ActivityPub for WordPress

Tag: Quotes

  • 9.4.0 — Picture This

    Someone replies to your post from Mastodon with a photo. Until now, your blog showed the text and dropped the photo. With 9.4.0 that can change.

    This release is mostly about what you and your visitors see: images in replies, quotes, and your blog profile. It also contains another round of security fixes, so please update.

    Images in Replies

    There is a new option in the ActivityPub settings: Show images attached to replies. When you turn it on, images in replies from the Fediverse show up below the comment text. Image descriptions come along, so the images stay accessible. Replies that are only an image, with no text, are accepted too.

    A Fediverse reply in the comment section, with the photo of a steaming coffee mug shown below the comment text.

    The images are cached on your own server, so your visitors never load them from the other server. Up to three images per reply are shown. Images only appear on approved comments. Pending, spam and trashed comments show only their text, and their images are never downloaded.

    The option is off by default. WordPress itself does not show images in comments, so this changes how your comment section looks, and we did not want to do that without asking. One thing to keep in mind: if your site approves comments automatically, images from other servers become visible without anyone looking at them first.

    If you turn the option off again, the images disappear and the descriptions show as text. Turn it back on and they come back.

    Quote Posts From the Fediverse

    Since 7.7.0, your site can receive quotes. Now it can quote, too.

    The new Federated Quote block works like the Reply block. Paste the link of a Fediverse post, and the block embeds it in your post. When you publish, your site asks the author of the quoted post for permission. If they agree, your quote is marked as verified on their server. If they decline, your post stays, but the quote turns into a plain link.

    The Federated Quote block in the editor, with the URL of the quoted post, a note that the author will be asked for permission, and an embed of the post.

    The editor shows where the request stands, approved or declined. It also warns you if the author does not allow quotes at all. You can still publish in that case, but the author will probably say no.

    There is also a quote bookmarklet on the Tools screen, next to the reply one. Click it on any Fediverse post and you get a new draft with the Quote block already in place.

    This depends on the other server. Mastodon supports the permission request since version 4.5. Other software might not answer yet, and then your quote stays unverified.

    On the receiving side, the Comments screen has a new Source column. It links incoming replies and quote posts to the post they came from.

    A Name and Face for Your Blog Profile

    Until now, your blog profile on the Fediverse used your site title as its name and your site icon as its avatar. You can now give it its own. Under Settings → ActivityPub → Blog Profile there is a new name field and an avatar picker. If you leave them empty, nothing changes, and the site title and site icon are used as before.

    The Blog Profile settings with the new name field set to "Slow Mornings" and a custom avatar.

    Security, Again

    As in 9.3.0, this release fixes vulnerabilities that were reported to us.

    • Signed requests are checked more strictly. They have to be addressed to your site, and signing keys from other servers are verified more carefully.
    • Blocks are respected everywhere. Accounts you blocked can no longer reply to, like, repost or quote your posts and comments, and only the sender of a reply or like can change or remove it.
    • Content from other servers is handled more safely when it is imported as posts or comments.
    • Apps you connect can only do what you allowed them to do, and only on content the connected user is allowed to change.

    If you run the plugin, please update.

    Smaller Things You Might Notice

    • More languages. Posts are federated with the language Polylang assigned, and posts from Mastodon apps keep the language the app set. Handles like @renée@café.example now work in mentions and search.
    • Blocks that fit your theme. The Followers and Following blocks take their colors and font from your theme, and the Reactions block has a new Counts style that can replace the comments link in a query loop.
    • Your uploads folder stops growing. Profile pictures were downloaded again on every page view, leaving a copy behind each time. The update removes the extra copies.
    • Fewer duplicate emails when another server delivers the same message twice, or when a reply also mentions you.
    • Comments: replies are no longer auto-approved because the account liked a post before, likes and reposts no longer leak into comment lists, and comment links open the right page.
    • What your followers get: no extra image under your posts, summaries that stop at the “Read more” tag, podcast files from outside your media library, and account moves that are verified and reach your followers.
    • Apps and the ActivityPub API: mentions from Mastodon apps are federated again, and replies to posts on other servers are delivered.
    • Compatibility: fixes for WordPress 7.1 and 7.2, PHP 8.5, Polylang, and sites behind a proxy.
    • Under the hood: remote content is cached through the object cache, and endpoints that other servers call now have a rate limit.

    The full changelog is in the GitHub repository.

    Get It

    Download from WordPress.org or grab it on GitHub. If your site updates automatically, you already have it.

    Turn on images in replies, try quoting a post, and let us know how it looks on your site. Which servers answer your quote requests, and which ones stay silent?

    Thank You

    A huge thank you to everyone who contributed code, tested early builds, filed bug reports, or reported a security issue for this release.

    Fediverse Reactions
  • 7.7.0 — Extra Quotable

    7.7.0 — Extra Quotable

    Right on the heels of WordPress 6.9 we released a new version of the ActivityPub plugin, making quote comments visible in the Reactions block and bringing you new ways of customizing your author pages.

