mastodon
- Description
- Client for fediverse services using the Mastodon API
- Latest
- mastodon-1.1.5.0.20241102.163459.tar (.sig), 2024-Nov-02, 1.20 MiB
- Maintainer
- Marty Hiatt <mousebot@disroot.org>
- Website
- https://codeberg.org/martianh/mastodon.el
- Browse ELPA's repository
- CGit or Gitweb
- Badge
- Manual
- mastodon
To install this package from Emacs, use package-install
or list-packages
.
Full description
1. README
mastodon.el
is an Emacs client for the AcitivityPub social networks that
implement the Mastodon API. For info see joinmastodon.org.
NB: mastodon.el
now ships this readme as an .info file, so if you have it installed you should be able to browse this readme inside emacs. C-h i
for info, then m masto RET
should load it for you.
1.1. Installation
You can install mastodon.el
from ELPA, MELPA, or directly from this repo. It is also available as a GUIX package.
1.1.1. ELPA
You should be able to directly install with:
M-x package-refresh-contents RET
M-x package-install RET mastodon RET
1.1.2. MELPA
Add MELPA
to your archives:
(require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/") t)
Update and install:
M-x package-refresh-contents RET
M-x package-install RET mastodon RET
1.1.3. Repo
Clone this repository and add the lisp directory to your load path. Then, require it and go.
(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/mastodon.el/lisp") (require 'mastodon)
Or, with use-package
:
(use-package mastodon :ensure t)
The minimum Emacs version is now 28.1. But if you are running an older version it shouldn't be very hard to get it working.
1.1.4. Emoji
Since Emacs 28, it has builtin emoji support with emoji.el
. If you prefer to use Emojify, require
it and set mastodon-use-emojify
to non-nil to display emoji in timelines and to use it when composing toots. Emoji.el
is the better option, but for now only emojify
supports downloading and using custom emoji from your instance. From personal experience, emojify
also tends to result in less TOFU.
1.1.5. Discover
mastodon-mode
can provide a context menu for its keybindings if Discover is
installed. It is not required.
if you have Discover, add the following to your Emacs init configuration:
(require 'mastodon-discover) (with-eval-after-load 'mastodon (mastodon-discover))
Or, with use-package
:
(use-package mastodon :ensure t :config (mastodon-discover))
1.2. Usage
1.2.1. Logging in to your instance
You need to set 2 variables in your init file to get started:
mastodon-instance-url
mastodon-active-user
(see their doc strings for details). For example If you want to post toots as "exampleuser@social.instance.org", then put this in your init file:
(setq mastodon-instance-url "https://social.instance.org" mastodon-active-user "example_user")
Then restart Emacs and run M-x mastodon
. Make sure you are connected
to internet before you do this. If you have multiple mastodon accounts
you can activate one at a time by changing those two variables and
restarting Emacs.
If you were using mastodon.el before 2FA was implemented and the above steps
do not work, delete the old file specified by mastodon-client--token-file
and
restart Emacs and follow the steps again.
1.2.2. Timelines
M-x mastodon
Opens a *mastodon-home*
buffer in the major mode and displays toots. If your
credentials are not yet saved, you will be prompted for email and password.
The app registration process will take place if your mastodon-token-file
does
not contain :client_id
and :client_secret
.
- Keybindings
For a full list of commands and variables, see mastodon-index.org.
Key Action Help ?
Show discover menu of all bindings, if discover
is availableTimeline actions n
Go to next item (toot, notification, user) p
Go to previous item (toot, notification, user) M-n=/=<tab>
Go to the next interesting thing that has an action M-p=/=<S-tab>
Go to the previous interesting thing that has an action F
Open federated timeline (1 prefix arg: hide-replies, 2 prefix args: media only) H
Open home timeline (1 prefix arg: hide-replies) L
Open local timeline (1 prefix arg: hide-replies, 2 prefix args: media only) N
Open notifications timeline @
Open mentions-only notifications timeline u
Update current timeline T
Open thread for toot at point #
Prompt for tag and open its timeline A
Open author profile of toot at point P
Open profile of user attached to toot at point O
View own profile U
update your profile bio note ;
view instance description for toot at point :
view followed tags and load a tag timeline C-:
view timeline of all followed tags ,
view favouriters of toot at point .
