Alice

Since @staff has a lot on their plate and my pet feature request is unlikely to be addressed in the short term, I decided to do it myself:

You can install this userscript for yourself using Tampermonkey. I've tested in in Chrome and Firefox, and I don't think there's any reason in principle it shouldn't work in any browser that supports reasonably modern APIs.

Here's what it does specifically:

• If you've already seen a chost, it'll collapse it in its thread.

• If you've already seen all chosts in a thread and that thread doesn't have any tags, it'll hide the thread entirely.

• It'll always show you the version of a chost you first encountered, even if you navigate away and come back.

• Information about what you've seen is only stored in session storage, which means it'll be reset every time you start close and re-open the page. (If people want longer-term storage, let me know and I can probably make that happen.)

Give it a shot! Let me know what you think!

Just a compilation of helpful tutorials or fun utilities shared by cohorts. Mostly a resource for myself to easily re-find helpful things, but maybe other folks will find this handy too! I'll probably update this post over time as I learn new things around here.

Updated 12.22.2022

Updated 11.19.2022

Helpful Tricks for Artists

• How to post inline images without hotlinking or hosting on another site by @blackle

• ^Note for image linking in Cohost drafts, I have noticed one of my images posted this way break after a site update. It wasn't a big deal to replace it at this time since my account is still pretty new, but for the sake of not having to comb through all my posts in the future, I think it's better practice to use your own image hosting. I use Neocities!

• Image Grid Generator by @nex3

• Apparently there is no limit on image length. Some Examples by @mrfb and myself. I think there is potential here for experimenting with infinite canvas style comics!

• Cohost Inline Gallery Generator and explanation post by @YellowAfterlife -^I have some sequential ideas to experiment with this--maybe a flipbook type thing?

CSS Shenanigans

• A compilation of CSS tricks/crimes by @exerian

• Toggle image on click and Moveable Object tutorials by @blackle

• 2000s era CSS layouts code template by @kiana

• Convert CSS to Inline Styles A simpler version of Prechoster by @blep

• Manipulating Animation Tutorials by @oatmealine

• Detailed explanation including manipulating animation frames for this crazy good chost by @rosieposie and @blep

• Markdown Plus Amazing! Easy to use utility for CSS text stylizations by @oatmealine.

• Interactive Fic Using Divs Tutorial an Occam's Razor alternative to details/summary interactables by @YellowAfterlife

Other Fun Stuff

• Ravel, for making Twine-esque interactive text by @everest

• View source for chosts, really helpful for learning how people make cool interactables! by @amgg

• Cohost Widgets Generator by @maddievision

• Cohoard, for formatting chosts to look like Discord chats, Twitter posts, and other templates by @a2aaron

-Masterlist of Cohost Userscripts/Userstyles compiled by @kiophen

I'm a heavy Twitter user, have been for years; you can trust me on what I say here. I'm making an effort to use Cohost differently. Many of the parts of myself I express on here are ones I don't have a chance to express on Twitter.

take a while to look around, get a sense of the feeling, the gestalt of the site. how people talk and behave. this place is different, and we should all be mindful of it. it's healthier. people on here are kind. I'm not sure I've seen a single attempt to dunk on another Cohost user.

no snowflake is responsible for the flood. the activation queue helps, and the different mechanics of the site help. but we must all do our own part to prevent Eternal September from coming to Cohost.

much of Twitter culture is unhealthy. take a deep breath, consider how you and others act on there. consider the parts of the culture that you might intentionally choose leave behind, for your own sake and others'. this is not an Exodus in which we must carry your whole culture with us on our backs, though we can certainly bring the good parts.

be conscious of your behavior. be kind. give folks the benefit of the doubt. Unlike much of Twitter, Cohost is not a battle. It is more like a community garden. Take care not to tread on the plants; many of them aren't in containers, and the paths aren't bordered by stones. Carelessness can easily crush things that we would not want to kill, were we aware we were doing so.

it is also important that we, as cohost users, welcome people to the garden. It's a lovely place, and people should enjoy it, and feel welcome to start their own plots, as long as the mint stays in containers, and they aren't spraying Roundup everywhere.

Here's a list of features that exist now that might not have been around last time you used the site:

• Embedded media: when composing, links that are on their own line in posts get embedded. When viewing, users can set whether embeds should be shown to them at all (vs just links) in their settings.
• Pinned chosts: you can pin any cohost post (chost) that you've posted. There is no limit to how many posts you can pin.
• Search by user or #tag: the top menu has a search page that lets you find people by username or display name or search for tags to bookmark.
• Content Warning filters: you can set up deny-list filters for content warnings in your settings page to keep posts with those warnings from being shown on your timeline
• Lock comments: you can lock the comments on each of your chosts in the 3-dot menu after you've posted it.
• Per-user reply or share toggling: you can temporarily opt out of replies or shares while you're looking at a given user's profile. This can help you find specific chosts by them, but it doesn't persist to your timeline settings.
• Activation Queue is one day: you currently need only be kept from posting for one day after sign-ups. All users in waiting get activated by staff each day. (subject to change)
• Cohost Plus! supports the creators of this website for $5 a month: it allows you to upload images up to 10MB in your chosts and you can use custom emotes of "the Host" from the logo like

*edit: thanks to @eden for helping me better understand some of these!

**edit 2: shoutouts to @SilverStarsIllustration for doing the illustrations for the Host emotes. I had trouble finding the original post until today!