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Macstodon

A basic Mastodon client for Classic Mac OS
created by @[email protected]

About

Macstodon is an app written in MacPython 1.5.2 for Classic Mac OS that lets you interact with a Mastodon server by viewing timelines, posting toots, and more!

No support is provided for this app, and I don't plan on maintaining it long-term. This is just a fun hack project, not a serious development effort.

System Requirements

  • A 68k Macintosh with a 68020, 68030, or 68040 processor, or, any Power Macintosh
  • At least 4 MB of free memory (8-16 MB strongly recommended)
  • System 7.1 to Mac OS 9.2.2
  • 32-bit addressing enabled
  • Internet Config installed if you are running Mac OS 8.1 or earlier
  • An SSL-stripping proxy server (such as WebOne) running on another computer on your network.

Required Extensions

Note: Macstodon comes with a bundled installer that will install any extensions that your OS version requires. However, if you are building from source, you will need to manually install the below extensions.

(Exception: If you are running an international version of System 7.1, you will need to manually update to Finder 7.1.3 or later in order to use text-to-speech functionality.)

For 68k Macs running System 7.1 through System 7.6.1:

  • CFM-68K Runtime Enabler
  • ObjectSupportLib
  • NuDragLib.slb

Optional Extensions

For text-to-speech support on 68k Macs:

  • AppleScript
  • Finder 7.1.3 or newer (the "Scriptable Finder")
  • Finder Scripting Extension
  • Say Scripting Addition
  • PlainTalk

For text-to-speech support on PPC Macs:

  • PlainTalk

Screenshots

Timeline View

Profile View

Replying to a Toot

Content Warning Dialog

Viewing Links in a Toot

Viewing Attachments in a Toot

Editing Preferences

Features

  • Authentication
  • Post plain-text toots with full control of visibility, and optional content warnings
  • View any timeline including lists and hashtags in a customizable three-column view
  • Favourite, boost, and bookmark toots
  • Reply to toots from others
  • Follow links in toots
  • Download attachments from toots
  • Have any toot read out to you using PlainTalk text-to-speech
  • Look up users by handle and view their profiles
  • Follow/unfollow, mute/unmute, and block/unblock users

That's it for now. Maybe more features will be implemented in a later version.

How to Run It

  1. Download and install the latest version of Macstodon from the Releases page: https://github.com/smallsco/macstodon/releases
  2. Decompress the archive and launch the Macstodon Installer application.
  3. Follow the instructions in the Macstodon installer, selecting a folder to install to, and rebooting your machine when the installation completes.
  4. Double-click the Macstodon app (in the folder you selected during the installation) to run it!
  5. In the "Server" window that appears, type the full URL to your Mastodon server, using http instead of https, and without the trailing slash. Then click the Login button.
  6. After a moment, your web browser should automatically launch to your Mastodon instance's authentication page. Log in here, and you will be redirected to another page with a code on it. Copy this code to the clipboard.
  7. Now return to the Macstodon application. An Auth window will have appeared with another text box, paste the code into this box and press the OK button.
  8. After a moment, the Timeline window will appear and Macstodon will start loading the timelines and notifications from your instance. This will take some time, please be patient.
  9. When the progress dialog has gone away, you will be able to interact with the Timeline window. Click on a toot or notification to view it in the bottom third of the window. Or click the Refresh button above one of the timelines to refresh that timeline with the latest data.
  10. If you click the Post Toot button in the Timeline window, a Toot window will appear. In this window you can type a message and press the Toot! button to post it to the Mastodon server. After tooting you can click Close to return to the Timeline window.
  11. Clicking Logout in the Timeline window will return you to the Server window.
  12. Clicking Quit in the Server window will quit Macstodon. The next time you run it, you will not need to re-authenticate unless you change the server URL.

How to compile it

Note: Macstodon must be compiled using a PowerPC Macintosh. The resulting binary will still work on 68K machines, but the compilation must happen on a PowerPC.

