Prepending each post with asterisks disables MFM formatting (and hyperlinking) for Misskey/Sharkey/*key instances

[terberlo]

Hello rss-parrot -
I appreciate everything you've done to setup this service, and to run it for free: Thank you!

I've noticed that as of FEB-06 the formatting of rss-parrot posts has changed. Prior to FEB-06 an RSS post would begin with the MFM-encoded URL directly as the first part of a post. Sometime on FEB-06 and subsequently, posts began getting prepended with four asterisks "****" in front of the URL encoding.

Unfortunately, *key instances (misskey, sharkey, firefish, etc) interpret four asterisks as an escape sequence to stop processing MFM formatting. This results in the URL being un-clickable in the rss-parrot post when viewing from *key instances.
At bottom of this issue I've attached some screenshots to better illustrate the difference in post formatting.

While it is possible to select the URL and copy+paste it into the browser directly, such activity is hampered when viewing the post on mobile (and especially when viewing within a reader app such as Aria.)

Is it possible to revert the FEB-06 update that prepends asterisks in rss-parrot posts? Or perahps: can the prepended characters be replaced with something other than asterisk, such as hyphen "----" plus "++++" equals "====" hash "####" unicode dot "••••" hollowdot "◦◦◦◦" box "▢▢▢▢" or some other alternative?

Thank you again for your ongoing effort to keep this service usable & effective. We appreciate it!

Prior to FEB-06 update:

Subsequent to FEB-06 update:

[gugray]

I merged a PR on Feb 6 that slightly changed the format of the Parrot's outgoing toots: #58

The Parrot sends out its toots in a simple HTML format (that's the format of messages in Mastodon). I'm not sure where you are seeing the asterisks and other prepended characters/markup. I suspect those may be the outcome of a transformation that already happens inside Misskey. In the Mastodon web UI and in the Toot! app I'm getting clickable links.

The Feb 6 PR changed the outgout toot template from this:
<p>{{title}}</p><p><a href="{{url}}">{{prettyUrl}}</a></p><p>{{description}}</p>
to this:
<p><strong>{{title}}</strong></p><p><a href="{{url}}">{{prettyUrl}}</a></p><p>{{description}}</p>

It's possible that the new post template results in the behavior you're observing in Misskey, but I'm unsure why it would be the case, or what I should do about it. Can you consult the Misskey developers too?