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B1 ‐ Add Mastodon to CList

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Stephen Downes edited this page May 9, 2026 · 7 revisions

What Is It?

Mastodon is a service offering federated social networking. Read more here.. To use Mastodon in CList, first create a Mastodon account on the instance of your choice (for example https://mastodon.social).

Once you have an account, adding it to CList takes just a few steps — CList handles the authorization automatically.

Add Your Mastodon Account

  • Login to CList and click on 'Read' to open the left pane

  • Click 'Accounts' to open the account manager

  • Click '+ Add New Account'

  • Click 'Mastodon' from the list of account types

  • Enter your Mastodon username in the form you@instance.social (for example, downes@mastodon.social)

  • Click 'Authorize with Mastodon'. CList will contact your Mastodon instance and ask you to approve the connection.

  • On the Mastodon page that opens, click 'Authorize'

  • You will be returned to CList with your Mastodon account connected

Adjusting Account Settings

After your account is added, you can edit it by clicking on it in the Accounts panel. The settings you can change are:

  • Title — the name shown on buttons in your interface. Defaults to your username; change it to something shorter if you like.

  • Permissions — defaults to rw (read and write). Change to r for read-only.

  • Maximum Length — the character limit for posts, defaults to 500. Lower this if your instance has a shorter limit, or if you prefer shorter posts.

  • Access Token — managed automatically. Use the 'Re-authorize' button if you ever need to reconnect.

What Happens

  • When you click 'Read', the Mastodon instance you added will appear as an option; click on it to read Mastodon

  • When you click 'Post', the Mastodon instance you added will appear as an option

Reading Mastodon

When you click on your Mastodon feed to read Mastodon, a series of buttons will appear in the reading window. These are different ways you can read Mastodon. CList supports the following ways of reading Mastodon feeds (each corresponds to a button at the top of the feed):

  • Post - post a status to Mastodon. I know, it's not a type of reading, but it's a short-cut

  • Following - display the most recent statuses posted by people you are following

  • Bookmarks - show your list of bookmarks

  • Lists - opens a dropdown in the left pane allowing you to choose a list to view

  • Local - display the most recent posts on your Mastodon instance

  • Hashtag - enter a hashtag (without the '#') and click 'submit hashtag' to view the most recent posts with that hashtag

  • User - enter a username @ instance to view their most recent posts

Status Actions

Under each status is a set of icons allowing you to perform specific actions with that status.

  • Reply

  • Reblog

  • Bookmark

  • Favourite

  • Thread the status belongs to

  • View original post

CList actions

  • Load - to the right of the status is an 'arrow' icon that loads the content of the status to the current editor and adds it to the list of references

  • Chat - loads the content of the status into the chat interface and starts a new chat

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