▶️ Creating an Art Feed + Advanced Tips!
This #tutorial is based on SkyFeed v0.10.0 and is for artists setting up personalized Art Feeds on BlueSky. I used this guide as a basis (kai-blueskytips.carrd.co#one) and added some additional tips! All images have alt text for full context.
▶️ Advantages of Setting Up a Feed
The media tab can display your art, but it will also include every other image that isn’t your art. A feed can be a powerful way to curate your own art gallery based on certain keywords or parameters!
▶️ Setting Up SkyFeed: Part 1
Go to skyfeed.app and enter your BlueSky username/email into the 2nd field. DO NOT enter your actual login password into the 3rd field. Instead, click the square with an arrow to be redirected to the App Passwords page on BlueSky.
▶️ Setting Up SkyFeed: Part 2
Click the “Add Password” button and name it (I usually name it SkyFeed). A password will be auto-generated by BlueSky that gives SkyFeed limited access without giving out your full password. Input this password into the SkyFeed sign-in page and log in.
▶️ Feed Builder
On the left panel in SkyFeed, click “Feed Builder”. On the top right corner of the second column, click the “Create Feed” button, and you will get a default feed that will auto-populate with some default options. You can rename your feed to clearly signify that it’s your art feed!
▶️ Input Block
To filter only your posts, set the input to “Single User”, and then click “Select yourself”. If you leave only the “Posts” option toggled on in that block, you can just delete the “Remove if item is reply” block since it won't do anything.
▶️ RegEx Block: Part 1
In the RegEx block, type in the tag or emoji that you want the feed to filter for (such as #art or 🎨). You can also use the “|” delimiter to add multiple phrases to allow in your feed. Do not make a separate block for each phrase, as it won’t work properly! (see part 3)
▶️ RegEx Block: Part 2
You can use the “invert” checkbox in a second RegEx block to remove posts that have a certain keyword. For example, the “#art” input from my first RegEx block will also add posts that are tagged “#artraffle” or “#artshare”, which I want to remove from my art feed.
▶️ RegEx Block: Part 3
For an extra-filtered feed, you can stack two normal (non-inverted) RegEx blocks on top of each other. For example, if my feed has one RegEx block with “#art” and a second RegEx block with “#birds”, this feed will only include posts with both tags.
▶️ Sort Block
By default, the sort block will be set to “Creation Date” and “(descending)”, which will put your newest posts first and your oldest posts last. You can also sort by “Random” to randomize the feed. Other parameters such as “Like Count” don’t seem to work properly.
▶️ Ordering Code Blocks
Order is important, since the output from one block will be fed into the next one sequentially. Typically, you want the input blocks before any other filters (such as RegEx or Sort). You can click and drag the two bars on the side to reorder your code blocks.
▶️ Retroactively Adding Tags
If your art posts didn’t have a consistent tagging system, no worries! You can either reupload your art and give them new tags, or you can quote repost your art and put the tags in the quoted portion. (Credit to @setenza.art for the big brain QRP tip!)
▶️ Manually Entering URLs
I don’t recommend this method for an art feed as it can be labor-intensive, but it can be useful. On an input block, set the input to “Single Post” and paste the URL of the post you want in the feed. You will have to make a separate input block for every URL!
▶️ Publishing Your Feed
Once you are satisfied with your feed, click the “Publish Feed” button, add a description and profile picture, and set a license. I usually just use the default setting, which is the EUPL-1.2 license. This feed should now show up in the Feeds tab on your profile!
▶️ Advertising/Updating Your Feed
For visibility, you can directly link your feed in your profile (use tinyurl to shorten it) or direct people to your Feeds tab. Be sure to click the “Update Feed” whenever you need to update your code, or you can “Unpublish Feed” from this window to hide your feed.
▶️ Making a Pinned Post
You can make a separate pinned post to showcase some of your work and other social media! To pin this post in SkyFeed, put an input block (set to single post) AFTER every other block, including after your sort block!
Special thanks to @davis.social for this helpful tip!
