mastodon-connector

A wrapper for the Node.js-package "mastodon-api" to get started quickly writing apps, which want to eat Fediverse-APIs.

What

1. Initialize API-consuming fediverse-apps from a config-file.

2. If no access_token is given, get it by passing a user's account-password, or use a dummy-string, if you want to use public API-methods.

3. Use mastodon-api to provide listen- and send-functions in an FediApp.

4. Write freshly obtained access_tokens to file and remove passwords.

Why

1. Fastest way to get started with developing FediApps.

2. Much less time-consuming than getting access_tokens via a webbrowser and traveling over several pages. No copy'n'pasting, no mouse harmed.

3. Take advantage of mastodon-api and provide some shortcut-wrappers.

4. Store access_tokens permanently for re-use and remove passwords for security reasons.

How

Provide a config-file in JSON-format with this structure:

[
    {
        "server": "https://social.tchncs.de",
        "username": "[e-mail]",
        "password": "yourSuperSecretPassword"
    }
  ,
    {
        "server": "https://social.nasqueron.de",
        "username": "[e-mail]",
        "access_token": "092u37eg26bet2g2z2bv2tr1fwz2dkdu3zi7rd02i2jgslw9"
    }
  ,
    {
        "server": "https://social.example.com",
        "username": "[e-mail]",
        "access_token": "arbitraryNonEmptyStringForUsingPublicApiFuncs"
    }
]

Then in one of your app's script, do:

const FediApps = require('mastodon-connector').FediApps

const callback = app => console.log('Ready to eat API of', app)

const filepath = 'config.json'

const fediapps = new FediApps(filepath, callback)

The callback-function is what you want to extend for further usage. Here's an example using an app's listen-function:

const msgHandler = msg => console.log(msg)

const callback = app => app.listen('public', msgHandler)

You can pass another callback, executed after all apps were initiated:

const afterAll = (apps) => {

  for(let i in apps) apps[i].send('A message send to all accounts')

}

new FediApps(filepath, callback, afterAll)

Author

Ida Ebkes, 2019.

License

MIT, a copy is attached.

Contact

For bug-reports, questions and everything, please add an issue in the repository:

https://github.com/ida/fediapps/issues

Credits for merits

Huge thanks go to:

• The "mastodon-api"-package for paving the way to stream-listening and sending posts, written by Eliah Winkler, a.k.a. "vanita5".

• The packages "mastodon-register-app" and "mastodon-get-token" written by Sandro Hawke, for giving guidance on how to obtain an access_token via password-authentication.