I Got an Account On Mastodon

I got an account on Mastodon. I am at https://emacs.ch/@EMacAdie. It is on a server for Emacs enthusiasts. I will probably post about more than just Emacs.

I created the account in the browser, but afterwards I posted using the Mastodon client hosted on Codeberg; here is a link to the post. After you install and add a couple of vars to your Emacs config, you type “M-x mastodon“, and it puts a URL to the authorization page in the OS buffer. You go there, then you get the token, or the secret, or whatever OAuth calls it, and you then do back to Emacs and C-y, and you are in. It will put a file called “mastodon.plstore” with all the login info in your Emacs config directory. If you put your config into a git repo, add “mastodon.plstore” to your .gitignore file (or whatever your equivalent is if you do not use git).

One thing the author of the client does not mention is that you cannot authorize the client if you run with “–no-window-system“. The URL I kept getting when I ran Emacs in terminal mode was just the regular page for my profile. I could get to a page listed what apps were authorized, but I could not actually authorize anything. I re-started Emacs without “–no-window-system” and it worked fine. I looked at some of Mastering Emacs, and apparently there are some things that do not work when you are in terminal mode. There are some times I thought I was doing something wrong and could not get something to work. Perhaps the real issue was that I was in terminal mode.

The client repo does mention that if you want to post with a second account, you need to edit your config and restart.

I mentioned the Mastodon client in my post about the December 2022 Austin Emacs meetup.

What does one do on Mastodon? Tweet? Mastocate? Is there another word for it? [Note 1]

The code for the client is hosted on Codeberg. I might move my Github repos to Codeberg. I want to have as little Microsoft in my life as I can. If I do, I might give some money to Codeberg to help keep them going. I might also donate to help keep Emacs.ch running. I have given money to Wikipedia. I will make a list of projects/organizations to make small donations to, and track them in Org.

I will try to post a link to this post from the Emacs client, but I reserve the right to fall back to the web if needed.

You’re welcome.

Note 1, added after publishing: Per the comments, apparently you “toot” on Mastodon.

Image from the Emperor’s Bible, an 11-century manuscript housed in the Uppsala University Library; image from the Alvin portal, assumed allowed under public domain.