Schedule boost

[tzeumer]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Sometimes I want to boost a post, but not right away, because it is probably the "wrong" time to reach potentially interested people. Maybe it's late at night, or it's the weekend, or it's a holiday. Or maybe I already reboosted it but want to do it again in the future.

Describe the solution you'd like
The boost button could have a second option "Schedule boost" to set a date and time for the boost. It would also be great if an existing boost for that post would be removed right before the scheduled boost.

Describe alternatives you've considered
The only way to accomplish something similar would be to bookmark or search for a post and manually boost it later.

[nikclayton]

There's a number of issues with this that require some consideration:

• This would only work if your device was on and had network connectivity at the scheduled time, as Mastodon doesn't support this functionality natively.
• This would require Pachli to request the special SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM Android permission, which might be off-putting to other users, so this needs some consideration.
• Not immediately obvious what should happen if the API call to boost the status fails. Should it retry a few times? For how long? How should the user be notified if this fails?
• What happens if the device is off / has no network connectivity at the relevant time, but comes back, say, 30 minutes later? How late is too late to send the boost request?
• How does the user manage the list of scheduled boosts? There would need to be a new UI that lists them, allows the user to delete the scheduled boost, or reschedule it.

[tzeumer]

Thanks for the answer. Couldn't the first 4 problems just have the same answer as for the existing "scheduled posts" feature? Or is post scheduling a native Mastodon feature and handled server side? I think in this case I'd be happy if it retried a few times and then gives me an error message. Maybe with an option to reschedule oder just boost now. But maybe other people would see value in such a feature and have other ideas :)

• How does the user manage the list of scheduled boosts? There would need to be a new UI that lists them, allows the user to delete the scheduled boost, or reschedule it.

Maybe the "Scheduled posts" could just become "Schedules" and have two tabs. One for the post, one for boosts?

[nikclayton]

Or is post scheduling a native Mastodon feature and handled server side?

Yes.