Planet PowerShell Update: Mastodon, Twitter, and Pronoun Support

Over the last few weeks, I have been working on some new features in Planet PowerShell.

Mastodon Support

As more users make the move to Mastodon, I wanted to ensure that Planet PowerShell could continue to support the community.

You can now follow Planet PowerShell on Mastodon, @[email protected]. New posts are automatically tooted using the #PowerShell and #pwsh hashtags.

There is now support for authors to share their Mastodon handles. Authors will need to specify a value for the MastodonHandle property. I have already included some authors’ handles where I was following them. If you are a Planet PowerShell author and have made the transition to Mastodon, please ensure you update your author .cs file.

Including Mastodon support was a simple decision for me, and I am extremely thankful that I have made the decision considering recent announcements (see Twitter Support). As part of the change, I needed to update from Font Awesome v4 to v6, you may notice some icons have slightly changed on the website.

Twitter Support

With the extremely unfortunate decision by Twitter to no longer provide free access to their API, Zapier have notified their users that they anticipate their integration to stop working. Planet PowerShell uses Zapier to post to Twitter, Facebook, and Mastodon.

At this stage, it appears that when Twitter’s API change occurs, the @Planetpshell Twitter will also go silent. This is incredibly disappointing. Over the years, Planet PowerShell has gained 3,358 followers, posted hundreds or blog posts and had tens of thousands of impressions each month.

If an alternative solution for posting becomes available, then we may see Planet PowerShell return to Twitter, until then, I recommend everyone follows the RSS, Mastodon, or Facebook page.

Pronoun Support

It is extremely important to me that Planet PowerShell is an inclusive community. Authors now have the option to specify their pronouns. Simply update the Pronouns property in your author .cs file, and the pronouns will be displayed on the Authors page. This is optional, but I highly encourage all authors to include their pronouns.

Analytics & Cookies

Analytics has been a big challenge with Planet PowerShell. I rely on analytics and usage information as part of my Microsoft MVP reporting; making use of a mix of values provided by Google Analytics and Cloudflare’s built in analytics. This isn’t a perfect solution, particular as there isn’t an effective measure for the RSS feed.

In the past, my side projects like Planet PowerShell have often influenced my work projects. Recently, the flow has reversed. After some discussions around GDPR and Analytics, I decided to make some changes to Planet PowerShell.

Planet PowerShell didn’t have a cookie consent mechanism, something that was a potential issue. CookieBot has a free tier for smaller websites, it works by scanning the website and collecting information on all the cookies in use; you just include a small snippet of code from CookieBot, and it will take care of prompting users to accept or reject various cookies. Due to the small number of pages, Planet PowerShell fits perfect in the free tier, with setup and testing being very quick and easy.

As I was implementing CookieBot, I discovered an issue with Planet PowerShell that goes back to the original fork from Planet Xamarin. When I made the fork, I made sure to update Google Analytics and Google Maps codes and keys, but I missed something. Planet Xamarin also made use of Clicky, a more privacy-friendly website analytics provider. I have update Planet PowerShell to use its own Clicky ID.

Lastly, I have also implemented Heap analytics. Heap analytics platform is one of the easiest to understand, and provides information in a concise manner. It still doesn’t help with the RSS feed, I hope will give me a better understanding of the interactions on the Planet PowerShell website.

My aim is to review the usefulness of the information provided by Google Analytics, Clicky, Heap and Cloudflare, and remove those who aren’t useful long term.

Looking for more authors!

I want to grow the number of authors whose content is aggregated as part of the Planet PowerShell feed. If you are an author, please take the time to add your blog. If you need help, feel free to message me and I will be able to assist.

Finally, I want to thank everyone of the support over the years with Planet PowerShell. Things have come a long way over the last 7 years. I can’t wait to see how things change in the next 7 years!