NonGNU ELPA - mastodon

You should be able to directly install with:

M-x package-refresh-contents RET

M-x package-install RET mastodon RET

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

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.

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.

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))

You need to set 2 variables in your init file to get started:

1. mastodon-instance-url
2. mastodon-active-user

(see their doc strings for details). For example If you want to post toots as "example_user@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, call (mastodon-forget-all-logins), restart Emacs and follow the steps again.

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.

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)))

In addition to mastodon, the following three functions are autoloaded and should work without first loading a mastodon.el buffer:

• mastodon-toot: Compose new toot
• mastodon-notifications-get: View all notifications
• mastodon-url-lookup: Attempt to load a URL in mastodon.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 user’s account.
• mastodon-profile--view-account-private-note: View a private note on a user’s account.

• mastodon-profile--show-familiar-followers: Show a list of “familiar followers” 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 tag
• mastodon-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.

Mastodon from 4.3 supports grouped notifications. These are implemented by mastodon.el but disabled by default out of consideration to users on instances that don't support them. If you are on an instance that implements grouped notifications, set mastodon-group-notifications to t to enable them.

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
  • Group notifications

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.

(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-.

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?"))))

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. mastodon.el has bugs, as well as lots of room for improvement.
2. I receive very little feedback, so if I don't run into the bug it often doesn't get fixed.
3. 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).
4. Else enable debug on error (toggle-debug-on-error), make the bug happen again, and copy the backtrace that appears.
5. Open an issue here and explain what is going on. Provide your emacs version and what kind of server your account is on.

1. Create an issue detailing what you'd like to do.
2. Fork the repository and create a branch off of develop.
3. Run the tests and ensure that your code doesn't break any of them.
4. Create a pull request (to develop) referencing the issue created in step 1.

• 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).