Planet Feature Update 7 - Star Types · Select Date · API Server · Repo Location and IPNS Key Manager · Social Integration · New App Icons for Insider and Debug Builds

This update includes new Star Types, Planet API server, support for moving repo, IPNS key manager, more social links, new icons for the Insider and Debug builds, and other bug fixes and enhancements.

Star Types

When you add a star to an article, now you can select from several star types to give the star more specific meanings. Some star types make it great to use Planet as a To-Do organizer. Besides right-clicking, you can add/remove star from the toolbar too.

In our next feature update, we'll make it possible to filter articles based on star types.

Select Date for Posts

Added a date widget to specify the creation date when writing an article.

API Server

When the Planet app runs, it can now provide an HTTP API server. Here are all the current supported methods, and we will expand the documentation to include more details. The API server opens possibilities to third-party apps, especially mobile ones.

• GET /v0/planets/my - List all my Planets
• POST /v0/planets/my - Create a new Planet
• GET /v0/planets/my/:uuid - Info of a specific My Planet
• POST /v0/planets/my/:uuid - Modify my Planet
• POST /v0/planets/my/:uuid/publish - Publish My Planet
• GET /v0/planets/my/:uuid/public - Expose the content built
• GET /v0/planets/my/:uuid/articles - List articles under My Planet
• POST /v0/planets/my/:uuid/articles - Create a new Article
• GET /v0/planets/my/:uuid/articles/:uuid - Get an article by UUID
• POST /v0/planets/my/:uuid/articles/:uuid - Modify an article
• DELETE /v0/planets/my/:uuid/articles/:uuid - Delete an article

You can enable the API server and set a username and password from the app Settings.

Repo Location and IPNS Key Manager

This is still quite an experimental feature. Please use it with caution.

The default location for Planet app data is:

~/Library/Containers/xyz.planetable.Planet/Data/Documents/Planet

You can move this location from settings now. If the new location is on iCloud Drive or Dropbox, you can utilize cloud storage for backup.

Also, all IPNS keys are backed up with iCloud keychain if that cloud feature is turned on in your iCloud settings. You can find the new Key Manager under the Tools menu.

Full Sync has yet to be ready as we are testing more scenarios to make Full Sync reliable and easier to use. Again, this is an experimental feature; please use it cautiously.

More Social Integrations

You can now add those social identities to show them as icon links on the site homepage and site info panel.

• Juicebox
• Mastodon
• Twitter
• Telegram
• GitHub

New Icons for Insider and Debug Builds

We release Insider Builds from time to time. They contain new features meant to be tested more before being included in the stable releases. You can get Insider Builds from the GitHub Releases page:

https://github.com/Planetable/Planet/releases

If you are running Insider Builds, you will notice that now it has a dedicated blue icon resembling the Xcode and other Apple dev tools. And we added a dedicated update channel for insider builds so that they can be auto-updated too.

You will get the yellow icon if you build Planet from the source.

More icon choices are coming in the next update. For example, new designs from the Pinnable project we recently launched. Another blog post about Pinnable will follow soon.

Fixes and Improvements

• Added CSS for table and to-do list rendered from Markdown
• Use absolute URL for hero images for maximum compatibility with various crawlers
• Fixed a crash when attaching a video
• Fixed audio player as it was not responding in the previous release
• Use a custom SF Symbol of Ethereum for the button for tipping
• Various style fine-tuning to the Plain template for better contrast
• Added a subtle border and shadow to the planet icons on the sidebar for better contrast
• Added a new variable for templates to use: social_image_url