Software alternatives

I wrote up a detailed explanation to respond to each question, but in short, making a new post would be simplest. If you want to play around with it, you can try editing this post further since it is possible to make it identical to what you'd get by pressing the button.

I see why I was stuck here. I was using https://lemmy.world/post/26364778 and I can't see the two squares button.

Yes, each instance is a separate "website", managed by a separate team. Login details aren't shared between instances with Lemmy.

This article has a diagram of how it works:

https://fedecan.ca/en/guide/lemmy/for-users/detailed-overview#where-are-the-communities

One confusing aspect is that the post ID (the numbers after /post/) is also different, since each instance manages the number separately. So on lemmy.ca, the original post has an ID of 40107104, while lemmy.world assigned a different ID to the post. There are discussions about changing that in a future version of Lemmy, but for now you will need to know the correct URL for the post.

If you don't have the local post link, you can find it by copy pasting the original link (https://lemmy.world/post/26364778) into the search on lemmy.ca

I copied the source code to my post, but it didn't show the count of comments in feddit.uk

This is also normal. A crosspost behaves like a regular new post, and there isn't any hidden information, only the contents that you can edit.

Some apps and interfaces try to identify crossposts, but they do this by comparing the text in the title/link/post body.

Here is a test post I made using the crosspost button, to compare what it looks like:

• Your post: https://lemmy.ca/post/42908711/
• My crosspost: https://lemmy.ca/post/42945464

As you can see, my post also doesn't show any additional information on the official web interface.

Meanwhile if you look at the same posts on the Photon theme/interface:

• Your post: https://photon.lemmy.ca/post/42908711
• My crosspost: https://photon.lemmy.ca/post42945464

My crosspost shows the extra information, while your post currently does not. I think it's because the original post had an image link while your post doesn't. Easiest would be to make a new post by using the crosspost button. If you want, you can also crosspost it (to [email protected] for example) and then press edit to see what is different.

Let me know if anything is unclear, I'm happy to clarify further! I'll see about making an explanation article about this, since other people might be wondering about it as well.