About

Mastodonochrome is an UNFINISHED terminal-based client for the Mastodon federated social network.

It has the following useful properties:

• Terminal-based, so you can run it remotely over SSH
• Single user interface that allows access to both your home timeline and your notifications (believe it or not, at least one existing terminal client doesn't do this)
• Single-column display, so you can paste URLs out of the terminal to a browser without including unrelated text in other columns (though the paste will unfortunately include newlines at the wrap points)
• Uses the Mastodon streaming API, so updates to your timeline or mentions by other users are brought to your attention promptly

The detailed user interface is modelled after Monochrome BBS, because that was a user interface that the author happened to be familiar with already, which was compatible with all the properties listed above.

This means it looks a bit different from the typical Mastodon client UI:

• Timelines are printed with old stuff at the top and new stuff at the bottom
• The client remembers the last thing in your timeline you'd read, so that when you restart the client you scroll down from there to see new stuff
• Notifications are divided up into separate categories in different parts of the UI: @mentions and direct messages live in one place and beep to get your attention, while boosts, follows and faves go into a separate less prominent log elsewhere.

Current status: unfinished, but has enough features to be usable. No separate manual, but you can press F1 for help anywhere in the program. Read TODO.md for the list of known missing pieces.