Title: Page 8 – Alex Kirk --- * ## 󠀁[Help Make (the) Friends (Plugin) Pretty](https://alex.kirk.at/2024/11/22/help-make-the-friends-plugin-pretty/)󠁿 * November 22, 2024 * ![](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/current-friends-ui. png) * While I keep maintaining my [Friends plugin](https://github.com/akirk/friends) for WordPress, there is an area where it could do better because I am not great at it: the visual appeal. * From pretty early on, I designed the plugin in a way that it 1. can be mainly used on the frontend (i.e. not in wp-admin), 2. is based on [granular template files](https://github.com/akirk/friends/tree/main/templates/), 3. and [each template file can be overriden](https://github.com/akirk/friends/wiki/Overriding-the-template-files). * Over time, some of this has changed or improved. For example, you can now see [your friends’ posts in widgets on your wp-admin dashboard](https://github.com/akirk/friends/pull/346), or, I’m making progress on [providing a block theme for Friends](https://github.com/akirk/friends/pull/362) so that it can be customized with the site editor. * ![](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/current-friends-ui- 1024x517.png) * This is the current Friends default theme, based on the [spectre.css framework](https://picturepan2.github.io/spectre/index.html) * ![](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/friends-current-user- view-1024x543.png) * This is a user view with full posts in the current design * ![](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/friends-widgets-1024x450. png) * Dashboard filled with Friends’ posts, [Netvibes style](https://www.netvibes.com/) * But, even as I wrote in the [Friends Wiki](https://github.com/akirk/friends/wiki) on how new themes can be created, I think this has remained unknown to users. * So, a year ago, as a demo, I created the [Mastodon-Like Interface plugin](https://github.com/akirk/friends-mastodon-like-interface). This is what the Friends plugin can also look like: * ![](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/mastodon-like-interface- 1024x733.png) * Unfortunately, this remained under people’s radar. So in the latest version of the Friends plugin, I have now made it more obvious [that the theme can be changed](https://github.com/akirk/friends/pull/393), by slightly adjusting how themes are loaded, giving the user more control over which theme is loaded: * ![](https://alex.kirk.at/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/friends-theme-selector. png) * In the course of this, I have updated the Friends Wiki with a more specific guide on [how to write themes for the Friends plugin](https://github.com/akirk/friends/wiki/Writing-Themes). * There have been some case studies about what a network between WordPresses could look like. For example, [Mike McAlister](https://mikemcalister.com/) has designed [some screens](https://dribbble.com/shots/20028090-OpenPress-A-Decentralized-WordPress-Community) for [what he called OpenPress at the time](https://olliewp.com/finding-a-new-home-for-the-wordpress-community/). And the mockups look great: * [[ * [Finding a new home for the WordPress community](https://olliewp.com/finding-a-new-home-for-the-wordpress-community/) * I would love it if the community could help with creating some more themes to give people a choice. Recently, [Livia Gouvêa](https://github.com/liviacarolgouvea) has contributed [some layout improvements for the current sidebar](https://github.com/akirk/friends/pull/384). This is a great start, thank you, Livia! If you have a new theme, you can add them with [a pull request to the THEMES.md file](https://github.com/akirk/friends/blob/main/THEMES.md). As soon as there are some themes, we’ll make it easier to install them. * It is quite likely that people were detracted from getting started with the [Friends plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/friends/) because they don’t like the current theme (hat tip [Robert Windisch and his talk at WordCamp Karlsruhe](https://wordpress.tv/2024/10/12/wordpress-als-soziales-netzwerk-eine-vision-um-publishing-zu-demokratisieren/)) but this would be too bad, because I believe it is an empowering tool, allowing you to become less dependent on third-party vendors, even if you’re “just” using it to [make your own WordPress your full featured, personal Mastodon instance](https://alex.kirk.at/2024/06/13/your-wordpress-as-your-personal-mastodon-instance/). * Looking forward to more Friends themes, this would be an awesome addition! * ###### Fediverse Reactions - [ ⌊Mad Mole⌉ ](https://mast.madmolelabs.com/@madmole) * - [ ⌊Tomi the Slav and 1024 others⌉ ](https://mastodon.social/@po3mah) * [Web](https://alex.kirk.at/category/web/) * ## 󠀁[Setting Up a Local Ollama Copilot via LSP](https://alex.kirk.at/2024/11/15/setting-up-a-local-ollama-copilot-via-lsp/)󠁿 * November 15, 2024 * I am quite interested in running AI offline. Thus I really like [Ollama](https://github.com/ollama/ollama), and have [added automatic failover from ChatGPT to a local AI to my little terminal llm tool cll](https://alex.kirk.at/2023/10/20/chat-cli-renamed-and-added-ollama-support/)( get