| may not be logged in all the time, or for checking in on an old account after you've | may not be logged in all the time, or for checking in on an old account after you've | ||||
| made a new one. | made a new one. | ||||
| **You cannot monitor an account you can't log into. This is deliberate and will not be changed.** | |||||
| ## Setup | ## Setup | ||||
| **You cannot monitor an account you can't log into. This is deliberate and will not be changed.** | |||||
| Pingbot requires the `ananas` package. You can install it with pip: | |||||
| `pip3 install ananas` | |||||
| Note that the version of ananas that's currently available on pip (as of 4/28/22) is | |||||
| *not* compatible with Python 3.10. There's already a PR in to fix that so we just | |||||
| have to wait for PyPI to catch up. | |||||
| **On the account you want to monitor**, open Preferences, then Development, and click | |||||
| the New Application button at the upper right. | |||||
| You can either download `pingbot.py` and `sample-config.cfg` directly, or you can go to | |||||
| the command line on the server you want to run Pingbot on and run | |||||
| `git clone https://git.noelle.codes/noelle/Pingbot.git` | |||||
| This will create a new directory called `Pingbot` that contains the repository's files. | |||||
| You'll run `ananas` (see below) from there. | |||||
| **In the Mastodon web interface on the account you want to monitor**, open Preferences, | |||||
| then Development, and click the New Application button at the upper right. | |||||
| You'll need to give your application a name; this can be pretty much anything you want. | You'll need to give your application a name; this can be pretty much anything you want. | ||||
| Leave "Application website" blank, and leave "Redirect URI" alone. | Leave "Application website" blank, and leave "Redirect URI" alone. | ||||
| If you want to change Pingbot's settings, you'll need to stop and restart the bot. | If you want to change Pingbot's settings, you'll need to stop and restart the bot. | ||||
| Make sure you stop the bot *before* you make changes; Pingbot saves its configuration | Make sure you stop the bot *before* you make changes; Pingbot saves its configuration | ||||
| when it shuts down, and might overwrite your changes. | |||||
| when it shuts down, and might overwrite your changes. | |||||
| ## I need help! | |||||
| You can contact me at [my Mastodon account](https://chat.noelle.codes/@noelle) and | |||||
| I'll do my best to help you out. :) |