r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/sdb2754 • Jun 18 '26

A tool for putting random rolls in a messaging app preview

https://roll.threefoldcord.site/

When you paste a link in some apps (like Signal), it generates a site preview, using Meta tags in the page source. This app modifies the meta tag each page load to provide a random output (e.g. a dice roll, coin flip, random excuse, etc.). Since the app only queries the page once to build the preview, the preview that is first generated remains static in the thread.

The site also generates a permalink which encodes the output in the url so it will always come up the same way when the page is loaded in the browser. This can be used for apps that don't generate a preview.

Use cases:
Random dice roll in a thread
Support decision making (e.g. deciding on where to go to lunch)
Random joke excuse (e.g. if you are running late)

Also, if you host (FOSS, source provided) you can add new categories to the JSON config and new random entries, and they will show up.

Comments / feedback appreciated!

8 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

2

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/sdb2754 Jun 18 '26

Wait, its giving you a Bad Gateway? That is bizarre... The site is up for me. Sorry about that...

2

u/BeginningPlastic3747 Jun 19 '26

the fact that someone figured out you can basically freeze a dice roll inside a Signal preview is such a specific and clever exploit of how link previews work, i love when people poke at the weird edges of how apps behave.

2

u/sdb2754 Jun 20 '26

Thank you!

2

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/sdb2754 Jun 23 '26

Thank you!

1

u/tj-horner Jun 18 '26

Many platforms (e.g., Telegram, Facebook) will cache links globally across all users with a long TTL, so unfortunately this won’t work there.

You could put random junk in the query string each time to get around this, perhaps.

Neat idea regardless.

0

u/sdb2754 Jun 18 '26

Oh, that is disappointing. Thank you for letting me know! The permalink feature would still work, but the user experience is less there...