view boosters of toot at point /
switch between mastodon buffers \
prompt for an instance domain and view its local timeline (if poss) Z
report user/toot at point to instances moderators Other views s
search (posts, users, tags) (NB: only posts you have interacted with) I
,c
,d
view, create, and delete filters R
,a
,j
view/accept/reject follow requests G
view follow suggestions V
view your favourited toots K
view bookmarked toots X
view/edit/create/delete lists S
view your scheduled toots S-:
view profile/account settings transient menu Toot actions t
Compose a new toot c
Toggle content warning content b
Boost toot under point
f
Favourite toot under point
k
toggle bookmark of toot at point r
Reply to toot under point
v
Vote on poll at point C
copy url of toot at point C-RET
play video/gif at point (requires mpv
)e
edit your toot at point E
view edits of toot at point i
(un)pin your toot at point d
delete your toot at point, and reload current timeline D
delete and redraft toot at point, preserving reply/CW/visibility !
toggle folding of toot at point ( S-C-
)W
,M
,B
(un)follow, (un)mute, (un)block author of toot at point Profile view C-c C-c
cycle between statuses, statuses without boosts, followers, and following mastodon-profile--add-account-to-list
(see lists view)Notifications view a
,j
accept/reject follow request C-k
clear notification at point see mastodon-notifications--get-*
functions for filtered viewsQuitting q
Quit mastodon buffer, leave window open Q
Quit mastodon buffer and kill window C-M-q
Quit and kill all mastodon buffers - Toot byline legend
Marker Meaning (đ)
(or(B)
)I boosted this toot (â)
(or(F)
)I favourited this toot (đ)
(or (K
))I bookmarked this toot
1.2.3. Composing toots
M-x mastodon-toot
(or t
from a mastodon.el buffer) opens a new buffer/window
in text-mode
and mastodon-toot
minor mode. Enter the contents of your toot
here. C-c C-c
sends the toot. C-c C-k
cancels. Both actions kill the buffer
and window. Further keybindings are displayed in the buffer, and in the following subsection.
Replies preserve visibility status/content warnings, and include boosters by default. If the region is active when you start a reply, it will be yanked into the compose buffer prefixed with >
to form a rough reply quote.
Server's max toot length, with running char count, and attachment previews, are shown.
You can download and use your instance's custom emoji
(mastodon-toot--download-custom-emoji
, mastodon-toot--enable-custom-emoji
).
If you want to view some of the toot being replied to in the compose buffer, set mastodon-toot-display-orig-in-reply-buffer
to non-nil.
The compose buffer uses text-mode
so any configuration you have for that mode
will be enabled. If any of your existing config conflicts with mastodon-toot
,
you can disable it in the mastodon-toot-mode-hook
. For example, the default
value of that hook is as follows:
(add-hook 'mastodon-toot-mode-hook (lambda () (auto-fill-mode -1)))
- Keybindings
Key Action C-c C-c
Send toot C-c C-k
Cancel toot C-c C-w
Add content warning C-c C-v
Change toot visibility C-c C-n
Add sensitive media/nsfw flag C-c C-a
Upload attachment(s) C-c !
Remove all attachments C-c C-e
Insert emoji C-c C-p
Create a poll C-c C-o
Cancel poll C-c C-l
Set toot language C-c C-s
Schedule toot - Autocompletion of mentions, tags and emoji
Autocompletion of mentions, tags, and emojis is provided by
completion-at-point-functions
(capf) backends.mastodon-toot--enable-completion
is enabled by default.To trigger completion, type a prefix followed by a few letters,
@
for mentions,#
for tags, and:
for emoji (for now this only works when usingemojify.el
).If you want to enable
company-mode
in the toot compose buffer, setmastodon-toot--use-company-for-completion
tot
. (mastodon.el
used to run its own native company backends, but these have been removed in favour of capfs.)If you donât run
company
and want immediate, keyless completion, youâll need to have another completion engine running that handles capfs. A common combination isconsult
andcorfu
. - Draft toots
- Compose buffer text is saved as you type, kept in
mastodon-toot-current-toot-text
. mastodon-toot--save-draft
: save the current toot as a draft.mastodon-toot--open-draft-toot
: Open a compose buffer and insert one of your draft toots.mastodon-toot--delete-draft-toot
: Delete a draft toot.mastodon-toot--delete-all-drafts
: Delete all your drafts.
