Mastodon Goodies

Let's make Mastodon happen! Here are some goodies that make sharing content and following people easier.

Share button

Make it easy for people to share your content on Mastodon.

Here's a share button you can try (don't worry, it won't post anything without your permission!)

It works like every other social share button. The twist for Mastodon is that we have to send people to their instance.

How do we make that easier? The Share button can auto-complete from a list of 400+ instances. It also remembers the last instance you used.

You don't have to configure anything. The Share button will pick the current page URL and title.  

But if you insist, you can set the URL and text, and even add @mention and #tags. You can also use your favorite color, and it does come in two sizes.

Follow button

Following people on Mastodon would be easier if we didn't all use different instances.

I tried to make it as easy as possible:

Anyone who wants to follow you has to choose their instance (once — it's saved to a cookie).

Then it's one click to lookup and follow you (Mastodon requires two steps here, whether you're using the UI or API).

Follow link

For all the places where you can't use the Follow button: email signatures, GitHub profiles, link-in-bio, etc.

Just the URL.

The Follow link (and button) have another cool feature. Both use webfinger, so they follow you around when you move to a new Mastodon instance.

Don't have to stress about profile links breaking.

Embed timeline

Now we're getting fancy: embed your Mastodon public timeline on your website or blog.

It pulls fresh content from your instance. Includes a Follow button (of course). Has a few customizations you can play with. Loads in an iframe, so a separate security context from your page.

You can see what it looks like on this very blog.

Hope you like it.

Here's another share button if you want to help spread the word:

Have fun and post responsibly!