Then I need to go to my particular instance (lemm.ee)
Then I type manually in my browser address bar lemm.ee/c/<communityname>
Then I go back to https://browse.feddit.de/ and copy the address of the original instance of the community.
Then I go back and add the original instance address to already typed thing in step 4 like this lemm.ee/c/<communityname>@<originalinstanceofcommunity>
Then I can finally subscribe!
Oh my God! Please, tell me there's a better way of doing this!
EDIT:
There is a better way! Solution is to ... use the search function in your instances home page and select community (if it exists already) and search. This way I don't need to go to browse.feddit.de anymore. And links will take me straight the the communities "reflection" in my own instance, where I can subscribe.
The link doesn't even need to be in that format. Simply copying the link from the fediverse button (the rainbow Pentagon) and pasting that in your instances search will bring it up. It should only be a 3 step process. Although I still feel that can be a little clunky.
For discovery I browse the community list of whichever instance I'm viewing and then link it back to my home instance. I just wish I knew of a way to view the list of communities from an instance directly from my home instance. (Other than selecting the All filter from my home instance community list)
I don't know how a browser would know to open a link in a different webpage. An extension could possibly do it, an app can if you browse in it or paste into it, but at that point pasting into the search on your instance seems the same to me.
It seems a little too bad they didn't make it like a different protocol so the browser could send it to an program to handle like a mailto link, but otoh, this would mean it's not clickable just with a browser, which is less than ideal.
I guess after Mastodon I just got in the habit of copying the link to my instance search field.
ect convert to local instance community url. Update logic for local community urls to look for community if not available locally and display. So first time navigating to a community might take a little bit longer but seems very possible.
Edit: ugh some formatting issues
Edit2: to be clear I've been looking at the source code to figure it out and make a pull requests to make this happen
You can copy the link to the other community in full (something like instance.url/c/community_name) and go back to your community and go into the search menu. Paste the link in and you'll see the community in the search results. Click that link and you can subscribe
If anyone else on your instance has already subbed, you can "just" visit /communities/ on the instance where your account is and click subscribe.
If you're the first to discover this sub, it's an annoying process. The steps I'm used to (and that are described in the post above) are different than what you described. I'm not sure how much easier they are, but they're what I recommend and have found easiest among approaches I've tested.
if there was kind a data export feature. maybe we could export list of subscription list then we can import to other instance. it could be like mastodon migration.
When I add [email protected] into my search field, it doesn't show anything - in fact, it ends up telling me that there are no results. I have to then go into the Communities tab again, and hope it shows up there.
I can see it doing work as I watch the logs. But this is really a little weird/frustrating. I hope this sees improvement eventually! =)
Not exactly force. It's by design. Instances don't federate with each other unless a user of one wants to communicate with the other (via subscription, or commenting, or whatever).
But instances can block each other and if that happens, there's no way you can access from your instance.
What usually happens is that big instances (like lemmy.ml), just by the mere fact that they are big, are probably already federating with your instance anyway so you may not have encountered this situation.