- Compose buffer text is saved as you type, kept in
1.2.4. Other commands and account settings:
In addition to mastodon
, the following three functions are autoloaded and should
work without first loading a mastodon.el
buffer:
mastodon-toot
: Compose new tootmastodon-notifications-get
: View all notificationsmastodon-url-lookup
: Attempt to load a URL inmastodon.el
. URL may be at point or provided in the minibuffer.
mastodon-tl--view-instance-description
: View information about the instance that the author of the toot at point is on.mastodon-tl--view-own-instance
: View information about your own instance.mastodon-search--trending-tags
: View a list of trending hashtags on your instance.mastodon-search--trending-statuses
: View a list of trending statuses on your instance.mastodon-search--trending-links
: View a list of trending links on your instance (+ click through to a timeline of posts featuring a given link)mastodon-tl--add-toot-account-at-point-to-list
: Add the account of the toot at point to a list.
mastodon-tl--dm-user
: Send a direct message to one of the users at point.
mastodon-profile--add-private-note-to-account
: Add a private note to another userâs account.mastodon-profile--view-account-private-note
: View a private note on a userâs account.
mastodon-profile--show-familiar-followers
: Show a list of âfamiliar followersâ for a given account. Familiar followers are accounts that you follow, and that follow the account.
mastodon-tl--follow-tag
: Follow a tag (works like following a user)mastodon-tl--unfollow-tag
: Unfollow a tagmastodon-tl--list-followed-tags
: View a list of tags you're following.mastodon-tl--followed-tags-timeline
: View a timeline of all your followed tags.mastodon-tl--some-followed-tags-timleine
: View a timeline of multiple tags, from your followed tags or any other.
mastodon-switch-to-buffer
: switch between mastodon buffers.
mastodon-tl--get-remote-local-timeline
: View a local timeline of a remote instance.mastodon-tl--remote-tag-timeline
: View a tag timeline on a remote instance.
mastodon-user-settings
: Launch a transient menu to update various account settings.
1.2.5. Notifications
Mastodon from 4.3 supports grouped notifications. These are implemented by mastodon.el
. If you are on an instance that doesn't implement grouped notifications, set mastodon-group-notifications
to nil.
1.2.6. Customization
See M-x customize-group RET mastodon
to view all customize options.
- Timeline options:
- Use proportional fonts
- Default number of posts displayed
- Timestamp format
- Relative timestamps
- Display user avatars
- Avatar image height
- Enable image caching
- Hide replies in timelines
- Show toot stats in byline
- Compose options:
- Completion style for mentions and tags
- Enable custom emoji
- Display toot being replied to
- Set default reply visibility
- Nofitication options:
- Display user's profile note in follow requests
1.2.7. Commands and variables index
An index of all user-facing commands and custom variables is available here: mastodon-index.org.
You can also hit ?
in any mastodon.el
buffer to see the available bindings, or run M-X
(upper-case X
) to view all commands in the buffer with completion, and call one.
1.2.8. Packages related to mastodon.el
- Alternative timeline layout
The incomparable Nicholas Rougier has written an alternative timeline layout for
mastodon.el
.The repo is at mastodon-alt.
- Mastodon hydra
A user made a hydra for handling basic
mastodon.el
commands. It's available at https://holgerschurig.github.io/en/emacs-mastodon-hydra/. - Narrow to timeline item
A simple code snippet to enable narrowing to current item in timelines: http://takeonrules.com/2024/10/31/hacking-on-mastodon-emacs-package-to-narrow-viewing/
1.2.9. Live-updating timelines: mastodon-async-mode
(code taken from mastodon-future.)
Works for federated, local, and home timelines and for notifications. It's a
little touchy, one thing to avoid is trying to load a timeline more than once
at a time. It can go off the rails a bit, but it's still pretty cool. The
current maintainer of mastodon.el
is unable to debug or improve this feature.
To enable, it, add (require 'mastodon-async)
to your init.el
. Then you can
view a timeline with one of the commands that begin with
mastodon-async--stream-
.
1.2.10. Translating toots
You can translate toots with mastodon-toot--translate-toot-text
(a
in a
timeline). At the moment this requires lingva.el, a little interface I wrote
to lingva.ml, to be installed to work.
You could easily modify the simple function to use your Emacs translator of
choice (libretrans.el
, google-translate
, babel
, go-translate
, etc.), you just
need to fetch the toot's content with (mastodon-tl--content toot)
and pass it
to your translator function as its text argument. Here's what
mastodon-toot--translate-toot-text
looks like:
(defun mastodon-toot--translate-toot-text () "Translate text of toot at point. Uses `lingva.el'." (interactive) (let* ((toot (mastodon-tl--property 'item-json))) (if toot (lingva-translate nil (mastodon-tl--content toot)) (message "No toot to translate?"))))