    Quotes Join the Reactions Party

    When someone quotes your post on Mastodon or other Fediverse platforms, you’ll now see it right alongside your likes and reposts. Quotes get their own row in the Fediverse Reactions display, making it easy to see at a glance who’s building on your ideas and adding their own commentary.

    Fediverse Reactions section showing three rows: 25 reposts displayed as a row of user avatars, 27 likes with their own row of avatars, and 1 quote with a single avatar—demonstrating how quotes now appear as a separate reaction type alongside likes and reposts.

    Behind the scenes, we improved how we’re detecting quotes. Different platforms have their own ways of handling quote posts, and not all of them speak the same language. The plugin now understands these variations better, so whether someone quotes you from Mastodon, Misskey, or elsewhere, it just works.

    This means your engagement stats tell a fuller story. A quote isn’t just a repost—it’s someone adding their voice to yours, and now WordPress can recognize and display that distinction.

    Show Off Your Fediverse Identity

    If you’ve set up extra fields on your Fediverse profile—things like your website, pronouns, location, or links to other accounts—you can now display them directly on your WordPress site with the new Extra Fields block.

    • Fediverse Extra Fields block using the cards style, showing two profile fields displayed as separate bordered cards: 'Powered by' with value 'WordPress' and 'Blog' with a clickable URL, stacked vertically below the author profile header.
    • Fediverse Extra Fields block using the default list style, showing profile fields in a compact table layout with labels on the left and values on the right: 'Powered by: WordPress' and 'Blog:' with a clickable URL.
    • Fediverse Extra Fields block using the stacked style, showing profile fields with labels above their values: 'Powered by' above 'WordPress' and 'Blog' above a clickable URL, arranged vertically below the author profile header.

    Drop it onto any page, post, or your author archive template, pick a style that fits your theme, and your profile details appear right where your visitors can see them. Choose from a clean table layout, a stacked list, or styled cards. You can also control how many fields to show and customize colors to match your site.

    Changelog

    Added

    • Add documentation guide for using ActivityPub blocks in classic themes with Block Template Parts
    • Added a new Fediverse Extra Fields block to display ActivityPub extra fields, featuring compact, stacked, and card layouts with flexible user selection options.
    • Added support for quote comments, improving detection and handling of quoted replies and links in post interactions.
    • Add notifications for boosts, likes, and new followers in Mastodon apps via the Enable Mastodon Apps plugin
    • Adds support for turning tags, categories, and custom taxonomies into federated collections in the Reader view so you can browse and follow topics more seamlessly.
    • Prevent email notifications for comments on ActivityPub custom post types.
    • Send a Reject activity when a quote comment is deleted, revoking previous quote permissions and ensuring consistent inbox handling.
    • Store and retrieve webfinger acct for remote actors to improve identification and reduce lookups

    Changed

    • Improve gallery and image block markup for ap_posts with better alt text and optimized layouts.
    • Improve support for media attachments by handling Audio, Document, and Video object types in addition to Images.
    • Maintain consistent return values in Create handler.
    • Remove trailing hashtags from incoming posts to prevent duplication with taxonomy tags.
    • Store comments and reactions from followed actors on reader posts, and keep them separate from your site’s comments in wp-admin.
    • Update compatibility testing for PHP 8.5 and WordPress 6.9
    • Use tag name instead of slug for hashtag display.

    Fixed

    • Always includes id, first, and last links in collection responses, ensuring followers and following lists display correctly in Mastodon.
    • Automatically approves reactions on ActivityPub posts in the Reader view for a smoother, more seamless interaction experience.
    • Deliver public activities to followers only.
    • Disable REST API endpoints for internal post types.
    • False mention email notifications for users in CC field without actual mention tags.
    • Fix “Filename too long” errors when downloading attachments from URLs with query parameters (e.g., Instagram CDN URLs).
    • Fix make_clickable corrupting existing anchor tags in ActivityPub content
    • Fix PHP 8.5 deprecation warnings for ReflectionProperty::setAccessible() and ReflectionMethod::setAccessible()
    • Improved handling of unusual activity data to avoid errors when activities contain unexpected formats.
    • Preserve original ActivityPub activity timestamps when creating posts and comments instead of using current time.
    • Prevented duplicate email notifications when ActivityPub instances re-send Follow activities for already-following actors.
    • Prevents unwanted comment types—like pingbacks, trackbacks, notes and custom system comments, from being federated, ensuring only real user comments are shared with the fediverse.
    • Removed a redundant instruction from the custom post content settings to simplify the UI.
    • Reply block now shows fallback link when oEmbed fails instead of empty div.
    • Simplified reply links by removing special handling for federated comments, making replies work the same for all comments where replying is allowed.
    • Undefined array key warning in Scheduler::async_batch when called without arguments.

    Downloads

    Thank You!

    As always, a huge thanks to everyone who contributed code, reported bugs, tested early builds, and shared ideas. Every bit of feedback helps make ActivityPub for WordPress better for the whole community.

    Version 7.7.0 is available now—update and let us know what you think!