I am a BIG fan of the federated social media platform Mastodon, and this evening I used Claude.ai to generate code in an HTML file which allows me to quickly share my LISTS on Mastodon with others. Unlike Twitter, lists on Mastodon are PRIVATE and not directly sharable with others. I spent some time both […]
I am a BIG fan of the federated social media platform Mastodon, and this evening I used Claude.ai to generate code in an HTML file which allows me to quickly share my LISTS on Mastodon with others. Unlike Twitter, lists on Mastodon are PRIVATE and not directly sharable with others. I spent some time both Googling and using AI tools to try and find a simple and quick way to share Mastodon lists, but didn’t find any solutions that looked good. So I decided to code my own… but ONLY because I’m now able to code with AI.
I shared the final results of my coding project tonight on GitHub, and you can run it from GitHub pages. Two example exports are available, one of just my NEWS list and another of ALL my current Mastodon lists. I added my documentation and archived Claude conversation links to my AI Tips and Tricks Google Doc. The catalyst for this AI-assisted coding project was one of our adult children, who recently joined Mastodon and asked me for help in finding news / journalism sources to follow. (She’s tired of algorithmic news feeds, and wants something different.)
Before you start getting too impressed at my coding acumen, please realize this coding project would have been ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE for me to successfully complete this evening without help from artificial intelligence / AI tools. I initially tried to create this with ChatGPT, but it was making things too complicated and I almost gave up. Instead I turned to Claude.ai with a simple prompt:
I want a fast way to share my mastodon lists with my daughter.
It took some iteration (as I’ve found is ALWAYS the case, coding with AI) but in a short amount of time I had a working prototype HTML file. I continued to work on tweaking it, and didn’t successfully make all the changes I wanted, but I’m VERY happy with the initial release and am absolutely BLOWN AWAY that this even happened / was possible.
When you first open this single HTML file, you are prompted to enter your Mastodon server name. In my case, this is “mastodon.cloud” – without the quotation marks, of course.
Next, the page links to an OAuth authorization page. If you’re already logged into your Mastodon account in your current browser instance, you’ll be able to authorize READ ONLY access to your Mastodon account, including your LISTS.
Next, wait a few seconds while the HTML file loads all your current Mastodon lists! You can choose to deselect or select all, or individually select lists. If you make a selection change, click UPDATE DISPLAY. Once you have the lists displayed that you want to share, click DOWNLOAD SELECTED LISTS.
Then you can directly email those HTML files to others or post them online on a web host you use.
Ideally I’d like an option for users who receive the saved HTML files to be able to specify their own Mastodon server instance one time, and then have all the profile links to different Mastodon accounts be relative to THEIR OWN server to support faster following.
Mastodon does not support “Starter Packs” like BlueSky does, and I hope at some point developers add this feature. I still have a LOT of lists on Twitter / X, and miss them dearly since I rarely use the platform anymore. It’s exceptionally important for us to “serve as media filters for each other,” and one way we can do this is through social media lists like these.
If you do not already have a Mastodon account, I strongly encourage you to set one up (you can for free) and start using Mastodon. Federated social media is both similar and different from the “big tech platform” websites like Facebook, Twitter / X, Instagram, TikTok, etc. We’re still in early days of the “Fediverse” but I am SO encouraged by those who are developing it and working towards not only a more humane and less polarizing social media ecosystem, but also working in big ways to help support the causes of better governance and stronger communities.
Along those lines, I highly recommend you check out The “Dot Social” podcast hosted by Flipboard CEO Mike McCue. So much great work and so many great ideas about the Fediverse and other topics amplified there!
Happy Mastodon list sharing! If you use this code script, create your own or find something better, please let me know! Via Mastodon if you can, via other social media channels otherwise!
