Diaspora/Website

That’s all you need to know about the interface for now. The first thing you will want to do is finding some people to start sharing with. However, before we get to that, let’s focus on something that features prominently throughout diaspora*: <strong>aspects</strong>.

Click <span class="click">My aspects</span> in the sidebar and a list of your aspects will appear. To add an aspect, click <span class="click">+ Add an aspect</span> under the list of aspects in the menu. You will be presented with a pop-up window.

First, let’s look at the “My aspects” menu. From your stream, click <span class="click">My aspects</span> in the sidebar. A list of your aspects will drop down, and you’ll see a stream containing only posts made by people you have placed into whichever aspects are selected in the list. If you’ve only just signed up, there will be just the four default aspects, and there might not yet be anyone in any of your aspects. We’ll fix that very soon!

Right now all your aspects should be selected, with ticks next to them.

You can click aspects in the menu to select or deselect them.

You can select just one aspect, or any combination of them.

If all aspects are selected and you want to view just one, click <span class="click">Deselect all</span> and then select the one you want.

Why not play around with it for a few seconds?

This selection system has two uses:

It filters the content stream. You might want to read only posts written by people in your Family aspect. Or you might want to read everything posted by your contacts <em>except</em> family members.

If you post a status message from the Aspects page, the aspects selected in the left-hand menu will be automatically selected in the publisher. For example, if the Friends, Family and Work aspects are selected in the list, when you click inside the publisher window you’ll see that the Aspects selector button reads “In 3 aspects.”

Contacts page

The contacts page displays a list of your aspects in the sidebar, and the people you have placed in those aspects in the main section. (The list of aspects appears at the top in the mobile view.)

If you are displaying contacts from all aspects (click <span class="click">My contacts</span> in the sidebar), each contact will have a green button to its right showing which aspect(s) they have been placed in. If a contact is in more than one aspect, the button will read “In <em>n</em> aspects.” Click the button to see which aspects those are.

You can click this button to change the aspect(s) this person is in by selecting and deselecting aspects in the drop-down list. If you want to remove a person from all of your aspects, deselect all aspects and the button will turn grey. You are no longer sharing with them.

If you are viewing contacts in an individual aspect, there will be a cross to the right of each contact displayed. Clicking this will remove the person from that aspect.

You can also create new aspects from your contacts page.

Only sharing with me

This shows you a list of people who are sharing with you but with whom you are not sharing – your “followers.”

Now that you understand aspects, let’s make some connections.