tinmop/README.org

tinmop

• Introduction
• Peculiar Features
  • Important note
• Dependency
  • Programs
  • Lisp Libraries
  • Foreign (C language) library
• Install
  • Using guix
  • From source
• Usage
• BUGS
• Translations
• License
• Privacy
• Contributing
• FAQ
• NO WARRANTY
• Acknowledgment

Introduction

Tinmop is an opinionated client for Pleroma (using the mastodon API) and gemini protocol. It offer a distraction free terminal interface.

The name is a recursive acronym: "Tinmop Is Not Mutt or Pine". The older of us can remember that, in turn, Pine is sometimes considered an acronym as well: "Pine Is Not Elm" and, finally, Elm means (according to Wikipedia): "Electronic Mail".

Peculiar Features

• tree structure of messages;
• subscriptions of hashtag;
• programmable and extensible;
• encrypted direct message (but see /cage/tinmop/src/commit/02ea992ca8cc20b976e943ffefbc5df6c00cdfcc/FAQ);
• no mentions notification, no knowledge of when or who favourited your status;
• No blocking or muting, the client can be configured to ignore a list of accounts.

Important note

This is alpha quality software, many things are broken, some feature are missing some works with unintended/unexpected side effects; this software is for testing only and remember that there is NO WARRANTY.

Dependency

Programs

• to build the package: xgettext.

• to install the package, including running the script to install lisp libraries (quick_quicklisp.sh):

  • AWK;
  • BASH shell.

• to run the program:

  • SBCL compiler;
  • xdg-open;
  • openssl;
  • your favourite editor (default: nano).

All the dependencies above should be available using the package manager of your distribution (apt, yum etc).

Lisp Libraries

• alexandria;
• cl-ppcre;
• tooter;
• croatoan;
• osicat;
• cl-spark;
• access;
• sqlite;
• sxql;
• sxql-composer;
• marshal;
• bordeaux-threads;
• log4cl;
• local-time;
• cl-colors2;
• cl-i18n;
• clunit2;
• esrap;
• ieee-floats;
• parse-number;
• cl-html5-parser;
• unix-opts;
• crypto-shortcuts;
• drakma.

All these libraries will be downloaded, compiled and installed by the script quick_quicklisp.sh, see below.

Foreign (C language) library

• libssl (TLS socket)

  The C library should be installed with their header (*.h) files. On Debian or derived system this means installing the library package with the -dev suffix as shown below:

  # apt-get install libssl-dev

Install

Using guix

Using guix is the simpler way to install this software:

$ guix install tinmop

Guix can be installed on debian (testing or sid):

$ apt-get install guix

or using a shell script as explained in the guix manual.

From source

1. optional step needed only if you have not already the configure script, you will need autotools for that.

   $ autoreconf -fiv

2. run configure and resolve the missing dependencies (if any)

   $ ./configure

3. the script quick-quicklisp.sh will download and install the library manager and the library on your home dir.

   $ ./quick_quicklisp.sh

   This step is optional if you have already installed quicklisp, in this case just load the dependencies using the client installed on your computer.

4. clone in $HOME/quicklisp/local-projects/ the latest version of croatoan, a library to wrap the ncurses TUI library.

   This step is temporary as this version will get into quicklisp eventually.

   $ cd $HOME/quicklisp/local-projects/
   $ git clone https://github.com/McParen/croatoan.git

5. build the executable:

   $ make

6. install on your system:

   # make install

7. take a look the manpage:

   $ man tinmop

8. run the software!

   $ tinmop

9. An error will be printed about a missing file place a simple configuration file in one of the directory the software indicated. See the FAQ below.

Usage

See the command line options:

 $ tinmop -h

To get instruction about configuration:

 $ man tinmop

BUGS

Please file bug reports on the notabug repository.

Translations

Only Italian translation is regularly updated.

License

This program is released under GNU General Public license version 3 or later (see COPYING file).

The program use data and code from other sources, please see LICENSES.org for credits.

Although any efforts has been put to make the list of credits exhaustive, errors are always possible. Please send correction to cage-dev at twistfold dot it.

Privacy

The author of this software collects no user data information with this software.

But this software is a client to connect and interact to one or more remote computer. So potentially it could share a lot of information with other actors but just after the user allowed it to do so.

It is the user responsibility to checks the privacy conditions of the instance this software connect to.

Moreover launching quick_quicklisp.sh will contact https://www.quicklisp.org/, check the quicklisp sources for details.

By default, pressing "!" will contact the remote service located at: "gemini://houston.coder.town/search".

Contributing

Any help is appreciated. If you intend to contribute please point your browser to the issue tracker or file a pull request.

But, please take a minute to read the file /cage/tinmop/src/commit/02ea992ca8cc20b976e943ffefbc5df6c00cdfcc/CONTRIBUTING.org

FAQ

• I just tried to start the program for the first time but it give me a weird error, what's wrong?

  Did you wrote a configuration file before starting?

  Tinmop expects a configuration file in your config directory (usually $HOME/.config/tinmop/). This file must contains at least the username and the name of the instance you want to connect.

  Example :

    # a line starting with a '#' is a comment
  
    # a file can be included in another with this directive:
    # use "shared.conf"
  
    # The server instance name
    server = server address
  
    # your username
    username = username

  If this file does not exists or is invalid tinmop could be used just as a gemini client.

  Please check the man page (tinmop(1)) for more information.

• The quick_quicklisp.sh script failed and refuse to start again, what can I do? If tinmop is the first Common lisp program you have ever installed installed, try to rename the directory $/HOME/quicklisp and, then, restart the script. If problem persists contact me.
• Is tinmop compatible with mastodon servers? Unfortunately no, the way some API endpoint provide the toots is not suitable for this client, for more information please go here. I hope this will change in the future but this depends entirely from the people are developing the server.
• OK the program is running but how can i use it? Press the key ? to get a list of the available keys available.
• Tinmop crashed! Where can i report that? The issue tracker is here: https://notabug.org/tinmop/issues/ Please also, if possible, send the backtrace of the process. To print a backtrace just write backtrace when the debugger has been invoked. Important note The backtrace can contains sensitive and personal information, please always carefully checks the backtrace contents before making this information public!
• Are the encrypted messages secure? No. First only a symmetric encryption scheme is implemented (so there is a problem of secure key exchanging). Moreover i am not a crypto expert and probably i made something wrong. Note that i am not claiming that the algorithm (AES256) or the implementation of such encrypting algorithm is flawed but that, likely, is flawed the code i wrote to use the crypto library in this software. So, please do not consider the encrypted message secure at all.

NO WARRANTY

tinmop: an humble mastodon client Copyright (C) 2020 cage

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Acknowledgment

My deep thanks to the folks that provided us with wonderful SBCL and Common lisp libraries.

In particular i want to thanks the authors of the libraries Croatoan and Tooter for their help when I started to develop this program.

There are more people i borrowed code and data from, they are mentioned in the file LINCENSES.org

This program is was born also with the help of CCCP: "Collettivo Computer Club Palermo".

Also thanks to "barbar" for testing of the installation scripts.