Reading, quoting and responses
⌘R opens reading: the posts from the blygs and feeds your blyg follows. ⌘R again goes back to your own posts. Subscriptions (⇧⌘S, or Blyg › Subscribe…) are kept on your blyg, so every studio sees the same list.
The stream
Reading opens as the stream (⌥⌘1): one timeline of everything you follow, newest first, drawn natively so it stays fast with hundreds of posts. Fragments show in full; threads show a few lines and Read more (⏎ or Space) opens the whole post in a side pane. j/k (or ↑/↓) move; esc closes the pane and the stream keeps its place.
A post counts as read after a second on screen, and unread posts get a dot,
never a count. Posts are dated by when their author published or last edited
them, and an edit updates the post in place rather than adding a new one.
Quotes show as grey boxes with the quoted text, and [[id]] links read as
the post they point to.
The Reader
The Reader (⌥⌘2) has three panes, like NetNewsWire: sources on the left (All unread, Today, Thumbed, All, then Your blyg, your folders and the rest), the posts from that source in the middle, and the post on the right.
- Folders stay on your Mac. Drag a subscription onto one to file it, or use its context menu; Blyg › New Folder… makes one.
- ←/→ move between the panes, j/k go to the next or previous post from anywhere, and Space scrolls the post, then moves to the next unread one.
- ⌥⌘S hides the sources pane, and its edge drags to resize.
Your blyg
Your own published posts are in Reading too. They sit among everyone else’s by date in All, Today and the stream, and alone under Your blyg in the sources pane (once you’ve published something). They read as “You”, with the same reading pane, lineage and actions: Quote into a thread, Reply · new stub, Link post, Open on web and → Notes. There’s no AI reply to yourself, and no Fork here: your own post forks from a pin in ⌘Y (see Replying to, quoting and linking your own posts).
Your posts are never unread: they get no dot, never count in All unread or any folder’s count, and have no 👍 / 👎. Nothing about them is sent as read state. Opening one shows your current version and your pins, and, when you have unpublished edits, the text as it’s published.
Search (⌘F, or / with the list focused) filters whatever you’re reading
as you type, over the title, the author, the blyg and the text of the posts
already on your Mac. Nothing is fetched to search.
Mark read or unread. ⌘-click and ⇧-click pick several posts, ⌘A picks every post in the list, and esc lets go. r marks the picks (or the open post) read, u unread; the right-click menu says how many (Mark 3 Unread).
Read state syncs between your Macs through your blyg on blygger-studio 0.39 or later, when your sign-in allows reading:state (see Server requirements), and marking unread syncs too. Otherwise it stays on this Mac, and a post you marked unread stays unread here until you read it again.
Subscriptions take their name from the blyg or feed, and follow it when it changes. Right-click one for Rename… (your own name, kept as you set it), Use the Blyg’s Own Name to hand it back, and Check Now. ⇧⌘R (Blyg › Check All Feeds Now) asks your blyg to poll every subscription at once.
Import and export subscriptions (OPML)
Moving from another feed reader? Export an OPML file there (Feedly, NetNewsWire, Inoreader, Miniflux, Reeder and most others can), then choose Blyg › Import Subscriptions from OPML…, or Import OPML… on the Subscriptions screen (⇧⌘S).
- Burrow lists the file’s feeds, grouped under the folders they had in the other reader. Feeds you already follow say already following and start unticked, and a feed listed twice appears once.
- 1–9 or Space tick and untick, ⌘A ticks all or none, ⏎ imports the ticked ones, and esc cancels.
- Every feed is subscribed on your blyg, as if you’d added it by hand. The import goes slowly, about 30 feeds a minute, because each new subscription makes your blyg fetch that feed’s archive. Esc stops it after the feed in progress, and what’s done stays done.
- Imported feeds go into a folder named Imported feeds in the Reader, made the first time you import (file them elsewhere whenever you like). Feeds you already followed stay where you filed them. The other reader’s folders are only shown in the list; they don’t become folders here.
- Imported feeds aren’t added to your public blogroll.
- At the end Burrow says how many were added, already followed, or failed, with each failure’s reason: not a feed (nothing at that address your blyg could read as a blyg or a feed), unreachable (Burrow couldn’t reach your blyg), or refused. r retries the failed ones.
Blyg › Export Subscriptions as OPML… (or Export OPML… on the
Subscriptions screen) saves every subscription to an OPML file
(burrow-subscriptions.opml) that other readers can import. Your blyg’s
public blogroll.opml lists only the subscriptions you put in your blogroll;
the export lists them all.
Both need a connected blyg, since your subscriptions live there. From a
terminal: blygger +import-opml <file> (add --dry-run to see what would be
added) and blygger +export-opml <file>.
Acting on a post
The selected post shows its actions. Each says what it makes:
-
Quote into a thread:
![[id | label]]in a thread of yours, labelled with the post’s heading or title (on a blyg older than studio 0.47,![[id]]; see labelled links). -
Reply · new stub: a new thread that responds to the post (a stub, Blygger’s reply). It starts quoting the whole post. A line above the editor says what the stub is doing; quote a passage instead shows the post’s text, and the passage you select there becomes the quote (
>lines under![[id]]). Once there is one, the next passage goes after the caret as its own quote, for a running commentary; quote whole post goes back. -
AI reply · new stub: the same, with a first draft from AI.