1.2.11. Bookmarks and mastodon.el
mastodon.el
implements a basic bookmark record and handler. Currently, this means that you can bookmark a post item and later load it in thread view. This could be expanded to any item with an id, but probably not to things like timeline views. If you want to be able to bookmark something, open an issue and ask, as it's trivial to expand the bookmarking code.
1.3. Dependencies
Hard dependencies (should all install with mastodon.el
):
request
(for uploading attachments), emacs-requestpersist
for storing some settings across sessionstp.el
for transient menus
Optional dependencies (install yourself, mastodon.el
can use them):
emojify
to use custom emoji (else we use builtinemoji.el
)mpv
andmpv.el
for viewing videos and gifslingva.el
for translating toots
1.4. Network compatibility
mastodon.el
should work with ActivityPub servers that implement the Mastodon API.
Apart from Mastodon itself, it is currently known to work with:
- Pleroma (pleroma.social)
- Akkoma (akkoma.social)
- Gotosocial (gotosocial.org)
It does not support the non-Mastodon API servers Misskey (misskey.io), Firefish (joinfirefish.org, formerly Calkey) and Friendica, but it should fully support displaying and interacting with posts and users on those platforms.
If you attempt to use mastodon.el
with a server and run into problems, feel
free to open an issue.
1.5. Contributing
PRs, issues, feature requests, and general feedback are very welcome!
If you prefer emailing patches to the process described below, feel free to send them on. Ideally they'd be patches that can be applied with git am
, if you want to actually contribute a commit.
1.5.1. Bug reports
mastodon.el
has bugs, as well as lots of room for improvement.- I receive very little feedback, so if I don't run into the bug it often doesn't get fixed.
- If you run into something that seems broken, first try running
mastodon.el
in emacs with no init file (i.e.emacs -q
(instructions and code for doing this are here) to see if it also happens independently of your own config (it probably does). - Else enable debug on error (
toggle-debug-on-error
), make the bug happen again, and copy the backtrace that appears. - Open an issue here and explain what is going on. Provide your emacs version and what kind of server your account is on.
1.5.2. Fixes and features
- Create an issue detailing what you'd like to do.
- Fork the repository and create a branch off of
develop
. - Run the tests and ensure that your code doesn't break any of them.
- Create a pull request (to develop) referencing the issue created in step 1.
1.5.3. Coding style
- This library uses an unconvential double dash (
--
) between file namespaces and function names, which contradicts normal Elisp style. This needs to be respected until the whole library is changed. - Use
aggressive-indent-mode
or similar to keep your code indented. - Single spaces end sentences in docstrings.
- There's no need for a blank line after the first docstring line (one is added automatically when documentation is displayed).
1.6. Supporting mastodon.el
If you'd like to support continued development of mastodon.el
, I accept
donations via paypal: paypal.me/martianh. If you would prefer a different
payment method, please write to me at <mousebot {at} disroot.org> and I can
provide IBAN or other bank account details.
I don't have a tech worker's income, so even a small tip would help out.
1.7. Contributors
mastodon.el
is the work of a number of people.
Some significant contributors are:
1.8. Screenshots
Here's a (federated) timeline:
Here's a notifcations view plus a compose buffer:
Here's a user settings transient (active values green, current server values commented and, if a boolean, underlined):
Here's a user profile fields transient (changed fields green, current server values commented):
Old versions
mastodon-1.1.4.0.20241031.74313.tar.lz | 2024-Oct-31 | 625 KiB |
mastodon-1.1.2.0.20241029.92056.tar.lz | 2024-Oct-29 | 625 KiB |
mastodon-1.1.1.0.20241022.60426.tar.lz | 2024-Oct-22 | 621 KiB |
mastodon-1.0.27.0.20240920.183931.tar.lz | 2024-Sep-20 | 561 KiB |
mastodon-1.0.26.0.20240816.70908.tar.lz | 2024-Aug-16 | 560 KiB |
mastodon-1.0.23.0.20240531.121508.tar.lz | 2024-May-31 | 111 KiB |
mastodon-1.0.12.0.20240327.135304.tar.lz | 2024-Mar-31 | 109 KiB |
mastodon-1.0.9.0.20231014.83926.tar.lz | 2023-Oct-14 | 120 KiB |
mastodon-1.0.7.0.20231012.131256.tar.lz | 2023-Oct-12 | 119 KiB |
mastodon-1.0.6.0.20231007.80741.tar.lz | 2023-Oct-07 | 118 KiB |