Ekster creates mentions from links in items, but Ekster Reader replaces the whole item with the mention. I could see an option for the mentioned link to become a whole new item, or make it more of an insert card. It would be nice to open mentioned links in another panel so we can work with like other microsub items.

With Ekster I have almost implemented the full protocol of Microsub. What is next? What more is possible with the protocol, the servers or the clients?

Specific inputs:
- microformats from websites
- Feeds (implemented) RSS, JSON feed, XML
- Micropub posting (implemented) so other services can post messages
Example: Pipedream receives email and posts as item
- API's for specific websites
- Saved search

Processing and filtering:
- Exclude posts with regex (implemented)
- Exclude posts based on post-type-discovery (implemented)
- Improve post content
- Advanced processing with user-defined flows (like Huginn?)

Specific outputs:
- Global and channel search (implemented)
- Standard feed reader (implemented)
- Share to your own website (micropub likes, bookmarks, and replies)
- Share to other services (Instapaper)
- Notifications

What else?

I moved Ekster back to Github. This should be easier to use for more people.

I fixed a bug in Ekster Reader where when no channel was selected it would not show anything. On desktop browsers it would sometimes show the channel, but not always. On mobile it would never show the channel.
This fix can set an empty channel and this is enough to always show something even when anything is loaded yet.

I recreated the Pipedream workflow that adds emails to a channel in Ekster. The worflow prepares a micropub entry and sends it to the micropub endpoint of Ekster. I can now forward emails to an email address and the workflow processes the rest. This is really useful for newsletters and other marketing emails.

I just added the first integration tests to the automatic deploy of Ekster. It runs the migrations and the some database tests. Drone CI supports the use of services., which will get me a fresh database every run.

Ekster is still getting better. Also the Reader now has a way to switch to search all items instead of just the channel items. Previously you needed to switch the current channel.

It's a good idea to spend some time to work on your projects even if you haven't worked on those projects for a while. Sometimes you can find a new way to improve and use the project for something. Perhaps you see new bugs or new opportunities.

I'm testing with the new bucketed fetching of feeds. The algorithm is similar to algorithm Aperture uses. The difference is that the buckets are powers of 2 at the moment. Every tier is the exponent of 2 minutes, after the last fetch.

In the middle of a rewrite of the backend of Ekster. The next version will have a full Postgres-based backend.