Masto-Done; Riding the Elephant!

In the wake of the noisy takeover of Twitter last year, people have been looking for alternatives to the microblogging social media platform. Many of those fleeing or hedging their bets have turned to Mastodon, which has attracted millions of new users since Twitter's acquisition.

Like Twitter, Mastodon allows users to post, follow people and organizations, and like and repost others' posts. But while Mastodon supports many of the same social networking features as Twitter, it is not a single platform.

Instead, it's a federation of independently operated, interconnected servers. The interconnected Mastodon servers, along with other servers that can talk to Mastodon servers, are collectively dubbed "the fediverse". Sound confusing? It isn't when it is explained to you in easy to understand language, and that's the subject of our training course.

For five hours, you will learn that using Mastodon with Windows is not as difficult as you perhaps suppose. Undoubtedly, when considering the various social media platforms, Mastodon is by far the most accessible. So it's important to encourage as many people as possible to be part of it. Moreover, new features and ways of doing things are being discovered all the time.

There is a myth that it is not especially easy to sign up to Mastodon. If you think that, or you've been told that, don't worry. If you don't have a Mastodon account. We'll help you set one up.

We will begin with some theory before getting to the practical. In addition to demonstrating the Mastodon procedures, the central concepts are thoroughly explained in each case. The topics covered are as follows:

• A lengthy discussion as to the advantages of using Mastodon.
• Signing Up using a conventional mainstream instance. Which server to choose.
• Registering on the Tweesecake instance.
• Profile configuration including composing the Bio.
• Installing Tweesecake and linking it to a Mastodon instance.
• Exploration of timelines and configuring the order of Tweesecake buffers.
• Configuring essential options in Tweesecake including modifying templates.
• Creating an introductory toot using the introduction hashtag.
• Pinning an introductory toot to the profile.
• Defining the privacy options, such as followers or mentions only.
• Using the Tweesecake auto-complete facility.
• View toot in edit field, favourite, boost, replying, following and accessing the local timeline.
• Additional functionality in the View dialog and accessing conversation elements.
• Working with profiles and timelines.
• Uploading an audio post and changing the soundpacks.
• Content warnings.
• Thread mode.
• Editing and deleting posts, together with creating a new conversation derived from a mentioned user.
• Setting a nickname.
• An alternative method for composing a direct message.
• Working with different keyboard interfaces.
• Searching for users and working with hashtags.
• Bookmarking.
• Muting sounds, blocking users and showing or hiding boosts.
• Trending hashtags.
• The profile directory.
• The federated timeline.
• Tweesecake portable mode, multiple accounts and JAWS scripts.
• Attaching a picture to a toot and creating alternative text.
• Working with filters.
• Setting default privacy options.
• Scheduling toots.
• Updating.
• The new separation of mentions and notifications.
• Keystrokes to move through posts more quickly.
• Exporting a buffer to a text file.
• Applying alternative text to media.
• Recording audio from within the Tweesecake application.
• Working with polls.

Questions from the course participants are given at appropriate times.

Accessing Mastodon.

At the time of writing, our preferred method of accessing Mastodon is using a Windows application called Tweesecake. Tweesecake makes it super easy to undertake many of the tasks being discussed and demonstrated. Even if you cannot remember all the keyboard shortcuts, there are other ways of accessing everything you need.

Time is devoted to accessing some aspects of the platform using a browser and even that is highly accessible. It is less convenient on several levels but there may well be reasons why you would want to at the time of writing. In summary, at the present time one specific method of access may not allow you to do everything you want, so it may be necessary to use a combination of these.

Training Course Structure.

In the training course you will receive:

• A recording of the sessions.
• A text transcript of the sessions.
• A DAISY audio book of the sessions.
• Access to a web page containing lots of resources referred to in the training course and some which are not but which are nevertheless useful.
• Access to an Email list for course announcements and to ask questions.
• A text guide containing shortcut keys covered in the training.

Please note: The demonstrations are delivered using the JAWS for Windows screen-reader. You are welcome to join us if you are using an alternative screen-reading program, however the same results cannot be guaranteed.

The training course comprising close to six hours of audio is available now.

The cost of Masto-Done; Riding the Elephant is £50 which is approximately $61 US.

Alternatively you can request an invoice and this will be sent to you by Email. The invoice can be paid by any major credit or debit card. Send an Email to brian@hartgenconsultancy.com.

Conclusion.

Join us to find out how truly accessible and usable Mastodon is when using Windows. You can start chatting with people in no time!