toopt

Notice: Due to mastodon disabling basic auth in their api, toopt will no longer work unless you already have an access token. Apologies.

Toopt is a command-line posting utility for mastodon written in PHP.

Toopt can post text content from the command line, as well as from files, piped content, or interactively. Toopt can thread posts either automatically or deliberately. It allows for image uploads, with optional descriptions, and handles multiple accounts.

Toopt is written as a single file with no dependencies.

Prerequisites

Toopt is written in PHP and requires the following:

• PHP (cli) 8.1 or higher
• the PHP posix extension
• the PHP curl extension

Quickstart

The shortest path to posting the first toot using Toopt is:

wget https://toopt.fruitbat.studio/toopt.php -O ./toopt.php
chmod 755 ./toopt.php
./toopt --add-account
./toopt "Hello World"

Installation

The easiest installation is to download directly.

Using curl:

curl https://toopt.fruitbat.studio/toopt.php > ./toopt.php
chmod 755 ./toopt.php

Or wget:

wget https://toopt.fruitbat.studio/toopt.php -O ./toopt.php
chmod 755 ./toopt.php

For the latest version, check out the repository and put the toopt.php file anywhere in your path, set as executable.

Usage

There are two usage activities: managing accounts, and posting toots.

Adding and managing accounts

Before using toopt, you need to set up your account or accounts.

Adding an account

To add a new account, call toopt with the --add-account argument:

toopt.php --add-account

Toopt will poll for login credentials. The account will be stored and set as the default account

List available accounts

To list all of your stored accounts, call toopt with --list-accounts:

toopt.php --list-accounts

The default account will be highlighted.

Delete account

Accounts can be deleted from the store with --delete-account=:

toopt.php --delete-account=@name@instance.social

The default account cannot be delted

Change default account

The default account can be changed with --set-default-account:

toopt.php --set-default-account=@name@instance.social

Posting toots

The simplest usage case is to post a single toot using your default account:

toopt.php "Hello world"

Using a non-default account

Tooting from an account other than the default account can be done using the --account= argument

toopt.php --acount=@otheraccount@phpc.social "Hello world from other account"

Adding content warnings

Content warnings (or spoilers) can be added to toots using the --cw= argument:

toopt.php --cw="warning! test content" "Hello world"

Tooting content from files

Toot content can be passed to toopt from a file:

toopt.php /path/to/hello_world.txt

or multiple files (see 'Deliberate threading'):

toopt.php /path/to/file1.txt /path/to/file2

Files that have the file extension txt or no file extension will be handled as toot content.

Tooting piped content

Toopt can read content piped in on STDIN. For instance:

echo "Hello world" | toopt.php

Note: Content from STDIN is given priority. If content is piped into to toopt, all other content is ignored.

Interactive composing

Content can be composed interactively using the -i or --interactive arguments:

toopt.php --interactive

The editor is a line editor. A confirmation prompt is shown before posting.

Automatic threading

Content that is longer than 500 characters will be automatically threaded. Threads will be broken on newlines or punctuation, if possible. Thread footers, ie. "1/3", will be appended to the bottom of each toot.

Deliberate threading

A toot thread can be built by simply passing multiple toot arguments. ie.

toopt.php /path/to/toot1.txt /path/to/toot2.txt "this is toot3"

Files or string arguments can be used as toots for a thread. Toots are threaded with the left-most toot being the first, descending rightward.

Posting media

Media files, such as images, can be posted by providing the path to the file as an argument:

toopt.php /path/to/image.jpeg

Media files are identified by their file extension. The accepted extensions are:

• jpg
• jpeg
• gif
• png

Multiple media files, up to a maximum of four, can be posted:

toopt.ph /path/to/img1.png /path/to/img2.jpg /path/to/img3.jpeg /path/to/img4.gif

If a thread is posted, either deliberately or via automatic threading, all media files will be attached to the first toot.

Adding media descriptions

A text description can be added to a media file using the --description= argument:

toopt.php --description="a nice picture" /path/to/image.jpeg

If multiple media are used, descriptions are applied to the media in the order they are provided. For instance:

toopt.php --description="img 1" ./img1.jpg --description="img 2" ./img2.jpg

or

toopt.php --description="img 1" --description="img 2" ./img1.jpg ./img2.jpg

Combining media and text content

Media and text content can be combined:

toopt.php "look at these two images" /path/to/img1.jpg /path/to/img2.jpg

or

toopt.php /path/to/toot.txt /path/to/img1.jpg /path/to/img2.jpg

or

echo "look at these two images" | toopt.php /path/to/img1.jpg /path/to/img2.jpg

Examples

Post a toot from the default account

toopt.php "This is a toot"

Post a toot as from an account other than default

toopt.php --account=@otheraccount@instance.social "This is a toot"

Post a toot with a content warning

toopt.php --cw="This is a content warning" "This is a toot"

Post a three-toot thread

toopt.php "This is toot 1" "This is toot2" "This is toot3"

Post a three-toot thread using a mix of files and string arguments

toopt.php "This is toot 1" /path/to/toot2.txt /path/to/toot3

Compose and post a toot interactively

toopt.php --interactive

or

toopt.php -i

Post a media file as a toot

toopt.php /path/to/image.jpg

Post several media files, up to four, as a toot

toopt.php /path/to/image.jpg /path/to/otherimage.jpg

Add descriptions to media files

toopt.php --description="description of image 1" /path/to/img1.jpg --description="description of image 2" /path/to/img2.jpg

Combine media and text

toopt.php "some text" /path/to/image.jpg

Display help

toopt.php --help