it on [Github at akirk/cll](https://github.com/akirk/cll)). * As a developer, an important local gap for me was [Github Copilot](https://github.com/features/copilot). Its function of autocomplete on steroids is really powerful in my day to day work and speeds up my development a lot. * Now, how can you get this offline? Mostly, search engines point to [solutions that involve Visual Studio Code extensions](https://rahultah.medium.com/build-your-own-github-copilot-with-ollama-continue-llm-magic-and-api-power-745dd9597322), for example [Continue](https://www.continue.dev/) and lots of other dependencies. * ### LSPs are independent of IDEs * But why should this involve IDE extensions? With the concept of LSPs (read [LSP: the good, the bad, and the ugly](https://www.michaelpj.com/blog/2024/09/03/lsp-good-bad-ugly.html) to learn how LSPs work), and the existence of [LSP-Copilot](https://github.com/TerminalFi/LSP-copilot), this should be independent of IDEs. And I personally use [Sublime Text](https://www.sublimetext.com/). * And indeed, it does work just on that basis: using the go proxy [ollama-copilot](https://github.com/bernardo-bruning/ollama-copilot) by [Bernardo de Oliveira Bruning](https://github.com/bernardo-bruning). * But for me it didn’t work out of the box. Thus, I’d like to share the steps that got this working for me. I use macOS. * ### Steps to get it running * First, follow the [install instructions for Ollama and ollama-copilot](https://github.com/bernardo-bruning/ollama-copilot?tab=readme-ov-file#installation). This puts the go binary in `~/go/bin/ollama-copilot` * Then, change the settings for lsp-copilot and add `"proxy": "127.0.0.1:11435"`( this is the default local port). * Now, you also need to address the certificate situation. I use mkcert which you can install with homebrew using * `brew install mkcert` * Follow the instructions to install its root cert. We need a certificate that covers ~two~ **Edit: **three hosts, so run * `cd ~/go/bin/`; m`kcert api.github.com copilot-proxy.githubusercontent.com proxy. individual.githubcopilot.com` * which gives you two files with which you can now now start the proxy: * `~/go/bin/ollama-copilot -cert ~/go/bin/api.github.com+2.pem -key ~/go/bin/api. github.com+2-key.pem` * Finally, you need to add one more thing to the lsp-copilot config JSON. First find out the location of the root cert: `echo $(mkcert -CAROOT)/rootCA.pem` and add an env section there ([see this FAQ](https://github.com/TerminalFi/LSP-copilot#i-see-unable_to_get_issuer_cert_locally-error)), for me it’s: * ```wp-block-code "env": { "NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS": "~/Library/Application Support/mkcert/rootCA.pem" }, ``` * This made it work for me. **Edit:** It seems a bit erratic. For me it works most reliably if you start ollama-copilot first, and only then Sublime Text. You can see the proxy at work through its output in the terminal. * ```wp-block-code 2024/11/15 16:04:08 request: POST /v1/engines/copilot-codex/completions 2024/11/15 16:04:12 response: POST /v1/engines/copilot-codex/completions 200 4.744932083s ``` * And this is from the LSP log panel: * ```wp-block-code :: [16:04:07.967] -> LSP-copilot textDocument/didChange: {'textDocument': {'uri': 'file:///...', 'version': 42}, 'contentChanges': [{'range': {'start': {'line': 2860, 'character': 53}, 'end': {'line': 2860, 'character': 53}}, 'rangeLength': 0, 'text': 'c'}]} :: [16:04:08.013] --> LSP-copilot getCompletions (6): :: [16:04:08.027] --> LSP-copilot getCompletionsCycling (7): :: [16:04:08.133] <- LSP-copilot statusNotification: {'status': 'InProgress', 'message': ''} :: [16:04:08.156] <- LSP-copilot statusNotification: {'status': 'InProgress', 'message': ''} :: [16:04:12.447] <- LSP-copilot window/logMessage: {'type': 3, 'message': '[fetchCompletions] request.response: [https://copilot-proxy.githubusercontent.com/v1/engines/copilot-codex/completions] took 4288 ms'} :: [16:04:12.920] <- LSP-copilot window/logMessage: {'type': 3, 'message': '[streamChoices] solution 0 returned. finish reason: [Iteration Done]'} :: [16:04:12.920] <- LSP-copilot window/logMessage: {'type': 3, 'message': '[streamChoices] request done: headerRequestId: [] model deployment ID: []'} :: [16:04:12.920] <- LSP-copilot statusNotification: {'status': 'Normal', 'message': ''} :: [16:04:12.920] <<< LSP-copilot (7) (duration: 4892ms): {'completions': [{'uuid': '4224f736-39f9-402e-b80e-027700892012', 'text': '\t\t\t\t\'title\' => \'...', {'line': 2860, 'character': 54}, 'docVersion': 42, 'point': 105676, 'region': (105622, 105676)}]} ``` * ### Verdict * So far it showed that it is neither better nor faster than Github Copilot: In the logfile above you can see that a completion took almost 5 seconds. But ollama- copilot works offline which is better than no copilot. And it works with only a few moving parts. * [AI](https://alex.kirk.at/category/ai/), [Code](https://alex.kirk.at/category/code/), [Workflow](https://alex.kirk.at/category/workflow/) [Previous Page](https://alex.kirk.at/page/7/?output_format=md&term_id=44043) [Next Page](https://alex.kirk.at/page/9/?output_format=md&term_id=44043)