9.5 KiB
tinmop
- Name
- Synopsis
- Description
- Options
- Usage
- Configuration
- First time start
- How to get more help
- BUGS
- Contributing
- Files
- Privacy
- Acknowledgment
Name
tinmop - a client for mastodon or pleroma social network
Synopsis
tinmop [OPTION]…
Description
This document assumes basic knowledge of how fediverse works. More information about this topic can be found on the official website (https://docs.joinmastodon.org/).
Tinmop proposes a terminal interface to connect with Pleroma social network
Options
Without options the program will start a terminal interface and will try to connect to your instance (see /cage/tinmop/src/commit/e5b6f3b0cd9f6e0a641a087fefc00a24a5902a36/doc/Configuration)
- -o, –open-gemini-url ARG
- Open gemini url
- -m, –notify-mentions ARG
- Notify messages that mentions the user
- -R, –reset-timeline-pagination
- Reset the timeline pagination. By default the new toots are fetched starting from the last one downloaded from the instance, this switch will force the program to fetch the last message posted by users
- -c, –check-follows-requests
- Checks for follow request at start
- -e, –execute-script SCRIPT-FILE
- Execute a script file
- -f, –folder FOLDER-NAME
- Start on that folder
- -h, –help
- print program help and exit
- -t, –timeline TIMELINE-NAME
- Start using this timeline
- -u, –update-timeline
- Update the selected timeline
- -v, –version
- Print program version and exit
Usage
Users of Tinmop supposed to interact with the social network using a terminal interface (TUI), The terminal screen layout is sketched below:
+---------------+---------------------------+
| | |
| tags window | thread windows |
| | |
| | modeline |
+---------------+---------------------------+
| | |
| conversations | message window |
| window | |
| | |
| | |
+---------------+---------------------------+
| command window |
+-------------------------------------------+The screen is subdivided in five window:
- tag window
- shows the tag users subscribed for and available
messages for each tag;
- threads window
- for a given timeline and folder (see
/cage/tinmop/src/commit/e5b6f3b0cd9f6e0a641a087fefc00a24a5902a36/doc/Folders) show the discussions saved in user's local database;
- conversations window
- show the private conversations the user is having with others;
- message window
- show the body of the message selected in the tag window
- command window
- the window where the user instruct the software to perform commands
The main way to interact with the program is using the keyboard.
There is a contextual help that appears when the user input data
that provide hints about commands and a quick help window that can
be shown by hitting ? (if this keybinding has not been
customized).
Folders
A folder is an object to groups messages for each timeline an arbitrary number of folders can be created, when the last message of a folder is deleted the folder is deleted as well.
Configuration
The configuration of tinmop is based on text files but there are available two different kind with different syntax and scope.
- a key-value text files used to configure the access credential to
server and visual theme of the program (simple configuration);
- common lisp source code. Used to write module (AKA plugin) and to
configure keybindings to interact with the software.
The distribution of this software comes with a bunch of pre-backed configuration files but user is expected to write a simple file with their credential to log into the server.
Simple configuration
This is a simple file with each entry in a single line that look like this:
# 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 = usernameNot incidentally the information in the example above are the absolute minimum the user has to provide before starts the program: the name you chose when you made the account on the server and the address of the server.
As you can see a line starting with a # is considered comment and skipped by the program
The file with this credential are confidential and must be put into
user's home directory under the path
$HOME/.local/share/tinmop/main.conf. Probably the directory
tinmop does not exists on user system, if it does not exists must
be created manually.
If the program was installed correctly two other files with simple
semantics are located in your system wide configuration directory
(usually /etc/tinmop/), please check these files for more
information, as they are extensively commented.
Lisp program
These files contains Common lisp (see https://common-lisp.net/) source code. And are used both as a way to configure the program and to write module for tinmop itself.
These files are the only way to configure program's keybindings: sequence of pressing button to fire command commands (do not worry it is not too difficult!).
These files must be a valid Common Lisp program to allow the program to even starts. Again this is actual source code that is loaded end executed by the main program; be careful, do not copy and paste code from untrusted sources as this could results in a severe security damage.
Again in the configuration directory there is a (commented) file
named init.lisp that user can use as their starting point to
write their files. A custom init file, or other module files, must
be located into the directory $HOME/.local/share/tinmop/ or
$HOME/.config/tinmop/ (because, you know, data is code and code
is data) to be successfully loaded.
However there is no need to write their own init file if user is happy with the provided one by the package maintainers.
First time start
After the configuration the program can be started but we are not ready to join the network yet because tinmop need to be trusted by the server. Just follows the instruction on screen to register the application with your instance. This procedure should be followed once: when the program starts for the first time (but please note that there must be a file with valid credentials available).
How to get more help
For help with mastodon visit the mastodon website.
The program has an inline help (default binding for help is "?")
Moreover you can have some useful hint at the program web page:
BUGS
There are many, totally unknown, hiding in the code! Please help the programmer to nail them using the issue tracker.
Contributing
There is always need for help, you can join the developer, sending patches or translating the UI to your favourite language.
Just point your browser to the code repository.
See also the file CONTRIBUTE.org
Debug mode
If you decomment the line:
;;(push :debug-mode *features*)
The program will be compiled in debug-mode this means that a lot
of diagnostic output will be appended to a file named tinmop.log
in the directory $HOME/.local/share/tinmop/.
Files
$HOME/.local/share/tinmop/db.sqlite3: the program database$HOME/.local/share/tinmop/client: the program credentials to connect with the instance keep private!$HOME/.local/share/tinmop/tinmop.log: this file is created only for debugging and should not be enabled in binary package distribution (see /cage/tinmop/src/commit/e5b6f3b0cd9f6e0a641a087fefc00a24a5902a36/doc/Contributing)./etc/tinmop/default-theme.conf: default visual style/etc/tinmop/shared.conf: some default configuration not related to themes/etc/tinmop/init.lisp: system wide configuration$HOME/.config/tinmop/init.lisp: user configuration$HOME/.config/tinmop/main.conf: user configuration (simple format)
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.
By default, pressing "!" will contact the remote service located at: "gemini://houston.coder.town/search".
Moreover launching quick_quicklisp.sh will contact
https://www.quicklisp.org/, check the
quicklisp sources for
details.
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.