Crucial Tracks: Help & FAQs

First, the backstory. Why I built the Crucial Tracks app and some of the decisions that were made:

Key features so far:

One song per day. The idea is simple: write about one song that is important to you each day. Take part in the Slow Web! Through the constraints of the site, there's no overwhelm or FOMO, just a simple slow feed of high quality and thoughtful posts.
Connected to Apple Music. Search for your song to add a 30-second preview and bring your memories to life! If you are an Apple Music subscriber, connect to the app and save your daily songs to a playlist.
Private by default. Every entry defaults to Private, but Public posts show on your profile page, complete with an RSS feed to hook up wherever you like. (There's a setting to default to Public too!) → See Jason's profile
Browse the community feed: Public Tracks. Every user's public posts show up on the Public Tracks page - discover new music and cool people. Only available to community members.
Share your song to Mastodon and Bluesky right from the app!

FAQs

I just created an account, what should I do first?
How do I connect Apple Music to save journal songs to my playlist?
How do I connect to Mastodon to automatically share my posts?
How do I connect to Bluesky to automatically share my posts?
What is markdown?
What is RSS?
Can you add?

I just created an account, what should I do first?

First off, head over to your profile settings page and set up your profile. You will want to add a bio, avatar, and set your username – this will enable your public profile page. You can also set your Mastodon profile, Bluesky profile, and add a link to your blog or homepage. Any other preferences we add will be here too, like the ability to default all new entries to Public.

Once that is complete, just start writing! You can write about any song you want or use the daily prompt as a starting point. The site will limit you to one post per calendar day, but you can also go back in time and add entries to days in the past. (That's not required though!)

How do I connect Apple Music to save journal songs to my playlist?

😬

Note: I did not test enabling Apple Music, Bluesky AND Mastodon on the same, single page view of Integrations. I did test Bluesky and Mastodon in the same view, so maybe tread lightly if you want to do all three at once.

This function is super beta as I work out the kinks, but for now do this:

Make sure you have a destination playlist created in Apple Music
On Crucial Tracks, go to Settings > Integrations and click the Connect Apple Music button. (If it's not there, refresh the page and it should show. Working to improve that – it's due to the MusicKit javascript not loading all the way.)

That should prompt you to sign in and give Crucial Tracks permission to connect to your Apple Music. Approve that and it will eventually return you to the Integrations page.
Once connected, you will see a Default Playlist field. Paste the URL of the playlist you want to add Crucial Tracks songs to when you post.
- Go to the playlist in Apple Music, the menu on that view should have a Share Playlist option and copy that URL to paste in the Integrations field.
- Once added, hit Save and you should get a success message if the playlist is found. (For newly created playlists, it may take a minute or two since we're using the web API.)

Then when you create a new entry, make sure Save to Playlist is checked and the song should be added to your playlist. You'll get a confirmation message that the song was added, if things worked as planned!

As always, let me know if you have issues. My wife and I tested this flow and it worked for us, so hopefully it's a smooth experience for everyone else too. (My profile and Apple Music Playlist)

😬

On the Mastodon site (for your instance), go to Preferences > Development

Click the 'New Application' button
Enter 'Crucial Tracks' for the application name.
For Application website, enter: https://app.crucialtracks.org
Under Scopes, check the box next to "write:statuses"
The site will create the app for you. Click the Crucial Tracks name and you will see a page with Your Access Token. Copy that token value.
Go to Crucial Tracks, on the Integrations page. Go to the Mastodon section and paste your token in the Access Token field.
Enter your instance URL
Decide if you want to have the Share to Mastodon checked by default on the new entry creation page.
Click Connect. You should see a success message.
Start sharing! (The post needs to be Public on Crucial Tracks for it to be shared.)

😬

On the Bluesky site, go to Settings > Privacy and Security > App Passwords.

Click the 'Add App Password' button
Enter 'Crucial Tracks' for the unique name. Do not check allow access to DMs.
The site will create a unique password for you. Save this! It will only be shown once. If you lose it you will need to do this whole process over again.
Go to Crucial Tracks, on the Integrations page. Go to the Bluesky section and paste your app password in that field.
Enter your handle. If you have a custom domain set up like me, use that. If you have a standard handle, enter it in the format: name.bsky.social
Decide if you want to have the Share to Bluesky checked by default on the new entry creation page.
Click Connect. You should see a success message.
Start sharing! (The post needs to be Public on Crucial Tracks for it to be shared.)

What is markdown?

Markdown is a special syntax you can use to format text. It allows you to add things like bold, emphasis, links, blockquotes and more without knowing HTML.

→ See this guide for all of the markdown options

What is RSS?

RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) is the backbone of much of the internet. When you subscribe to a podcast, for example, it's really an RSS feed that connects the podcast publisher to the app or service you are using. The same principle applies for text content too: just swap out "podcasts" for news articles, blog posts, photo feeds, etc. – you just need a reader application to subscribe to these feeds and ultimately read them in one location. (Also, see Annie Mueller's guide to doing the RSS.)

I do all of my news and social media (Mastodon, Bluesky, YouTube, and micro.blog) through an RSS app (Reeder, see link below). I highly recommend this method as you escape from algorithms, ads and pop-ups, shitty comment sections, and much more. It's liberating and reduces anxiety.

Recommendations

RSS sync services
These services handle the subscriptions and viewing in a web browser. Many reader apps allow connections to these services, so you can read in a mobile app of your choice.

Feedbin ($5 / month)
Inoreader (free for basic account)

RSS apps
These can connect to a service above or you can manage your subscriptions locally in the app.

Reeder (iOS/Mac - can do RSS content, podcasts, and social media in one app)
Tapestry (iOS only currently - similar idea as Reeder)
Unread (iOS/Mac)
Capy Reader (Android)

Apps you can do automated things with RSS feeds
These services allow you to send RSS feed entries to other locations, like sharing a post automatically to social media.

Echofeed - focused on social media sharing mainly. Free for a single feed/destination combo (echo), $25 per year for unlimited
IFTTT - you can create “recipes” that involve a crazy number of available services. Free for 2 “recipes”, plans starting at $2.50/month for more.
Micro.blog - this service will not only get you a blog and non-anxiety inducing social network, but it has a robust cross posting service that handles RSS feeds from other sources. This allows you to automatically post these feeds to your blog and share to mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and other sites. Plans starting at $1 per month, but the $5 plan is where you will want to be.

Can you add...?

If it's Spotify or anything Google/Meta/Elon Musk the answer is a hard no.

Otherwise, I'll consider most anything that fits the site purpose. 😄

More coming soon!