Tusky is a beautiful Android client for [Mastodon](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon). Mastodon is a GNU social-compatible federated social network. That means not one entity controls the whole network, rather, like e-mail, volunteers and organisations operate their own independent servers, users from which can all interact with each other seamlessly.
The project uses [the Gradle build system](https://gradle.org). Android studio uses Gradle by default, so it'd be straightforward to import this repository using your chosen version control software from the menu:
<pre>VCS > Checkout from version control > Git/SVN/Mercurial</pre>
After making it into an android studio project you can build/run as you wish.
It's also possible to build using Gradle by itself on the command line if you have it installed and configured. This repository includes a gradle wrapper script that can be used, following this guide [Build You App On The Command Line](https://developer.android.com/studio/build/building-cmdline.html).
This app uses Firebase's Cloud Messaging and Crash Reporting, so in order to build it, a Firebase project has to be made and associated with the build by including a ```google-services.json``` file in the ```app``` directory.
Tusky uses its own server for push notifications, the [tusky-api server](https://github.com/Gargron/tusky-api). This system works with Firebase and the Tusky-API server in tandem. After that is set up as per its directions, the only thing needed to call the server in this project is to give its URL to the string ```tusky_web_url``` in the file ```app/src/main/res/values/donottranslate.xml```.
