How to use GoToSocial

• Getting started
• Introduction
• Setting up your profile
• GoToSocial frontends
• Posting with Phanpy

Getting started

Introduction

Accounts on Website League have the form "@username@node.domain". username is the name of your account and node.domain  is the name of your node (sometimes referred to as an instance).

Unlike most websites which you can interact with directly, the GoToSocial software does not include a full "frontend" website. Instead, to use GoToSocial, you get to choose what frontend (aka client) you'll use, which will affect how the website feels to use.

You can switch between frontends at any time, or even use multiple different ones simultaneously if you want to. All you need to do is log in and you're ready to post.

Every time you want to log in, you'll need to first enter your node's domain- that's how the frontend knows which GoToSocial node to talk to.

Setting up your profile

To access your settings, you'll need to go to the address bar of your web browser and enter:

node.domain/settings

Examples: (please feel free to add more nodes here for convenience)

• https://beam.phosphor.buzz/settings

The GoToSocial project's docs have much more detail about settings, so you should read those too. This document's goal is to highlight the most important parts to get you going.

The first time you go to /settings, GoToSocial will ask you to log in.

'Profile' settings

After you've logged in, you'll be able to configure your profile - this is where you can set your avatar and header image, bio, display name, and more.

Under the Visibility and privacy section, you can set the visibility level of your posts. This affects which of your posts will be visible on your public profile to users that aren't logged in and aren't following you from another node. The default is only show Public posts on your profile, so Unlisted posts will be hidden.

'Posts' settings

Two important settings here are:

• Default post privacy: This configures what privacy level new posts you write will have.
• Default post (and bio) format: If you want to use markdown in posts, change this to markdown.

'Interaction Policies' are also configurable here, they give you fine-grained control over who can interact with your posts, and in what way. If you set any interaction policies that require approvals, the 'Interaction Requests' page is where you can approve interactions. For more information see the GoToSocial docs.

GoToSocial frontends

Here are some of your frontend options for using a GoToSocial node. This isn't an exhaustive list- many Mastodon clients are also compatible with GoToSocial.

Phanpy

https://phanpy.social/

A frontend with a large number of features. See Phanpy's readme for an introduction.

Enafore / Semaphore 

https://enafore.social/ and https://semaphore.social/ are lightweight clients based on the Pinafore project which was retired in 2023.

User guide

Others

List of Mastodon clients, many of which are compatible with GoToSocial.

Posting with Phanpy

Phanpy is one of the options for a frontend to use with GoToSocial.

To get started, open https://phanpy.social.

Then, click 'Log in with Mastodon'. Phanpy will ask you for your instance domain (node domain). After you enter that, your browser will redirect back to your node, where you can log in.

After you log in, GoToSocial will ask if you really wanted to log in to Phanpy. Click 'allow'. That will send you back to Phanpy, where you'll be logged in.

Now you can write your first post. Tap this button in the bottom right corner:

Button	What it does
	This button is where you configure the visibility level of the post you're about to write. For more information about what these levels mean, see GoToSocial's docs.
	This lets you add or remove a content warning from your post.
	This lets you attach images and other media. Phanpy also supports pasting images from your clipboard directly into your post.
	This lets you attach a poll to your post
	This lets you insert an emoji into your post. Your node may have custom emoji configured!
	This changes the language of your post, which will be displayed in some frontends.
	This circle is a tiny graph that fills up as you approach the character limit on your node. If your node's character limit is large enough, it's probably just going to look like an empty circle most of the time.
	This sends the post. Note that at the time of writing (September 2024), GoToSocial does not support editing posts after they've been created. If you try to edit a post, the editor will pop up with a warning about that, like this: