auto-url-summary

An  auto-url-summary  is brief, human-readable text generated automatically from the parts of a URL, often using special knowledge about the URL structures at particular domains, as a way to provide a summary of what the URL is about, instead of (or before) accessing the URL itself and reading the microformats there for more information.

Why
In general auto-url-summary is useful when for some reason it is not possible (or not desirable) to retrieve the URL and parse it for microformats to generate an actual summary. Some reasons:
 * simpler to code
 * offline support
 * user preference to minimize indirect loading, e.g. performance considerations for a low bandwidth connection, or perhaps privacy
 * text placeholder while lazy loading the URL
 * no easily discernible information at the URL itself, e.g. it returns apparent gibberish, a binary format, random JSON/XML/etc.

Specific use-cases where this is useful:

Minimal reply context
An auto-url-summary can be used to generate a minimal text reply context.

Link preview
Similarly, an auto-url-summary may be used to provide a text-only link preview.

Tantek
undefined has been generating and displaying auto-url-summaries in in-stream minimal text reply contexts since 2018-02-19 using an experimental CASSIS function: auto_url_summary (selfdogfooding on his own site)

... more ...
Feel free to add your site if you also use auto-url-summary anywhere in your personal site / posting UI, and note since when.

PHP
See the CASSIS experimental  function for a start at a decent (and selfdogfooded) open source auto_url_summary implementation for PHP&amp;JS.

Python
IndieWeb Utils has implemented a variant of the CASSIS  in Python. View the IndieWeb Utils documentation for this function.

English design
Copied from minimal text reply contexts:


 * if URL is a tweet permalink of user aaronpk, @aaronpk’s tweet
 * else if URL is a Github issue comment permalink (github.com/owner/xyz/issues/n#issuecomment-m), a comment on issue #n of GitHub project xyz
 * else if URL is a Github issue (github.com/owner/xyz/issues/n), issue n of GitHub project xyz
 * else if URL is a Github repo or issues list (github.com/owner/xyz or github.com/owner/xyz/issues optional trailing /), GitHub project xyz
 * else URL

Feel free to expand with suggestions for other domains / URL patterns.

CASSIS auto_url_summary improvements
Some ideas I had for improving the CASSIS auto_url_summary function. - undefined


 * Bool param: solo recognized only, default false


 * recognize nicknames-cache primary domain, get text name (rather than account path / alias), and use that for name’s post (or tweet for @-names etc.)

These brainstorms may be more relevant on reply-context, but keeping here for now in context of other auto-url-summary related improvements.
 * use as a fallback for h-cite parsing (especially of an in-reply-to h-cite on a post), if the h-cite lacks an explicit  and  . E.g.
 * Parse & load in-reply-to h-cite
 * explicit summary if any
 * explicit name if any
 * If neither then imply name
 * Display:
 * name -> "post"
 * else summary -> "note"

Next:
 * Display: first check if h-cite has in-reply-to -> "reply"

Next:
 * Attempt loading of in-reply-to URL
 * Retrieve reply-context h-cite at publish preview time
 * Cache reply-context h-cite at post time
 * Load additional h-cite fields
 * Author: name, photo, url