-
Link post · new fragment: a fragment that links to the post (
[[id]]) without responding to it. -
Fork: a new thread from a pinned version of the post. Forking only descends from pins, so on the current version Fork is greyed out and its tooltip says where to find a pin.
-
→ Notes: adds the post to your notes.
-
Open on web, and 👍 / 👎.
Versions of other people’s posts
The version pill in a post’s header, ‹ vN ▾ ›, steps through the current
version and the pinned ones (unpinned past versions of other people’s
posts are never shown). On a pin you can Quote this version, Fork this
pin, or Diff vs now. When an author edits a post you’ve read, it shows
“edited”, with the author’s version notes since you read it.
Universal quoting
Highlight text anywhere you read, then press ⇧⌘D (Post › Quote Selection in Draft):
The passage goes into the draft open in the editor, at the caret, or into a new draft if none is open, with where it came from:
- a passage from a post on a blyg you follow, quoted into a thread, becomes a
partial quote of that post,
![[id]]with the passage under it as>lines (see Partial quotes); - anything else becomes a blockquote followed by a link to the page.
Nothing selected? You get a short message, and nothing is made.
The “Quote in draft” pill. While you have text selected in the reading pane or the preview, a small Quote in draft pill appears beside the selection; clicking it does what ⇧⌘D does. The selection stays until you quote it, and dragging inside a quote no longer opens the original. ⌘C copies a selection in the reading pane. In the browser, the → Draft button reads ❝ Quote → Draft while text is selected. In the stream, dragging over or double-clicking a post opens it where its text can be selected.
Quotes, stubs and forks you can follow
Click a quote’s text to open the post it quotes, at the quoted version, or its author’s name for their profile. The “↳ stub of” and “⑂ forked from” lines under a post work the same way.
Each post lists who quoted, stubbed or forked it, from the blygs you follow and your own published posts: a list, never a count. A post that both stubs and quotes another is one response, listed as the stub, and a reply to a passage says so. A post whose generated text used this one as a source is listed as drew on this.
Generated text
A blyg can mark text in its posts as AI-generated. In the stream’s side pane and the Reader, marked text is tinted, hovering it says it’s marked as generated, and the post ends with a short note: the mark is the publisher’s own disclosure, and Burrow can’t verify it. Text without a mark may have been generated too; a mark only says what the publisher chose to disclose.
Lineage
Beside each post’s name, in the stream and in Reader, a small glyph shows
its lineage: lines coming in on the left are the kinds of post it draws on,
lines going out on the right the kinds that draw on it. Each kind has its own
place (fork at the top, reply in the middle, quote at the bottom) and colour,
and a dotted line means only a passage. Beside it, 2 · 3 says how many:
the posts it draws on, then the posts known here that draw on it. Hover for
the counts by kind in words. These are the same numbers the web Studio’s
lineage glyph shows: when your blyg runs blygger-studio with the
lineage-glyph extension turned on, Burrow asks it for them; otherwise it
counts what this Mac holds, by the same rules. The lineage glyph is the one
place Burrow shows counts: responses and mentions stay lists.
⌘J (Post › Lineage…), or a click on the glyph, opens the lineage view. The post sits in a hexagon, what it draws on above it and what draws on it below. The arrow keys move between them, ⏎ makes a neighbour the centre so you can walk a conversation one step at a time, ⌫ walks back, o opens the selected post in the reader (marking it read, as opening it from the list does), and esc closes. Beside the hexagon it says how many each way. Responses are what your blyg knows when it serves the lineage, else what this Mac holds: posts in your reading list, your own posts, and verified mentions of your posts.
Space (or ⏎) on the post in the middle opens the ring of the reader’s actions, always in the same places: F fork, R reply, Q quote, L link post, V versions, O open on the web. A letter previews the action: a dashed node shows what it would make, and the panel answers the same four questions for each (is it a response, is the author told, are their words in yours, does it show under their post). Fork, reply and quote also say how many of that kind are already known (R · 2). ⏎, or the same letter again, does it; esc backs out. An action that can’t be done (a fork of a post with no pinned version, say) says why.
Reading time and inspect
Two bundled extensions, off until you turn them on, add to each post: reading-time ends its byline with · 4 min (the word count on hover), and inspect adds ⋯ to its actions, with the record Burrow holds for it (ids, versions, references, hashes, and its JSON).
Mentions and responses
Mentions (⇧⌘M) lists the verified responses to your own posts: who quoted, stubbed or forked which post, and when. You can hide one, and your own posts list their mentions under them in ⌘Y and in the reading pane.
Your blyg decides whether a post’s public page shows its responses. In Site settings (Blyg › Site Settings…), Show responses by default sets it for the whole blyg, on blygs that report it. On the Mentions screen, each post can follow site setting (the default), or show or hide its responses itself. Site settings also hold the site’s title, author, bio and links, the time zone for dates on your pages, and Accept mentions, on blygs that report them.
Profiles
⌘I on a post (or a click on its author’s address, its “↳ stub of” / “⑂ forked from” line, a mention, or a blogroll entry) shows who wrote it: name, bio, links, their blogroll, recent posts, and the blygs they quote, stub and fork. Follow in one click (private; nobody is told), or add them to your own public blogroll. ⇧⌘O opens any address, and Blyg › My Profile shows yours as visitors see it.
Profiles are fetched from the blyg’s public files without your token, only when you open one, and kept for offline use. There are no follower counts anywhere.