories to an API endpoint so we don't have duplicates but also since that will make it easier to move to other POI services/datasets in the future... These are our current categories if you're curious: dropanchor.app/api/places/c...

Build 12 is out. Simplifies the checkin flow, fixes an issue where you geo location would not update, more refactoring and fixes for oauth flow (should be much less error prone now) testflight.apple.com/join/gmSQv4Gh

Join the Anchor - Social Check-ins beta

Available on iOS

testflight.apple.com