HONK(1)

HONK(1) General Commands Manual HONK(1)

## NAME

`honk` — federated status conveyance

## DESCRIPTION

The `honk` utility processes federated status updates and other microblog activities. This is the user manual. For administration, see honk(8). For other documentation, refer to the intro(1).

This manual is still incomplete. It'll get there eventually.

### Honkers

Initially, there won't be much to see after logging in. In order to receive regular updates from other users, they must first be added to one's honker collection. Begin at the honkers tab. The url field is required. Either of two forms are accepted, the user's handle (or webfinger) or their ActivityPub actor URL.

`@user@example.social`
`https://example.social/users/user`

The name field is optional and will be automatically inferred. The notes field is reserved for user remarks. Fellow honkers may be added to one or more combos to suit one's organizational preferences. These are accessed via the combos tab and allow easy access to particular groupings. The special combo name of one hyphen ‘-’ will exclude a honker's posts from the primary feed.

It is also possible to skip subscribing. In this case, regular posts are not received, but replies and posts fetched via other means will appear in the relevant combos.

In addition to honkers, it is possible to subscribe to a hashtag collection. (Where supported.) Enter the collection URL for url. Alternatively, RSS feeds may be followed if the URL ends in .rss.

Separately, hashtags may be added to a combo by creating a honker with a url of the desired hashtag (including #). Several hashtags may thus be collected in a single combo.
screenshot of adding honker
screenshot of adding honker
screenshot of adding honker

### Viewing

The primary feed is accessed via the home tab. It will contain posts from all honkers except those specifically excluded. Posts mentioning the user, both followed and not, are collected under the @me tab. Other feeds include first which excludes replies, the user defined options under the combos subheading, and the events page which lists only events.

Individual honks contain a visual representation of the honker's ID, their name, the activity (with a link back to origin), a link to the parent post if applicable, and the convoy (thread) identifier. A red border indicates the honk is not public. Screenshot below.

screenshot of one honk

Available actions are:

`bonk`
  Share with followers. Not available for nonpublic honks.
`honk back`
  Reply.
`mute`
  Mute this entire thread. Existing posts are hidden, and future posts will not appear in any feed.
`zonk`
  Delete this post. When deleting one's own post, other servers will be requested to remove it, but this is unreliable.
`ack`
  Acknowledge reading this post. Typically if it's a reply to one's own post.
`save`
  Save this honk to the saved tab to find later.
`untag me`
  Sometimes a thread goes on entirely too long. Untag will hide further replies to the selected post, but without muting the entire thread. Replies higher in the tree are still received.
`badonk`
  Please no.
`edit`
  Change it up.

### Refresh

Clicking the refresh button will load new honks, if any. New honks will be subtly highlighted.

### Hotkeys

The following keyboard shortcuts may also be used to navigate.

j
  Scroll to next honk.
k
  Scroll to previous honk.
r
  Refresh.
s
  Scroll down to oldest newest.
t
  Scroll to top of page.
m
  Open menu.
esc
  Close menu.
/
  Search.

### Honking

Refer to the honk(5) section of the manual for details of honk composition.

### Search

Find old honks. It's basic substring match with a few extensions. The following keywords are supported:

@me
  Honks mentioning the user.
@self
  Honks by the user.
before:
  Honks posted before YYYY-MM-DD.
after:
  As above.
site:
  Substring match on the post domain name.
honker:
  Exact match, either AP actor or honker nickname.
-
  Negate term.

Example:

`honker:goose big moose -footloose`
This query will find honks by the goose about the big moose, but excluding those about footloose.

### Filtering

Sometimes other users of the federation can get unruly. The honk filtering and censorship system, hfcs(1), can be of great use to restore order to one's timeline. Accessed via the filters menu item.

### Xzone

The xzone page lists recently seen honkers that are not otherwise tracked. It also allows the import of external objects via URL, either individual posts or actor URLs, in which case their recent outbox is imported. In most cases it is easier to use the search box for this. However, the xzone import function can be used to refresh already fetched objects, looking for updates or replies.

### Account

It's all about you. An avatar may be selected from the funzone meme collection by adding “avatar: filename.png” to one's profile info. If truly necessary. A banner may be set by specifying “banner: image.jpg”. See honk(8) for more about the funzone.

A web trigger may be set which will receive POSTs when new honks are posted. “http://spybridge.honk.example/trigger”

Some options to customize the site appearance:

skinny
  Use a narrower column for the main display.
apple
  Prefer Apple links for maps. The default is OpenStreetMap.
reaction
  Pick an emoji for reacting to posts.

## ENVIRONMENT

`honk` is designed to work with most browsers, but for optimal results it is recommended to use a 2015 or later Thinkpad X1 Carbon with 2560x1440 screen running OpenBSD and chromium at 150% scaling with the dwm window manager. This will enable the main menu to line up just right.

## SEE ALSO

intro(1), honk(8)

## STANDARDS

ActivityPub

Activity Vocabulary

## HISTORY

Started March 2019.

## AUTHORS

Ted Unangst @tedu@honk.tedunangst.com

## CAVEATS

Completing some operations, such as subscribing to new honkers, requires an aptitude for clipboard use and tab switching along with a steady hand. For the most part, these are infrequent operations, but they are also the first operations new users encounter. This is not ideal.

The ActivityPub standard is subject to interpretation, and not all implementations are as enlightened as `honk`.

## BUGS

It's a feature.

OpenBSD 7.7 July 2, 2025 HONK(1)