links is a multimedia aggregator that can serve as a visual bookmarker, moodboard maker, playlist builder, mind mapper, or slideshow presentation tool. Paste a url and it becomes a link, tag links into collections, then experience a collection as you choose. Audiovisual media streams directly from any open source (Youtube, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Vimeo, raw files), and tracks from Spotify get matched with a playable source. links takes direct inspiration from Pinterest, are.na, mac.are.na, Pinboard, Raindrop, and Google Tour Builder, aiming to combine the best of each into a functional interface. Your links are private by default, but you can share or publish any collection or selection as a read-only snapshot via unique URL.
links.maphouse.ca is hosted at a data centre in the Montreal area.
contact
You can reach the admin at maphouse@riseup.net
account
Accounts are currently invite-only. Email the admin to ask for a join code.
themes
images
Toggling on "save every image" archives all linked images, so if any link dies you still have a copy.
adding content
Hit + in the header to open the add box. Paste a URL. Add tags in the next box
(comma or ;, hashtags ok) to file it as you save.
To save from anywhere else, drag this to your bookmarks bar: add to links, then click it while visiting a webpage to add it.
adding content from your phone
While you can add the site to your homescreen on your phone, which makes it act like an app, using the chat bot to add links to your collections is a more stable approach.
Share links to the bot. Send a link to the server's Delta Chat bot and it's saved to your collection. No app install is required beyond Delta Chat itself, which requires no email or phone number. Tap here to add the bot as a contact, or scan the QR code below.
Once you've opened a chat with the bot, reveal your authentication key below and send it to the bot. After that, any message containing text or a url gets saved.
No Delta Chat bot is running on this instance yet — nothing to connect to. Your key still works below if you want it for something else.
This key lets whoever has it add links to your board on your behalf. Treat it like a password. Regenerating or revoking it breaks any bot chat using the old key until you paste in the new one.
editing content
Logged in, links are yours to change: titles (✎), tags, and timestamped comments, any time. list view is best for reading and commenting, since it shows a link's full details; delete sits at the end of those details.
gallery is the other place to work on one link closely: the show/hide info button there opens a details panel down the right-hand side, carrying the same fields and the same edit controls as a list row while the link itself fills the screen.
To place links spatially, use canvas (or map, georeferenced): drag a card to move it. Select several at once — ctrl/cmd-click cards, or shift-drag a marquee over them — and they move together as a group. Plain click opens a card; drag the empty background to pan.
navigating
Five ways to look at the same board, from the bottom bar:
- list — details: source, date, description, comments.
- board — tiles with titles and tags.
- canvas — a freeform plane; place links anywhere.
- map — the same, georeferenced on a real basemap.
- gallery — one link at a time; press play for a slideshow.
Two controls sit beside the view buttons and follow you into every view. − / + changes the size of whatever that view lays out: the tiles in board and list, the markers in map, the camera on canvas, the slide in gallery. show/hide info strips the text off the tiles for an images-only board — or, in gallery, opens the details panel described above.
Zoom out past the smallest tiles in board or list and the board regroups itself: instead of links, you get one tile per tag, each showing a few of the links carrying it. Click one to filter down to that tag and drop back into the links; ctrl/cmd-click to gather several. Links with no tags get a group of their own at the end. + takes you back.
Filtering: the chevron row under the header opens the filters — a panel down the right-hand side on a wide screen, a dropdown on a narrow one. Search text, tags, and types all narrow the board together. Closed, the row still lists whatever is currently filtering, so a selection you forgot about can't quietly hide half your board. Clicking a tag on a link filters by it too, and ctrl/cmd-click combines several.
Set any collection in motion: in gallery it plays as a slideshow; on canvas and map it plays as a tour — the camera pans (canvas) or flies (map) from link to link in your saved order. Queued audio keeps playing underneath the whole time.
Keyboard: esc steps back a view (pausing a slideshow first), p plays/pauses the slideshow, and ← → space step through gallery slides.
playable media
Some links play, not just open. Click one to play it in place and it builds
an auto-advancing background queue — scoped to your current filter and
mixing sources freely — with no extra step to turn the queue on first;
hit show queue to see what's lined up. It keeps playing while you
switch views or run a slideshow or tour, so any collection can carry its own
soundtrack. Playable directly: YouTube (incl. music.youtube.com),
SoundCloud tracks, Vimeo, Mixcloud, Dailymotion,
and direct files (.mp3 .mp4 .ogg .webm …).
Tracks from Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music, and Bandcamp play via a YouTube match found at save time (a yt-dlp search, nothing downloaded), badged yt-resolved. A match has to clear every check — title, artist, length, and whether it's a remix or a cover — or the link keeps its own player rather than risk playing you the wrong recording. Playlists, albums, and profiles stay visual slides, as do X/Twitter, Instagram, and non-track Bandcamp/Spotify pages. include video audio folds videos in — on by default once the queue starts, toggle it off for audio only.
PDFs read in place. Link a PDF and it opens in gallery using your browser's own viewer — pages, search, and zoom included — as long as the hosting site allows framing; otherwise it opens in a new tab instead. Like every other link, it's fetched live from the source, not stored here.
sharing snapshots
Hit the share icon in the header to snapshot your filtered links to a
public, read-only page at /s/<slug>. Select two or more links
(ctrl/⌘-click, or shift-drag a box in canvas / map) to share a selection only.
Delete a link and it drops from the snapshot. The url is unguessable; nothing else on your board is exposed.
A share also remembers the view you were in when you clicked — so a link shared from canvas or map opens at the same framing (pan + zoom) you had on screen, and one shared from gallery opens on the same slide.
The export icon beside it writes the same visible set to a file you download, as W3C Web Annotation JSON — a standard other annotation tools can read, so your data is portable.
publishing streams
A tag stream is a live public webpage and RSS feed for a tag or set of tags. Anyone with the link can subscribe in a normal feed reader, and it updates as links are tagged or untagged. Unlike a share, which freezes a snapshot, a stream stays live.
Use the stream button on top right to publish a stream. Unpublish from the list below.