  1. Download the Macstodon source code from GitHub, and place it whereever you like on your hard disk.
  2. Download MacPython 1.5.2 from here: https://homepages.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython/downloads/old/MacPython152.hqx
  3. Decompress the MacPython archive and run the installer. Select the Custom Install option from the dropdown, then select the Minimal Install for Any Macintosh with CFM option. This is the only option that will let you build fat binaries.
  4. Run the EditPythonPrefs application that comes with MacPython. Add the following lines to the System-Wide preferences. Then save your changes and exit. 
    $(PYTHON):Extensions:Imaging:PIL
$(PYTHON):Mac:Tools:IDE
  5. Decompress the Macstodon.rsrc.sit.hqx file until you have Macstodon.rsrc. Keep this in the same directory as Macstodon.py.
  6. Edit line 81 of the macgen_bin.py file, which comes with MacPython and is located in the Mac:Tools:macfreeze directory. Comment out this line, it should look like this after your change: 
    #fss.SetCreatorType('Pyta', APPL)
    (This fixes a bug in MacPython 1.5.2, where the build system is overriding the creator type of the application defined in the RSRC with its' own. You can still build Macstodon without this fix, but it won't have its' lovely icon!)
  7. Drag and drop the Macstodon.py file onto the BuildApplication app that comes with MacPython.
  8. When prompted, select the Build FAT Application radio button.
  9. Select where you want to save the app to.
  10. Wait about 10 minutes or so for the build to finish. When it's done, you should have your own self-compiled copy of Macstodon!

Known Issues

  • SSL is not supported at all, because neither the Classic Mac OS nor the ancient version of MacPython used to build Macstodon know anything about it.
  • This means, in order to use Macstodon, you must run an SSL-stripping proxy server running on another computer on your network, and configure your Mac to use it. This is outside the scope of this readme, however:
    • I strongly recommend the use of the WebOne proxy, which is what I develop with. Other proxy servers have not been tested, and may or may not work correctly with Macstodon.
    • If you are using WebOne 0.16 or later, you probably don't need to make any changes to WebOne's configuration. Give Macstodon a try and see if it works for you!
    • If you are using WebOne 0.15.3 or earlier, OR your Mastodon instance is running behind CloudFlare (i.e. bitbang.social), you will need to make two changes to the WebOne configuration:
      • You will need to add your Mastodon server's hostname to the ForceHTTPS section of WebOne's config file.
      • You will need to change the User-Agent to something modern-looking, for example, the following is known to work:
       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/16.2 Safari/605.1.15
  • You will need to use http instead of https in the server URL for Macstodon. This is a limitation of the urllib library in MacPython 1.5.2.
  • There is no support for Unicode whatsoever, and there never will be. Toots or usernames with emojis and special characters in them will have those characters removed.
  • If Macstodon actually crashes or unexpectedly quits while loading data from the server, try allocating more memory to it using the Get Info screen in the Finder.
  • If images (avatars) fail to load, but the rest of the app seems to be working just fine, this means you need to give Macstodon more memory. Allocating more memory to it using the Get Info screen in the Finder will resolve this issue (you should also remove the image cache, see below)
  • There is a nasty memory leak around the loading of uncached banner images. Enabling the option to view banner images will cause Macstodon to run out of memory and crash pretty quickly.

Troubleshooting

When in doubt, delete the preferences file. It is named Macstodon Prefs and lives in the Preferences folder in your System Folder. Deleting the preferences file will make Macstodon forget about the saved server, tokens, etc.

There is also a subfolder of the Preferences folder named Macstodon Cache. This folder contains avatars and other images that have been resized, so we don't need to download and resize them again the next time we encounter them in the wild. Occasionally this can become corrupted and an original image can be cached instead of a resized one, leading to poor performance and high memory usage. If this happens, you can delete this folder, it will be recreated on the next launch.

Credits

Special thanks to the following people, for whom without Macstodon would not be possible:
Dan - for the inspiration to work on this project
Mingo - for suggesting the name
MhzModels - for the beautiful logo at the top of this README (and the splash screen), and the application icon
CM Harrington - for additional icon design